Pine Nuts: Charting the path of irreverence, reverence and respect
Submitted by Jeff Munson on Tue, 07/23/2024 - 11:30am
We are a culture with a gun problem exacerbated by a rage problem, resulting in an era of political violence. So here we are, in this hot summer of ‘24, recognizing that we are the canaries in the coal mine. It’s hotter than the hinges on The Gates of Hades, and The Gates of Hades are hotter than usual with the heavy flow of traffic passing through them these days.
The question festers, how do we restore a modicum of respect for the next fellow’s beliefs? Well, first, a little history.
As Mark Twain told us back in 1897 in his excellent book, Following the Equator:
“The ordinary reverence, the reverence defined and explained by the dictionary, costs nothing. Reverence for one’s own sacred things — parents, religion, flag, laws, and respect for one’s own beliefs — these are feelings which we cannot even help.
"They come natural to us; they are involuntary, like breathing. There is no personal merit in breathing. But the reverence which is difficult, and which has personal merit in it, is the respect which you pay, without compulsion, to the political and religious attitude of a man whose beliefs are not yours.
"You can’t revere his gods or his politics, and no one expects you to do that, but you could respect his belief in them if you tried hard enough. But it is very, very difficult; it is next to impossible, and so we hardly ever try. If the man doesn’t believe as we do, we say he is a crank, and that settles it.
"I mean it does nowadays, because now we can’t burn him.”
Thank you, Samuel, for reminding us that our irreverence is not new. What is new, is that while hate continues to diminish all haters, both major political parties are suffering from primordial instincts of rage. Both continue to call each other hard names, names derived from primeval emotions that eclipse reason.
Even our revered Supreme Court is no longer above reproach, as we come to realize that although our justices are very smart people, they have no better grasp of what’s right and what’s wrong than that fella selling ice cream from his stand on the corner.
The way I see it, a president who knows right from wrong will not have any need for immunity, so to avoid the immunity issue, we need to elect a president who knows right from wrong.
Being an Ancient Father of Unborn Historical Incidents, I do hope I live to see the day that Beethoven wrote about with his Ode to Joy, when our world is ruled by women, and all men have become brothers.
My good VA doctor tells me I will not live to see that day unless I quit smoking cheap cigars, drinking cheap whiskey, and staying up half the night swapping stories with wonderful characters. Life’s a crapshoot, so I will rub my lucky horseshoe, and take note with keen interest.
— For more than 35 years, in more than 4,000 performances, columnist and Chautauquan McAvoy Layne has been dedicated to preserving the wit and wisdom of “The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope,” Mark Twain. As Layne puts it: “It’s like being a Monday through Friday preacher, whose sermon, though not reverently pious, is fervently American."
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