Challenging My Viewpoints

I felt slightly worried last week because for the past several weeks, I've had something concrete planned, and suddenly I had nothing. A natural rippling of finding new experiences had seemed to cease.

When I felt a little worried, I thought I could try acupuncture and I know someone willing to teach me to play chess, but then I realized, in the painting workshop I was signed up for, I was already doing something new right there.

Talking to my instructor last week actually helped me think of two new ideas for upcoming weeks. A very intelligent and well-rounded man, I thought about how this artist, in his sixties, has seen far more of life than I, at twenty-six. For example, what I have read about the Vietnam War and the fifties and sixties, he has lived. So I decided to pick his brain on the subject to which he obviously has more information.

What led me to think of his experience compared to mine was the days of my workshop coincided with the forty-year anniversary of Woodstock. I caught a documentary of Woodstock on VH1 (yes, incredibly the channel had a program actually relevant to music). That night I happened to be hungry for studying history, and the sixties has been one of my favorite decades to study anyhow. I had to roll my eyes however, when a girl being interviewed for the documentary regarding the event even her parents didn't attend said Woodstock was one of the most important events that have ever happened, maybe the most important event that ever happened. And she wasn't even stoned. It is telling that someone would describe a festival, a party, as possibly the most important event in the history of the earth.

It made me think how naive I was when I believed the lyrics of the Beatles song "All You Need is Love." Actually, I prefer to think I didn't really believe that nonsense, but I'll admit, I didn't really question it either, because it was coming from the Beatles, some of the most important people who ever lived, maybe the most important people who have ever lived. Only joking silly Woodstock-attendee wannabe girl who doesn't even have pot as an excuse for stupidity. But the Beatles were heroes of mine in a sense. Their music stands on its own merit; the Summer of Love may have needed them, but they didn't need it.

I used to believe that summer, in the year 1967, was a period I was meant to live and the stars got it wrong when I was born in the early eighties. I loved the whole idea of hippies and living together in peace with everyone wearing flowers in their hair and all that. I still love some of the music from that era. But as far as the flowers in the hair, you get to a point when you realize, if everyone is literally living together in their hip new society, someones got to maintain the garden where those flowers are being mercilessly picked (the hippies never stood for flower rights). And who is going to do that when one hippy is tripping on acid, another is busy trying to decipher the non-language of Timothy Leary, and the other one is meditating in the corner for world peace, because as you know, most accomplishments result from sitting in a corner with your eyes closed. The hippy who would be repeatedly tending the flowers which the other hippies insist on breaking off to put in their hair, soldiers' guns, and God knows where else, is the same hippy who would probably be stuck cooking the food (vegetarian and organic of course), sweeping the dirt floor of the teepee where a dozen other hippies sleep, and missing out on sitting nude in the human "be in" because there is still far more work to do. In short, this person becomes the horse in "Animal Farm." The whole muddied concept of "living together, everything equal" does not work because if everything is free and equal and no one has any responsibility--other than to show everyone 'love'--then the work falls onto the shoulders of just a few individuals who eventually can't bare the load. Where is the difference between this example and socialism? I was fascinated by the hippy culture as a teenager; as an adult, I see it as ironic that a 1960s hippy might insult someone by calling him a communist, but The Guess Who's song "Share the Land", with the lyrics "Maybe I'll be there to share the land, that they'll be given' away, when we all live together," defines socialism. Who is "they" who are giving the land away anyhow? And how is it shared? Everyone is just magically given an equal plot of land, and the people who work harder than everyone else are given the same share as the people who have never worked in their lives? Yet we all live together in happiness, everyone, even the Manson Family.

It is these realizations that make me want to ignore such inane slogans as "free love" and instead talk more to my elders (oh no, what a square thing to do!) My teacher was particularly interesting, and while I'll admit I'm a little shocked by some of the things he was saying, that is not because he was saying something against my code of ethics, but because he was saying things, especially regarding the Vietnam War, which I had never heard before, not by anyone, including the authors of my college history books.

I haven't sought out his side of the story. I wasn't alive for this time in history, and my knowledge of history is not bad, but I realize it could always be better because you're usually going to get only profiles of history rather than dead-on portraits. What I know very well is music history; I can spot those Orwellian-lyrics about giving away 'free' land. But I would very much like to educate myself further. The best way, in my opinion, is to look at both sides of the story (after all, if you're given two profiles, you're more likely to picture the face of the period more accurately). I haven't had very much political exposure, and I will state for myself that I know little regarding politics. At least fort the time being. What I have been exposed to is typically more anti-war, left-wing, and whatever I felt would be rebelling from my Utah upbringing. After talking to this artist, I decided it would be a good time in my life to look at that to which I've been least exposed.

I decided to check out a book by Ann Coulter from the library, because she is the most outspoken commentator on the right that I could think of. So far she is not telling me that we are all going to be happy living together on shared land that was given to us for free, while the pigs drink heavily into the night and the horse carries the load for every other animal; I guess that makes her opinions safer for our cultural health than the lyrics of "The Guess Who." Of course I'm writing with a load of sarcasm, but I do think its worth the time to look at the other opinion, which I honestly have not done until now.

This led me to another new idea for my book. One of the actions which the right side is known for is being Pro-Life. Again, I've never really looked at this debate. I know someone who is giving classes on what it is really like to have an abortion, in hopes of educating women into what they're really getting into, at least based on her viewpoint (which I haven't explored). I thought I would ask her if I could sit in on one of her classes. Most people who have given me their opinion have been Pro-Choice. Most feminist books I've read have been from authors who are Pro-Choice (although this is NOT to say all feminists think the same. There are Pro-Life feminists). I need to see all sides I can if I'm going to dare say I have a credible voice in the matter.

Given the choice, I would much rather listen to someone who had been through the Vietnam War and possessed a concise understanding of the military and its leaders than someone who had had never been overseas and based their entire opinions of war on, well . . . opinions. It has led me to think, did the protesters of that war have a clue what they were protesting? Or was it just that "war is bad"? Would someone who is Pro-Choice listen to the story of a woman who had an abortion and regretted it?

This is one reason why I love doing these weekly adventures; it has brought me not only to expand my passions and life experience, but to examine viewpoints I previously would not have given the time of day. It would be easy to just stick with the opinions already formed, but I'm seeking a balance of viewpoints, because the free speech to which I've been exposed doesn't mean all minds behind the speech are equal. There is no 'free credibility.' That should only come with work. Sorry "Guess Who," but I don't expect to have as much land as someone who works harder than me; I don't expect to have less than the dead-beat who hasn't even looked for work, and the freedom to work is paralleled with the freedom of speech. I don't expect my opinion to be as worthy as the person's who has extensively studied both sides; I don't expect the opinion of the person who hasn't bothered to think to be considered as valid as the students' of the subject. Anyone can speak, but anyone can make marks on a piece of paper, and I'm not going to taut one person's stick figures as just as valid an art form as the Mona Lisa. We should work for what we have, and this includes our opinions.