where the hell did I come from?

When I tell people that I grew up in Orem, I often joke that it feels like a confession. I just watched This Divided State, the documentary about the UVSC Michael Moore/ Sean Hannity controversy I'm thinking that I should stop telling people I grew up in Orem altogether. I followed some of the controversy, but I didn't fully realize how vitriolic the discourse became. Watching it all was so embarrassing to me. Nearly everyone portrayed in the film is pathetic in their vigorous anger towards the other side. The only key figure in the film who came across without any cause for reproach was the student govt. VP at UVSC (which is funny because I worked with his mom for a while at UVSC and I had very little respect for her). I would have to say, though, that the filmmaker made far more effort to make the conservatives look like asses than he did the liberals (many of whom, including Moore, were just as assinine as Hannity or any of the grumpy neocons).

I imagine that many liberals (from inside and outside the state) will watch this movie and stare open-jawed at the wacky conservatives--as represented by Kay Anderson, an Orem reactionary who cast everything in terms of good vs. evil. No doubt Anderson and his ilk in the film appear idiotic and at times dangerous as they conflate religious belief with political ideology. And I am often critical of Utah Valley and its excessively conservative bent. There's a reason I left the place and a reason that I don't go back except for family obligations. But to cast the entire county as backwards and narrow-minded is absurd. That's perhaps what made me angriest as I watched the film--watching Anderson assert his position as representative of "the community." I imagine that people watching the film who don't know Utah Valley or readily accept its reputation will believe that Anderson does in fact represent the voice of the community. But I grew up in that community; in fact, I lived all of my formative years there--from 4-24 (except for a brief stint as a Mormon missionary in London). I got my bachelor's degree at BYU. I have been immersed in that conservative haven for most of my life and I'm liberal, a registered Democratic, and no longer Mormon. I came from somewhere, so certainly in that conservative town there is room for dissent and independence. And certainly there is (or should be) room for us to discuss our differences.

The movie illustrated so well our dismissal of civil discourse. How embarrassing that both the Hannity and Moore crowds shouted down anyone who dared to speak from the other side (and how embarrassing that both Hannity and Moore encouraged this behavior). Who have we become (in Orem or in the nation) that we are so unwilling to talk to each other, to listen to the opposite view without feeling threatened? How pathetic our own beliefs and opinions must be if we believe that one person speaking can negate them.

ok--just me ranting.