A gated community, Conyer by N Chadwick, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Featuring the Fabulous Dadbots
Mark Mamerow, Dave. S., Mark O., Dennis Curley, and Geoff Carter
Bots: As pledged. Guardian article link on increasingly polarized US of A.
I was first going to let you read it, send my takes separate…(skip to link now if you don’t want my takes just yet…..or ever)…but I’ve decided it wasn’t that great and you may wish to skim….(I trust my wife’s takes—she is way smarter than me….and more thoughtful….way more volunteer work….)—but on this one we disagree). Briefly:
- Authored by an anthropologist intrigued me.
- Although so much of America’s paranoia is an easy target, he/she did find some, new to me, gems:
- That sign in the gated Florida community rationalizing stop and search is out of an iconoclast movie—‘cept it’s not. Surprised they didn’t augment the notice with an image of a dark-skinned teen in a hoodie.
- Another, shocker to me, was the “Fargo fenestration” bit: windows in the back of the house, not so much in the front—the new suburban design standard. In Fargo? Huh? I could see it in St. Louis…but then again it’s so nice to know when a crowd is marching past so that you can grab your automatic weapons, quick text Kyle R. and get out on your lawn to calm things down.
- But I suppose you can have cameras at the perimeter fencing for that…which leads one to the sudden inundation of doorbell cameras…also mentioned.
- But to be fair petty crime is becoming outrageous. Trust you read those stories of “inevitable theft in Walgreens SF”. This week (in California Today), some depressing images of a train looted at a lower urban corridor level (Compton I think) area of LA—inter modal supply chain weakness immediately pounced on by the have nots—Amazon boxes strewn for blocks…
That said I bet most doorbell cameras, just like home security and personal home Honda gensets, (or Milwaukee based Generac), are in neighborhoods that need them the least—relative to crime and power outage statistics. Like my friend once said while sitting in a Sky Lounge in New Delhi, eating/drinking free food/wine—those that don’t need it get it and those that do, don’t.
He/she also lasers in on SUVs—kill or be killed, and many other ills. On that subject, some including me at times, used to elevate Europeans…”so superior, so enlightened….so much more provident than us crass Americans”, with all their nifty little cars….so many micro utilitarian vehicles…But, alas, though I lust for some of their nifty mini wagons—can’t even buy them here….I realize it isn’t noble choices, rather a function of centuries of population density, small streets, tight car parks, etc. … The euro dude isn’t morally superior to the Texan (on any given day) just look at Europe’s unrelenting adoration of the cigarette.
Digression: Interesting to see the (2) sides of the pond innovate given the electric car revolution. Non US car companies are making vehicles even smaller (no engine, no exhaust claptrap, smaller trannie or no trannie…. Whereas: Ford’s Lightening (electric F150), innovation: No downsizing, rather behold The Frunk (front trunk). And they’re right… orders just doubled…guys want the big grille, Ford wants the big mark-up. Win-Win-Lose. (Ford-Joe Pickup-Society, respectively). If curious for innovation, check out the Canoo website—not sure but you might need to be in the rock climber demographic to buy one. They basically have a symmetric microbus…also an interesting pick-up truck ( cab over, no frunk, design).
But from there is where the article fell apart, (for me) and is another subject I’ll hold forth on. The 2-bit social theorist, all of a sudden connecting all the dots and putting it all together (read that with sarcastic tone). I’ve seen this so many times, been guilty of it many times— it is easy to recognize. David Brooks of the NY Times leaps to mind. Some are better at it and that’s why they get published… but even as I read the heavy hitters, save for the rare exceptional piece, many of the dot connecting foundations are questionable…rely on colorful metaphors or a straw man (like that recent one some of you pounced on).
The Guardian: Polarized Article
Go Pack!
-Dave/
Bots,
The “fortress mentality” is a real thing. But I’m not sure the Guardian author really made a great case for its prevalence or its growth in American society. The article is basically a set of anecdotes, and those can be strung together (much like Bible quotes) to prove almost anything.
