DISCOVER
OJAI MONTHLY THE GREAT RE-RAVELING
Bret Bradigan
‘‘In our modern urban civilization, multitudes of our people have been condemned to urban anonymity — to living the kind of life where many of them neither know nor care for their neighbors. This course of urban anonymity ... is one of eroding destruction to the foundations of democracy. For although we profess that we are citizens of a democracy, and although we may vote once every four years, millions of our people feel deep down in their heart of hearts that there is no place for them — that they do not ‘count.’’ — Saul Alinsky What Alinsky, the burr in the saddle of elites and establishment figures everywhere, and author of the ur-text ‘‘Rules for Radicals,’’ was talking about in the 1960s applies even more today, as we each hunker down in our silos of confirmation and selection bias, talking past each other in our social-media fueled isolation. Even in Ojai. Back away from those Facebook pages for a minute and ask yourself if you are being the best version of yourself, or does the low-consequence environment turn you into someone you don’t even recognize? Why are the worst among us filled with certainty? The pandemic, of course, made it even worse. When we no longer gather together, even if only to clap eyes on each other, we drift apart. And it will take years to put all the pieces back together. There are glimmerings. After a two-year hiatus, the Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament will return April 20th to the 24th. The Playhouse Theater, once open, will again become a gathering place, with a new creative juice behind it. The Rotary Club of Ojai’s ‘‘Taste of Ojai’’ event is switching up this year on April 10th, hosting it in Libbey Park with live music and walking tours to sample our astonishing diversity of restaurants and art galleries. The Art Center has re-opened live shows, and live music has returned to The Vine. We have two thriving Farmers Markets, where people bump up against each other like molecules in a chain reaction of community and ideas. In the Spring issue of our sister publication, Ojai Quarterly, Mark Lewis writes a masterful account of Ojai at a similar period, in 1947, after World War II when Southern California was beginning to metastasize like a cancer cell and Ojai was vulnerable to freeways and massive housing developments. It didn’t happen and a big reason were cultural events like the Ojai Music Festival being created, the Ojai Valley Inn became a proper resort and ‘‘The Ojai’’ resumed. People came to regard Ojai as worth preserving. Let’s hope they do at this critical crossroads as well. But in the meantime, be nice to each other. It costs nothing but means a lot.
OM — March 2022
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