Look Into My Mind
As I mentioned before, a post of Nanner got me to thinking about this post. She noted that two people could grow up with similar backgrounds (that being Italian and Catholic) and come out totally different people. It occurred to me that while I've posted much about what's going on in my life, I haven't posted to much about my past or any of my early experiences. Part of the reason may be that my past isn't any where near as interesting as that of many of my readers, but not everyone can lead such storied lives.
So here goes a little trip down memory lane I like to call: How the hell did I end up so liberal?
I grew up in a typical Italian family with off the boat parents. They were so Italian, they grew up in the same little town in the vicinity of Naples (Italy that is) and knew each other growing up. They grew up in post-WWII depression Italy. My mom was a farmer's daughter and worked her ass of from sun up to sun down. My dad's father died when he was 14, leaving him to take care of my grandmother by going to work as a mason (among other sundry low paying jobs). My dad came to the US back in 1960, went back for a month to Italy in 1963 and decided to get married to my mom (that a whole OTHER story), went back to visit again for one month in 1965 (he was not a citizen and was working on a visa for my mom to come over), my mom got pregnant with me in that month, and she came to the US in March of 1966 one month before I was born. So you don't get much more Italian than me without actually being born there.
Being ReALLY OLD SCHOOL, the came over with many prejudices, especially my dad. And primarily against blacks, the minority of choice in those days. He was very old fashioned and didn't think my mom should work, since the woman's job was to take care of the home and kids. My mom did finally go to work when my dad succumbed to the economic necessity of two incomes to try and raise the family (which by then included my brother and sister as well). Both my parents were very hard workers and did what they had to do to raise a family, including working opposite shifts so someone was home with the kids. My mom was the "nurturer" and my dad the "disciplinarian".
You would think that growing up in a home like this I would think that it's a woman's place to shut up and do what she's told and cook my meals when I'm hungry kind of thing. Except that my mom never takes any shit from my dad. It's almost funny now to see them yell back and forth to each other over stupid things. But that's what they do.
Anyway, from a young age I had a very keen sense of fairness. Perhaps it was because I thought few of the rules of the house were fair. For example, my dad has a fondness for saying "Like the priest says, do what I say and not what I do". You have no idea how much I hated hearing that. Nothing irks a kid more that having to follow rules without an explanation. And rules subject to change on a whim. This is the main reason I have a very low tolerence for hypocrisy.
I also tired of hearing about how certain "groups" of people were no good growing up. My parents had a tendancy for painting wide brushes of statements: Don't trust Sicilians because they're SICILIANS! Not REAL Italians. All blacks will steal from you the first chance they get. All the people in the inner city use drugs. Stuff like that. I never saw any of that with the people I'd met so I grew to judge individuals for who they are, not groups in general.
My parents have been staunch Republicans (well, at least unti recently, but again, a different post). They had traditional conservative values. However, my sense of fairness led me away from Republicans early on. I started paying attention to politics during the Reagan years. Seeing the rich get richer and the poor get poorer really turned my off to those guys. I aslo never understood the "trickle down" theory of giving more money to rich people and somehow it would "magically" filter down to poor people. But I digress.
Part of the other reason I probably turned out the way I did was that I didn't really embrace Catholcism until I was an adult. Growing up, I was a dutiful Italian Cahtolic male. It was the woman's job to go to church and make sure the kids went to CCD (the name for faith formation classes in those days). My family went to church on Palm SUnday, Easter, and maybe Christmas. When I got to high school (a Catholic one, no less!) I basically rejected my religion. At first, I simply ignored it. Then I decided it was all bull and proclaimed myself an athiest. It was during this period I really honed my philosophy (at the time) that basically you could do whatever you wanted as long as you weren't hurting someone. Homosexuality? Between two consenting adults, right? Abortion? Personal choice. Premarital sex? Again, if it's consensual, get as much as you can. I also naively believed that an enlightened dicator would make a good national leader. You know, someone like me that "knew" better than all of you common peons and could make sure everyone was treated fairly. I seriously believed you could legislate people's behavior and make them act nicely towards each other. Nice little utopia, isn't it?
Anway, it was when my relationship with the Wife started getting serious that I truly found my faith. After a while I gave up being an athiest and decided I was an agnostic, though I didn't really use the word at the time. However, I started going to church with her, mostly just to be with her, and because she asked me to go. However, after a while, I started to embrace it on my own. This was a very slow process, as I didn't even take communion for several years, as I thought it would be hypocritical of me to do so since I didn't sincerely believe it was the Body of Christ. But I came round.
However, I never gave up my sense of fairness. One of the most powerful lessons I learned in political science classes in college was that you cannot legislate morality. You can make laws against murder to protect people's right to live, but you can't make people value life my making it illegal to murder people. This goes for many things. So I've always maintained one set of political values and one set of moral values. Sounds kind of crazy, I know, but the other powerful lesson I learned is to let the Lord judge. Politically, I think many of the solutions to our problems are not necessarily more laws, but to make laws unneccessary. For example, instead of making abortion illegal, lets instead concentrate on the reasons women get them and work on that. If you change the culture so that women do not want to abort their children, then it won't matter whether it's legal or not. Same with many other civil issues. The law shoudl be about fairness. Your morals are going to be based on whatever faith you follow, whether is something organized or not.
