Staying away from politics
Politics, as a subject, does not interest me very much. Perhaps my mind is not well molded in a political sense—it could certainly use some fine-tuning, if not a whole education in the basics. Through no fault of my own—I blame it on my education—I’m more conversant with the Iliad, with the face-off of Hector and Achilles, than I am with the Russians facing off right now in the Kremlin. I’m certainly more knowledgeable about Priam’s windy city of Troy or the windy rip off Montauk than I am about the long-winded politicians in Washington. I can remember more about Alexander’s battle of the Granicus, and his adventures in Afghanistan, than I can tell you about the Taliban and present day Afghanistan.
When it comes to current events, if someone makes a political case and it is logical, I simply accept it. I don’t have any axes to grind, so to speak, and when friends make political arguments, I make a cocktail. I read The New Republic every week, and, basically, I take whatever they say and make it my opinion—in case I find myself in circumstances where I must have a political opinion. I always read the New York Times op-ed page, and I generally agree with everyone I read. If it happens to be written in a style that I like—Maureen Dowd or Russell Baker, for example—I will unquestionably agree regardless of subject matter. Style definitely trumps subject in my book. Quite often, when a political issue is hot and people are talking, I will flip-flop from one side to the other according to latest column I have read.
I have more inherent interest in what happens on Main Street than what takes place on Pennsylvania Avenue. I guess we are all curious about what will—or most likely won’t—happen to campaign finance reform, or about where the Starr investigation will end up. But it does not exercise me any more that what theme the staff at the East Hampton Library is going to come up with for their annual Halloween skit. (Just stop in, by the way. They’re witty, fun, en costume, and it’s pretty much performance on demand all day long.)
Even on local affairs I tend to steer away from controversial issues. My interests stay in history, in the arts, in equestrian activities, and in a few other areas—most of which are decidedly not political. I like to write about the beach, about horses, about food and friends, about local institutions—my reflections on life in our towns and villages, rather than real issues.
So it is with some dismay that I find myself being questioned so often by people on what I think about the Rennert house—as opposed to something I know like the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center. The Rennert house is one of those hot-button issues where the person bringing up the subject is not really as interested in your opinion as in opening a forum where he or she can express his or her convictions. It’s not a conversation—it’s a discourse.
Virtually everyone I know is on a crusade against the construction of this vast private dwelling. The only friend I have who is supporting it is Tony Tohill—and Tony is Mr. Rennert’s lawyer. I finally felt it was necessary to gather all the information I could and form an opinion—even though it meant cutting into my time at the beach. My conclusion: it’s huge, but when everyone with a spare few million is building a 10,000 or 20,000 square foot house with space they don’t really need, doesn’t size become relative? It’s as tasteful as the excesses of earlier years that we now hold dear, and it’s directly in the tradition of American mercantile wealth constructing monuments to their achievements. Most important, it’s perfectly legal. Which means it is really none of my business, and I should not have given up one moment of my beach time to stray into politics.