Yesterday, during the swearing in of White House senior staff, Joe Biden made a joke.
Apparently, President Obama wasn’t too happy about this comment.
Recently I had a conversation with a few friends about a period in my young life when I used to relentlessly insult some idiosyncratic aspect of another friend’s existence to the point of shame and, regretfully, tears. A brief dialogue from a particularly brutal insult sesh:
Me: Your fuckin’ shit sucks.
Friend: Why do you guys always make fun of me? Can’t you stop making fun of me?
Me: We will when you stop bending over and letting us rape you.
And that’s something that I did every nutrition, lunch, dinner, pre-adventure conversation, mid-adventure conversation, and post-adventure conversation for my entire high school life. I mean, it used to be so natural that the absolutely violent undoing of any self-confidence that the victim had was met with celebration of a conquest as opposed to something more humane and natural like remorse.
However, that’s the way it used to work. It was the natural dynamic that had developed between myself and a few others that formed the top of the group’s hierarchy and the sorry group that fell well below us. At some point of the conversation, I was asked to break down the group’s basic structure:
The FUCKIN’ top: These are the people that you couldn’t insult without fear of severe retribution–often distributed as a group. Sometimes there would be an insult hurled at us, however, this was often a jab of little consequence next to the fuckin’ fatalities that we would dish out.
Neutral Medium: These people laughed with the FUCKIN’ top, cried with the victims, and kept their mouths shut. They were often liked most by all parts of the hierarchy and often stayed to the side during all the mudslinging. Thus, they usually didn’t get insulted and tried their best to keep things that way.
The DAMN DIRTY SHITS: I seriously apologize to everyone in my group of friends that fell into this category.
To this, I was asked why we allowed things to work this way. The explanation is simple–we were all okay with it. Indeed, there’s an inherent emotional limit to how much verbal abuse one can take. This limit was usually exhibited by annoyance initially and tears/raging anger ultimately. However, whenever mud was thrown, it was justified by the fact that it was usually in reference to some act or event that the person willingly participated in. For me, in high school; this usually revolved around ugly body kits, ugly girlfriends, and stupid exhibitions of manhood. In one particular instance, for example, a friend showed up with his truck covered in mud from a previous day’s worth of off-roading. Somehow, I found this a bit insulting and proceeded to scratch rather profane statements like “porno fiend”, “ass pirate”, and “ball tickler” into the thick layer of mud on his car. Unfortunately, however, I did this right after English–which was located near a student parking lot– and aroused the mischievous attention of the rest of the class. Upon witnessing my act of stupidity, they joined in and, soon enough, my friend’s truck was covered with statements of sexual bigotry and sodomy.
When my buddy saw what my entire English class wrote on his, previously proud, trophy truck, he was inevitably quite angry and embarassed. However, after a cute smile and a brief moment of deep contemplation, he remembered the hierarchy and laughed it off saying, “Well, maybe I should’ve washed my truck huh?”
Thus, we seemed to have this undefined understanding of what was acceptable. Even public humiliation was fine as long as it could’ve been prevented previously. In this case, the motherfucker should’ve washed his truck.
There was, however, a line. One day, a member of the group (it must be noted that he was of the DAMN DIRTY SHITS classification) admitted to some trouble between himself and his girlfriend. Now, you can have an ugly girlfriend and that’s no one’s fault but yours (NOTE: Agreement amongst the other group members regarding said ugliness must be realized before shit can fly) . Therefore, it was cool. If you guys are happy together then it shouldn’t matter what a bunch of stupid assholes have to say. However, something emotional, like a turbulent relationship, was strictly off-limits. Anyways, the person related their troubles to the group and to this a neutral medium (of all people) pointed and laughed at the poor, suffering sap. Now, a summation of this person’s violations:
1) The person was a neutral medium. Thus, they SHOULD NOT be an insulter.
2) The insult was regarding someone’s relationship problems.
No one laughed.
Fortunately for the medium, he didn’t migrate to DAMN DIRTY SHITS–although he should’ve but who expects fair moderation of group dynamics amongst a bunch of high school punks. In fact, his relationship with me, at the top, strengthened and then unceremoniously exploded later on (another story altogether). The point here is that, we had this group hierarchy and that whatever shit was thrown amongst the members had to be justified. That said, if we reduced someone to tears it was only because it was natural. Later on, we’d all be at the Temecula mall staring at short-skirted bro sluts with Slurpees in our hands.
To this, the questioning member of the night’s conversation responded, “Sounds like you guys were insecure.”
I thought about this response to my rather intricate explanation carefully. First, how dare you question something as well developed as my explanation. Stupid son of a bitch. Next, yes, we could’ve been insecure, however, I don’t really know what could’ve bred this insecurity. We’re a bunch of fuckin’ friends right? There’s no reason to be insecure since nature dictated the hierarchy and we all knew the limits of our stupidity. I thought, “This bitch doesn’t know.”
I finally responded, “Yeah, you’re right. We were insecure.”
For someone of Chief Justice Robert’s stature and level of accomplishment, screwing up the Presidential Oath–especially one of this magnitude–in front of billions can be hard. Indeed, in the video, Barack Obama appears to be signaling a degree of maturity and self-restraint that his Vice Presidential colleague desperately needs to develop. However, one thing that really made me happy about this cabinet in the days leading up to and following the inauguration is a sense of careless control that each member had. Everyone seemed so relaxed, however, not to the point that I was uncomfortable. In the end, I knew things were going to be handled. Why didn’t Obama just laugh it off as the inconsequential jab that it was?
Considering my dark and regretful past, Obama must’ve believed that Biden crossed the line that time. I think it’s adorable that he gave Chief Justice Roberts another chance that day. It might’ve reeked of un-transparency to some but I personally thought it reeked of cute. As cute as an “abundance of caution” can get at least.
In all honesty, I quite enjoyed the post-insult audience point.
//Vladimir Sorokoskev
Ours is a heart of darkness.