I was flipping through some old notes, and, being the lazybug that I am, thought today might be a good time for a "what did Marx actually say?" moment. Specifically, here's the ten point program he put forward in the Communist Manifesto (word for word but the emphasis is mine):


1) Abolition of property in land and the application of all rents of land to public purposes.

2) A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

3) Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

4) Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

5) Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.

6) Centralization of the means of communication and transportation in the hands of the state.

7) Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

8) Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

9) Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country.

10) Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.


Interesting, no? Before you decide this (other than those parts that have been implemented already, which you like) is the most evil thing you ever heard, a few thoughts on interpreting it.

First, remember that it's highly contextual. This is what Marx thought would, generally, be a good political agenda for a communist party in "the most advanced countries" in the 1840's and 50's. It's extremely situational, instrumental. We encourage you to come up with a program suitable to your own context.

Second--I think this is the most important caveat of communism--remember that what we are looking for is a republic which exists for the sake of its people, particularly its most common people. Most of us in the United States have noticed that the government is no longer by or for us, so it's natural that we hesitate to engage. It's also natural that we don't want to give it any more of ourselves--our time, energy, funds--than we have to. To consider communism is to commit an egregiously assertive act of imagination. What would it be like, we ask, if our government were actually, fundamentally, for us? How could we make this happen?

Rather than being a distilled version of Marxist theory, the list is a thought-provoking historical artifact. Some items are contextual oddities; but the sections I've bolded, for instance, are the foundations of any meaningful equality of opportunity--let us all stand on the work of our own lives. And the sections italicized can be summarized: reclaim and protect a commons that can serve us all equally and well.

My front yard has become weirdly important, ever since someone suggested it as a way to deal with fear. When fear is such a big part of you and your life, honor it; do the things you reasonably can to be more safe. Then after you've tried that, after you've given yourself that chance, choose the compromises you want, if you decide on the trade-off for more time and freedom.

As far as the outside of the house goes, the idea is "show no weakness"; don't look like a victim. Don't look like a target. It's become a very tiny, personal crusade. I find myself watching all the time--which houses seem like easy marks, like places where you could get away with it? Which ones don't? More tangibly, what are the details that make that difference? My goal is: just from looking, it will be clear that someone cares enough about the people in this house not to let things slide. Just from looking, it will be obvious that we who live here are well taken care of.

It's an enlightening study. Learning to do is hard, but so is learning to see, and suddenly there's the obvious connection that I've never made; to make things so clean and tidy and neat like that, to make a space that emanates strength, you have to be aware of your surroundings. You have to notice little details. It's a natural connection, so much more than just learning to bother--which is important enough on its own.

Somehow this is more important to me than everything else I should be working on. It's a slow building; half a step, stand back, consider--what can I do, with the tools I have? With the strength I have? How many more days will it take to finish weeding around the driveway? What other tools would be good for the job? Is there any way I might take that stump out by myself? Will it make a difference to sweep away that dirt, does that edge need to be straightened? Is there a solution to the weeds next to the house without buying pavers? My imagination is on walkabout; this will be a showplace, beautiful, clean, bountiful, precise, liveable. Just keep working every day, thousands of baby steps.

Stages and details of maintaining an everyday life are so new to me. What I'm probably best at, in fact, is keeping it nominally together after everything has gone to shit--and assuming that it's always going to be that way. I am scraping a different life from weeds and black clay, handful by handful.

Humans need each other; independence isn't about pretending we don't. Independence is having some measure of control over your relationships.* I imagine there are healthier and less healthy ways to go about this. Maybe healthy independence means being able to maintain a standard of how you will interact with others--how you will deal with needing and being needed--and being able to walk away from relationships that insist on violating that standard.

Of course, by definition it also must mean building relationships, of some kind--and keeping them. Because humans, we need each other.


*Credit for this insight goes to Tyrel.

I'm angry at the world about a roof.

