Being cold with your boundaries, like what I was talking about in the previous post, is one of the things that seems to be celebrated in the MAGA community. Similar to the bumper stickers that say “Fuck your feelings”. Kind of.
It’s the whole part about knowing your boundaries and being firm in them and it not being entirely in your control how your boundaries make others feel. But there’s a subtle difference between the boundaries guarded by MAGA and those guarded by Mrs Taylor.
She cares deeply about that person. She cares deeply for what is right. It is not her preferences that she maintains cold hard boundaries with – it is with the principles of love and caring. It is with building students into educated and emotionally healthy adults and putting that before the pageantry of sports. It is with self respect and dignity and not taking the easy path to success where she establishes her boundaries and puts people on notice of what side of the conversation she stands. It’s not in the ego centric arena of “how people treat me” when there is something more important at stake. It’s not the selfish in-the-weeds minutiae of words and tones but in the broad strokes that are defining a persons future.
The characters of Friday Night Lights have hard boundaries for noble causes that increase everyone’s quality of life; it’s a boundary that defines a minimum that everyone is called to be dignified above. MAGA hard boundaries don’t always consider the quality of life for everyone involved or affected; deporting immigrants, even if it raises the quality of life for some certainly does not for those being deported and simultaneously is not a charitable or noble action to take even if these immigrants are illegal. Similarly with gun laws – someone gets the short end of the stick.
Ps – these thoughts come after watching most episodes of season 3 of Friday night lights
