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Contemplating Our Differences
On rare occasions — probably not often enough — I think of how natural it is for children to be brought up in their parents’ culture. Eskimos don’t question being Eskimos. Republicans don’t question being Republicans. Decades can pass with everyone getting along and complying with the family dynamic — the way things have always been done.
It may not be until many years down the line that a family member is exposed to people or situations that are new, which make him ask some questions. Those questions may be very traumatic. They can be like laying an axe to the very roots of his family’s traditions and values.
The experience can be equally traumatic for his parents. When I embraced the Hippie counterculture in the 1960s, my father — a self-made business success and World War II veteran of the Army Air Corps — was devastated. He could not understand that I still loved and respected HIM. He automatically believed that my refusal to go to Nam meant that I did not respect HIS war service — in a conflict which had been totally different! He thought that my abhorrence of Richard Nixon and Watergate was tantamount to Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of Jesus Christ.
Really! No exaggeration.
It reminds me of today’s Christians who say that Trump was sent here by God. It’s the same infection — and it can be caught by even the…
