Lee Russel: Trailer of itinerant electrician near Pharr, Texas (1939)
Farm Security Administration Photographs

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. "Trailer of itinerant electrician near Pharr, Texas" New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed September 24, 2025. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/8e15f900-c4fb-0136-ce6e-438981b45b1b

"…it might take such work to set the circuits straight again."

I realize that I have been ReWired. Whether I believe the bullshit or not, and perhaps especially because I don’t believe it, either conclusion could serve as evidence that a successful rewiring has occurred. I wish, and even pray, in my curiously agnostic way, that this situation were otherwise, that my defenses had not been compromised, but I have lately realized that there was no avoiding this experience. Yes, I refused to watch Fox from its inception, except for a few otherwise inaccessible baseball games they alone televised, because I firmly believed that exposure to that poisonous content might rewire my judgment. I had not suspected that just deciding to tiptoe around it was also evidence of its backhanded success. Its premise might have scared me off, but it also motivated me to build a fence around my property to maintain an isolated Dignity, when Dignity rightfully knows no such boundaries.

The insidious nature of shriveling morals affects even the morally steadfast. Suddenly surrounded by curious noises, even those who refuse to listen become accustomed to a certain background hum. The quality of experience degrades for everyone. Those who buy into the degradation might experience an uplifting exhilaration inaccessible to those more capable of maintaining their moral standards, but defending sanity and righteousness tends to become an unrewarding occupation. The diligence demanded draws attention away from simple appreciations. It’s a burden, an additional overhead cost extracted without permission. It inflates the cost of even minding my own damned business. I must maintain a certain vigilance, for the indecent always seem to be working to entrap me somehow. They attempt to insinuate their way into my everyday existence. They are, if nothing else, persistent.

Evangelism seems boring. It always involves someone presuming they know better than another before attempting to impose their perspective as an imperative. It’s oleaginous in extremis. It targets customers it characterizes as wrong before attempting to convince them they’ve been wrong, with the expressed purpose of saving them. Its customer is never once right. Who elected them another’s personal savior? Who bestowed upon them superior wisdom? I can see their curiously inflated self-esteem, but I fail for the life of me to see what comparative advantage that confers upon the true believer. It seems a form of self-degradation where one becomes a predator to redeem their victims. These people become experts at ego disqualification and bullying because people despise being told what to believe. Only the severely depleted ever agree to join so they can learn how to disqualify others more successfully.

I admit that I have become wary of my fellows. I have not felt free to explicitly express my beliefs for fear that some thin-skinned opponent might decide that I needed a pot shot taken at me for my heretical beliefs. And Decency first demands of everybody a certain level of trust. Those who fear their neighbor too easily justify indecencies. If I honestly believe rapists and murderers are overrunning our borders, I easily justify officials violating due process. Though these are “just” beliefs unsupported by facts, they achieve some of their indecent purpose by disabling my ability to engage with unabashed Decency. If I hide my light under their bushel basket for fear they’ll find me out, I’ve been successfully ReWired.

Once I acknowledge this backhanded success, I must accept an unsettling challenge. If I intend to rededicate myself to Decency, I will need to shed some of my dread. I will need to remember how to stand tall on my own two hind legs without assuming a defensive stance. This was never intended to be a competition between good and evil, but rather a place that welcomed differing perspectives. If I can’t or won’t display my deep down differences, how will I ever manage to manifest the Decency I insist I intend? For instance, I am Antifa because it represents Decency. I understand that Antifa isn’t anything like an organization with formal memberships, that it’s a political philosophy. Our incumbent studiously ignores this fact and has declared war on this philosophy that everyone in my parents’ generation followed without question. They knew their fascists in those days, better, it seems, than we know our fascists today. Something inside me aches to be taken away to be jailed for committing some Decency in public. It would take an absolute obscenity to pull this off. I agree that this would be a high price to pay to more clearly distinguish what Decency looks like today, but we’ve been successfully ReWired, and it might take such work to set the circuits straight again.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Decency, #PureSchmaltz