Dear readers,
Today we're going to examine a cultural phenomenon and assess its compatibility with the Catholic faith. (Since I'm an MA theology student, this interests me greatly.)
First, for those who are unfamiliar with the term, Minnesota Nice is the term used to describe Minnesotan (and other Midwestern) behavior of peace ability and acceptance toward others. It is characterized by not being aggressive and being cordial. On the external, this phenomenon seems wonderful, people that don't fight or get aggressive with each other, some may ask, "Why Adam why would you ever question this phenomenon?"
To analyze this phenomenon, let us examine a common greeting between persons in the area, "Hi, how are you today?" Now, keep in mind these always come together, even without our realizing it. The standard response for this question is something between fine, and pretty good. Even a person who isn't fine, or a person who is really excited about something, or just life in general, will still say something between fine and pretty good for the most part. This analysis presents us with a problem on the surface level already. In this regard, we are all sort of lying. Now of course, true vulnerability is not something we can have with everybody. But, in asking the question, "how are you today?" One is implying with language that a person really wants to know. If saying, "how are you today" is part of a cultural phenomenon where being courteous is expected, then "how are you today" becomes a statement which is much more difficult to get a real response, and also to give a real response. This is a problem because then we don't see real people, people still appear to us only as objects, where we might know they are people, but we don't see the character of the person, or their real being (Marion, The Erotic Phenomenon). The inauthenticity presented in this simple exchange of greeting seems good on the outside, but on the inside, one tends to know the "how are you today" is not something for which most people want a real answer. As this is a cultural phenomenon, I don't have a great beginning solution to this problem, however, there is still the possibility of acknowledging the presence of the other person, and not being intimidating by saying a forced "how are you". If one says hello to someone and walks away, that's still recognizing the presence of the other person. Now, if one does say "how are you" to someone, another good idea is especially if you're walking somewhere, stop! This is a gesture which shows that you're really interested in how someone is doing. If you're in a hurry or not interested, then it might not be a good idea to do this, because then you are positing an inauthentic self (Kirkegaard).
This idea of controlling feelings is also problematic when people get into friendships with each other. If the idea of "how are you today" is any indication of how people handle feelings with each other, then deeper friendships become a problem. People will say things which are not true and give words which express some form of sentiment, even if one doesn't exist at all. Minnesota Nice mentality will encourage people to tell others that they are friends, even if the actions in the friendship show otherwise. For example, say two people are hanging out, and one of them has this annoying habit of making a vuvuzella sound (for more on this see my future post on the World Cup). The other person might give a laugh (which if one examines the person's face the signs of awkwardness would probably be apparent, e.g. eyes kind of close and crinkle toward the self, looking away from the person, etc.) but on the inside the person might be feeling that this is really annoying. Now let a couple months pass in a friendship, and this annoyance builds up into other things. Minnesota Nice then becomes Minnesota passive-aggressive because this anger and annoyance at a small feeling, since the culture encourages ignoring those feelings, then those feelings are ignored and they go poof, and often friendships are lost because there was a) a lack of sensitivity on the part of the vuvuzella person and b) the person listening did not say what she was feeling.
This becomes incompatible with Catholicism because people are encouraged to lie, lying becomes an acceptable part of the culture, which people will justify in the name of tolerance. However, ironically, this behavior becomes intolerant because in the long run anger seethes and boils over and goes kaboom! Also, Jesus got mad (see any passage about the Cleansing of the Temple, except for John, that account is a little weird, until the author's intent is clear), Jesus cried (Jn), Jesus had real feelings, and he found appropriate ways to express them. The challenge for people in dealing with Minnesota Nice is that we have to find appropriate ways to express our feelings.
The first step to fixing the problem, is becoming more real yourself. This requires vulnerability (which by the way, is key to Levinas' ethical friendship and the exchange of persons mentioned in a lot of 20th century philosophy.) However, in being vulnerable it also allows people to be vulnerable. Real being is contagious. Some will be turned off by this, but those who you really want in your life can handle real vulnerability and real being.
Second, we have to deal with real problems as a community and not think that we can't do anything and must rely on professionals. Sure, counselors, psychologists, therapists, are all wonderful people, which I highly recommend to people. But, this does not excuse our own lack of witness and care for those who suffer, and also trusting our friends to hold us up. As Americans, many of us tend to buy too much in the idea of the need to be independent, which when one looks at real being is never the case (because there are always influences, and you always need people and community.) So, part of being real, is dealing with real problems. Until we deal with real problems as they are (and not for our own agendas) then we will get lost in a lack of real being. This is a great disaster because people need reality, need conversation, and need real being to experience the timeless moment where time flies by and no one knows because real engagement gives us a foretaste of the life to come.
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As an alternative thought, is it possible to treat "how are you doing?" not as a serious question but rather as a greeting - the equivalent to "hello." While I feel your analysis is true, i feel if the same question was posed in slightly different manner perhaps "are you feeling well" or "how has your day been" that these phrases would serve as verbal clues that the speaker in fact wants to engage in a conversation and is not simply being polite. That being said the idea of a phrase morphing within a culture from a specific, literal meaning to a formulaic greeting is somewhat intriguing. Any thoughts
ReplyDeleteHmm... It's what how are you has become no doubt, a greeting, but my question is "is this what it should be?" I do like your alternatives though, and as linguistics will tell you words morph meaning over time (the specific science which studies this is morphology, though I haven't really found any studies which discuss the how are you phenomenon in morphology, especially any in connection with Minnesota Nice.)
ReplyDeleteAnother question I have for discussion in all this is whether it's really polite to ask someone how they are doing if you really don't want to know. Keep in mind, most people won't really notice when someone doesn't really care how she is doing, but there are some that will, and for that we must be aware of sensitivities. All we can do on this account really is do our best to show our real intention with our words and our actions (which is non-verbal language.)