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.

photo credit goes to my friend Adi Lopez :)

In keeping with my ongoing feminazi kick, this morning I picked up two books by Jessica Valenti.

The first is called Full Frontal Feminism; a young woman's guide to why feminism matters. I find it frustrating. I think she's trying to do the same thing that bell hooks is trying to do in Feminism is for Everybody (a book I highly recommend, though not as highly as Feminist Theory; from margin to center)--make an introductory primer, something that says, "this is what we are, what we are not, and why we are relevant to your life."

I see four main problems in Valenti's work. First, her writing isn't particularly focused or clear--it often includes disorganized rants. Second, she oversimplifies like there's no tomorrow. In fact, she oversimplifies like there's no ten minutes from now. Third, while I understand that she's trying to appeal to an audience of "young women," her approach (including a lot of swearing) definitely has no chance of reaching the audience that most needs it--young conservative religious types.

Lastly, this book hasn't done anything to improve my opinion of "pro-sex feminism". Though I like sex, I find it problematic to set it up as necessarily good. For instance, when I was a teenager I ran into a fair few guys with the approach, "sex is good, so you should have it with me--if you don't mind too much." Sex-positive doesn't really describe individual autonomy, in a strong sense, over one's own body. That includes respecting people's choice not to have sex, ever, if they so choose. Insofar as one has to weigh in on these things, I'd consider myself to be (politically) sex-neutral.

Also, though I appreciate the value of writing about feminism for women, I'm with bell hooks; feminism is for everybody. I'd prefer it if this were written in a way that's much more inclusive of men. I'm halfway through, we'll see if it gets better.


Thankfully, the second book (He's a stud, she's a slut, and 49 other double standards every woman should know) looks better. While some of the same snags are still present, the format--basically, two page chapters on a focused topic--does a lot to clean up her approach. It goes over all sorts of inequalities, from well known ones (viagra is routinely covered by health insurance, but birth control is not) to the more obscure (women pay more for the same cars and haircuts.) The format also lends itself to browsing, which I'm fond of. It's the kind of book I'd want to keep a copy of on my coffee table--good for a thought provoking two second reminder of how the little things don't add up.

Be afraid of the lame
They'll inherit your legs
Be afraid of the old
They'll inherit your souls
Be afraid of the cold
They'll inherit your blood
Apres moi, le deluge
After me comes the flood


I must go on standing
You can't break that which isn't yours
I, oh, must go on standing
I'm not my own, it's not my choice



(soundtrack to the book. . .)

* * *

I was ranting to Jacob at the restaurant yesterday:

"I stayed up for an extra two hours after work to finish reading The Handmaid's Tale. I read it before, a long time ago, and didn't begin to understand.

Now I find it real, horrifying. Compelling."


I don't know why feminism feels so central to me. For all the substantial violence I've been subjected to in my life, there's little I can point to as concrete evidence of oppressive widespread patriarchy that doesn't come off as paranoiac whining.

Paper-thin parodies of liberatory thought that find their way into the popular consciousness don't scratch the surface of the problem that concerns me, personally, the most; I want to be taken seriously. Women are taken seriously at some things, a few things, but the largest parts of me are most interested in being in the places where we aren't taken seriously--continental philosophy, hardcore non-humanities scholarship, violence, emotion.

I want to be taken seriously without giving up fun.

And I want my priorities to be taken seriously, even when they don't match up with the patriarchal ideal--stay at home mothers, for instance, are not a solution to the complexities of adequate childrearing in an egalitarian society--and yet these complexities deserve to be understood, dealt with, respected, maybe even solved. Wanting to be safe, but not patronized by a "protector" (who himself is free to subject you to whatever he likes; see: God) is not "trying to have it both ways."

Still, I feel that I must be exaggerating; it can't be that bad.



The waitress came back with the receipt and returned my debit card to him.

Things are not done.

When I was nine, my father, against my will, cut off my long hair. With profound melodrama, I swore never to cut it again. This was a serious thing; it even survived my discovery of that terrible passage in Corinthians when I was thirteen.