The article’s characterization of disposable water bottles as “a shelter made for one” is interesting. The fact is, outside the East Coast and Upper Midwest, water supplies are not uniformly great. Is that immediately attributable to lagging “interest and investment in shared public infrastructure”? Seems like a reach. You could just as easily chalk it up America’s love affair with bottled water to our obsession with convenience and disposability. And in an affluent society, bottled water is unbelievably cheap.
I thought that the author left some low hanging fruit unpicked. What about the most obvious manifestation of the fortress mentality: Guns GUNS GUNS!!! We sure enough do own a lot of guns in this country, and a good proportion are purchased for reasons of personal security. But in reality, despite an explosion in gun sales, the proportion of gun OWNERS is no higher in 2021 than it was in 1972 (per the internet–Statista.Com). So there is a subculture out there that is accumulating guns at an incredible rate. But that doesn’t correspond to the implied assertion that, overall, the fortress mentality is growing.
Better evidence of growing fortress paranoia might be the adoption, across many states, of the “castle doctrine” and “stand your ground” laws. The thrust of these laws is that nobody needs to back down anymore. We are each self-sufficient, self-defending, fully armed Knights of the Round Table. Shoot first, ask questions later. Add in the full legalization of concealed carry, and the growing acceptance of “constitutional carry” (no license/no training needed) laws, and you see us moving toward the NRA’s desired state of affairs: a Wild West where nobody depends on the police, and, as the doormats state, “We don’t call 911!”
How about the evolution of police officers’ attitudes to the “warrior mentality”? Cops aren’t just patrolling the neighborhood anymore. They are heavily armed and armored warriors, out to keep the peace in the dystopian Mad Max hellholes of the inner city. That’s the meaning behind the “thin blue line” version of the American flag. “You WANT me up on that line!” say the cops, like Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men. So many cops see themselves as a warrior caste, the last bastion of civilization, protecting children and the chastity of white ladies. This is literally a fortress mentality.
I also see the exaggerated American ethic of self-sufficiency in the attitude of many baby boomers and millennials. They got to their current state of affluence completely on their own. The “government” and the “community” had nothing to do with their success. It’s not as if they were educated at a public school, drive on public roads, were born at a public hospital, or flush their shit down the public pipes. We’ve all met these dudes. My suburban home, Oak Creek, is chock-a-block with them. They don’t pause to consider that before they built their tract home and erected that white picket fence, an entire universe of water, transportation, utility, and sewer infrastructure had to be put in place. This “pulled myself up by my own bootstraps” attitude isn’t exactly a fortress mentality, but it’s certainly complementary.
Which leads me to my final point (crowd erupts in applause). Isn’t the political divide over the pandemic simply a restatement of existing polarization of attitudes in this country? On the doubter and denier side, you have the rugged, self-made individuals who, among other things, don’t want to be told to wear a mask or get a shot. On the other side, you have the community-oriented, science-believing liberal snowflakes.
Wait! One more point. More of a question. What do you bots think? Is the fortress mentality taking over? Maybe it’s a function of the gerontocracy, as MO suggests. Or maybe it reflects a divide that’s marked American society since the founding of the Republic?
–Mark M
Don’t mind the shift to guns.
Trust ya’ll caught my heady, sardonic reference to that famous St. Louis couple—he with the automatic rifle, she with the handgun, pointed at the George Floyd March outside their St. Louis home. I later read the same two showed up in Kenosha this fall in support of Kyle R. at his trial. Doubling down…all in.
Good news the research you provided Mark M., that the per capita gun ownership is not increasing, just the per person stock piling. I have seen that—folks just keep building bigger cabinets—many with locks or buying safes, etc. …. for their troop size collection. I noticed a lot of indoor shooting ranges while in Provo last winter for a few weeks—the latest blaring billboard allure is the automatic range. Yikes, how do you isolate rookies in those spaces? Those bullets can go right through most commercial building materials.
