Re: Christmas greetings

Hi Scottie,

I'm one of the lurkers on the list. But this fracas over insult, an insult
obviously unintended, but also, obviously taken, has perked me up a bit.

I remember reading the original post in which the sentence now under the
microscope first appeared. My impression is that this line was stuck into
the middle of an otherwise on topic discussion. I wasn't aware of a
connection with anyone protesting their disinterest in or criticism of
Christmas. Did I miss something?

I was a bit confused coming across this remark, seemingly just thrown into
the middle of your discussion. But I do find humor in it, and I actually
like the idea of facing down our sterotypes and taboo words which seems to
be what you are up to. But some readers have misread you. Maybe because
there wasn't enough context to cue your intentions. Their feelings were
ruffled. Aren't you sorry to have been misread and to have caused
unintended hurt feelings? Is it standard proceedure among psychoanalysts to
make the patient wrong when there is a misunderstanding?

The arguement doesn't appear to be so much about the appropriateness or not
of the remark, but about whether an apology should be forthcoming. Isn't it
a point of normal civility to say I'm sorry when you unintentionally cause
some injury? If you are in a hurry and knock someone over, you can accuse
them of standing in the way, or, more graciously, accept the blame, saying,
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to run into you. I should be more careful. Why is
an apology so hard to say in this instance? Would it imply a craven backing
down, some kind of loss of face? Are psychoanalysts allowed to apologize in
a situation like this, or would that be an admission of professional
incompetence in a man who is supposed to be top dog in the human relations
sphere?

I'm repeating myself here. I like your colorful writing, your rough humor,
and will continue reading your posts whether you apologize or not.

Merry Christmas.....Harvey

>On Wed, 25 Dec 2002 08:38:38 -0000 "Scottie Bowman" <rbowman@indigo.ie>
wrote.
> I couldn't possibly ignore the kindness that informs
> all of Mike's post.
>
> The thing is: I'm genuinely, truly, bewildered by this whole
> brouhaha.
>
> My initial crack was - obviously - a tail tweeze for those
> sanctimonious idiots who cannot bring themselves to acknowledge
> that for the greater number of us in the Western world this is
> a Christian - or postChristian - occasion. The implication is
> that just as YOU are upset when I invoke MY personal myths -
> babies in mangers & stars & shepherds & lowing cattle -
> so shall I be upset when you invoke YOURS - a people girding
> themselves for the march out of bondage, & so on. Ludicrous.
> This is what Libby meant by the 'crybaby culture of hurt feelings':
> the squeamish dilution of all the traditional associations into bland
> 'Happy Holidays' - lest someone feel 'excluded'. As Basil Fawlty
> reminded us: 'Don't mention the war.' The practice has not YET
> reached Europe in any significant degree & is still regarded here as
> - sniff, sniff - 'typical American correctness.'
>
> What is my offence? To have used the word 'yid'? It was the
> customary, ironic usage between myself & Maxie Glatt (eventually
> Sir Max), the Jew who maintained his orthodoxy even in Dachau
> (prewar, admittedly) & who taught me all I know about the modern
> understanding of addiction.
>
> I'm really dumbfounded by this implicit accusation of anti-Semitism.
> Damn it to hell, I've spent all my professional life promulgating
> the insights of one of the greatest Jews of modern times; was
> personally selected by his daughter for training - 4 years in the very
> house where he died; & was accepted, I think, as an equal, as an
> honorary Jew, by the brilliant, hilarious, warm-hearted men
> & women who made up such a large battalion of that whole
> psychoanalytic movement.
>
> Or was it 'wog'? That would have come as a surprise to the late,
> gorgeous Roushan Jahan from Islamabad who - many years ago now -
> first introduced me to the Nancy Mitford joke: 'Wogs begin at Calais.'
> We need not go into the occasion - anyone could be listening - suffice
> it to say it was during quite a prolonged & very cherished period
> of my life. And, of course, there have been several wogs since then.
>
> I wonder. Actually. Could this be an intercontinental problem?
> From where we are sitting on this side of the world, racist tensions
> are really only in the forefront of peoples' minds in those towns
> where immigrant numbers have expanded too suddenly.
> I'm not being funny when I say that here in Ireland far & away
> the most virulent prejudice is againt America & Americans.
> There is a deep resentment - cultivated & fertilised by the very
> 'liberals', the bien-pensants, the teachers, the broadcasters,
> the journalists who, in some other environment one might at least
> hope to take a more measured, enlightened view. I spend a great
> deal of time & argumentative effort trying to counter it.
>
> For me, the GIs came as allies. You never get over that. A huge
> part of my enjoyment in life I derived from Americans. The
> identification & empathy goes too deep. You can imagine, then,
> how galling it is to be accused of callousness, coarseness, vulgarity,
> bad taste (oh my God) by the very people one has been trying
> so valiantly to defend.
>
> But no, I don't take back one single word. If my words offend,
> as Sonny points out, tough. It's a hard old world & I'm a hard
> old man (as my patients will confirm.) Out here in the front room
> with the grownups we like a bit of rough & are not forever on the
> lookout to take offence. Only the professional victims, the self-
> proclaimed & self-obsessed sensitives, the creeps, above all of course
> 'the educated', could possibly mistake me for something I'm not.
>
> PS - And, incidentally, what the hell do you mean, Mike,
> 'kick first?' (I surely don't warrant an actual death wish?)
>
> Scottie B.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>-
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Received on Thu Dec 26 07:06:52 2002