Editor,
In defense of Don Schrader, embarrassment is also an expression of pity. It is embarrassing to see someone totally unaware of his public self-indictment.
Andres Saenz's diatribe against Schrader is filled with clandestine homophobia and all sorts of latent racism directed against a hapless individual whose only offense is to point out the offensive hypocrisies that govern and corrupt this country. Schrader lives by example. He walks his talk, which is an achievement not many can claim for themselves. It is undeniable that his way of living would lead this country out of its past and current miseries: militarism, sexism, racism, materialism, homophobia, capitalism and egoism. Once, the natives of this land too were labeled "naked savages" who were "too lazy to work" for a living. This master-race attitude served as justification to kill them off.
To accuse someone of parasitic self-indulgence that damages and threatens a whole society, when in effect, his lifestyle is the least damaging to nature, humans, oneself and society, declares him fair game, a virtual outlaw free to be gotten rid of in one way or another. Such public resentment is reminiscent of an ugly past, which will continue to flare up as long as one does not come to terms with it.
Nobody is perfect. Some are aware of their flaws to the point of continuous deliberate self-improvement. Christians call this virtue "persistent striving," Muslims "jihad." Schrader would be happy to live in community with others who share his values. His rejection of processed and poisonous food and his reliance on public resources and institutions such as the University and the bus system is his demonstration of what community should look like.
Contrary to what Saenz and others have claimed, his lifestyle promotes a healthy, cultivated academic infrastructure and an extensive public transportation system a whole community could and would happily rely on. Schrader would gladly support and pay taxes to a government that has reevaluated its values and does not worship the gods of violence and greed by destroying nature and the whole planet and killing the innocent and defenseless at home and abroad.
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I doubt that Saenz is embarrassed and ashamed to have to share his social space with Schrader. Rather, I suspect, it is anger and envy that lead him and others to resort to the well-known Orwellian method of equating opposites, conflating asceticism with egoism and self-indulgence, and hypocrisy with honesty and modesty. Saenz is angry that he dares not act on similar personal courage and moral strength and is envious that someone else does it so shamelessly and freely. Anger and envy are two sides of the same coin called guilt. Its repression scapegoats the one who stirs it up.
To call people like Schrader insane for their conscientious discipline confirms the apostle Paul's judgment of the pretentious world whose sophistications condemn Christians as "crazy morons" (I Corinthians). Schrader comes closest to what the New Testament Christian looks like: Heeding the "call of the lone voice in the wilderness" means to detect one's own imperfections first before looking for them in others.
Joachim L. Oberst
UNM faculty
