Subalterns vs. the "JR's"

Recently a blogger has posted several inappropriate and uneducated blogs.  Our english class has come to know him as “J.R.”  I’m not however going to send you to his website so that you  can view for yourself what an idiot this person is, because honestly, I feel that by doing so, is giving him power. . . and I hate it when idiots have power.  And as a responsible adult, I feel that I’m doing you a favor.  But how do you choose to be a responsible citizen in this world we all live in?  Is it our responsibility to humor these idiots, hoping that just maybe we might get through to them?  Or do we not acknowledge them at all, therefore not giving them the validity to continue their actions?  I’ve come to learn (very well) that you cannot rationalize with the irrational.  It’s impossible.  But we should all try to take responsibility and learn from the world we live in, but does this include lowering our standards by humoring the morons?

My english professor, Dr. Rob Burton, did his best attempting to educate ‘JR,’ but JR wouldn’t have it.  As an educator I’m sure he was compelled to at least try to see if there was a ‘light on’ in JR’s head.  I admire Dr. Burton for his attempt, especially because it was in defense of one of his students.  But one must ask oneself; if we continue to humor the JR’s of the world then we eventually lower our standards and we become no better than them.  I found it shocking and apalling that JR’s blogging homepage has had several visitors.  In trying to be responsible, do we try to understand or even rationalize with everyone?  Or just certain, specific, someones?  Burton states in his book Artists Of The Floating World, Contemporary Writers Between Cultures “. . to be a citizen of the floating world is to be attentive to the subaltern voices that circulate widely in a media-saturated world (p. 131).”  Understood that we have read novels from Kashuo Ishiguro, Bessie Head, Baharti Mukherjee and Salman Rushdie, all of which are or were educated-brillant writers who are not American.  And I also understand that he is not necessarily speaking of the JR’s of the world.  But my question is, if we are to act locally or globally is it our responsibility to include the JR’s? 

Is it our duty to at least try to educate or understand where the “J.R.’s” of the world are coming from?  Do we actually humor them?  Being a Media Arts major I’ve found analogies in the movie, The Contender, with Jeff Bridges and Joan Allen.  Bridges is the President of the United States and Allen is running for the vice presidency.  A sex scandal involving Allen has been dragged through the media, the court room and ultimately made her pull herself from the candidacy.  After long investigations concluded that it was clearly not her, Bridges ask why didn’t she tell them the truth?  She responded; that to answer any of their questions would have given them the validity to actually ask them.  Better put, by answering the lowly questions only lowers her to their level. Therefore how we acknowledge our surroundings actually creates our surroundings and it is always changing.  “How we position ourselves to see the world, to interact with it, is important . . . it cannot be fixed, static, enclosed, or singular; but always moving, doubling back, self-relexive (p. 131).”

I believe that we all are artist in a very big floating, unknowing, amazing world and I believe it is the resposiblity of the people who live here to acknowledge that basic fact.  His book “has tried to offer strategies for living with both roots and wings, with a simultaneous embrace of both the local and the global.  It has examined ways of being at home in the world and of bringing the world back home (p. 132).”  I do think that we as “Americans” need to recognize that we are all from somewhere, that’s the epitome of an American.  Baharti Mukherjee is a very interesting person in the basic fact that she feels in order to be “American” is to denounce her place of origin.  I feel that the beauty of being American  is that you can be Indian and live here. 

We are in a consistant state of being reborn.  Burton suggests that “the American dream is a narrative worth re-examining and re-writing (p. 134).”  I couldn’t agree more.  It is unfortunate that the JR’s of the world don’t.  I agree that “. . .it is only when we learn how to stand outside ourselves, literally seeing ourselves as a character in a novel, that we come to realize the extent to which our choices are compromised both by values consciously or unconsciously adopted by ourselves and by the communities to which we belong (p. 131).”   But wanting to do what’s right and do what’s best can be discerning.  Sometime they coincide, sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between the two.  If we are to act locally or globally in trying to educate and expand the wealth of knowledge one could actually go mad.

So with this thought process, is it our responsibility, as good Samaritans, to live with the understanding that there are an incredible amount of non-educated, self-serving, egotistical, narcissistic peoples on our planet, who still refer to decent people as gooks or niggers, and try to 'help' them?  Regardless if you give validity to the JR's, we should know that we are resposible for our actions as well as our words.  Burton teaches us “. . . to heed the lesson learned from “the Salman Rushdie affair.”   And I believe regardless if you’re a subaltern, a famous writer or an idiot who posts on the internet, we are all resposible for what we say and or do.  Because “. . .it is important to recognize the importance of words as carriers of cultural meaning (p. 132).”  It is just unfortunate that JR doesn't understand this importance because who wants to live in a culture where our words our spoken by morons?