A Civil Conservative
Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 11:35PM I met Henry Palmer when my parents took their lawn mower to him for repair. Henry was a real Yankee mechanic who could build just about anything out of metal or wood and fix just about anything this side of complex electronics. If he had lived long enough he probably would have taught himself that as well. He was a blacksmith, a gunsmith, a machinist, and a passable fiddle player, despite an incomplete set of fingers. He had left school in eighth grade to support his family after his father died, and had made a habit of teaching himself some new skill every year.
Somehow I ended up spending a lot of time at his shop, across the driveway from the old farmhouse where he and his wife Bea lived, on a back road in Cornwall, Vermont. Despite the fact that I was in junior high and he was in his seventies, and despite our disparate backgrounds, we became friends.
If you have read many of my essays you have a reasonable idea of my political tendencies. Ultra-conservative does not leap to mind. Ultra-conservative was Henry’s description of himself. He didn’t believe in the minimum wage or “coddling the homeless.” Don’t even start on gun control. And yet, we did discuss that. I won’t say we argued, because that implies some level of anger. We debated. In between machining something on his lathe or hammering out a knife on his anvil we discussed the problems of the state, the nation, and the world. We mostly disagreed.
Henry had sixty years on me and much more confidence, but he never tried to bully me. He questioned my facts and my reasoning, but never my intelligence, my sanity, or my morality. He never raised his voice to me. When I discussed this with my father, he said, “Henry is a gentleman of the old school.” Henry was a gentleman of firm convictions, and he showed me that two good people could completely disagree on a subject and remain friends.
I should note, just to flesh out Henry’s political character, that he was perplexed by the opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment. I can remember him saying, “I always thought women were equal. I don’t know what all the fuss is about.”
Watching the culture wars of our time, the health care mobs and the tea party protests, I wonder what Henry would think. Ideologically, he would have approved of many of the positions held by the far-right activists of today. Behaviorally, he was a different species. The screaming, the insults, and the posturing on the edge of violence would have completely alienated him.
Where are the Henry Palmer conservatives of today? Have they been pushed aside by the theatrics required for media attention? Has our objection to incivility been blunted by repetition? Is it just a case of the screaming wheel getting the oil?
As Town Meeting Day approaches here in Vermont, I think about the way we deal with anger in political debates. Some towns (which will remain nameless, but you know who you are) have a reputation for verbal brawling at town meeting. However, restraint is the norm. At my own town meeting I have seen accusatory fingers pointed and voices raised, but this is met with disapproval by the crowd and pacification efforts by the moderator. I remember a woman standing up after a contentious debate and sincerely thanking those who had held the minority opinion. She described their opposition as necessary for good political thinking. We haven’t seen that on the national stage.
I’ll speculate that a lot of the problem is narcissism. As a culture we have become focused on the continual satisfaction of the individual. The finely adjusted balance between the individual and society has had a lead ingot dropped on the side of the individual. We want the benefits of a community without the sacrifice and self-effacement required to be a functional member of a community.
It’s a mindset promoted by modern rootlessness, where one can injure some anonymous neighbor and then leave. It’s a mindset of willful blindness to the networks of trust, cooperation, and interdependence that support us as individuals every moment of the day. It is a mindset that lacks historical perspective. People need to be reminded that this is not an overwhelmingly special year in human history, that they are not members of a singularly important generation, and that their favorite political issue of the moment is just one of many that people have contested through the ages. This is not as satisfying as an end-time mythology, religious or political. The benefit is that it frees people from a false urgency so that they can promulgate their opinions without slashing and burning like a horde of Mongols.
Henry Palmer understood that friendship was more important than winning an argument, even with a naive 14 year-old. Living in small-town Vermont, he learned that you can’t walk away from your neighbors. I doubt that we can transfer this ethic directly to the winner-take-all battles at the national level. Perhaps we can promote this civil attitude at the local level and let it percolate up over time.
Reader Comments (4)
You have cut through all the craziness and found the heart of the matter. I believe every town meeting moderator and every state Representative and Senator should read this. It is time to find the middle ground and actually get something done, egos aside.
This is a movement that should spread, not the screaming and shouting hordes that smear our airwaves day in and day out.
Great essay. Great personal reflection to which I bet almost all of us can attest.
My reaction of agreement is somewhat dolorous, because I see current behavior as having its roots, perhaps in large part, in the behavior of those of us who entered the political process in the late 60's and into the 70's. Narcissism was, in fact, a valid and central accusation directed at the New Left by social conservatives appalled by those of us wet-behind-the-ears offspring of WW II. Of course, also, there is a difference between the leaders of any movement and the 80% who are me-too copycats, lacking the intellectual rigor of the original thinkers.
Rgds,
I found your blog through Vermont Daily Briefing, and I am so..... relieved. Yes, I think that's the word. What an island of sanity and rational, well-expressed thought. It is a relief to land here out of the maelstrom of political hysteria. Thank you.