Current Affairs – Planet of the Blind

What if I could tell you how the story ends? Would I be Bocaccio? Yes I’d be a moralist. Such a role is unappealing. I think we can all agree there are too many narrative moralists already. Laurence Sterne wrote: “Respect for ourselves guides our morals; respect for others guides our manners” One may fair say Americans have little respect for themselves. This is why our voters—the few who show up—dislike the most honest candidates. They require plenty of disrespect. If you believed Ronald Reagan’s oft repeated story about welfare queens driving Cadillacs you couldn’t possibly like yourself. The question before us now is can Joe Biden’s campaign which aims at reconciliation and kindness actually succeed? Can Americans decide that just for once they might vote for self-respect?

I’m not Bocaccio. Nor am I a TV pundit. I don’t have the skills of Steve Kornacki who, seemingly, can drill down into the most mullioned voter numbers. But I”d feel better if public analysis of our electorate focused on the victimization narratives that unhappy Americans live by. Left, Right, moderate, fascist, socialist, what have you absolutely all comers are like Rodney Dangerfield—they don’t get no respect. Donald Trump’s rallies are entirely about this. So are Bernie Sanders’ events. Someone is conspiring against you. You’re not sufficiently loved. There’s a deep state or the establishment or your third grade teacher who’s gonna get ya.

As a disabled person I know a good deal about persecution. I’ve been told I don’t belong almost everywhere and yes, ever since I took my first steps. I’ve lived the story of feeling like I’m not sufficiently loved. This is a trap. Victims don’t understand love. One thinks of Carl Jung’s observation: “Nothing is possible without love…for love puts one in a mood to risk everything.”

Victims take no risks.

Respect for others means you took a risk and it means you’ve learned some manners. What do I think that means? Not instantly criticizing someone who’s said something that trips your switches. Not immediately disdaining people who appear ill clothed but are driving luxury cars. Not hating yourself because some imaginary person has stolen your broken soul.

First things first: wash your hands. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve actually shaken hands with Donald Trump or not. All the major studies agree that frequent hand washing is good for you. My Finnish grandmother once shook Richard Nixon’s hand and then didn’t wash that hand for a month. As far as I know Nixon wasn’t into porn but he certainly had dirty hands.

I’m not an expert in pornography but like a famous Supreme Court justice I know what it is when I see it. We’re now living in the age of decline porn. Every story coming out of Washington or Biloxi is like something out of a soap opera. The National Basketball Association? Soap opera. Congress? You get the gist.

People have to love their porn. They have to wallow. Trump brags about grabbing women by their privates. Abuse ‘em and ditch ’em. That’s how he runs the government, conducts foreign relations, handles his business dealings. The man is a grifter. He’s also the decline pornographer in chief. He tells people the country is in trouble though he inherited a prosperous and largely well run nation. He tells people the dark hordes are coming although immigrants fleeing persecution are part of our national history and social identity. The man is sticky with self loathing, which, as I take it, as a necessary pre-condition for spreading porn.

Yes he’s the decline porn star in chief. He’s the Harry Reams of politicians. (Remember when he boasted during the debates about the size of his thing?)

The decline porn star needs endless dysfunction to succeed in spreading false misery narratives. Remember, he’s only happy when he can abuse and mislead people.

A thoughtful, earnest, truth telling chief executive doesn’t need decline porn–he or she can see the real problems facing the nation and bring decent people together to tackle them.

In order for Trump to spread his stickiness all over the place he needs smaller decline pornographers like Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham and countless others with dirty hands to admire his fecklessness and abuse of dignity.

Susan Sontag said famously: “What pornography is really about, ultimately, isn’t sex but death.”

Look at the children and adults dying on our border with Mexico.

ABOUT: Stephen Kuusisto is the author of the memoirs Have Dog, Will Travel; Planet of the Blind (a New York Times “Notable Book of the Year”); and Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening and of the poetry collections Only Bread, Only Light and Letters to Borges. A graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and a Fulbright Scholar, he has taught at the University of Iowa, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and Ohio State University. He currently teaches at Syracuse University where he holds a University Professorship in Disability Studies. He is a frequent speaker in the US and abroad. His website is StephenKuusisto.com.

Have Dog, Will Travel: A Poet’s Journey is now available for pre-order:
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Barnes and Noble
IndieBound.org

(Photo picturing the cover of Stephen Kuusisto’s new memoir “Have Dog, Will Travel” along with his former guide dogs Nira (top) and Corky, bottom.) Bottom photo by Marion Ettlinger