Eccentrics and Egocentrics

It is so dangerous to generalise, especially when it comes to the United States. If you pose the question, who is an American, one answer could be, ‘a person who was born and lives in America.’ However, it’s not so simple. There are geographical distinctions as well as issues of race, religion, class, politics, population density, acquired citizenship and comparative wealth. When you get down to it, America has diversity in spades.

And yet, there is an astonishing level of conformity. For example, in education, schoolchildren every morning pledge allegiance to the flag. Although there is no Church of America, there appears to be strong church attendance throughout the nation. Despite an apparent divide in political policy of the main parties, America seems to be a conservative country. For example, the policies of Richard Nixon’s administration would be well to the left of most Democrats these days.

It could be problematical to find the American eccentrics. We, in Good Olde England, have them in abundance. So, it was with great cheer that I read an item in last week’s Washington Post. Californian, Mike Hughes, is planning to launch himself 1800 feet high in a home-built, scrap metal rocket to prove the Earth is flat. The experiment was postponed when the federal agency responsible for this stuff would not give permission for a launch on public land. When interviewed, Mr Hughes said, “It's still happening. We're just moving it three miles down the road to the Mojave Desert. This is what happens anytime you have to deal with any kind of government agency.”

If the mile-long flight does not kill Mr Hughes, his journey will mark the beginning of a flat-Earth space program, where the ultimate goal is a launch that puts him miles above Earth. This nutcase, sorry – eccentric - hopes to photograph the proof that we all live on a flat disk. I suppose you could call it space programme denial. If Mr Hughes truly believes there is a conspiracy and that the space flights, moon landings and space stations, not to mention voyages to the planets, all sent back fake photographs, he will then have to prove that all nations who have flown into space bought into the conspiracy. No doubt he will allege that round-Earth technology is just FAKE news.

 

Speaking of which, is the current President an eccentric, egocentric or both? If the former, an eccentric can be defined as a person who is unconventional, uncommon, abnormal, irregular, aberrant, anomalous, odd, queer, strange, peculiar, weird, bizarre, off-centre, outlandish, freakish and extraordinary. I leave it to the reader to decide the extent to which these adjectives apply to Mr Trump. I could add others like self-defensive, boastful and uncaring of others except when they impinge on The Donald himself but these are no evidence of eccentricity rather than egocentricity.

 

There is a story doing the rounds that Mr Trump has refused to let Time Magazine take his photograph for their front cover on the Xmas issue because Time will not guarantee to put him front and centre. This is not Time’s first controversy with Presidential involvement. Its November, 1944 issue featured recently elected Vice-President Harry Truman on the front cover, accompanied by an article stressing the importance of the work of the Truman Committee in the Senate. Billions of taxpayers’ dollars had been saved on military expenditure. President Roosevelt showed his jealousy when he exclaimed: “They put Harry on the front cover? Why not me? I appointed him to the job, didn’t I?” By this FDR meant the job of chairman of the Senate Truman Committee. This was nonsense. A President cannot appoint the members of a Senate committee.

 

Then there’s former President Richard Nixon. He and sidekick Henry Kissinger conducted foreign policy in French: remember ‘détente’ and ‘rapprochement’. Bearing in mind they were playing off the Chinese and Russians, this was an eccentric choice of language, to which could be added the German, realpolitik. But while all this was going on, Tricky Dicky found time to design 18^th century costumes for White House servants. Not even Mr Trump has done that….yet.

 

Eccentricity and egocentricity is the stuff of life. It’s certainly adds entertainment to the current sad and depressing American scene but do we need a floor show? I suppose banning Flat Earth believers for merely mentioning the suggestion is out of the question?