My house needs a roof. I want a metal roof. It would last three times as long and be completely recyclable, and it costs two thousand dollars more. I don't have it. In order to get a metal roof, I would, basically, have to not spend money on anything for the next several months.

It's the small things, yeah? There's no reason I shouldn't have clothes that fit me and don't have holes in them, and buy fresh groceries, and own shoes that don't hurt to walk in, and have access to a swimming pool so that I can exercise on the days that hurt the most. I discover, this is a startlingly big part of taking care of myself--prioritizing my material needs. I hate that, to take care of myself now, there must be such a waste of resources--that to make it through one summer entails such a throwaway, a cheap and wasteful decision that will last fifteen years.

I'm not giving up, of course--creative and resourceful money management is in my brain and blood. Waste angers me.

Tuesday, there was a cinnamon roll--breakfast, grabbed on the way to class--without guilt. A cinnamon roll, a banana, a glass of water, that I did not feel ashamed of, did not want or try to hide. An incidental meal, eaten without caving to the sugar and fat and lack of whole grain--without thinking, how dare I violate this propriety--thinking, I'm hungry, it's time to eat. And I'm going to eat what I want to.

When I got there, Newlin turned around to me and gave a big thumbs up; same breakfast. Is this how normal people eat? So relaxed, casual?


I see my body mostly as betrayal. Its fatness, its roundness; its weakness. Injury and breakage and pain that must constantly be accommodated. Needs for food and sleep and rest that are always slowing me down. Helplessness, fear. I want to live in a body, yes, but I want to live in a fighter's or a dancer's body, lithe, powerful, open, graceful, strong. Something for living a fiery and glorious and short life that also isn't mine.

For the first time I catch a glimpse of it, my body, my broken body as it is now, as some sort of victory. I have been taking care of myself, in some way; there are other parts of me deserving of care, not just this body on which the war has been waged, other needs besides hunger that deserve to be filled. This has been my compromise, my choice, my survival--and maybe that's ok. Maybe it's alright to be the marginalized fat woman, forever explaining to people that I didn't need that lover or that job, I never expected to live past thirty, thirty five. May be a freedom worth having, keeping, holding up against the world.

It's not a choice to say no unless you can say yes.


I don't want to always say yes, but for now--for now, yes. Glorious.

This

http://blip.tv/file/3122155/

is a great intro to the idea of "the essential subject" and "the other"--which, I should mention, is the most applicable-in-my-own-life bit of philosophy I've yet encountered.

I should also mention that I think the clip provides a really interesting example of something that may be hypocrisy--I find myself critical and sympathetic. The piece critiques something foundational to current gender construction, and at the same time uses current gender construction (maybe ironically, but functionally as well) to market itself. You can see this in the visual storytelling; the visual and comedic style constantly stops you and says, "Look! Pretty girl! Pay attention." Whether that undermines it's broader message or not (I think it does) is an interesting question.

Lest anyone get the wrong impression, I'd like to make three things clear. First, I'm not deeply attached to this, it's just an idea I've been kicking around; please, discuss. Feel free to prove me wrong. Second, I'm generally--and still--an advocate of a very man-friendly reading of feminism, which is not clear from the content of this post. Lastly, I like men. A lot. Even if this theory happens to be right. Ok, now we can start.


I have a theory that since men held so much material power in sexual relationships for such a long time--the ownership of all property, children, and spouse, and a greater right of divorce, among other things--women have, for a long time, been more or less forced to do the work of emotional and interpersonal regulation for both parties.

There's a pattern often found in abusive relationships. Anybody who grew up with a severely physically abusive parent will recognize it; constant threat of violence changes the way you see the world. Your behavior and emotions are absolutely dominated by the goal of keeping yourself (and perhaps also the people you love) safe--which you do by trying to keep your abuser happy, at basically any cost. There is not possibility for give and take in this sort of relationship, no honest communication or mutual recognition of needs. The child is basically not allowed to have needs, particularly not emotional ones.

