How do you say, “I'd like to finish your class, but trying not to want to kill myself seems to be a full time job?”

I wonder if I'm not doing something right, or if I'm just irreconcilably broken. Maybe that crucial part was knocked off long ago, like the rear view mirror came off that Cadillac when your teenage son backed it in too close to the mailbox. Or the time he didn't know what the fuck he was doing when he tried to rebuild the engine.

Some days I wake in the morning and my skin feels tauntingly intact. I would give anything just to be held, but my craving for someone to take a baseball bat or a knife to my back seems like a more honest version of the same desire. So I do the dishes; try not to cry, shake it off. Keep moving. Get dressed. Do something else. Fight. Remember to want to fight. Try, at least, to remember.


It's tempting to just tell her to give me a fail, leave it with everything else in the wreckage behind me. There's legitimacy here; I am trying, really, to build something new. New things need space to grow. The idea of tapping out is liberating, but also, angry and frustrating and sad. I love this work; I don't just like it. It uses me, all the intellectual muscle built up from years of reading useless crap that was never going to be any good to me if I was a physicist or a dancer. It's about taking the things I was inexorably drawn to, almost against my will, and weaving them into something useful and beautiful and real. I don't want to loose it forever.

"Young wives are the leading asset of corporate power. They want the suburbs, a house, a settled life, and respectability. They want society to see that they have exchanged themselves for something of value."

-Ralph Nader

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Ah, so, sorry for missing. As I've mentioned before, I don't know who exactly who has been reading this (other than some of you--I've been thrilled to discover that so much of my audience is composed of intelligent and well-read people who I like). However, I do appreciate you all, a lot--so thank you for reading, and I shall try to be more faithful.


It's been an excruciatingly busy few days with two standout awesome events. One of them isn't bloggable, and the other was the undergraduate philosophy conference.

I've never experienced that kind of intellectual community; it's such a more egalitarian format than the classroom. It was small and simple, 20 or 30 people in a room*--just talking and listening about really interesting ideas.

I went for extra credit, expecting something sub-par, but it wasn't. Sure, some of the papers were really basic; some of them didn't say anything interesting. For the most part, though, it was fantastic. There was an understanding, this thing that sets it apart from terrible campfire or internet philosophy: we are going to read the old books. We are going to know if someone has had this idea before, and had it better. We are going to build on and challenge this tradition.



*A really awesome room, which can't have hurt. Kudos to whoever designed the new library.

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?

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. :)

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.

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?

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.

To me, Pan's Laborynth remembers the beginning; grainy and heartbreaking, jutting ribcage and sprawling lanky body next to mine, you emanating anger and a broken future to match the past, everything fragile and new. I would have found it someday, but I found it in you, in scrappy strength and Guinness and outspoken angry dreams. I felt impossibly safer and more free. All the heavy dark was an almost easy price.

And now, no borrowed faith. Over. I remember how you were more real than anyone I had ever met.; now I am a person, I am real, I am more than a sophisticated toy. Now, for myself. You were right--it's exhausting--it's better--it hurts--it's exhausting.

Bad faith is hypnotically easy.
Honesty is hard to come by.


I will show you how I hurt you, and you will do whatever you want
which will not fix it
because the time is past
and there is nothing we can do
and this is what it means to be alive.

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.

Lately I think a lot about existentialism and feminism--particularly the Beauvoirian concept of Other, and immanence vs. transcendence. I wonder a lot about how to not be Other. Fashion, architecture, and cooking are interesting to me because they are inherently involved in immanence, but can become art--maybe, become projects of transcendence?

In dance they talk about something called spatial intent. It's used to describe a movement that really claims the space in which it takes place, where it's clear what the dancer's intentions are with regards to the place in which they are confined. I think life is the same way; maybe it's the passion we have as we approach the space we're confined to--even these inescapable projects of immanence--that makes everything worthwhile, or not.