Nihilism in the sun
Crowded beaches and the Alabama attitude gone viral
You may have seen this CNN story from my home state wherein Alabamians, mindful of the ongoing social distancing requirements set by the state, proclaim a hearty “Fuck it!” for some warm light beer on a crowded beach, even as COVID-19 cases in the state have spiked.
There is a lot to be uncomfortable with in this video [glares at old boy saying he won’t wear a mask if the president doesn’t, which I’m sure someone has tried to use for not wearing a condom, too]. But the piece that sticks with me like a barb is the young woman, a recent college graduate, asked about why she would risk infection by the coronavirus to chill on the beach. She responds with a you-gotta-go-someway attitude to the pandemic. That is thick, uncut, full-fat Alabama.
If you are an Alabamian, and you have spent a significant amount of time outside of Alabama and The South, you have been asked — oftentimes demanded — to explain the state, its problems, and its oddities. Of these questions, the one that captures a true phenomenon, despite being phrased shittily, is this: “Why don’t Alabamians want something better?”
Above the skin, the answer to that question is that Alabamians want something better for themselves just like anybody from New York, California, Illinois, or wherever. Scratch through to somewhere deeper, and the answer is less about cognizable thoughts or attitudes as much as a masses of complicated feelings and the placement of reference points for what “better” is. When all you have known is low expectations and bad outcomes, you defend what makes you feel good until you’re out of breath, even if it’s what takes your last breath. You can’t imagine a better that doesn’t involve some bad — or, You gotta go someway, and you might as well get a nice day-drunk and maybe a decent tan without too many lines.
Truthfully, anyone who has put that question to me hasn’t ever really gotten my answer, no matter how long or short or simple or complicated I make it. In parts of this country that are not The South, there is at least a watered-down tier of the Columbia grad school skepticism that anything from The South can be explained as something other than “These people are fucked and they’re making up a lot of this wild shit.” My experience is that even the most well-meaning of people fail to break that programming, just the same as Alabamians can fail to break theirs.
That sort of hardwiring is why the place we are in as a country irks me quite a bit. Well before the pandemic, my friend Kyle Whitmire started tracking what he calls the “Alabamaification” of America, the gist of which is that Trump’s ass-out/break-it-if-it-don’t-make-you-feel-the-best approach to governing has sparked the federalized version of the Alabama attitude of getting the worst and defending the bad because at least it’s better.
Attitudes are formed by circumstances, and circumstances are flavored by whatever you steep in them. America’s present circumstances are soaking up a lot of rotten — politically, economically, and emotionally. The path back to better is going to be a long slog, and I worry that the American attitudes that come out of the pandemic are the type that don’t much care to know what better is.
Gotta go someway, I guess.
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