This is exactly the sort of power over others that has traditionally been afforded to men within marriage, generally without negative physical, legal, or social consequences. Despite the fact that, even in the most brutal times, there were probably lots of men who were decent enough not to engage in this sort of terrorism, I think the fact of it's possibility probably had a large impact on women's functioning over time.

And so we arrive at the (usually essentialist) argument that women just care a lot more about relationships and emotions than men seem to. I think this is definitely the current state of affairs, and that if we're interested in any form of gender equality it can't and shouldn't be ignored.

Here's some evidence:

When addressing ethical challenges women are more likely to place a high value on taking care of people's emotions and creating collaborative solutions to problems--instead of focusing primarily on principles, as men are more likely to. Regardless of technically having access to all fields, women still choose their work by very predictable criteria--on average, we're far more likely than men to be motivated into our career path by wanting to help people. We also want a lot more emotional feedback from our professors then men do.

Perhaps most tellingly, we perform far better--especially in technical fields--when placed in classrooms with no men, whereas men perform the same or worse in single gender classrooms.* Usually people explain this in terms of men showing off for women, and women "showing off" their suitability as mates by not being intellectually intimidating.

I think it useful to contextualize this differently. What is a woman doing when she chooses not to be intellectually intimidating, other than looking after the emotional welfare of her potential colleagues and partners? And why is it that, rather than recognizing that by looking after people's emotions she is performing a valuable service (maybe the reason some studies show that men perform better with women in the room?) which needs to be done by somebody in order for everybody to function well, we simply try to "empower" her out of it?

This is a problem I see with basically every kind of "women's work." Liberating some women from housework doesn't change the fact that housework definitely needs to be done--and that this problem is often "solved" by hiring someone of a lower economic status to do this thankless job instead. Encouraging women not to be completely bound to parenting doesn't change the fact that parenting is a spectacularly important project, which deserves to be done well. The wage gap (for the same hours working outside the home) between mothers and non-mothers is far larger these days than the wage gap between men and women; chew on that.

When you look at the lives of great intellectual men, they are often littered by complicated, even ugly relationships with bright or even brilliant women who never accomplished anything particularly visible themselves. Maybe, there was work going on there too--work of a different kind, work that we ought to recognize. Maybe it will never be possible for women to reach their full technical and intellectual potential until men start to reach their full emotional and relational potential--until men start carrying their weight in doing the work of relationships, along with all the other marginalized kinds of work traditionally left to women.



*Not better or worse as compared to one's classmates, but on national standardized tests like the GRE subject tests.

She was answering the wrong question, of course--the question I actually asked. She talked about doing lots of things (not just school), not letting yourself be owned by a world that's poisonous to you. She teaches for only a month straight; adored as she is some places, she still has no stomach for the establishment.

I did not expect that every question would be like mine, but they were--almost all of them. How do I deal with it when people commodify my sexuality? How do I teach my son not to be a part of this ugliness? How have you done it? How do we hang on to our truth and ourselves in such a messy world? This is what we were really asking. We have read your work. There's no hiding how clearly you see, so share with us--help us--save us. Help us untangle all these things; help us know we're not alone.

And she feels invaded by it, I think, by all our asking and our wanting--but also, loved.


She signed my feminist theory--Day!! in sweet sisterhood --love, bell hooks.

I am glad.

I'm sure it was too stuffy--the thing that I actually said. It was nervous, the first question of the class. "So you were in this complicated relationship, and you were this young, religious, rural black girl going to Stanford, and you expressed difficulty fitting in with the academic establishment--difficulty writing about things you had no interest in. . . and you talk about how this was a time of finding your voice. . . did you ever resolve that, feel like you found a place in academia? What advice would you have for a student now who was having struggles finding a place in the academic world?"


