Paper People: Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right
Let us turn now to the Paper People, people with degrees who make their livings in some manner trading on their expertise. Most grew up far from the countryside in cities or in suburbs listening to classic rock or pop that’s predigested for their children. Most of their parents were more nurturing than was the case for Rocks. Few Paper People received spankings, and fewer look up to their fathers. Paper People respect their mothers. When they were kids, their mothers nurtured them. Their father wasn’t home most of the time, having to sacrifice his time at work to earn a decent living. Dads earned enough. Not many Paper People grew up missing meals. Still dads didn’t earn enough to be respected in their households. Look at the families on TV. They all had single-family ranch houses on quarter acre lots with two new Buicks in their garage. Paper People grew up hearing that their father was a loser. He didn’t make enough. The bosses and celebrities made more. The wife didn’t look up to him. She frequently divorced him since the media kept telling her she needed liberation. Even in church, Dad was looked down on, and a wife was often outcast if her husband wasn’t clearly on the fast track to big money.
While Paper fathers were forced to put in countless hours at work (at least on paper to pump their billings), what was admired was working smart. Working hard was seen as vulgar, not to mention inefficient. It was important for a Paper Person to make their job look easy. Golf was essential. Not because it furnished recreation but because it looked like leisure, something Paper People admired. Plus you could take a lot of mulligans and brag about your score, sipping martoonies at the 19 th hole instead of being at work. Mulligans were not available for RockPeople.
There is a special kind of loneliness reserved for Paper People.
Paper People will equivocate. Lying’s a necessary evil — for them. Allow a Rock Person to lie and he’s just evil. Even Paper Peoples’ houses have lots of gingerbread in front but not in back. They don’t have porches. They have atriums where neighbors cannot see them. Even their money’s made of paper and not metal.
There is a special sort of loneliness reserved for Paper People. Rock People’s worlds are more authentic. Paper People can be fake. Still they are pragmatists. When called, they served their country in time of war and they revered President Kennedy who made it all look easy while concealing his crippling back pain and half a dozen medications.
Perhaps because they are less genuine, Paper People treasure tolerance. The
unforgiveable sin for Paper People is intolerance. Their worst nightmare is being exposed to all their peers for being frauds. Most know they sometimes bend the rules. Telling the truth might get them fired. Every week they fill out timesheets and are forced to bill more hours than a normal person works. But they can’t say that to the management. Management got that corner office by taking credit for employees’ work while gaslighting those losers until they worked for free on weekends. Paper People walk a tightrope between honesty and lies. Marketers bury dirty secrets. Lawyers file lawsuits to intimidate the innocent. Accountants find ways for rich clients to rip off the IRS and their employees using laws written to stiff the middle class. Sure it’s dishonest, but it’s legal, which is all that really matters and is why those high-paid lobbyists exist.
Paper People want the fantasy that’s promised with diplomas. They soon find out it isn’t always there.
Each Thanksgiving, Paper People are reminded of their shortcomings by sophomoric children home from prestigious universities. There children lecture their “loser” parents who pay their bills but are beneath them. Paper People will be tolerant. They will not roll their eyes or lose their temper. Only Rock and Scissors stoop to such behavior.
Soon enough they see their children with diplomas in their hands are forced to join them as a few more Paper People come of age. And like their parents, their lives on paper will exceed their stark realities. Because the only lives they know are lived on Paper.
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If there is one thing that a Paper Person learns going to college, it’s that they have a lot to lose. Rock People have already hit bottom. Paper People want the fantasy that’s promised with diplomas. They soon find out it isn’t always there.
For starters, many Rock People already drive cool trucks. Paper People have to choose between an address or a car. Knowing the car quickly depreciates, they save for a down payment and have neither. So they sacrifice their souls to make more money.
That takes time. They start out innocent but soon learn from the cynical hard work isn’t rewarded, but it’s all that Paper People have to offer. So they work weekends. They cut corners on the groceries. They skip vacations. Anything to somehow catch a lucky break. After obtaining their credentials, they’ll be fired by employers who know it’s cheaper to hire interns than a certified professional. Eventually they pick themselves back up and try again. Most eventually succeed and have the scar tissue to prove it.
But they will not be fooled again. They play religiously by rules meant to protect the higher-ups, but they take good care of their clients. That ensures next time they’re canned they bring their clients along with them. If they’re brave enough, they go out on their own, starting a
business, and the bumps they’ve seen thus far become more violent.
Which means instead of having one boss they have several dozen bosses. Every client or account manager now becomes a boss. Plus, some employees act like bosses, being well-versed on their rights. Paper People work on margins that are often paper-thin.
At their best, white-collar Paper People get to do some good. At their best they display virtue or at least some virtuosity. They build up their reputations while they broaden out their skills. At their best. But right now Paper People are overwhelmed by stress.
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Paper People are under siege. Scissors People attack them daily, and a lot of Scissors People are the Paper People’s children. Rock People are afraid of Paper People and don’t trust them. Paper People need to compromise while other people don’t. Paper People are in the middle. There they are trapped, making them “losers,” “wonks,” or “weenies” while being tempted to sell out those who have helped them. They lack the swagger of the Rock People, the cold religious certainty of Scissors People. And the one thing Paper People are NOT is sexy.
There was a time when John F. Kennedy epitomized their problem-solving culture and Franklin Roosevelt made war on the Depression and on Hitler. But something happened. Paper People have been castrated. The Scissors People are busy now exacting their revenge.
All that Paper People know is being jettisoned by Scissors People whose full body of knowledge can be screened onto a t-shirt.
Paper People who lean slightly to the right are called “cuckservatives.” Those who lean left are known as “jokes” and called “naïve.” They used to drink wine with their friends. Many now drink wine alone. Life isn’t fair, which hurts a lot when they were raised to value justice, tolerance, and opportunity, which have all somehow escaped them. They used to be New Deal
Democrats, but somehow the New Deal became the Old Deal or worse, the Raw Deal, something the far left is ashamed of. Paper People have no party now. Both Democrats and Republicans have deserted them. Joe Biden was a Paper Person. Now we’re not too sure, fearing his strings are being pulled by someone else who pays his bills.
Somehow when everybody’s polarized collaborative thinking isn’t valued. People want certainty without doing their homework. Paper People are well read. They know Shakespeare, Hugo, Austen, Dostoyevsky, the Constitution, the classic canon of western Literature. Authors they love are being dismissed as Dead White European Males, (even Jane Austen for some reason along with all three Bronte sisters). All that Paper People know is being jetisoned by
Scissors People whose full body of knowledge can be screened onto a t-shirt.
Today there is no Walter Cronkite. What’s onscreen is propaganda. Hollywood movies must be vetted by the Chinese Communist Party. Films today are based on comic books with cool special effects and lots of crashes and explosions. Today our stories need to come from
foreign countries, because Scissors People have cut away our culture and replaced it with their
nihilistic slogans.
So what’s in store for Paper People? Don’t bet money on Joe Biden. He’s an artifact of Harry Truman’s Democratic Party. But he isn’t Harry Truman. The left is already protesting him.
Like Paper People, Joe Biden is trapped
Let’s hope I’m wrong. But I fear it may not end well for Joe Biden. If he survives he’ll have the Rock People to thank and not the Scissors.
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DJ Phinney is novelist who writes what he calls Red Car Noir, suspense novels steeped in history we would often rather forget. Phinney is also a civil and mechanical engineer, a Vietnam-era Air Force veteran, a Catholic by faith, and an historian in his free time. Politically he is a centrist who subscribes to
neither party, although he likes Ike, and he really-really likes Harry Truman. www.dennisphinney.com
