The Degenerate Art Show
Chagall, The Revolution, 1937
I am, by nature, mostly a contrarian. I cannot remember a time when I didn’t feel an impulse to zig against the zags, or to bob against the weaves. I suppose that accounts for my political affiliation as an independent, and why I continue to find most political parties absurd on most levels. I was, recently, accused of being a “conservative”. It’s a throwaway label, and usually a cheap way to bracket a person’s point of view before firing for effect. I nurture conservative leanings, certainly, but in today’s fluid world that tends to make me something more of a classical liberal, if we have to brand it. And anyway, the fact of my contrary nature is hard to square with nearly every one of my various career choices: cowboy, teacher, Marine, cop, each of which has required varying levels of creativity, conformity, and obedience. My career as a writer requires conformity to some degree, but never obedience, and in the main I am in control of what I say and how I want to say it. It is a kind of bliss, which Joseph Campbell, in his enormous wisdom, encouraged us to follow.
The Marine Corps was naturally the most stringent employer: instant and willing obedience to orders is the standard, which I managed fairly well because I was—and remain—in love with the institutional traditions and its singular mission to locate, close with, and destroy the enemy. But even teaching, which allowed the greatest latitude for my manias, often provoked my inner Younger Bear, and so I found myself frequently on maneuvers against the robotic administration, or dropping a lecture on Wendell Berry to teach my students how to build field-expedient claymores–mostly as a kind of anti-academic protest and also as an instructional aid on building narrative structures. I had a friend come into class to build a chair–he built incredible chairs–for the same reason, and the students loved it.
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