That's why, at sixteen, my hair was down to my waist. I had promised myself not to commit suicide, but something had to change, so I hacked it off with my sewing scissors, coiling it in my hands and hiding it away like a keepsake. Then I sat through night prayers, breakfast, and morning prayers, before--after scripture study--my sister said, "is your hair pulled back?"

I still think that is the worst kind of loneliness; to be trapped in a room with people who should see you, but can't.


I thought of this during the keynote on Friday, called "what we owe the dead." He suggested that, contrary to Freud, we can never finish the work of mourning--contrary to Heidegger, we can truly mourn for each other, not just for reflections of our own future. We are composed, in part, of each other; when one of us dies, the rest loose a part of ourselves. The rest of us, then, must process the grotesque affront of life going on after death--after the death of a part of ourselves, after the death of someone we cared for.

In typical egocentric fashion I am terrified. Not of the death of others, though I worry about that too--but mostly, I'm afraid that when I die there will not be an absence left behind. I'm afraid I'm already gone, passing my life with people who almost never see me.



I don't mean this as a criticism, or an insult to my excellent family and friends; this fear may not be a rational one. Sometimes I feel I'm the only one, like I'm somehow by nature unseeable. Other times I think it must be everyone, that we pass by each other on the street like ghosts, each calmly and politely suppressing a Munch-like scream. Of course it has to be something else, neither of those extremes--but it is not a stretch to say that we would see each other better, in a better world.

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?

This feminism class was definitely a good idea.

Today, Irigary. I'm not sure what she's saying, and I'm not sure I will agree with it at all when I do understand. But: she tries to make an accounting of how things are and what there is to do about it, taking into consideration both 1) the obvious differences between the sexes and 2)the role language plays in psychology and the construction of power. So far, it's refreshing and intriguing. . . and, let's face it, slightly creepy. (As one girl in my class put it, "anyone else here feel a little bit molested after reading this?") I'm hoping to get together a study group and really cover it in depth this summer.

Also about feminism class: awesome people. The only thing that tempts me to return to school this fall is the possibility of getting enough people together for an advanced feminism class, which surely would have the same effect and then some. :)

bell hooks bell hooks bell hooks bell hooks bell hooks bell hooks bell hooks. . .

On the plus: one hour with just me and my class. And I do tend to contribute to the discussion.

On the wtf: there's some sort of luncheon, to which xendofthelinex (my favorite kitten loving stalinist, who is not even in the class,) was invited, and I was not. (!) :( Pick me, Shannon, pick me! Is this what I get for not adequately sucking up to faculty?


but mostly I am absolutely buzzing. In the flesh. . . I've spent all day reading and re-reading her work. . . I wish I could afford to buy more of it. It's just all so alive, and I've never found another thinker I so closely, deeply, and frequently agree with.

How often do you meet your hero?

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.

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?

trends

This is a synopsis of major works on the psychology and development of gifted women, summarized from chapter 5 of Smart Girls.

-There were an abundance of negative steriotypes about gifted children in the early 1900s. Terman studies (1921-1922) of the top 1% of students in some California school districts as sorted by the stanford-binet IQ test revealed above average physical and social development and slightly lower grades than expected.

-Kaufmann presidential scholars study (1981 and 1986) discovered that in the extrordanarily gifted sample she studied, women were less likely to have married or had children than their less gifted counterparts, and that they were still underpaid compared to the men. She also learned that those who had mentors were paid as well as the men.

-The Illinois valedictorian project (Arnold 1994) showed a steady attrition of female subjects starting in the sophmore year of college, with a severe decrease in intellectual self-esteem. This decrease did not show up in male subjects despite identical academic achievement. Over the same period, female subjects became very concerned with combining family and career, and for this reason began dropping out of academically challenging programs; males did not. Most of the females intended to interrupt their education and/or careers for childrearing, and the males did not. Career status ten years after graduation, for female subjects, was largely dependent on “values surrounding career and family combinations, as well as willingness to interupt career plans.”

