More on the 'grand web' thread

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In the context of this 'grand web' thread, thanks to Dean [see Tuesday's post below], I am reminded of a fine book by Jedediah Purdy called "For Common Things: Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today." (2000, Vintage Books)

With the elegance of an E. B. White or Bill McKibben, Purdy considers a growing trait in the American character and lifestyle. Indeed, it has become a notable American value if not a civic virtue. The trait is our newly widespread affectation of being disaffected, putting on airs of what we might call ironic detachment. Though less demonstrative and blusterous, Purdy's little book is in some ways a rejoinder to Alvin Toffler's splashy 1970 bestseller, "Future Shock."

Things are changing so fast we're not sure what will stay the same or be dependable or "permanent." Andy Warhol's saying that each of us would get our "fifteen minutes of fame" seemed to foretell our ADD-addled culture, thinking we want (and even expect) immediate gratification but, at the same time, feeling some vague emptiness for regal and comforting traditions and commitments. We are hired and fired and traded and move and buy and sell and watch and drive and dream and delude ourselves at disconcerting rates. We feign an outer toughness, an ironic cynicism or flippancy to cover the hollowness that seems to haunt us - so much so that we're not only remote control happy, we're trigger happy and road rage happy, too. Ah, what new permutations of "happiness" Americans invent!

Of course, this ironic detachment affects the web of our connections, the threads that might bind us, and as Purdy suggests, undermines our trust and our sense of civic and civil commitment. No, we want to be free like kids in a candy store. We seem, as a culture, in general mind you, to equate freedom with the right to be selfish or rich or ruthlessly competitive. We watch murder stories for hours on television, but we seem to secretly admire white collar crime. We think it comes with the territory - that that same sort of cunning and conniving is what got those people to the top in the first place, thank you very much Michael Milken and most recently, Martha Stewart. Not found guilty as much as found dumb. Plead ignorance. Plead ironic detachment.

And so the web of our sentiments is frayed. The web of our soulful, heartfelt connections is akilter, shuffled around, gated and domesticated as we are.

Probably, no one at our funerals will talk about the hours we spent as spectators or slaves (no matter what our wage), virtually detached - shopping, remodeling, fertilizing, TV watching, slaving away at jobs for corporate aspirations - unless these make good stories, at least bittersweet if not funny. Don't we want to conjure and foster the plot, the character, the charm of our lives while we still have a chance?

To replace the plot of life with a vita, to replace the threads with a bunch of duties and tasks and errands and STUFF, to disassociate (to in effect desocialize) ourselves or to allow ourselves to become less social, to ignore sentiment, to put things and work before the content of our character, to put a résumé before stories and anecdotes, to weaken the web, to diss it or dismiss it, is to show an active dislike for others around us, whether strangers or our own parents. When the going gets rough, we want our stories and our sentiments to back us up, to be there for us, to remind us of the worth of living and struggling and prevailing.