What I meant was different. What I meant was: You understand, I know you understand, it was in this book and I couldn't stop reading. . . You know what it's like; he was important to you, and for the first time you were with someone who loved what you loved, loved the work you knew you were for. He was the man who you could write with, who you could try to be free with, this rare and precious thing. He was strong and kind, and the gateway who ultimately restrained you. It was complicated. You understand.

You understand because you stayed after he left you bleeding. You understand because you stood in the kitchen and listened to him fuck with your reality, claiming one thing when he'd said the opposite right before. You understand because, for all the help he gave, he also held you back; in the twelve years you were together you didn't publish, but after, after there was a flood.

After, was there freedom and loneliness and peace? Is it worth it, being alone, but making something? And must that be the choice, only to have one?

And how do you make that change? How do you stand up to the establishment--this establishment that hated you--enough to work for it, how did you come to respect yourself after investing so deeply in someone who would not respect you?

drive and happiness

The problem might be: I associate my drive to change the world for the better with the poor condition of my own life. Not in all ways, of course--I would be fine with having a blockbuster academic career filled out with various sorts of social activism--as long as I wasn't happy.

I value my drive to change the world for the better. There's something terrible about the norm of acceptance; accept the genocides, the lies, the general unpardonable suffering of other human beings. Accept because they aren't here, and potential solutions are complicated. It's true that there's no social pressure to say these things are alright, but to be normal is to do nothing, or to do only what is comfortable--and, to condemn the norm is called unreasonable.

It doesn't seem like it would be possible to be happy without cutting yourself off from the incredible amount of pain that goes on in the world. It seems like you'd have to stop seeing all those people, who constantly hurt, as people. I'm afraid of being the norm; I feel that when I put resources into things that make me happy, they could be going to something better. I feel that when I'm happy I'm complacent. I feel that when I'm happy I'll start being part of the problem instead of part of the solution.

I missed God by no more than two days on a flight between Salt Lake and Baltimore. Sometimes I wonder who I would have been if I had found him--planting tomatoes and chasing toddlers, living a life of different struggles, a more rooted but so much less examined life.

As it is I lay awake at night and think of suicide. I'm not sure about anything, but I think there would be no answer no matter what I were to read, no way to transcend absurdity, and such a lack of endgame makes me want to die. This game isn't that much fun, to make it last forever. Still, I wake up in the morning and I do the things I would have done, if there was God, cleaning the dishes and turning the soil, just with my questions echoing in the stillness. I listen, and I try to escape them, and I'm happy for the wind and sky and sunlight through the glass.

People use each other to bury truth. This is why I'm afraid to be alone, why I shouldn't be with people. They're a refuge not an answer, a temporary peace, a short term solution to a long term problem. I'll take it but wonder what's next, and worry how to get there.

self-indulgent

"Today," I announced to my roomate, "I have been TOTALLY self-indulgent."

"Well, what did you do?" she asked.

So I told her about waking up hurting, trying to do homework but taking motrin and going back to sleep; about visiting a friend in the sculpture studio, watching him glaze bowls and helping him make sculptures of fish, then taking an hour of his shift at work (not a sacrifice, trust me) so that he could get things done on time. I told her about visiting my oldest sister's family, taking two of the kids with me on a grocery run, letting them both sit in the cart even though they're way too big; getting stared at in the aisles while I animatedly told them my favorite Asian fairy tale. I told her about having dinner with my sister's family and playing their piano before everyone went to bed, then eating the ALL of the tinned oysters I'd bought myself as a shopping treat.

It was fun.

"I love that this is what totally self-indulgent means to you," she said.

And I've been thinking about that. The things I spent my day on aren't useless; they just aren't the things I more officially need to get done. I didn't do any homework, or housework, or writing, or repairs, or reading, or exercise, or therapy(Bleah). This is apparently how things go when I prioritize social interaction. I don't feel wasted, though; I just feel. . . like. . . happy.

Weird.

