Desi Arnaz once said: “One of my biggest problems with comedy was that I did not understand some of the jokes.” I feel this way about American democracy.
Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers. (Aristotle)
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. (Oscar Wilde)
Oops. Now we’re back to Desi Arnaz.
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From a notebook:
What the guide dog schools won’t tell you, or by turns, tell you imperfectly, is that guide dog teams will encounter public incomprehension and outright discrimination as they walk around. In my case this discovery came in New York City when I tried to get into a cab and the driver began screaming expletives. Despite this I got into the cab. His language and mine became an instant study in art for all the ingredients of creativity were present: tension, incomprehension, passion, and spontaneity.
Sitting stern as a tree in the backseat, I told him that the law permits guide dogs for the blind in all taxis–in fact guide dogs are allowed everywhere. Hell, I even had an ID card from the school with my picture and the dog’s picture and all the appropriate legalese. But the driver, my driver, did not believe in the bravery or happiness of others. He began revving his engine and revving up his shouting.
What can you do? My driver hated me and my dog and was refusing to budge. I was reciting the law. Oh the godforsaken wilderness of human rage. When you have a disability every moment of discrimination evokes all the others: you’re again the boy who was told he couldn’t play with others, couldn’t go to school with them, sat alone in a room.
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In American democracy, contempt is the leavening agent. If the entire country is populated by people who are under the yoke of self-contempt, who will have enough heart for the nation? Chris Christie? Romney? Ben Bernanke?
Planet of the Blind 