Occupation of Independence

So far, I've posted about the question of whether working with the general public (as a campground host) can affect your political viewpoint. Can it also affect how you feel towards certain "demographic profiles?" Of course demographic profiling is non-PC. But if people will tell the truth, everybody has to do it when they are in a hurry. It is only unfair when more information comes in but you lazily cling to your original judgement. For instance today some yahoo was blasting away with a gun, at a target; he was only 200 yards away from the nearest campsite. I went over to investigate. My eyes scanned the row of parked cars. I zeroed in on the one most likely to belong to a Deplorable. I expected to see a "MAGA" bumper sticker on it. I have been affected by this experience, and in a rather nice way: I have come to appreciate women more. They aren't perfect: they ask too many dumb questions about bears. They expose too much skin in public, and almost as b

Recall I was wondering how the experience of working with the general public can change a person's political views. I have thought for years that democracy was an over-rated shibboleth. But the experience of working with the general public as a campground host has convinced me that democracy is completely impractical. One could generalize on this and make a big project out of re-reading and re-estimating the classic authors on political science. I haven't really done that. In part it is laziness. But it has always seemed that general thinkers float around in the clouds too much, and that they are actually lazy and inaccurate thinkers. They fall in love with their own pretty theories and think they have had the final word on the subject, and that the disciples of rival philosophers should be tortured and then put to death. A good Baconian (like me) would rather reduce the size of an issue to something small enough to be manageable. As an example of that consider how a ge

Being a campground host is not just about cleaning restrooms. There are some thought-provoking moments, as well. For instance the host gets a lot of practice in reading people quickly, and adapting his speech to the other person's needs or interests. I wish I had gotten good at this 40 years ago. Consider this quote from Boswell's classic "Life of Johnson:" JOHNSON. 'Well, Sir, Ramsay gave us a splendid dinner. I love Ramsay. You will not find a man in whose conversation there is more instruction, more information, and more elegance, than in Ramsay's.'  BOSWELL. 'What I admire in Ramsay, is his continuing to be so young.'  JOHNSON. 'Why, yes, Sir, it is to be admired. I value myself upon this, that there is nothing of the old man in my conversation. I am now sixty-eight, and I have no more of it than at twenty-eight.' This is certainly something to think about when the host is older than most of the campers. Some of my desire

Could the experience of being a campground host change a person's political orientation? Perhaps it is worth generalizing this to: will working with the general public change your political views? I am inclined to answer, Yes. I seem to be switching from libertarian to MRAG, that is, Mildly Repressive Authoritarian Regimes. This switch does not please me. But there is a big caveat: seeing tourists all day is like teaching second grade. The tourist is not really an adult. Implicit in the libertarian viewpoint is the idea that you are dealing with adults who are responsible for their actions. The child or adolescent gives little concern for the long term consequences of its actions. And it gives no concern for the effect on other people. Society as a whole has become progressively more adolescent over the last hundred years. The welfare state deserves its share of the credit for this. But even more, the culture of consumer debt has enabled a childish "Gimme it now&q