This article in today's Los Angeles Times, which made the left side front page, is a fascinating cultural piece.
Lisa Borders' rise into power/celebrity status came at a price: her son has surely led a messed up life. I often say my own life failures in terms of achieving economic and power status stem partly, and I emphasize partly, from my devotion to our children. When I held my son in my arms the night he was born over 25 years ago, I felt a tremendous weight of responsibility surge throughout my body. I knew I had to be there for this child, and that was that. And when our daughter was born, the weight of responsibility fell even more deeply upon me. Whenever I had to move for jobs, my wife and I chose areas to live where there was a strong public school. Had I been more of a self-focused striver, either to pursue or gain a PhD, or pursue writing or even music (the latter way back in the day), we could have moved to a cheap, high-crime area, saved bucks, and pursued my dreams, letting the children "fend for themselves" (my wife could have done the same as an artist, and who knows, divorced me for having a defective electrical heart system, and not being as successful as she thought to pursue her art. Heck, why not? We have dreams to pursue, and our loved ones are always getting in the way...As I often joke, I live the alternative reality Jack Campbell from "Family Man." However, when our children tell us they love and respect us, or when they themselves do well in school, as they are still in either graduate school or a university, I feel a deep sense of pride and joy. When they need our help, which continues, we are there for them, with our souls and whatever we can afford or borrow to help them. Another reason for my relative failure in terms of economic/power status, this one largely outside of my control, was, by the time my son was born, I was more than five years post-first heart surgery, and I needed to stay in my job, working for others, to ensure I could have health care benefits. We did not take the type of risks necessary for economic and power based success. On the other hand, I must also admit something else about myself that is most important reason for my relative failure, internal to me personally: I never had what John Lennon's "Working Class Hero" song says one needs to be like the "folks on the hill," which of course is something I think Lisa Borders has, though I'm just guessing.
The other cultural aspect of this article worth noting is the whole yoga instructor/crystals healer subplot. This part of the story is so "Los Angeles lifestyles of the rich and famous." Those who hawk yoga instruction and crystals healing are often hangers-on to manic, wealthy, elite people, and though the hawkers themselves are often not wealthy, they somehow insinuate themselves into the lifestyles of the rich and famous. And those professions contain their own sexually exploitive behaviors--when not social climbing.
When reading this story, we may eventually learn this was a date gone bad, as the two persons involved were friends for over a year before the incident that is described in the article. Still, the text messages tell us something occurred which was likely not consensual. On the other hand, at some point, though, as a guy who came of age in the totally schizoid, from a gender relations perspective, Dazed and Confused mid to late 1970s era, can't the ladies just tell us guys to back off in the moment, instead of writing a text right after, saying everything about the evening was great, but three days later, saying it was assault? Oh well, at least Lisa Borders will end up in some other perch in the lifestyles of the rich and famous, and, if high profile enough, go on Oprah's show to tell us how she had to overcome personal obstacles, get the audience to go "Awwwww" and applaud her, and all will be well for Lisa Borders. But, at least Ms. Borders recognizes being a parent means making certain sacrifices for your children, even adult children who long ago had needed you.
One more thing: The MeToo movement is still in its accusations stage, which I believe is probably culturally correct. The stoning process therefore remains in full swing, and that is why Lisa Borders had to step down. She can't be throwing stones at others while simultaneously protecting her son from the stone-throwers she is leading. As a culture, we are miles away from forgiveness. One never can predict how much more stoning will go on, but we will know we have entered a forgiveness mode when we begin, as a culture, to focus more on how the sexes communicate better with each other when it comes to romance and sex, and how we men become better trained, from the start, to be cognizant of others' feelings. The days of "Grok-want" are now properly, and perhaps finally, seen as assaultive behavior in every context, as opposed to us merely shrugging our shoulders and saying "Boys will be boys...," while questioning the woman as if we were a Dark Ages cleric and she a witch. It is not to say this no longer happens. It does. But there is also the Jussie Smollett story swirling around, where a victim may have made up a hate-crime assault for publicity and more money from his Hollywood producers--though with respect to women, the statistical analyses show made-up stories are rare (my sense tells me, as the stoning continues, we may find a slight rise in false reports, though maybe Jussie Smollett's story is an antidote to such a theoretical belief). While I think the regular white collar workplaces already largely transitioned, there remains much sexual abuse of minimum wage female workers in retail, if one reads the lawsuits and studies that have been conducted. What we are seeing more in the capitalist/corporate media, however, and at long last, are the power and money citadels being crashed, i.e. DC world, Media world, and Financial world. These have been worlds where people climb over and around each other, and where the psychopaths are often more in evidence than those who may have true talent or ability. And, sorry, the psychopath label goes for the women as well as the men, though the patriarchal structures make it more often the men who hold the power and abuse the authority (and yes, in the "psychopath" link, I noted, too, lawyers are one of the professions where psychopaths tend to gravitate; I've come across more than af few lawyer-psychopaths over the years).
Oh well. As Kurt Vonnegut liked to say, So it goes.