Today continued the trend. I rolled out of bed after six hours of sleep and hastily checked the web to see what homework I'd ditched (none, but not on purpose), sat by my window soaking in morning sunlight, and eventually took the bus to class. If I were a good academic, I'd be putting in the hours to get a solid foundation in early modern, but I only sat through feminism. . . and it was fun--fantastic, actually. I was with people I like, having a long deep informed discussion about things I care about a lot--as I said, fantastic. Then I went home and promptly fell back asleep.

And this is my self-indulgent life. I don't know if I'm ok with it. It can't be ethical, right? People are starving. All this time I'm spending on myself--it's not helping anyone else. Is this what it feels like to be safe and stable and fed? If anyone stopped talking to me, it would not be devastating. I'm not sure if I'm ok with it, but now that I know I can have it, it's nearly impossible to motivate myself to do otherwise.

I think I'm going to go with it, for just awhile; my plan is to take the next year off of school and just. . . do what I want. Just do this--just read and garden and sleep and cry and talk to interesting people pretty much whenever I want. Most people have a life at some point, don't they? Even the ones who then give it up to fight for Truth and God and The American Way?

It's astonishing how often I start considering some problem that I find really interesting, or that otherwise relates to my life, and it immediately turns to, "I've really got to get around to reading ___________ book." From today:

Infantilization of women by otherwise decent guys: The Macho Paradox (Jackson Katz)

The question of whether systemic violence is necessarily the case in a global economy: Empire (Negri and Heart)

What to do about elitism in education: Literacy with an Attitude (Patrick J. Finn)

Whether female sexuality inherently entails victimization: The Second Sex (de Beauvoir, of course. . . though to be clear, whatever she says, I don't expect to believe her)

How to prune my new plum tree: The Backyard Orchardist (Stella Otto)

Whether I should go all out and get micronutrient soil testing (mostly for fun): Introducing soil science (Brady)

Whether capitalism has any merit on a macroeconomic scale: MIT Opencourseware, and the economist. Ok, so that's not a book. Still. . . you get the idea.

Clearly, I am an addict.

So, blogging balance.

My favorite part is that by telling everyone, I don't have to tell anyone. There's no sitting in awkward silence. There's less of that feeling that I'm trying to knock down a brick wall with every sentence. There's no wondering whose day I've ruined, or which friend thinks I'm trying to use them as a therapist. It's emotionally reckless, but it's also pretty clearly marked, and so far I think no one reads at gunpoint. The writing every day feels good, and the openness also.

There are things I worry about. What not to say? I feel strongly that depression and anxiety, the commonplace messedupnesses, need a louder place. It isn't that they're good--it's that they're so hard to talk about. What are you supposed to do if sad and scared are the larger part of your life? How do you deal with the days when you have nothing to say to anyone because you feel you can't be happy enough for them--like they deserve something better? Even people who want to be supportive don't know how to deal with it. Maybe if we talked about it more often they would.

There's a line to walk. Wallowing is bad. I have no idea how to split the difference between self pity and a healthy, honest recognition of your circumstances--between raising awareness, getting healthy social feedback, and pointless exhibitionism. All good things to learn.

When I found this in The Second Sex, it was unbelievably resonant.

"At ten or twelve years of age most little girls are truly "garcons manques"-- that is to say, children who lack something of being boys. Not only do they feel it as a deprivation and an injustice, but they find that the regime to which they are condemned is unwholesome. In girls the exuberance of life is restrained, their idle vigor turns into nervousness; their too prissy occupations do not use up their super-abundant energy; they become bored, and, through boredom and to compensate for their position of inferiority, they give themselves up to gloomy and romantic daydreams; they get a taste for these easy escape mechanisms and loose their sense of reality; they yeild to their emotions with uncontrolled excitement; instead of acting, they talk, often commingling serious phrases and senseless words in hodgepodge fashion. Neglected, "misunderstood," they seek consolation in narcissistic fancies: they view themselves as romantic heroines of fiction, with self-admiration and self-pity. Quite naturally they become coquettish and stagy, these defects becoming more conspicuous at puberty. Their malaise shows itself in impatience, tantrums, tears; they enjoy crying--a taste many women retain in later years--largely because they like to play the part of victims; at once a protest against their hard lot and a way to make themselves appealing. Little girls sometimes watch themselves cry in a mirror, to double the pleasure." pp. 296-297

