Ken: No way you losde me as a friend over a principled position. I disagre with a lot opf people (you mat have noticed) over a lot of things without losing respect for them.
I think my deepest question about your position is prtecisely the insistence on conmsistency. It seems to me, or at least it's been my experience, that one constantly makes compromises about everything but one's craft. Hopefully underlying those compromises is a more profound set of principles, or at least a set of boundaries.
I'm on someone else's computer (and will be completely unplugged tomorrow afternoon thru Sunday late), so can't get into anything that takes much online time. I would like to get into suicide and its various motives. Briefly, I think you're right that suicide is often directed at other people, tho obviously something has to be pretty terribly wrong for one not to notice that it's a weapon that's destroyed in the using.
Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Wolman <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Mar 25, 2005 8:51 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: A Rose for Emily & the Schindler Family
Mark Weiss wrote:
>Much I disagree with in your post, Ken, but I'll limit myself to what seems to me a very faulty piece of reasoning.
>
>"I know a
>woman who has counseled women who have had abortions, and she assured me
>there are intense and long-term consequences attached. Consequences are
>the real world."
>
>Forget for a moment that there are long-term consequences attached to the unwanted birth of a child as well, and I've certainly counselled a lot of families in which that's happened. But do remember that your friend's sample was women who sought counselling and not the large number who don't find it necessary.
>
>Mark
>
>
Okay, you are right on the last point--the women who came to my friend
did so because they were deeply troubled. Conscience may not make
cowards of us all, but it can sure lay there like a stomach filled with
ground glass. I don't know how many families or single woman take on a
child they cannot handle, then grow to resent it, abuse it, abandon it,
treat it like that proverbial dog or cat left to fend for itself. As
for disagreeing with me, nothing personal, but did I expect otherwise?
I would be shocked if I found much company in any of the circles in
which I travel. I presented my particular metamorphosis to the Rector
of an Episcopal church I attend. I told him it had fallen on me like an
anvil. I didn't seek it and don't want it, and I don't know what the
hell to do with it. He replied "Welcome, Ken, to the loneliest place in
the world, the world of Pro-Life Democrats and progressives. You will
lose friends, people will question your motives, you will be shunned."
He is in the same camp, a fact I did not know before I revealed myself.
People he knew for years, in and out of the Episcopal clergy, treat him
now like he's Judas Iscariot, a gay-basher, someone who counsels
shooting guys like Dr. Slepian, someone who would "pull the switch
myself," and someone who goes rah-rah over the monstrosity of Iraq.
THAT to me is consistency. Holding all those positions is entirely
logical in a culture whose real patroness is Kali, the goddess of
blood. James Dobsonism is what is expected of me by both progressive
and regressive forces in this sick culture, that I am with ya or agin
ya. I have broken ranks on one issue because I had to. It would have
been much easier to go through the pretense. No thank you, I did that
long enough.
Ken
--
Kenneth Wolman
Proposal Development Department
Room SW334
Sarnoff Corporation
609-734-2538
|