So is the Fortress mentality taking over? —Heck yes! Joe Pick-up is doubling down….and even the liberal snowflakes—there is even some sliding that way. I don’t see a lot of vegan-audi-yoga types moving out of 8 mile, 9 mile, etc… and back into downtown Detroit. I remember one election night report explaining the white flight out of Detroit …. all those “mile” roads (so creative, so warm), Eminem had that movie—9 mile….and how 9 and 10 mile are now 13 and 14 mile— an exodus of biblical proportions. I did a fair amount of work in Detroit—once a gem of a city—and still could be—there are signs of hope as Wayne State and Ford move back downtown and funky brands like Shinola—which was going places until the i-watch arrived). However, the white flight migration to the barriers of the north is stark. But there is lake country up that way—not that different than the migration to Hartland, WI—just north, not west. Which reminds me of that famous parody of John King by comedian Michael Kosta—did you see that…incessant map rambling…hilarious…twitter…but for some reason I can’t find it…else you’d see a link here.
–Dave
Is the fortress mentality taking over? That’s hard to say. The atomization and alienation of the citizenry has been going on for a long time. It accelerated with the ascendancy of neoliberal politics and economics that occurred during the Clinton administration. Unions and other collective endeavors were declared to be passe (practically if not rhetorically). Everyone will succeed or fail on their own merits and effort. But I think there’s been a recent backlash against that paradigm. Especially with the added isolation caused by the pandemic, I believe many people are craving social engagement of many kinds. We’ll see if that develops into a real social movement in the upcoming years.
Cheers!
Mark O
Hey Bots,
I was also struck by the segment of the Guardian article about fortress mentality dealing with new home design. A friend of mine has a home in River Hills with such a large lot, it’s impossible to visit the neighbors without a golf cart. Money equals land and land equals privacy and privacy equals safety; ergo, money equals safety. (Talk about your transitive property—pun intended.) Distance is the fortress here. As is money. But the idea of closing the house off of the street (is a moat with gators included?) is almost Kafkaesque in its brazen contempt for the community. But while we have become more isolated and splintered in our politics and more paranoid in our social relations and anxious about our property, there is hope. I think.
Milwaukee’s Complete Street Project is trying to revamp neighborhood streets, making them more accessible—and safe—for bikes, scooters, pedestrians. Estabrook Park has a permanent beer garden (talk about goddamned socialization!!), a Disc Golf course, a dog park, and four or five playgrounds. Most of this is relatively new. Of course, this is an urban setting. I doubt if you see a lot of conscious efforts to knock down the gates in Grafton, Fox Bay, or Cedarburg; after all, that’s why people moved there in the first place, to have a safe place to store their guns, park their SUVs, and mow their acres and acres of lawn. This conscious emphasis on community in Milwaukee is encouraging. In the city, at least, we have healthy, engaged, and diverse communities. Of course, our suburban friends might make it down to the city once a year for their Jimmy Buffett or Ted Nugent concerts at Summerfest. But that’s just as much of a gated community as the ones they hail from.
—Geoff
Isn’t it odd that fellow citizens of similar backgrounds could have such diametrically opposed concepts of safety? One concept is primarily rural; minimum people, maximum guns. The other is primarily urban; maximum people, minimum guns. The same could be said of the perception of dangerous people. One block of citizens sees a violent threat in homeless (I personally like a new description I came across, “outside”) people and immigrants. Another block (probably smaller but including myself) views homeless/outside people and immigrants as less of a violent threat than armed property owners. I believe this to be true because the homeless/outside and immigrant populations have no power and few rights and they know it. They know that if they make any trouble for the gentry, what little they have can be taken away in an instant and they would be in desperate straits.
I can see why folks would view their fellow man as potentially violent competitors for limited resources and that the game is to win for yourself and immediate family. It’s not a world view I want to live with or a game I care to play.
Cheers!
MO
Pithy comments indeed,
Yeah, yeah, polarization, isolation? Sorry, I’m somewhat out of the loop; had me some Omicromitis. Really. Was pretty sick for a few days.
