And This is Why I am no Fun at Parties

I've been on vacation for the past two weeks; a ship, a bus, a rental car, and a couple of taxis to get my family and me to various parts of Oregon, British Columbia, and California. The kids had great fun at Disneyland, and certainly it was great to see their excitement and laugh with them. But I have to admit, what I keep thinking about in regard to Disneyland is this:

On night one, as we waited in line for the Indiana Jones ride, all the folks with "fastpass" tickets walked right by us on their way somewhere close to the front of the line. My kids said that wasn't fair and wanted to know how to get a fastpass. I assumed that it cost extra. That's not fair, the girls said again. Just because they have money, they don't have to wait with the rest of us? So I suggested to the girls that they look at it another way: here we are at Disneyland because we have money, and lots of people will never go to Disneyland because they don't have money. So, is that fair? (And yes, I sometimes ask myself if it's a good thing for me to inject such existential problems into the minds of young children). My question certainly stopped their questions, but I spent the next few hours mulling over the fastpass thing. I got into a big discussion in my head about privilege, it's relation to power, money as power, power as violence, the Disney franchise, and the whole nine yards. I was still thinking about it long after we had returned to our hotel and the kids were asleep. I was writing a blog post in my head, and I was fixated upon power and privilege as violence; even to the point of Jesus' non-violent manifestation of power still being violent from certain people's reference frame (e.g., the religious leaders of the day). And I questioned the whole idea of non-violence and pacifism, and was wondering about framing things, instead, in terms of violence directed and modulated. Sometime around there I fell asleep myself.

On day two, I learned that the fastpass did not cost extra, and was available to anyone who stuck his or her ticket into the proper slot at a proper kiosk and was willing to ride a ride during an assigned range of times. My disdain for the Disney franchise subsided and I had to eat a bunch of crow inside my skull, but it didn't lessen the basic questions. And the questions got even better, because as I was waiting in line to put my ticket into the proper slot at a proper kiosk for Space Mountain, ahead of me was a man and his son. The boy was a late pre-teen or early teen. This is stupid, he said to his dad. You should have to pay for a fastpass. It doesn't make any sense to have a fastpass if anyone can get one.

The kid's logic was perfect, and I cannot get myself to let go of the whole fastpass metaphor and the competing views of: my kids when they thought the fastpass was about money (which is to say, power and privilege), and this kid when he realized the fastpass was not about money (which is to say, power and privilege [and yes, this also becomes an issue of privilege being associated with the power that comes from knowledge; in this case knowing about the fastpass kiosks]). This is deeper than it seems, and causes a person—a person like me who is obviously no fun at parties—to puzzle over the very nature of privilege and its association with power. I have to say, it seems to me that at the heart of the fastpass is the set of issues that have fueled religion, politics, economics and the like since the dawn of time.

Practically? Well, at the very least, we should ask ourselves what unique powers we have acquired in life, what privileges we are wielding each day, if we are committing acts of violence in the process, and if so then what are we to do about it?