When I was growing up, my parents were contemptuous of Jews who tried to pass--they were WASPy Jews-- and maybe inevitably when I went out on my own I began to explore that territory. I married into that tribe and I made a lot of WASP friends. My manner changed; my sister accused me of becoming taciturn.
I was best friends for a while with a guy who was especially true to type, tall austere and goodlooking. We used to go camping a lot and drink and smoke weed. One of the first times we went out, on a lake upstate, I was freaked by the outdoors and couldn't sleep from drinking and the loons were going on the lake. The next day I wrote a dithyramb in the notebook we found in a shelter, telling about vomiting and my freakout and saying the loons sounded like witches. My friend was angry about this. On our walk out he lectured me about the correct code for campbook statements.They were to be upbeat and convey information to others and not be self-indulgent. At that time my wife had a Buddha quote on the fridge saying, We are the sum of all our thoughts, and I said that to my friend and he said, That's true, but it doesn't mean you have to express them all.
A couple years later he and I went up Katahdin, reading Thoreau's ecstatic essay about his half-ascent-- "Contact! contact! who are we? where are we?"-- and slept in a cabin with a crowd of Thoreau enthusiasts. One of them snored like a fartpillow, and my friend couldn't sleep and he dragged his bag outside. In the morning he was in a wretched mood and took me aside. You have only two modes of interacting, he said. One is to grill people with a million questions, it makes them uncomfortable and it's weird. The other is just as weird, you try and be a hale fellow, well met, Like you say, "Have a good one," all the time. That's not you, you're not an ordinary person, you shouldn't try and pretend to be one. That's not sincere. You don't say, Have a good one.
I took my dressing-down like a soldier and when I told my wife about it I think she somewhat agreed with the critique. I was an uncomfortable person socially. Looking back on it, I'd say some of the discomfort stemmed from the social faultline I was walking. As my wife would be the first to admit, Jews had their place in the anti-semitic world she grew up in-- they were often the doctors and lawyers, but they didn't aspire to social equality. So she and I were trying to make our own world, to suit ourselves.
Years ago at the 92d Street Y, V.S. Naipaul spoke and they read out questions on filecards. One said, "Why did you turn your back on Trinidad?" "This is not a question, it's a form of abuse," he said angrily, then I believe he said something about needing a wider field for his imagination and ambition. And I was thrilled by that. I thought-- more power to him, against anyone who would hold him back, in Trinidad or in England or in India.
I think about his line often. My error in the campbook became a running joke with the other guys we went camping with. I went along with the joke for a while, until the joke struck me as a form of abuse, and I shut up about it.
i love this! i just love these kinds of posts. i don’t know where to begin.
geez phil, i just wonder what life might have been like for you had you grown up in mill valley instead where as teens we were running naked all over mt tam and eating mushroom and saying whatever we damn well pleased!
The next day I wrote a dithyramb in the notebook we found in a shelter, telling about vomiting and my freakout and saying the loons sounded like witches. My friend was angry about this. On our walk out he lectured me about the correct code for campbook statements.They were to be upbeat and convey information to others and not be self-indulgent.
too funny. friends are supposed to like you because of your quirks, not in spite of them! oh my.
thanks annie i also did a bunch of shrooms but i guess there is far more camping rigor on easte coaste
i spent lots of time backpacking thru the stanislaus and yosemite off trail w/my topo map on extended trips back in the day. the only rule we kept was leaving no trace you were ever there. even blacken rocks were dispersed and turned over so there was virtually no sign it was ever a camping spot. i don’t remember any books except sometimes when you made it to the very top of a mountain there was a notebook one could write ‘i made it!’
Thanks for the smiles, Phil. You have a way with words. It took me a while to realize you gotta live how you feel, and people who try to tell you how you’re “supposed” to do things are rarely worth your time. One man’s “weird” is another man’s best friend. Or even a prophet of sorts. Nearly everyone in his time definitely thought Thoreau was a bit half-cocked to say the least. (His aunt said, “Think of it! He stood half an hour today to hear the frogs croak, and he wouldn’t read the life of Chalmers!”) There’s a price to pay for being honest, but I think it’s worth it.
>> You have only two modes of interacting, he said. One is to grill people with a million questions, it makes them uncomfortable and it’s weird. The other is just as weird, you try and be a hale fellow, well met, Like you say, “Have a good one,” all the time. That’s not you, you’re not an ordinary person, you shouldn’t try and pretend to be one. That’s not sincere.
. . .
>> Looking back on it, I’d say some of the discomfort stemmed from the social faultline I was walking.
So, if I may ask: What, in your friend’s mind, was the “real you”, the “sincere” you?
And why would your friend – or you – find it somehow inappropriate or insincere to act differently (more “normal”, more guarded, more sociable) in public and among strangers than you would in private and among family or friends?
I think many (most?) people do that. It strikes me more as a social norm than a “social faultline” thing:
- try to fit in until you get a feel for your surroundings and the people you’re with; and
- open up / be yourself with the people with whom you find yourself having common interests and with whom you are (mutually) most comfortable.
Really like. It reminds me of what I have run into while trying to work for peace, especially on IP. Many are like, “so what, everything is messed up, stop trying”. I’ve gotten to the point where I can accept their passivity, but when it comes to abuse, and a critic of the fact that I care, I now draw the line.