Beauvoir here describes one way of embracing Otherness--specifically, the way that Twilight and millions of other romance novels are about. I remember very clearly at a young age being aware that I wasn't fulfilling this obligation of femininity. I was too happy, too healthy, too energetic and independent and selfish (in the way that children are) to be worth paying attention to. Perhaps in earlier generations this embrace of victimhood was generated out of repressed activity, but for me the self-modifications formed a solitary, powerful drive: less independent, less competent, become dependent, attacked, and therefore defensible or even loveable. I remember being frustrated at how impossible it was for me to really be a victim, and therefore a heroine--the status I wanted more than anything else in the world.

I can only think promoting this paradigm does immeasurable harm. It encourages women to forsake authenticity, and in the process destroys what could have been meaningful relationships with fully developed human beings.

The fact that deep down we all know this goes on on also calls into question the status of almost any call for help. Closing a painfully rational circuit, I now experience this phenomenon simultaneously from both sides. Having long desired the role of the victim so strongly that I would have been willing to fake it, if I could*, it's difficult to sort out which things I experience because I'm trying to embrace my weak and desirable side, and which ones are genuine expressions of damage that's been done to me, needing to be addressed.

I feel guilty about my deceptive embrace of victimhood in the past, and my inclination is to assume all of my accustomed reactions are fake. They are not all fake, and--given that I am not particularly adept at understanding my reactions to trauma--I'm not sure if I ever have been fake, or if I just exaggerated.

Today I tried to listen to a podcast a friend had recommended to me. I made it twenty minutes in before it was hard to breathe. My persistent feeling is that I must be making all of this up, what I'm showing can't be any sort of real symptoms. . . sometimes I have to remind myself, this is real--you didn't decide to stop breathing. I really wanted to hear the rest of the podcast. I was not exaggerating. Moments like this remind me that a lot of it is far more real than I want to believe or admit.

The things I have objectively lived through will leave you with a decent amount of non-exaggerated shit to sort through. Recognizing that can be a mess. Honestly is important, and in general I think everyone honest with themselves knows they've done monstrous things at some point in time. If not, well. . . wait.

One day at a time.



*and in some ways I could. The waters got muddy very early on this.

edit: also, for the record, I almost never enjoy crying. . . but it has seemed. . . necessary?

lost

"Honestly, it turned my stomach when you mentioned that you'd thought about blowing things up," he said, turning towards me in the darkness of the car.

"It should." My answer was easy and fast. "If it doesn't turn your stomach, then you've lost something. . . something that's important to have."


I thought about the girl, abused, intentionally isolated, eleven years old and peeling away her own skin under quality professional care.


I have lost something.

Some of the people who have hurt me worst are very hard to get mad at. You say anything to them about what they've done wrong, and they collapse inward into violent paroxysms of guilt.

This is difficult. It feels like they can't or won't face the consequences of their actions. . . but I still have to. Some part of me really wants to hurt them, but yelling at them to try and make them understand would be like kicking a puppy; monstrous, horrifying, and not at all useful. In the slightest. To anyone.

I think anger is useful. It seems there are two good responses to it. If anger is telling you about something that ought to be changed, change it if you can. That's what anger is for, to fuel battles, to keep you awake and strong and make you remember what you fight for.

If it is impossible to change--there is only to mourn what you've lost.

Yesterday I got what I thought was good advice about the social-skills project: be aware of what I have to offer.

When I sat down to write this, I thought I'd come up with something quickly about how I'm witty and insightful and well read, but I have difficulty seeing my social value. I know it exists, because I've had friends--to me it seems like a lot of friends--on an almost-consistent basis for the past ten or eleven years. Probably I should ask them, but many of them aren't talking to me these days.

