{"id":897,"date":"2024-02-15T13:38:30","date_gmt":"2024-02-15T19:38:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/?p=897"},"modified":"2024-02-24T07:31:24","modified_gmt":"2024-02-24T13:31:24","slug":"not-all-families-are-dysfunctional-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/archives\/897","title":{"rendered":"Not All Families Are Dysfunctional, Right?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

February 15, 2024<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the world continues to spiral out of control, I find myself leaning on my friends. Some friends, though, I fear, are part of the problem. I\u2019m thinking of the MSNBC crowd, who have become my companions in the wormhole. I can hear Glenn Kirschner\u2019s voice, \u201cFriends, I know it\u2019s been long coming, but accountability in on its way.\u201d He\u2019s a comforting dad, a wise advisor, a trusted friend. He, like many in the MSNBC stable, dissolves the barrier between lofty expert and fellow sufferer. It\u2019s remarkably humanizing; but it\u2019s seductive and addictive too. How could we not be drawn in, and obsessively?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrew Weissmann is another who brings a dose of humanity to the cold and troubled world of law and politics and ultimate threats. His podcast, Prosecuting Donald Trump<\/a>, with Mary McCord, is an unusual synthesis of legal reasoning and \u2026 giggling. The two hosts are comfortable talking through the maneuvers and principles and case history and possibilities\u2014so much so that they have no fear letting their guard down in their podcast, showing at times their ignorance or personal quirks\u2014and always their warm friendship and gentle teasing. The silliness is never that silly; it\u2019s homey; it\u2019s what it might feel like to have such experts living with you, sitting at your kitchen table, just being in the moment, along with all the momentous decisions and events they are committed to explain as best they can. I commend Andrew for his ability to turn on and off his professional expertise mode. I shouldn\u2019t say \u201cturn off,\u201d since it\u2019s never off; it\u2019s just that he adds his personality and humanity in the podcast in ways we never really see when he\u2019s on camera, where he\u2019s pretty much all business. The subtext here is a kind of statement on how to manage all the baggage, the fallout, the potential despair of the topics being dissected. There\u2019s logical principle, yes, but there\u2019s also some larger, kinder, softer context. The two sides aren\u2019t at odds. The full human being can be both analytical\/world beating and humble\/relaxed\u2014and sweet with a friend sitting alongside you, even if she is in another state. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tone of so many of the MSNBC hosts promotes this humane integration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so, what chance do I stand in not becoming too dependent on them? I think my first plunge into this milieu was motivated out of a desire to check something off\u2014to get finished with this Trump business so that I could get on with my life. I find I have often approached life\u2019s problems with a \u201cjust get this thing done,\u201d or checklist, approach, as though progress<\/em> were possible, if only, if only. What I needed to realize then, and now, is that what is needed is an \u201cacceptance of the process\u201d as the default state. It\u2019s an illusion that we can ever get beyond<\/em> [fill in the blank]. What is needed is the right processing of things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Journalists have always gotten this. Part of their business is to keep the \u201cnews\u201d new<\/em>\u2014and continuing. There are no endpoints. All that matters is the production and consumption of the stories. The pressures of these realities lead to conditions of sensationalizing and controversy-mongering that are all too well known by anyone in a literate, modern society. In the context of my current condition, I have come to rely on MSNBC folk to be my family. We\u2019re never done with family; we don\u2019t check them off. We just plan to be with them through the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the throes of these dynamics, I sometimes glimpse a version of things where a good balance is found among (1) finished, checked-off outcomes; (2) humanizing \u201cbeing with\u201d the experts; (3) other things\u2014all mixed together in the right proportions to round off a fully human engagement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finding this proper balance has always been a need or an endeavor to be embraced\u2014whatever the world conditions and whatever one\u2019s politics. However, the current state of communication (in general) and social media (in particular), in a hyper-connected, hyper-technologized, hyper-threatened world has made our present moment unlike any in history. Add the destabilizations of Covid, with all its isolations. Add further\u2014perhaps most of all\u2014the growing pains associated with the unearthing of bigotries that for so many years in a pre-technologized world were allowed to fester unseen, unknown. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The upshot: Psychological survival seems to demand that we retreat to our respective echo chambers, our \u201cfamilies,\u201d just for the purpose of maintaining basic mental health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Literature, philosophy, linguistics, and rhetorical theory\u2014the stuff of my classes\u2014should offer touchstones and foundations and routines on which to recover some stability. And while I feel empowered by the massiveness of uncertainty and method and humility (and appreciation) fostered by humanistic studies, I look on with sadness as the time for higher education seems to be receding. The reification of the university\u2014like the reification of the fourth estate, or the reification of \u201cdemocracy\u201d\u2014is dissolving before my very eyes, at Saint Xavier University, yes, but throughout our society, in its shorthand approaches to \u201cinformation,\u201d if not knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe the term \u201cgrowing pains\u201d provides some hope? We\u2019re always on the way to somewhere else, someplace that, if not an endpoint, might at least be a kind of benchmark or banked competence for \u201cleveling up,\u201d to borrow a concept from gaming culture. Even though we\u2019re ever processing, surely some changes have registered. Maybe nothing so grand as an \u201carc of history bending towards justice.” But who can deny the improvements that the centuries have brought in regards to education and democracy and the good life? My family today is much larger than it ever could have been\u2014even at earlier points in my own lifetime. Thank you, YouTube and MSNBC app and Xfinity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have always been optimistic that the changes being wrought, especially by technology, portend more benefit than threat. But the pains of growing towards that benefit, not to mention the existential threats of a world on fire, have tempered that optimism. If only we can survive\u2026. Survival-\u2014be it for today, the 2024 election, the tipping point\u2014is more than a \u201ccheck-off\u201d outcome on my list, right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

February 15, 2024 As the world continues to spiral out of control, I find myself leaning on my friends. Some friends, though, I fear, are part of the problem. I\u2019m thinking of the MSNBC crowd, who have become my companions in the wormhole. I can hear Glenn Kirschner\u2019s voice, \u201cFriends, I know it\u2019s been long … Continue reading Not All Families Are Dysfunctional, Right?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,14,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-just-life-in-general","category-life-at-sxu","category-ssw"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=897"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":920,"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions\/920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}