Of being deferential
As you may have guessed via my previous post, I don't hold Sarah Palin in very high regard for having agreed, without blinking, to be John McCain's running mate, nor John McCain for selecting her in the first place, and I see her ignorance (which is, of course, something different from being stupid, and I do not think she is that) of the Bush Doctrine as only one of the more compelling of many pieces of evidence I can offer in support of that opinion. As the proud father of two daughters myself, I have other reasons for that opinion that are, shall we say, more informed by the passions than by the intellect; and seeing as the blogosphere already has more than enough rhetorical frothing to go around, I'll spare you that.
But seeing as the linked-to post touches on women, I'd like to say a few words about two closely-associated words that have been used by Palin's defenders as they characterize the criticism her candidacy has received, "deferential" and "respectful." And to do so, I'll write about a time when I submitted my own 13-year-old daughter to unmitigated ridicule.
Made you look! Made you look!
Actually, "very gentle ribbing" is a much more accurate description--and only for a brief while.
Some background: G. (the 13-year-old) and C. (who is 10) are beautiful, intelligent and thoughtful, strong girls. Even better, that's not just their proud parents' opinion: their friends' parents seem genuinely to agree with that assessment, and they know this about themselves but without being arrogant about it (about which more in a bit). They are entering the treacherous territory of adolescence, so, you know, their mother and I are knocking on wood whenever any is handy. So far, though, so good.
The other day, my older daughter G. and I were talking on a theme which I understand is a matter of all-consuming importance to most adolescent girls: her friends, and friends of her friends. Well, actually, it was more like my listening to her offer up a monologue on this theme, but that's okay. I want, as much is possible, for topography to be the only distance between us. I was happy that she was eager to share all that with me. Anyway, at one point she was describing a circle of friends which she is not a part of whom she described as "sedated--which means, you know, they're very calm, they don't get excited about much."Me: Um, I don't think that's the word you want--at least, I hope it's not.
Sorry if this makes me sound monstrous, but I'll say it anyway: G., despite my loving her and despite her recently scoring quite well on the ACT, is not someone I would defer to in matters of vocabulary. The rate she's going, though, I might find myself doing that one of these days. She's smart as a whip. But, for now, I'm still ahead of her in the book-larnin' department. I sincerely look forward to deferring to her one day. But that day has yet to arrive.
G: "Sedated" doesn't mean that?
Me: No--that describes someone who's been tranquilized.
G (laughing): No--that's not what I meant!
Me: I think the word you want is "sedate."
G (still laughing): Oh--okay.
My choosing to defer to someone means that I have come to recognize that that person knows at least as much as I do, if not more, about a given subject. Sure: all people, until or unless they show they don't merit it, deserve our basic respect as fellow human beings. But it does not follow that I should defer to them just as a matter of course. It is reasonable to expect a person to demonstrate his or her credentials before we can make a fair assessment of that person. G., to her credit, had a good laugh at her own expense because of her confusion over "sedated"--that laughter made me respect her even more than I already do.
Now: lest you leave here thinking that G. is a buffoon or that I regard her as such, earlier this week she and I talked about an acquaintance of hers whose behavior indicates she may have anorexia. G. was a full--and intelligent, informed and sensitive--participant in that discussion. She has read articles about eating disorders in a girls' magazine that she subscribes to, and she displayed to me that she understood and took seriously what she had read--and her acquaintance's condition. She was so well informed, in fact, that I couldn't really add to her understanding, apart from encouraging her to talk to a teacher or a counselor about this girl.
It is at times like that when I find myself briefly forgetting that she is only 13. That forgetting, I would submit, is a sort of deferral. Certainly, it was a silent acknowledgment on my part that G. indeed knew whereof she spoke.
I cannot, yet, say the same thing of Sarah Palin. Though I respect her as a fellow human being, as a mother who indeed made a difficult but informed choice regarding her fifth child, and as an obviously-skilled politician, I simply have no reason to be deferential to her as a vice-presidential nominee. Nor does anyone else for that matter, with the exception of the person(s) who thought it would be a good idea for her to be the nominee. They are welcome to defer all they want, but no one else is otherwise under any obligation to. I don't say that because she is a woman, or I disagree with her politics or religion, or I am a low-information voter; it's because there is an exceedingly small body of information (never mind accomplishments--I'll settle for ideas and opinions attributed to her) available that would allow reasonable people, partisans or not, to assess her abilities, here and now and not in the future, as a potential Chief Executive. That's just demonstrably so, and it is no insult to her or to any woman--any person--to say that sort of thing when it's simple fact. Yet the McCain campaign asks us to believe that to protest this lack of information and to see to want to know more is not being deferential.
Emerson famously said, "I hate quotations; tell me what you know." Until yesterday, all we'd had from Governor Palin are quotes; to a certain extent, even after yesterday, we still don't have much more. There has to be something to defer to. When that shows up, then we'll talk; then, we won't be arguing about someone who, at least as regards her fitness for the office of Vice-President, remains a cipher.