-The Groth vocational development study (1969) discovered that gifted girls developed an intense desire for affection and love around the age of fourteen, which continued until the age of 40—at which point “self-esteem regained importance.” The gifted males in the study, on the other hand, “tended to maintain strong interests in achievement throughout adolescence and adulthood, into retirement age.” Later research has confirmed that gifted females tend experience more need for achievement during specific critical periods. (Reis 1996)

-Brown and Gilligan (1992) found that while younger girls (primary school) were often outspoken and opinionated, by the teen years many of the same individuals had lost confidence in their own perspectives; their communication became filled with qualifiers, pauses, and especially the phrase “I don't know.” This was found to be associated with “learning to be nice,” and “hiding opinions and feelings which they considered possibly hurtful to others.”

-In 1990, Holland and Eisenheart found that among their sample of high achieving female college students with serious intentions towards having a career, “less than 25% of their activities were directed towards schoolwork or career. . . the dominant topic of conversations between participants and their peers was relationships with men. Even talk about other women centered around those women's ties to men.” Confirming earlier research, they also found that while social status and prestiege for men were centered around achievement, social status and prestiege for women were centered around relationships with men. The women in the study generally downsized their original career goals, shifting to less challenging majors.

-Card, Steele, and Abales (1980), devised a metric for comparing the level of “achievement potential” (early achievement and expectations) with the level of it's realization. They found that in all socio-economic groups men had a better “potential”/”achievement” ratio than women—and that in the group with the highest achievement potential, women fell the furthest behind men. These results have been confirmed by more recent studies (Loprest, 1992).

-In 1979, Rodenstein and Glickhauf-Huges defined their terms and then categorized subjects as career focused, homemakers, or integrators. They found that the career focused subjects had more scientific interests, and homemakers had more social ones, with integrators falling between. All had had parental support for their choices, but the career focused were the most likely to have ignored both positive and negative feedback from parents. Perhaps most importantly, integrators were as satisfied with their careers as career focused women, and as satisfied with their roles as wives and mothers as homemakers.

More Zizek

"The perplexing fact about the "terrorist" attacks is that they do not fit our standard opposition of evil as egotism or disregard for the common good, and good as the spirit of and actual readiness for sacrifice in the name of some higher cause. Terrorists cannot but appear as something akin to Milton's Satan with his "Evil, be thou my Good": While they pursue what appear to us to be evil goals with evil means, the very form of their activity meets the highest standard of the good. The resolution of this enigma isn't difficult and was already known to Rousseau. Egotism, or the concern for one's well-being, is not opposed to the common good, since altruistic norms can easily be deduced from egotist concerns. Individualism versus communitarianism, utilitarianism versus the assertion of universal norms, are false oppositions since the two opposed options amount to the same result. The critics who complain how, in today's hedonistic-egoistic society, true values are lacking totally miss the point. The true opposite of egoist self-love is not altruism, a concern for the common good, but envy, ressentiment, which makes me act against my own interests. The true evil, which is the death drive, involves self-sabotage. It makes us act against our own interests."

"Rawls thus proposes a terrifying model of a society in which hierarchy is directly legitimised in natural properties, thereby missing the simple lesson an anecdote about a Slovene pesant makes palpably clear. The peasant is given a choice by a good witch. She will either give him one cow and his neighbor two cows, or she'll take one cow from him and two from his neighbor. The peasant immediately chooses the second option. Gore Vidal demonstrates the point succinctly: "It is not enough for me to win--the other must loose." The catch of envy/ressentment is that it not only endorses the zero-sum game principle where my victory is the other's loss. It also implies a gap between the two, which is not the positive gap (we can all win with no losers at all_ but a negative one. If I have to choose between my gain and my opponent's loss, I prefer the opponent's loss, even if it means a loss to me. It is as if my eventual gain from my opponent's loss functions as a kind of pathological element that stains the purity of my victory."

(from Violence.)

control freak

I don't think of myself as the kind of person who constantly wastes herself on petty arguments, but possibly I am. This comes up because I often hurt people badly without understanding how or why. Lately, attempting to approach such an insoluble problem, I've noticed a definite common thread: boundaries.

Of course, basically everything about human interaction can be boiled down to boundaries if we aim for it. These are the questions that try everyone; what's mine and what's yours? What do we have the right to do to each other? Perhaps most essentially, what is the just way to negotiate the grey overlap of our conflicting interests?*

I was mulling over this problem in the library today--trying, as I often do, to find something relevant from somebody else who had already thought it over. Since I was looking for a personal psychological level (instead of, say, just war theory), the best I could find was an unexceptional self-help book called "The control freak." Browsing, I came upon this: someone is a control freak whenever they care about the topic at hand more than anybody else involved does.

