By Wendy Richmond
Summer started early this year. The usual complaints of hot, muggy weather have been supplemented by grumbling about the administration’s ignorant policies on global warming. After one such exchange with a stranger, I asked her, “Do you feel strongly about this?” She looked at me with incredulity and said, “Of course! Don’t you?”
My interest in this woman’s response is not about global warming; it’s about her assumption that we both held the same view. I’m not surprised. After all, we were both getting cappuccinos in a non-Starbucks café, we shared the same style of clothing and speech, and we were in the 02138 zip code.
In other words, we were both comfortably and chummily left-of-center. I tend to hover around a particular spot along the liberal-to-conservative spectrum, and I am embarrassed to admit that it’s probably the same spot that its the profile of a knee-jerk liberal. With another big election year coming up, I am trying to increase my awareness of this tendency, taking care to notice when my knee acts before I think.
For example: In late June, the front page of the New York Times had an article about recent Supreme Court deliberations, focusing on the decision to limit the use of race for school integration plans. There were two rows of photographs, each showing a line-up of Supreme Court Justices. The top row included five Justices, i.e., the majority: Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Kennedy. The bottom row included four Justices, i.e., the minority: Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer. As I looked at this picture, I realized that it was a diagram that told me, without words, how to feel about the decision that had been made:
A) Top row = primarily conservative
B) Bottom row = all liberal
C) Conservatives win
D) How I should feel: pissed
As I concluded this step-by-step progression, I was both impressed and dismayed by its simplicity. In no time, I was able to determine my stand on the issue. This is something that I do often, and unconsciously. Before I ask the questions, I look for the answers that are at that comfortable left-of-center point, so that I can then declare what I think, and even worse, what I feel.
In order to support my position with actual content, I have a set of authorities toward whom I look for sage advice. I don’t apologize for this: Relying on an authority to form one’s beliefs is fundamental to human nature—as old as religion, as young as children. But even the line-up that I have chosen—the New York Times, the New Yorker, NPR, PBS and always, always, Bill Moyers—exposes my myopic tendency to stick to my spot on the left-to-right spectrum.
This realization often comes to me when I am in a new city, and I read a headline in an unfamiliar local paper about an unfamiliar local concern. My first (and often unconscious) thought is, “Is this a liberal or conservative publication?” The answer to that question affects my opinion. So I am worried. I am worried that, having established my place along the spectrum, I will take the easy way out and look for the “correct” answer, an easy diagram to follow, a stand to take instead of examining the content.
Many years ago when I was trying to explain something to my Dad, he said, “You sound ambivalent.” My reaction was surprisingly vehement: “Don’t you ever call me ambivalent!” It became a joke in the family, but it has always made me uncomfortable. Like most people, I want my feelings to be strong and clear; I want to have a stand on issues. But sometimes I look too quickly for that stand. Instead, I want to acknowledge that a position on complex issues does not correlate to a frozen point along a line.
I know that many of you can relate. As professionals or students in visual communication, we are part of a culture that strives to do “the right thing,” whether the subject is the environment, education or truth in advertising. Sometimes determining the right stand for each of us deserves more attention than following, quite literally, the party line. In this upcoming election year, I hope to look to the left and the right of my position, and take a stand that comes from knowing instead of following.
Then again, I could just make my life really easy and get the cheat sheet from my friends in 02138. CA
© 2007 W. Richmond
My interest in this woman’s response is not about global warming; it’s about her assumption that we both held the same view. I’m not surprised. After all, we were both getting cappuccinos in a non-Starbucks café, we shared the same style of clothing and speech, and we were in the 02138 zip code.
In other words, we were both comfortably and chummily left-of-center. I tend to hover around a particular spot along the liberal-to-conservative spectrum, and I am embarrassed to admit that it’s probably the same spot that its the profile of a knee-jerk liberal. With another big election year coming up, I am trying to increase my awareness of this tendency, taking care to notice when my knee acts before I think.
For example: In late June, the front page of the New York Times had an article about recent Supreme Court deliberations, focusing on the decision to limit the use of race for school integration plans. There were two rows of photographs, each showing a line-up of Supreme Court Justices. The top row included five Justices, i.e., the majority: Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Kennedy. The bottom row included four Justices, i.e., the minority: Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer. As I looked at this picture, I realized that it was a diagram that told me, without words, how to feel about the decision that had been made:
A) Top row = primarily conservative
B) Bottom row = all liberal
C) Conservatives win
D) How I should feel: pissed
As I concluded this step-by-step progression, I was both impressed and dismayed by its simplicity. In no time, I was able to determine my stand on the issue. This is something that I do often, and unconsciously. Before I ask the questions, I look for the answers that are at that comfortable left-of-center point, so that I can then declare what I think, and even worse, what I feel.
In order to support my position with actual content, I have a set of authorities toward whom I look for sage advice. I don’t apologize for this: Relying on an authority to form one’s beliefs is fundamental to human nature—as old as religion, as young as children. But even the line-up that I have chosen—the New York Times, the New Yorker, NPR, PBS and always, always, Bill Moyers—exposes my myopic tendency to stick to my spot on the left-to-right spectrum.
This realization often comes to me when I am in a new city, and I read a headline in an unfamiliar local paper about an unfamiliar local concern. My first (and often unconscious) thought is, “Is this a liberal or conservative publication?” The answer to that question affects my opinion. So I am worried. I am worried that, having established my place along the spectrum, I will take the easy way out and look for the “correct” answer, an easy diagram to follow, a stand to take instead of examining the content.
Many years ago when I was trying to explain something to my Dad, he said, “You sound ambivalent.” My reaction was surprisingly vehement: “Don’t you ever call me ambivalent!” It became a joke in the family, but it has always made me uncomfortable. Like most people, I want my feelings to be strong and clear; I want to have a stand on issues. But sometimes I look too quickly for that stand. Instead, I want to acknowledge that a position on complex issues does not correlate to a frozen point along a line.
I know that many of you can relate. As professionals or students in visual communication, we are part of a culture that strives to do “the right thing,” whether the subject is the environment, education or truth in advertising. Sometimes determining the right stand for each of us deserves more attention than following, quite literally, the party line. In this upcoming election year, I hope to look to the left and the right of my position, and take a stand that comes from knowing instead of following.
Then again, I could just make my life really easy and get the cheat sheet from my friends in 02138. CA
© 2007 W. Richmond
Wendy Richmond (wendyrichmond.com) is a visual artist, writer and educator whose work explores public privacy, personal technology and creativity. Richmond has taught at Harvard University, the International Center of Photography and the Rhode Island School of Design, and she serves on the BRIC Artists Advisory Council and the MacDowell Fellows Executive Committee. Her latest book is Art Without Compromise*. Richmond’s column began in 1984.
