[Before] Acting Citizen: Our need for centripetal force

When Acting Citizen
Was Loneliest Liberal

By James Knudsen

[Acting Citizen’s Fourth Saturday column appeared here originally 10 years ago today, as “Fourth Saturday’s Loneliest Liberal: Our need for centripetal force.” It was great then, and it may be even better today. Plus, 15 thoughtful comments ensued over the course of the following few days – comments thoughtful then, and still relevant.]

It’s late and I’m facing a deadline. I can’t blame writer’s block, I don’t lack for ideas. If anything, I feel like John Travolta in Phenomenon where his character has so many ideas that picking one is the problem. For instance, I think I know the cause of many of our problems with guns. Or how ’bout this one—a compare and contrast of the artistic model versus the capitalistic model? As a last resort I could just go on an extended rant, like the one I posted on Facebook last night, regarding the mendacity of conservative opinion makers of the lower biological orders. Or motomynd’s taste in cars...too easy.
    Last month I began with a bit of biographical trivia to help get things going and that seems like a good idea again. Fun Fact #7: My paternal grandfather was a physicist. I mention that because he would have known the definition of the word I suddenly found floating around the hemispheres of my brain last night—centripetal. I had to look it up but it was the correct word. Centripetal, to bring to the center, the antonym of centrifugal, to fling outward. I think we need some centripetal force in society to counterbalance what I see as too much centrifugal force.
    Plenty has been written about the polarizing politics in our bicameral legislature in Washington, D.C., and there are far better minds out there to explain why it has happened and whether the cause is anything akin to centrifugal force. I’m more concerned with what I encounter in my daily life. And as I am an actor and everything is about me, how is this manifesting itself in...me?
    Demographers have been noting the self-selecting process going on in where we choose to live—among those who are like us. The proliferation of electronic media means that we may choose to view shows more closely tailored to our specific tastes. The days of three networks and the attendant lack of choice—sit-com, hour-long crime drama, or Monday Night Football—are gone. But so with them has gone the common touchstone of the water-cooler...sorry Starbuck’s...oops, Facebook. Twitter? And forget those last two. Ever since the novelty wore off Farmville in early 2010, Facebook’s importance in my life has dropped precipitously, and I still haven’t figured out how to “tweet.”
    Let me add here that there may be no story there. But I think there is. I think we’ll see that this is like climate change; we know it’s happening, we don’t know what to do about it, and we have no way of knowing if will even matter over time. But make no mistake, there are real consequences to this.
    I have not and will not be listening to Ted Nugent or Hank Williams, Jr., or Morrissey. (Ted was interviewed by the Secret Service last year for inflammatory remarks about the President. Hank Jr. was fired from Monday Night Football for his rants. Morrissey is an iconic British rocker/alternative singer/songwriter who refused to appear on the same broadcast of a late night talk show with the guys from Duck Dynasty.) Truth be told, I never listened to Morrissey, but the other two were a guilty pleasure of my youth. But no more, the views of both the Motor City draft-dodger and Bocephus are just too lowest-common-denominator. And where does it end? Is this self-perpetuating? Are the reactions to each action becoming correspondingly more extreme? Is there a self-correcting feature? For instance, with more people becoming vegan will there be a reactionary sect that becomes strict carnivores or will really good mac ’n cheese be the side dish they can’t put aside?
    Separating ourselves from each other may just be part of our DNA. But it was that part of our DNA that allowed us to communicate, to become communities, that required us to be social, that led to humans dominating the planet. That need to bond, to band together was the centripetal force that allowed us to flourish, to create, and to conquer. I worry for the human race if it is lost. It may be that our fascination with our smart phones is slowly eroding that which makes us human, and then the robots will convince us that they deserve the vote just as the aliens start landing their inter-galactic craft to harvest us for our meat...wow, it’s really late. I better get some sleep. See you next month.

Copyright © 2013, 2023 by James Knudsen