There's an important insight here, but I have to disagree with the formulation. Of course differing values have to be factored into the equation--but the way in which one asserts a greater attachment to a given outcome can be right or wrong. Perhaps, ultimately, whoever wants it more will win--but we don't all have the same threshold of desire that will push us into some invasive, obnoxious, or questionably ethical realm of tactics.

In the realm of personal relationships, there's always got to be some agreement about what's fair--about what actions are called for by given circumstances, by given levels of desire. For whatever reason, it seems that I'm blind to any number of these social agreements which make things possible.

I want rules to be fair; I want language to be precise; I want authority figures (and others, but especially anyone with power over me) to understand me, respect me, and make sense. These are not usually separate problems. In general, people do not care very much that language be precise, and as long as they are not effected personally very much, they are willing to accept rules that are not fair.

From my end, I often don't understand what is supposed to be embarrassing. I often don't understand the nuances of social grace, that protector of boundaries which keeps people safe, and I really don't understand people's deep attachment to the status quo.


All there is to do, really, is keep watching, reading, trying to figure out where everybody stands. . . and maybe it's more important that I understand the rules than it is for most people--because ultimately, in almost all situations, I'm going to be the one at the table who cares more than anybody else.




*Or put differently, the entire question of ethics is a question of boundaries.

In case you were wondering. . .

Should I believe in God? Does this matter? I somehow need to return to my previous ethical core in so far as the God question is concerned; the only thing is to live in a way that, God or not, you can die unashamed.

How much other Marx is there that supports my idea that a re-conceptualization of the working class is one of the fundamental problems—maybe the fundamental problem—of modern Marxist theory? Also, what exactly does Marx mean by intercourse? And is this idea of self-activity explored in detail anywhere else? And how does this relate to Nietzsche?

Are the pre-socratics simply full of bullshit, or am I unable to appreciate them due to my lack of perspective? Also, is there some radical insight about the human brain to be had from the fact that they, like modern physics, consider the universe to be composed of a single changeable thing? Maybe this is just a misreading of modern physics? From my interactions with physicists, they do seem to have a much clearer understanding that everything they do is a guess than everybody else does. . . (by “the pre-socratics” I mean Thales, and maybe Anaximander. . I have just started.) I am wary of Occam's razor. . .

What things should I value? If I can answer this from myself it will then conveniently cover the question of “which things do I value?” as well, of course. . . I can tell you which things I like, but—and this grows out of a lot of recent conversations with Greg—if you just chase what you like, what you want, you are nothing but hunger. It is only by will and consciousness that we might become more than pure figments of nature. If I behaved in a way to make the things I like generally easier to get, it would certainly look ethical, but ultimately it's just self-interest. Maybe I'm ranging towards hedonism. Maybe that's ok.

Relatedly--

How does one place appropriate value on other people without getting screwed over by them?

There's a distinction that a lot of people will make, but few with any kind of clarity, between different kinds of pleasure. John Stewart Mill points out that people happiness is better than pig happiness, but nowhere that I'm aware of does he discuss, in detail, exactly why. What I'm even more interested in is the difference—if there is one—between the satisfaction that comes from satisfying a basic hunger (food, books, sex) and an ethical one (say. . . justice. For people who aren't you.) If you want justice more than you want food, you aren't giving anything up by devoting your life to justice. In this context is the pursuit of justice any different from hedonism?

Unrelatedly, I just have to say this; Marx is amazing. More on that later.


Anyway. . . so it's lonely in here, but not too unstable. The main thing I've been feeling for the first little bit is this tremendous sense of control over my time. . . and also a sort of faint underlaying current of terror.

What an excellent start. :)

Aphorismo

In a time of almost universal deceit, telling the truth becomes an act of rebellion.

-I've seen this attributed to both George Orwell and H.G. Wells. I'm betting Orwell.



Wasting time is wasting everything.

-unknown



Everything will be OK in the end. If its not OK, it's not the end.