Anyway, about that Guardian article. I agree with you guys, though I thought the article did start off pretty well with an interesting anecdote about the concrete convention. If he had followed that up with some plausible stats and factoids his arguments might have held more water — but noooo, he squandered his water, spilling it in random splashy anecdotes from the safe container of his Anthropological Hydro Flask.
Ahhh, it’d be fun to be an anthropologist. Concocting stories and theories from the flimsiest of evidence. “As you can see, students, this ancient flint arrowhead has three notches on the left side. This indicates the tribe hunted large game — the left-sided notches working as a saw to puncture the left aorta of the wooly mammoth. So obviously, this was a patriarchal society with isolationist tendencies and complex taboos about oral sex.” “But, Professor Curley, if you turn the arrow over, the notches will be on the right side…”
But, seriously, it is interesting to note shifting attitudes in America about safety, isolation, and community. Allow me to share an anecdote from the jungles of Costa Rica (Okaaaay, I know, I know, an anecdotal argument after that whole belabored hold-water rip on anthropological anecdotes??)…
Soooo, last month I bought a very used motorcycle for 300,000 colones (about $200) from a Nicaraguan guy who was heading back home after sneaking into Costa Rica for a couple of months to make some money working construction. Pretty good old bike, but one day it stalled just after I crossed a shallow river with it on the notoriously rugged “jungle road” to Montezuma. After a few minutes of wearing out my right leg trying to kick-start the old beast, I realized the engine was flooded (with gas, not water) and so I sat my muddy ass down to allow the carburetor and my lungs to settle.
A couple of large new SUV rentals lumbered by me on their way to the beach. Through their tinted windows I would catch glimpses of stressed-out North American families trying not to make eye-contact with me as they passed. Then a rough looking Tico (Costa Rican guy) on a big dirt bike stopped and asked if I needed help. I told him the engine was flooded and that I was just chilling. He asked if I had a phone and if it had a signal. I checked. Yep. It did. Cool. He gave me the number of a local taxi driver just in case. “OK, buena suerte, amigo,” he said and rode off.
A few more big, rented SUVs cruised past, more Americans eying me suspiciously. In between these episodes of me eating SUV rental dust, two more Costa Rican drivers stopped and asked if I needed help – one of them an incongruously well-dressed woman on an amazingly clean Honda scooter. This followed by a fat gringo in a rented Nissan Armada slowing down just long enough to shake his head at me and scowl the universal signal for “You-are-a-fucking-idiot”.
Then an old pick-up truck pulled up and four skinny young Ticos jumped out. They smelled like weed. “Que Pasa, que está la problema?’ they asked as they circled the motorcycle. I admit I felt some trepidation. (Tangential: Just think — in the USA, would the legal system say I was justified in shooting them?) I explained about the flooded engine. They asked if they could try starting the bike. The youngest-looking guy worked hard at kick-starting it for a couple of minutes — to no avail. His buddies teased him. One of the other guys got a screwdriver out of the truck and started messing with the choke and the carb. I was afraid he was going to fuck something up. Then he climbed on the bike and kicked down hard on the lever. First kick, the engine starts!
We all cheered. I figured maybe the guys would want some money for their efforts. But they refused my offer of cash. They weren’t insulted by the offer, more like amused — the oldest-looking guy shaking his head in a kindlier version of the “You are a fucking idiot” look.
We all shook hands and backslapped and they climbed into their old pick-up and drove away. I rode the old motorcycle off into the sunset.
From an anthropological perspective the conclusion we must draw from this anecdote is obvious: The people in the rented SUVs come from a society that has complex taboos about oral sex.
All rightee then, I had some pith to add to the clever comments and thoughts you guys have been making about Old Joe and the Dems and the Republicans and the gun fetish and gated communities — and I wanted to expound on how weird and scared and violent the USA seems when viewed from the outside, but my engine is flooded with literary gas. Okay, I’ll stop.
Dennis