When "Nobody Fucking Cares"

David Bernell

Some things benefit from greater awareness and attention. Combating racial inequality, fighting cancer. And some things get worse if people don't pay enough attention. The looming question and threat in American politics right now is if enough people will take action to protect American democracy against the still-rising anti-democratic, authoritarian turn of the Republican party, which may very well take and preserve the power of a well-organized minority at the expense of others. 

Sometimes, however, the goal is to get to the point in which people don't need to care about a topic, because the problem is solved or the issue is settled. 

Several years ago when I was out of town for a few days with one of my kids, my wife decided to change some things around the house: move furniture around, get a couple new things, put up some bookshelves. I came back to a very different looking place. During the process of making the changes, which my wife did with a friend, my younger kid, who was six or seven years old at the time, looked at the dizzying changes in his world, and declared, "I don't like this!" Our friend, a wonderfully funny woman with no verbal filter whatsoever, looked at the little boy protesting her fine work and said, "Nobody fucking cares. Go watch TV." This has become an iconic story in our family, and we laugh about it all the time, and often remind each other that "nobody fucking cares" about something (usually something small and insignificant) that one of us may be overly concerned about. (The friend was appropriately horrified by her response years later when we reminded her of it over a good laugh -- "OMG! I said that to a six-year old?!!??")

In spite of, or perhaps because of, the origins of this concept in my family, I have come to have a great appreciation for a worldview that makes room for -- and even welcomes -- the goal of not caring about something.

My hope, and my expectation, is that getting the opportunity to care less is where the United States  is heading with respect to the conflict, sound and fury regarding people who identify as LGBTQ. I'm optimistic about the extent to which this population will enjoy greater freedom in their lives without all the conflict that constantly surrounds everything they do in their lives. 

My own view is that liberal democracy is ideal in theory. It provides for the inclusion and equality of all in society. But it has always fallen short in practice. (As a straight, white man, I've been lucky in my lifetime to live with a great deal of privilege that I didn't have to earn, though as a Jewish person I always look over my shoulder -- and keep the passports current.) Someone is always left out, people considered inferior, worthless, too different, too dangerous to be included in the "in" group. But there always brave people, heroes, who refuse to stay silent in such circumstances -- both those in the "out" group and their allies who respond to the injustices around them. And sometimes, often after a long time and a long struggle, there is success, extending freedom and equality to those left out.  

However, in this process, and even after laws and practices may change that allow for freedom and liberty to be extended, there is a horrible reaction among those who feel threatened. A civil war, Jim Crow, the imprisonment of non-violent protestors calling out racism, the persecution of gay people, and today, threatening American democracy, have all been part of the reaction against extending freedom and equality. 

(There is a certain irony to the fact that it is the greatest beneficiaries of the American experience -- white Christian men -- who are the ones doing the most to threaten and potentially take down the government that has privileged them and their ancestors the most, over all other groups in the United States. You don't see too many Black people, women, or gay people threatening violence against their fellow citizens or their government.)

Public opinion polls, along with policy changes in many parts of the country, and a Supreme Court ruling in 2015 (which may soon be under threat of being overturned), all speak to the fact that there is great acceptance and little to worry about with respect to who one loves, has sex with, or marries, or how one identifies their own gender. Over time, the number of people who react negatively to this extension of freedom and equality will likely get smaller and smaller. And looking ahead, I expect that while the backlash will get louder and louder, more organized, and more desperate, it will ultimately be futile. Freedom and equality for people who identify as LGBTQ will register as a threat to a small minority. This minority may never shut up -- getting to the point where nobody fucking cares may be out of reach -- but they will most certainly know that they lost this battle.