-Unknown, but loved. . . deliciously morbid coming from anti-theist/nihilism instead of, say, Christianity.



Breath is the music that connects us to the outside world.

-Bartenief analysis; essential wisdom for dancers



Wisdom is justified of all her children

-Luke 7:35



If anyone wants a sheep, that is proof that he exists.. .

-Antoine de Saint Exupery



If we do not love life for our own sake and through others, it is futile to seek to justify it in any way.

-Simone de Beauvoir

the social cost of financial responsibility

Lately I've been reading Amy Dacyczyn's The Complete Tightwad Gazette, which is a compendium (nearly a thousand pages) of advice on saving money. The suggestions range from obvious to extreme, but I find it generally useful. For example, she points out (and expounds upon the fact, pp.42-43) that there are three ways to save money on something; you can buy it cheaper, make it last longer, or use it less. Another example is this tidy and useful summary of the principles (her word) of frugality, from an article on pp. 64-66:

1) Record Spending
2) Regardless of your income, do not spend everything you earn
3) Use creativity and thrift to improve the quality of life, rather than spending more money
4) Avoid convenience foods and instead prepare from scratch
5) Buy in bulk
6) All family members should develop hobbies that save money, rather than ones that are non-productive or cost money*
7) Whenever possible reuse materials you already have rather than buying new at shops
8) Don't try to keep up with the Joneses; instead live within your means

She elaborates on each of these throughout the book, and as far as I can tell she's covered all the major bases except two--try to avoid rent, and don't let anything (rebates, vegetables, surprisingly many other things) go bad on you. So far so good, no?

Now that you have the general gist of the book, we can move on to the hard part. What is the right thing to do about social spending?


You're aware of the situation, I'm sure; old friends who you haven't seen in years or new ones you're very interested in knowing suggest a dinner out. If you've been resigned to overspending, this may come in stride, but if--like me--you're on a strong frugal streak, it presents a dilemma.

Ultimately thrift should be about being aware of how you expend your resources, and using that awareness to direct them to the things you value most. Generally I believe very strongly in behaving--insofar as such a thing is possible--as if things are less important than people. I really love dining out, but at times when my money can be put to really, really, really rewarding use elsewhere, social comfort is about the only thing that can compel me to do it.

Dacyczyn would call this "Keeping up with the Jonses." In fact, the quote (from an 1833 manual called The American Frugal Housewife) she uses to illustrate "Keeping up with the Jonses" is this:

"To associate with influential and genteel people with an appearance of equality unquestionably has its advantages, but like other external advantages, these may have their proper price, and may be bought too dearly. Self denial, in proportion to the narrowness of your income, will eventually become the happiest and most respectable course for you and yours."

The problem is, it's not a simple matter of individualistically renouncing consumerism or giving up ostentation. Social spending is about making other people comfortable, or about holding a certain position--and not necessarily a dominant one--in the social sphere, a sphere that is just as much about relationships as about consumption. If you don't have a place to entertain, it's the cost of creating a comfortable space in which to connect with people. As someone who never pays more than 10$ for an outfit and balks at a 5$ garlic press (which I'd use constantly), a hundred dollars or more a month on gifts and other social spending often seems an eminently worthwhile use of funds.

It is likely, of course, that the friends in question are not much more "influential and genteel" than myself, but merely have different priorities, or are less aware of their resource use. . . and this brings me to my main conclusion; I think it would be nice to foster a culture where social spending is not so obligatory. Let's encourage the use (and existence) of public social spaces and events, and bring back picnicking and home cooking. After all, the less time we spend on earning money to spend time with each other, the more time we have to spend with each other.



*I actually disagree with this one--what is money for, if not life? Just make sure what you do is worth it to you.

unabashed rambling

organizing books is one of my Favorite Things In The Whole Wide World.