My perception of myself is this: I am generally loveable, but not especially likeable. I am well read and insightful; on some topics I am excellent conversation, and on some a good source of information. I'm pretty good at analysis, breaking problems down into their constituent parts, and I'm getting better at backing off of that when someone needs to think on through it in their own way. I'm passionate about ethical reasoning, which makes me interesting and sometimes helpful, but sometimes very annoying. I'm very good in a crisis--in fact, that may be what I'm best at.*

One difficulty is, I don't how to work around my social drawbacks. For most people, most of the time, I am not particularly pleasant to be around. I am a little bit high maintenance, sort of self-absorbed. Sometimes I can tell when I'm bothering someone, when I'm crossing a boundary that really matters to them, and sometimes I can't. Sometimes it seems that others are uncomfortable because I am honest and provocative and make people think, and I don't know what to do about that, because while those are social detriments, I see them as some of my key selling points as a human being. It seems like there's got to be a way, though; making people uncomfortable is a strategy that should be used sparingly. And it should be a strategy, not a state of being.

I don't mean to go around hurting people, but some part of me secretly wants to. . . I'm pretty sure.

hmn. More later.

I have miles to go before I sleep.





*Now that I think about it, this could explain 85% of my social life. We can see why it would need some remodeling.

Purity

is one of the most common measures of morality; it's about cultivating virtue and keeping out the things that don't belong. Among liberals and leftists it is often manifested through food. Veganism is not for everybody--only for the virtuous, those who care about ethics, those who are willing to sacrifice. Eating local, organic, produce and excluding whatever is ethically dubious will make you skinny and healthy and. . . virtuous. Right?

Maybe. If one is concerned with animal welfare and the environment, having a lifestyle that supports that is a spectrum, not a step, and it isn't just food. As humans in the first world, virtually everything we do has a detrimental environmental impact. How does your veggie burger hold up against your refusal to take the bus? The clothes you bought new at Wal-mart? Your soap from the dollar store? Do you know what oilfield your 100% vegan fleece came from? Is it really better, just because the bodies of the dead are rotting in the Niger delta instead of marinating in tariyaki sauce?

I don't mean to belittle the efforts of really dedicated environmentalist vegans. They have my admiration and support. I also don't mean to imply at all that any effort which doesn't cover everything isn't worthwhile. I even believe in being vocal about your ethical choices, and I want people to hold each other (socially) to a high ethical standard with regards to environmentalism.

My beef with this comes in when people think it's ok to try to invoke other people's sense of purity. Moral reasoning, I'm fine with. If you want to stop me from eating meat because of justice--because by eating it I'm doing harm to people and creatures who deserve no violence from me--I am absolutely fine with that. However, I'd rather have vegetarianism forced on me by violence than have people appropriate my understanding of virtue to get me to adopt it on my own.

When we disagree about what priorities are appropriate for the wider society to accept, that effects me but it is not an attack on my identity. When it comes to individual choices, there is only person one who should be allowed to decide what belongs in me--in my body, in my ethics--and what does not. This person is me. If I adopt an ethical standard based on selfish and inconsistent hedonism, as an individual you can think less of me, and as a citizen you can help enact laws that curb my outward behavior--and that's all.

I feel very strongly that trouble comes when outsiders try to arbitrate an individual's sense of purity. Religious readers might disagree with this, but I see this as a major problem in religious practice. When the emotional and ethical development process have not taken place for a teenager to reject pornography of their own accord, based on their own moral foundation, others will often attempt to impose this conclusion socially. The result is a massive cycle of guilt and shame. I don't know if it works or not, but guilt is an ugly motivator--and when allowed to fester and spiral into something huge, it does terrible damage to the person experiencing it.

The thing to be avoided is manipulation--projecting your values over someone else's, or usurping their values so that they will act in support of your preferences.

