Those People

Dentist yesterday left me underwhelmed.  Had a pretty big divot (filling fell out) in my #6 that needed to get filled.  It is filled now, with a "new" thing in my mouth that my tongue can't yet seem to stop obsessing on.  Aaron did OK.  But as a student, he wasn't that quick so sitting in a chair for over two hours while he figured shit out was a bit of a pain.  But in the end, the work was good and even reasonable in cost.  I'll survive.

Screed

I have yet to figure out whether or not Rosenberg hold us Hoi Polloi in contempt or not.  Let's face it, anyone who is a University professor and publishes the sort of books that Dr. Rosenberg publishes ain't one of the unwashed.  I am trying to get a sense of the feelings and motivations of why the article was written.  

So I am going to take a little while today discussing the vagaries and dangers of working through articles written by the intelligentsia.  I spent too much time haunting the corridors of the 'varsity to not be familiar with the phenomenon.  While many good things come out of the experience there, there is always the bad.

When you read the entire article, one gets the image in the head of a family reunion.  You know, one of the big ones.  I will use my experiences in these as an example.  When you head to Northern Utah, you will find a little clot of Trentini located west of Ogden.  It has been there for just over 100 years now and has been absorbed into the amorphous mass of Utah's population growth.  Every year there is a event that used to be called the "Friendly Club Picnic".  It is the long term relation of the little drinking club that the Trentini farmers set up during prohibition to bypass annoying laws.  

Now it is just a big get together, with the descendants coming together to look at each other with incomprehension.  What used to be a Catholic domain (Saint Mary's) is now thoroughly mixed up with Mormons, Episcopals, Catholics, and the occasional Jew. 

What happens at these meetings is nearly always the same thing.  Folks drive up Ogden Canyon to the site where the picnic has been held forever.  Everyone comes in their car.  From the get-go, groups begin to coalesce.  In nearly all cases, the groups sort themselves out along religious and economic status.

The interactions between the groups are friendly and tenuous.  Hugs and hearty handshakes abound.  But there is little true interaction between groups.  The interaction is odd.  Usually one of the outlier members of a group will wander over to another group and get into a conversation, but then will return to his group and report, often surreptitiously glancing over his shoulder at the group being reported on to ensure they don't observe him talking about them.  This act of reconnaissance allows the outlier to firm up his standing within the subclan and also provide his group with the grist necessary to evaluate "those people".

Every once in a while, the Alpha of a group will wander over to another group.  The standard is that he will pause on the way and talk to an outlier of that group, but the real purpose is to look like he isn't coming over to dick-match with the alpha of the other group (be aware, Alpha's in Trentini stock are not always male). 

Once the "interaction" between the differing sub-clans is accomplished, the Alpha sets up base camps at their places at the picnic tables where homage is paid primarily by the members of his/her sub-clan and the occasional outlier from other sub-clan.

After eating and the obligatory softball/volleyball game, the picnic breaks up and everyone returns home, secure in their identity within the clan.

I will leave it to the reader to decide where I am going with this.