The Authority of the Ordinary.

So…have you seen the coverage of the Michael J. Fox–Rush Limbaugh controversy? It involves the campaign ad that Fox did in Missouri for Claire McCaskill in support of stem cell research; followed by the Rush rant on his radio show in which he accuses Fox of “faking” his symptoms on the ad; followed by Fox’s interview last night with Katie Couric on the CBS Evening News, in which Fox explains that when he filmed the campaign ad, he was overmedicated and thus experiencing dyskinesia–not unmedicated, and definitely not. faking. it.

The larger context here is the controversy over stem cell research in general, and, more specifically, the VERY FIRST VETO of George W.’s presidency in July of this year, when he signed the veto to a bill that would have eased restrictions on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. For the veto’s official signing ceremony, Bush appeared surrounded by couples who had received donated embryos as part of an IVF process and their resulting babies.

But this isn’t really a post about stem cell research, the veto, or even the upcoming election. It could be, but that would be too obvious. I can end any mystery that might surround my voting booth pretty quickly, right here and now: I won’t be voting for war, establishment, hatred, or fear. Go figure. I actually wish it was more complex than that, especially since I am a registered “NonParty” member, but it isn’t. The Bushy has made it very, very simple.

What I want to write about instead is the overwhelming reaction I had to the coverage of that Bush veto ceremony in July and to the Michael J. Fox–Rush Limbaugh debacle this week. My reaction was immediate, visceral, and borderline pathological. I had this overriding sense that the media and the pundits and the spin doctors and the politicos and even most of my friends and family had better shut up and/or get the hell out of the way, ’cause NO ONE COULD SPEAK TO THIS ISSUE BUT ME. Yeah, slightly bizarre, I know. But it’s true. I felt suddenly proprietary like I’d never felt before. BIG, WILD, TIGER-MOMMA PROPRIETARY.

I remember when I was in graduate school studying literature, there was a debate at one point among the Ph.D. candidates vying for that year’s open job positions in the national academic market about whether Anglo-American professors could or should be able to teach African-American literature. It included the parallel argument about whether men could or should be able to teach women’s literature (the inverse considerations didn’t work the same way, since the fact that blacks live in a white world and women live inside a patriarchal one was pretty well accepted and thus made it easy and appropriate for them to teach outside their own race or gender).

The real question being asked was, “can you teach (or pontificate about or speak on or have authority about) a subject matter about which you have no personal experience and little personal investment?” If you haven’t lived as a black person in this country, should you be trying to teach about that experience of blackness to others? If you haven’t lived as a woman, should you be trying to teach about that experience of womanhood to others?

And if you don’t have an embryo–frozen for future use or perhaps non-use–should you be trying to tell others what to do about it?

Because I do. I DO have an embryo. He or she is six days old. He or she is a very lovely blastocyst, now on ice, after having survived five full days in a petri dish. He or she struggled at first, being only five cells big on the third day of embryonic life. Not developed enough to be considered for use in the IVF. But hanging on. And, now, he or she is considered a tough little thing, with much better odds at implantation, should I decide to go ahead with that at some point, than he or she would have had initially. And full of stem cells. Full of those basic building blocks of life that can morph so outrageously, so impossibly, into many of the mature cell forms that we know of in the human body. Capable of saving lives already. Potentially capable of saving many more by curing terminal diseases. Like Alzheimer’s. Like Parkinson’s.

And so it gets even better. Another sort of question could be asked: If you don’t have a close friend or family member dying of one of these potentially curable diseases, should you really be trying to tell others what to do about it?

Because I do. I DO have a family member dying of one of those potentially curable diseases. My father has Parkinson’s Disease. He is 73 and can’t walk very far and won’t be walking at all in another couple of years. He slides down until he’s “sitting” on his back when he’s in chairs. When I talk to him on the phone, we have the same conversation over again three times because he can’t remember that we’ve just covered that territory. And I end up having really terrible conversations with myself, like “at least it’s not Alzheimer’s. Then he wouldn’t remember who I was. At least he remembers who I am.” GAH.

So my reaction to the veto and to the Fox-Limbaugh debate is to close ranks to some extreme nth degree and tell all these people trying to control my life–MY LIFE FOR REAL–to go screw off. Because I have a frozen embryo AND I have a dad with Parkinson’s, and I’ll be DAMNED if you do, George W. OR Rush Limbaugh. This is MY business and MY experience and you’d better walk in all my shoes in this matter before you start telling me how to think or feel about it. It’s MINE. (See? Proprietary.)

Please understand that I recognize the irrationality behind my reaction. It surprised me when it happened. I’m not a proprietary person, and I especially like to dialogue with other people. But I suddenly understood in a way I hadn’t before that an authority–an expertise–forged from experience is one that you can’t dismiss. It may not be the only kind of authority. It may not be the only way to expertise. But it has value, and it has rank.

I used to think that if you couldn’t learn about and, then, potentially, teach about a subject outside yourself and your experience, you lacked imagination, you lacked empathy, you lacked ability. So, yes, I thought that men could and should teach women’s literature; white teachers could and should teach black literature; and I could and should teach 16th-century literature, even though I did not grow up in that time or culture.

But now I also understand the power of the personal experience.