Back when I was in high school, it was my primary sane-making pastime. . . there was something incredibly calming about bringing order to something, particularly since it was such a tangible something and it managed to carry such a potent subtext of Future. I wanted to learn almost everything, and the books I owned were my tool kit, their untapped wisdom the best shot I had at getting to who I thought I wanted to be. When I was upset, I would make myself a challenge--get rid of ten books, or in extreme cases fifty. . . and since I had a source of free books, this lead to a constant refining and re-organization process rather than true personal-library anorexia. :)

Organizing books can be a bit like organizing your brain. When I left the home of my teen-angst, I would often satisfy this craving to externalize my thoughts by way of the library. Thirty interior design books spread about you on the floor are like a specialized meditation garden on the subject at hand. . . I've often been known to wander for an extra forty minutes or an hour looking for exactly the right combination of items to express my mental state, then take them home and wallow in the creative fecundity of my acquisitions, reading a chapter here and another there in attempts to pick up exactly the information I was seeking.

These days I'm a little less spontaneous with my reading and a lot more serious about my study habits, but I've discovered that my "books to read" document has come to serve a deliciously similar function, except even better--The Future is now. It's like the Wheaties of book organizing; book organizing for now and the long haul. Here are the books I plan to read in Philosophy--in Science--in French--entire lists of books imported from friends on interesting subject matter, a list of topics to research (and find the best books to read on them), everything I'm currently reading highlighted in bold. . . and, of course, the singularly satisfying act of deleting items from the list, productive if I've read them and cathartic if I've decided they no longer need apply.

It might possibly be the case that the list is shrinking slower than it is growing. It does include such list items as: "items in my library which don't belong to me," "the rest of the major Russians," and "other items in my library which do belong to me." For the moment though, it is finite, motivating, exciting, extremely reflective of my goals and progress towards them, and, as perhaps I've said, deeply, deeply satisfying.


As soon as I've done writing this, I'll be off to return to my roots--organizing my physical, material personal library for the first time in almost a year, with space to keep my books where I can see them, and all in one place. I finally have the bookshelves, and I've been looking forward to it for days.

Organizing my books right now has two kinds of additional significance, above what it had when I was a teen. For one thing, as I have scarcely begun to believe, it seems that I have a home. While I don't see myself loosing my taste as a minimalist and I think I'll always be aware that it costs money to maintain Things (including a personal library of any size), I no longer need constantly to imagine how many camels it would take to carry all this, or how exactly I would pack the entirety into my Geo, or what I would leave behind and expect never to see again when I depart for Europe. I'm perhaps a bit too scarred to become attached to Things--which is not all bad--but it will certainly be a different thing to approach the project from the perspective of having a single, stationary, almost permanently allocated home.

The other difference is that as I've become more serious in reading, I care to depend on other people's libraries less and less. If I've put significant time and effort into reading this, I want to own a copy--I want to keep notes about it, maybe even (God forbid) underline sections in pencil--I want to be able to reference it and find the right parts when I need to, because someday soon I'll be using this to do my work. Personal library has become not just a projection of future destinations, collection of past favorites, and source of occasional reading material, but something far more vivacious, almost constantly interactive.

Exciting. Tasty. Very filling.

As I said, Satisfying.

So thank you, Mary, for sharing your library organizing experience. Sometimes when your favorite things are--we'll say quirky--its nice to know how other people enjoy them to. . . and as it turns out, writing (and sometimes reading) about sorting books can be almost as fun as sorting them. :)

thoughts on Twilight

^^a postsecret item that reminded me of twilight fan art.

Over the past month or so, I've read the first and the last of the twilight novels, watched the recently released movie, and encountered four interesting related reviews.

1)The one on Mary's blog

2)The one on Stormfront (the largest gathering of "white nationalists" on the internet)

3)My absolute favorite (thank you very much Heidi)

4)and this deeply desturbing one by Caitlin Flanagan.


It's this last one that I'm interested in discussing right now. Certainly there's something to be said for treating the metaphors and sexuality in the story candidly, and certainly it's about time someone noticed (or perhaps I should say, noted) the underlaying message about sex and morality, and its connection to Stephanie Meyer's faith.

While not brilliantly written, this review is at least, for a change, intelligent--and I can't help feeling that it somehow misses the mark. I know a lot of my readership are twilight fans, and I know that they tend to be the quieter lot. . . . but I'm asking you now; what do you think of her analysis?

books I've read this year

that I can think of off the top of my head (read through, in no particular order):

Rape, by Joanna Bourke
Five stars, the best I've read on the topic--and I've read several.