Besides its modern incarnation, there's a very long spiritual tradition of using food to establish or symbolize moral superiority, using purity. My first bout with severely disordered eating was triggered--after many other things had been set in place--by a sacrament meeting devoted to how fasting can make you pure. You don't stop eating because of things you think; you do it because of things you feel. You do it because you want to feel pure and you don't feel like you deserve to live. When you associate purity with restricting food, you can get a double dose of self-destructive relief from one tragic course of action.

When others try to appropriate my sense of purity for their cause, I get defensive quickly. The idea that veganism isn't for everybody--only for the virtuous--pushes all the wrong buttons. I like to see myself as virtuous. I like to feel myself as pure. I enjoyed exercising for seven hours a day on a 1200 calorie, mostly-vegetable diet, and it makes me angry that people who were supposed to be my friends encouraged me to do so.

I think in dealing with these questions it's terribly important to get in touch with your own sense of virtue, your own sense of purity, your own moral reasoning--and to get in touch with your own judgmental side. Saying "I think you are in the wrong" makes it much clearer whose values are whose than saying "you could be pure if you were like me."



Someday, when there are less triggers associated with it, I'd like to become vegan with the exception of
a) foods I've raised myself humanely, and
b) significant cultural and culinary experiences.

I want to eat at the French Laundry, learn to make a spectacular saag paneer, and taste peeking duck when I'm in China. These moments will not come often, and I choose not to miss them.

My values lead me to think a lot about the ways my time and money impact other people and creatures, but they also lead me to assert my own claim to a rich and full existence. I am willing to take a stand for the things I care about. I am willing to make sacrifices, and I care passionately about changing the world for the better. I am not, and do not plan to be, vegetarian or vegan. This is what I believe about the purity and virtue of the way I eat.

I am often asked to explain the reasoning behind my political views. Here are the basics.


I'm a socialist because I think if the workers owned the means of production, the world would both be more fair and have better outcomes for the majority of people. Every society that guards against theft defines some things to be just acquisition of property, and other things not to be.

Most people agree that pointing a gun at someone and asking for their wallet is theft, even if--once the gun is pointed at their head--they hand it over freely. I believe we would be better off if we decided certain contracts were also theft. Namely, I object to "freely" (on penalty of not having their basic needs met) entered contracts where one person gets a small amount of money for their labor--and the other person sells the product of that labor for much more money, generating profit in various forms.


I'm an anarchist because I recognize that authoritative structures have only the power we collectively and individually give them, and I hold the value of maximizing liberation. In my (arbitrary) system of values, the freedom that comes from access to quality education is valued enormously over the freedom that comes from the access to seventeen different toothpaste options. I think that I am more free if you have access to a good education, and have time to parent your children; you may not believe the same, or wish to prioritize my access to the same resources. Maybe you really love your toothpaste.

There are other kinds of freedom that fall between those two, and that's where a lot of anarchists and communists clash. Is the freedom not to starve more important than the freedom to choose what job you do? I believe this is exactly the sort of choice that was faced in the Soviet Union. A lot of the more patriotic American types will loudly protest that they'd prefer the option of choosing their livelihood. Ultimately, I think these sorts of conflicts have got to be resolved through communal negotiation.


I'm a republican because I recognize that there must be a negotiation of common values, and because I think this negotiation of values has a greater importance--and a more profound impact on individual lives--than the preservation of individual rights. I'm a republican because I'd prefer that this negotiation be as explicit as possible.

I believe that recognizing and prioritizing the negotiation of common values is the only way that common people can have a real say in it. Yes, the majority will fail to give just consideration to the interests of minorities. That is better than having a minority in power who fails to give just consideration to the interests of the majority--which is how we do things now.


The label these things add up to is Anarcho-Communist. It is not set in stone. If you'd like to convince me it's wrong, you have my blessing; if it can't hold up to argument, I shouldn't believe it.