If everyone cared 1/10th as much as we care, there would be world peace. End of story. And it does not take many to mess things up.
I am trying to start a facebook group, unaffiliated with any organization, where members can vote (on the page) to do 1 protest, 1 day, each month. It is meant to get Israelis involved, and increase numbers. Hopefully get the people who feel helpless and hopeless to understand numbers matter. And they can do something. I will be building it here… link to facebook.com
(and I am busy… looking for help and Hebrew speakers, and Israelis the most)
anonymouscomments,
You say that you are “trying to work for peace, especially on IP,” and you imply that you live in Israel. Are you a Jewish Israeli?
I would be very interested to know: On what principles, condtiions, and terms would you base peace between Israel and the Palestinians? Two states? One state with equal rights for all? What would the State of Palestine consist of, if you envisage one?
Please share your thoughts on this and be as specific as possible. Thanks.
“When I was growing up, my parents were contemptuous of any Jew who tried to pass-”
Wondering what “pass” meant to them then or what it would mean now?
Amazing that you took your friends criticisms so well. Willing to look at what he was suggesting.
Could not stay sane without hiking, camping, hot springing. Grew up in the woods outside of Yellow Springs Ohio, Glen Helen, John Bryan state park. No books to write in. Graduated to national parks etc in Colorado, Montana, Idaho, New Mexico, Canada. Can never get enough.
“needing a wider field for his imagination and ambition.” Curious, open mindedness can fuel acceptance, understanding and compassion.
The woods in southeastern Ohio are busting out at the seams right now. Bloodroot, spring beauties, hepatica, trillium, yellow trout lillies, bluets, rue anenome. When the garden of eden runneth over with beauty and harsh lessons who needs mushrooms (although I certainly have done my share especially BC (before children).
Pictures of bloodroot
link to google.com
PHILIP Roth. PHILIP Weiss. Coincidence? I think not!
They like horses.
Have really never understood or supported ethnic, national, or cultural pride in an of itself. Was not brought up with it and do not like it because generally I have seen it used to exclude, falsely elevate and divide people. While I think folks should have pride in their own accomplishments etc feeling pride just because you are Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, French etc is I believe often trouble.
The “passing” thing is interesting to me. What the hell does that mean?
Me too, Kathleen. I think in Hobbesian* terms of pride as self-praise. Black pride, gay pride, etc., seem as absurd to me as pride in having eight fingers and two thumbs. I have to keep telling myself that it isn’t so much self-praise as a refusal to accept a lower social rank.
(Hobbes the philosopher, not the tiger.)
Kathleen, it originally meant light-skinned African-Americans being taken for white – either because they just didn’t say anything and white people assumed they were white; or because they deliberately crossed the color line, temporarily or permanently, for the obvious advantages of being ‘white’ — and for an escape from the way some dark-skinned African-Americans treated them. You’re heard of the ‘tragic mulatto’, caught in between the races? (See the film ‘Pinky’ etc) There was a case in my former in-laws’ family: the grandmother, who was 93 when I met her, looked completely white and had treated her light-skinned children better than the one who was a little too dark to pass. However, when they grew up, her light-skinned children abandoned her and escaped into the white world permanently, while her darker son took care of her until her death. Very sad, but a predictable result of racism.
For years I had a friend in graduate school that I had assumed (never really thought about it) was of Italian or Spanish descent because of his surname. One night I was babysitting for a friend and watching The Diary of Anne Frank on TV, when this friend came in, got upset, and told me to turn it off. When I pressed him for the reason, it turned out he was Jewish (Sephardic) and he had spent much of WW II hiding in an attic in Holland himself — without his family, since they had fled to Scandinavia. He was only a little boy. No wonder he had learned to ‘pass’.
I imagine Netanyahu could ‘pass’ for a gentile very easily (and his looks probably make WASPs more comfortable around him), Lieberman not…. It isn’t just looks though; as we can glean from Phil’s story, someone trying to ‘pass’ must be very careful not to give himself away by showing cultural differences, not that Phil was trying to. When I was in college there was a lot of discrimination against Jews (an upper limit of about 18% for admissions, for example), and since clearly one cannot always tell Jews from looks or names, some WASPs were always on the lookout for telltale signs. I’ve always wondered how the admissions office managed it.
For a trivial example, I myself tried to pass as Irish for an Irish language class once – I am 1/4 Irish and look generally NW European, and my surname can be either Irish or English, so I was doing fine until halfway through the course when we were all told to list our favorite breakfast foods so we could learn the Irish equivalents. I listed (leftover) pie, having no idea that was a strictly WASP Yankee breakfast, and everyone stared at me – and the teacher remarked that I must be in the wrong class. Tricky, this passing business.
This is too long, sorry.
“Passing” seems often to be regarded as a bad thing. Can’t understand why.
“my sister accused me of becoming taciturn.”
Taciturnity is bad?
Hobbes the tiger, not the philosopher
Cultural differences are fascinating. Generally, they should be relished and respected for their own sake. But in America we as individuals should be ready to discard or ignore them if they do not suit our own tastes and preferences. Individual identity and character are what matter.
When did the fake-breezy “Have a good one” replace the slightly less objectionable “Have a nice day”?