The Lucifer Effect, by Phillip Zimbardo
Annoying as hell, but lots of useful and interesting information

The Communist Manifesto
Surprisingly excellent.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
Brilliant. I cried. It's also a fast/short read.

Introducing Shakespeare
Moderately terrible. Pet peeve; even more antifeminist than Shakespeare.

Introducing Existentialism
Didn't understand it, but now I know what to read.

Introducing Philosophy
Very useful, put lots of tidbits I knew in place and helped me develop a plan for further study.

Introducing Ethics
About the same as Introducing Philosophy

Introducing Derrida
Massively helpful. Plan to read it through again before I go back to actually reading Derrida.

Watchmen
Mixed feelings. The craftsmanship is amazing, and I have a deep fondness for Rorschach. It turns my stomach, but it's supposed to. Also, the source of my favorite Alan Moore quote.

The Rules of Survival
Excellent, highly recommended YA novel about the some of the subtleties of abusive situations and how to solve them.

Manipulating Parents
TERRIBLE. Prize moment? The discussion of how a teenage girl whose stepfather had "unwisely expressed a biological urge" with her was "manipulating" him by threatening to tell her mother if he didn't grant her special privileges. . . and this clearly had to be put to a stop. . .

How to Win Friends and Influence People
eh. See blog.

The last Twilight book
I cried, but for different reasons. . . ok, metaphorically. I do wish I could get my kids to stop reading these, and read something better.

The last Harry Potter book
*shrugs*

The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm
A good read-aloud book for the kids

Untapped
Excellent. This is an accessible and well documented description of the history and present state of the petrol industry in Africa.

The Speed of Dark
Another novel about autism, not as good but still interesting; deals explicitly in autism rights issues without getting incredibly pedantic. . . though to be fair, it is kinda pedantic.

Manga versions of Othello, Julius Caesar, and the Tempest
Very helpful--incredibly readable. I have mixed feelings about the art and presentation, but this may be my favorite format for Shakespeare--I wish someone would put out full text versions. After reading these through two or three times, I'm sure I'd get much more out of reading the full text real-time or watching the plays--and they read very quickly.

Rules for Radicals
Some useful ideas, I would like to see this more practically developed. It's kinda funny how anti-socialist he is.

How to Lie With Statistics
A good book on interpreting statistics for beginners who haven't had a ton of math.

The Mythic Imagination
Post-Jungean exploration of mythology as psychology for modern life. Some useful insights, also a very annoying book (writing style and pre-suppositions of author.)

The first book in "Y, the last man"
First installment of a story about what happens when a plague kills almost everything with a Y chromosome. Funny, well drawn, and insightful.

Help at any cost
A bit of an expose on the teen reform industry; has proven to be incredibly relevant in my life since I picked it up last spring. Not a bad read, either.

Notice how closely it all matches up with what I was planning to read. . .

How to win friends and influence people

“To be sure I was paying her to say it; but why bring that up?” -p. 227

It's a book that's been so popular over most of the last century that it's title is a catchphrase.

The primary message seems to be that one should develop a "genuine" interest in other people because it will be to one's material interest. All in all, I've come to the conclusion that this is a fantastic lot of advice if you excise the lie. Of course, at that point it becomes basically a religious text. :)


Here's the outline:

3 fundamental techniques in handling people
Don't criticize, condemn, or complain
Give honest and sincere appreciation
Arouse in the other person an eager want

6 ways to make people like you
Become genuinely interested in people
Smile
Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in the language
Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
Talk in terms of the other person's interests
Make the other person feel important—and do it sincerely.

12 ways to win people to your way of thinking
The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it
Show respect for the other person's opinion. Never say “you're wrong.”
If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
Begin in a friendly way.
Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately.
Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
Let the other person feel the idea is his or hers.
Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view.
Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires.
Appeal to the nobler motives.
Dramatize your ideas.
Throw down a challenge.

9 ways to be a good leader
A leader's job often includes changing your people's attitudes and behavior. Some suggestions to accomplish this:
Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly.
Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
Let the other person save face.
Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be “hearty in you approbation and lavish in your praise.”
Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.