I've probably rambled on long enough about this. Maybe this gives a little glimpse into what makes my brain tick. Or perhaps I'm just insane. I'm even still optimisitic enough to think that maybe a few good people can set the right example and change the world for the better. Crazy, ain't I?
So here goes a little trip down memory lane I like to call: How the hell did I end up so liberal?
I grew up in a typical Italian family with off the boat parents. They were so Italian, they grew up in the same little town in the vicinity of Naples (Italy that is) and knew each other growing up. They grew up in post-WWII depression Italy. My mom was a farmer's daughter and worked her ass of from sun up to sun down. My dad's father died when he was 14, leaving him to take care of my grandmother by going to work as a mason (among other sundry low paying jobs). My dad came to the US back in 1960, went back for a month to Italy in 1963 and decided to get married to my mom (that a whole OTHER story), went back to visit again for one month in 1965 (he was not a citizen and was working on a visa for my mom to come over), my mom got pregnant with me in that month, and she came to the US in March of 1966 one month before I was born. So you don't get much more Italian than me without actually being born there.
Being ReALLY OLD SCHOOL, the came over with many prejudices, especially my dad. And primarily against blacks, the minority of choice in those days. He was very old fashioned and didn't think my mom should work, since the woman's job was to take care of the home and kids. My mom did finally go to work when my dad succumbed to the economic necessity of two incomes to try and raise the family (which by then included my brother and sister as well). Both my parents were very hard workers and did what they had to do to raise a family, including working opposite shifts so someone was home with the kids. My mom was the "nurturer" and my dad the "disciplinarian".
You would think that growing up in a home like this I would think that it's a woman's place to shut up and do what she's told and cook my meals when I'm hungry kind of thing. Except that my mom never takes any shit from my dad. It's almost funny now to see them yell back and forth to each other over stupid things. But that's what they do.
Anyway, from a young age I had a very keen sense of fairness. Perhaps it was because I thought few of the rules of the house were fair. For example, my dad has a fondness for saying "Like the priest says, do what I say and not what I do". You have no idea how much I hated hearing that. Nothing irks a kid more that having to follow rules without an explanation. And rules subject to change on a whim. This is the main reason I have a very low tolerence for hypocrisy.
I also tired of hearing about how certain "groups" of people were no good growing up. My parents had a tendancy for painting wide brushes of statements: Don't trust Sicilians because they're SICILIANS! Not REAL Italians. All blacks will steal from you the first chance they get. All the people in the inner city use drugs. Stuff like that. I never saw any of that with the people I'd met so I grew to judge individuals for who they are, not groups in general.
My parents have been staunch Republicans (well, at least unti recently, but again, a different post). They had traditional conservative values. However, my sense of fairness led me away from Republicans early on. I started paying attention to politics during the Reagan years. Seeing the rich get richer and the poor get poorer really turned my off to those guys. I aslo never understood the "trickle down" theory of giving more money to rich people and somehow it would "magically" filter down to poor people. But I digress.
Part of the other reason I probably turned out the way I did was that I didn't really embrace Catholcism until I was an adult. Growing up, I was a dutiful Italian Cahtolic male. It was the woman's job to go to church and make sure the kids went to CCD (the name for faith formation classes in those days). My family went to church on Palm SUnday, Easter, and maybe Christmas. When I got to high school (a Catholic one, no less!) I basically rejected my religion. At first, I simply ignored it. Then I decided it was all bull and proclaimed myself an athiest. It was during this period I really honed my philosophy (at the time) that basically you could do whatever you wanted as long as you weren't hurting someone. Homosexuality? Between two consenting adults, right? Abortion? Personal choice. Premarital sex? Again, if it's consensual, get as much as you can. I also naively believed that an enlightened dicator would make a good national leader. You know, someone like me that "knew" better than all of you common peons and could make sure everyone was treated fairly. I seriously believed you could legislate people's behavior and make them act nicely towards each other. Nice little utopia, isn't it?
Anway, it was when my relationship with the Wife started getting serious that I truly found my faith. After a while I gave up being an athiest and decided I was an agnostic, though I didn't really use the word at the time. However, I started going to church with her, mostly just to be with her, and because she asked me to go. However, after a while, I started to embrace it on my own. This was a very slow process, as I didn't even take communion for several years, as I thought it would be hypocritical of me to do so since I didn't sincerely believe it was the Body of Christ. But I came round.
However, I never gave up my sense of fairness. One of the most powerful lessons I learned in political science classes in college was that you cannot legislate morality. You can make laws against murder to protect people's right to live, but you can't make people value life my making it illegal to murder people. This goes for many things. So I've always maintained one set of political values and one set of moral values. Sounds kind of crazy, I know, but the other powerful lesson I learned is to let the Lord judge. Politically, I think many of the solutions to our problems are not necessarily more laws, but to make laws unneccessary. For example, instead of making abortion illegal, lets instead concentrate on the reasons women get them and work on that. If you change the culture so that women do not want to abort their children, then it won't matter whether it's legal or not. Same with many other civil issues. The law shoudl be about fairness. Your morals are going to be based on whatever faith you follow, whether is something organized or not.
I've probably rambled on long enough about this. Maybe this gives a little glimpse into what makes my brain tick. Or perhaps I'm just insane. I'm even still optimisitic enough to think that maybe a few good people can set the right example and change the world for the better. Crazy, ain't I?
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