...yesterday was such a blissful relief after a decidedly tough week, despite high humidity at the market and low sales, was that I didn't hear anyone--not a blessed soul--mention politics. I am so very sick of hearing people go on and on about the evils of Sarah Palin and the messianic qualities of Obama. It's like a choking miasma that permeates all of Washington these days. And (having had an unpleasant confrontation with a member of the John Birch Society some ten years ago) I have now realized that the "far right" has no monopoly on crazy conspiracy theories--the lunatic fringe on the left (which category encompasses so many of the intellectuals in this town) is equally convinced that a Republican victory in November will lead to the end of civilization as we know it, from the shuttering of the Library of Congress to the mandatory teaching of Creationism in schools.
Both as a Christian and an anti-conspiracy-theorist, I had a particularly uncomfortable week. First of all, Monday or Tuesday, Silverman went stomping around the department loudly declaiming, "I don't believe it! I just don't believe it!" Coming around behind my desk, he continued this vocal agnosticism. I deliberately ignored him. Having failed to goad indirectly me into responding to him, he addressed me personally, telling me that he didn't believe that the smallest Palin child was the Republican VP nominee's own. I said (as there was nothing else to say) that I believed he was. Then, Silverman launched into commentary on my unwillingness to investigate and know "the truth." (Oh no, I don't suppose it was because I had actual WORK to do at the front desk!) I said, shortly, "Look, Prof. Silverman, I don't feel like discussing politics with you right now." Whereupon he stomped off muttering audibly about me, my stubbornness, close-mindedness, etc. And, of course, he mentioned this exchange to me, several times, in a passive-aggressive mode, in further conversations during the week.
Good grief, what is the woman supposed to have done? Craigs-Listed a request for a disabled child? Stolen him? And at a time when she was already governor of Alaska, with no notion that she'd ever be in the running for Vice President. Good grief. And how, even if this were true, would the cause of revealing this peculiar subterfuge to the public be served by my discussing it during working hours at the department?
Then, Thursday, the department hosted our "welcome-back" party. The graduate essay competition prize-winner was announced. The winning paper was on American evangelicals' gradual turn against Naziism in the 1930s, from initially approving the "law and order" stance of Hitler to quickly associating him with the Anti-Christ and his murder of Jews, and Christian dissidents, with the terrors of the Apocalypse. The author of this paper was particularly praised for his respectful treatment of his sources in light of the fact that most scholars would consider them (Book of Revelation situations associated with Nazi atrocities) to be "bizarre." All the assembly tittered. ("Those Christian fundamentalists, how can they believe this stuff!")
Friday, I was at the Library of Congress, meeting with a couple of librarians there about my dissertation research topic and the feasibility thereof. One of the men with whom I chatted was a Russianist, the head of the newly-relocated European Reading Room (yes, they did downsize and move it after all), who invited me to tea, an end-of-week tradition for ERR denizens. A Russian sweet was being provided by a couple of other Georgetown Russianists who'd just gotten back from Moscow.
The first half-hour or so of the tea (in a conference room amidst a double-decker construction of office cubicles) was thoroughly pleasant. All but one of the scholars who'd gathered were Russian specialists, and so conversations went on half in English and half in Russian. I talked about my book-translation with an independent scholar who, it turned out, was reviewing a new British-published book that incorporated at least part of the material I'd hoped to approach for my dissertation. Unfortunate to hear that someone had at least partly "done" the subject, but useful to my investigation.
Then, somehow, the talk at the table turned to politics. One of the more outlandish pronunciations was about Palin's purported enforcement of Creationism in science classes. Instead of being silent as usual, I countered with the information that I'd looked on CNN and found this wasn't true--she only endorsed the co-teaching of alternatives to evolution. Shock across the table. "It's the same thing!" ejaculated the independent scholar, with the two other graduate students chiming in. "Well, I don't think including it is a problem; evolution has its problems, too," I responded mildly. You would have thought I'd stated that the pope was Satan's mouthpiece at a meeting of the College of Cardinals. An almost hysterical religious fervor was present in the voice and manner of the independent scholar as he dismissed my words, my person, and my intellectual capability in a sneering gesture, "Well, I can see there's no use discussing this with you!"
I changed the subject, but the damage was done--I was obviously an idiot who'd been allowed into the gathering by mistake, no further coherent conversation was possible with me.
Gosh, I was so hurt. As all people do, I hate being thought an idiot. It hurts even more when I know I was one of the few, if not the only one in the whole room, who actually has had scientific training. True, it was but a few classes, but if the Biohazards program taught me anything, it is how comparatively little science truly does know about biological processes that it CAN observe. And so to theorize about the processes that are not observed is an exercise in untestable hypothesis. What galled me even further was that I was surrounded by historians, people who themselves cannot agree on what happened at moments thirty years ago, much less "millions and billions" of years ago. Real history research is painstaking and the best of its results is entitled "A History," with the understanding that some major piece of evidence may come to light that will nuance, or even--in some rare cases--entirely rearrange our understanding of the recounted events.
The brightest people are those who, with their knowledge, get understanding--fundamental to that understanding is the appreciation of the vastness of one's ignorance, and the ignorance of humanity in general. To me, it is the height of presumption to insist on a scientific dogma that is--unlike the "Law" of gravity--neither observable, reproducible, nor in fact directly relevant to daily life. Or, I should say, its only relevance seems to have been to devalue the humanity of those who are weak and imperfect, and to give an inflated sense of self-importance to people who believe their own intellectual gifts make them better than their fellows.
I prayed a good deal Friday afternoon. It is so often not comfortable doing the godly thing. Those New Testament verses about how God has used the weak and the foolish to shame the worldly-wise came to mind. I am so tempted so frequently to take the easy way out, not to bring down on myself ridicule from my peers. I hope that God will give me grace to know when to speak up, grace to bear up when my faith, and the logic that issues therefrom, is maligned. That I would be meek, but not weak. And, in so doing, that I--as a Christian feminist--wouldn't let condescending atheist men walk over me just because I'm a "religious" girl! I may not be capable of snappy conversational rejoinders, but my brain works just fine, thank you, and acknowledging the possibility of the supernatural, particularly a deeply logical, if un-fully-knowable, Supernatural is in no way antithetical to superior scholarship.
