Oh man. This is a hop, skip, and a jump away from becoming a political blog. I constantly find myself sitting down to write out thoughts I have, adjustments and reactions and metaphors that I come up with in my encounter with the world of politics and ideologies (typically via articles posted on Facebook, ha).
I was talking to someone I don't know very well about Ayn Rand, and he had this to say (edited for language but otherwise sic):
"Ayn Rand is definitely extreme! She is thought provoking and that is why I enjoyed the book. I do not agree with all her ideas.
I think Atlas Shrugged is about enabling. I do not think "man" is created equal. I'm not assigning value to one life versus another, just that we all struggle and excel at different things. Some of us are more industrious than others, smarter, sacrifice today for payoff tomorrow. Nature is structured to reward this, survival of the fittest. Species need this to remain healthy. The squirrel who is to lazy to gather nuts for the winter does not need to reproduce. If his industrious squirrel buddies lend a hand and help him out, he can make that many more lazy, baby squirrels. The lazy population could grow to threaten the industrious population/the species as a whole.Feeding lazy squirrels rewards negative behavior! Reinforcing and compounding the problem by increasing the likeliness of its occurrence.
Compassion is a powerful emotion! We can not sit idly by and watch starvation when we have a surplus of our own. It is in our own best interest to help other members of the species survive. We are so hard wired for this it hurts/(messes) with our sanity to not help/contribute if we can. What is the answer? Help out and create a cycle of supporting a noncontributing, dependent population. Remain cold and heartless?"
Well, here's my response.
The "lazy squirrel" story you're telling is a myth. It's a useful set of beliefs to keep wealthy squirrels (so called "industrious squirrels") from feeling guilty about the fact that their comfortable lifestyle is enjoyed not just in the face of, but quite literally at the expense of, starving and suffering squirrels the world over. It's a justification for actively fighting and ignoring your basic squirrel compassion.
It also helps to keep poor squirrels from blaming the right squirrels for the growing wage gap, unemployment rate, and the growing rate of poverty and homelessness.
Tell squirrels that if they're poor, it means they're lazy or dull or unlucky. Tell them that if they blame the system and the "industrious squirrels" it serves, it means they're bad, lazy squirrels who don't want to take accountability for their own failure. You can get quite a few extremely poor squirrels to look to blame everyone and everything else but the "industrious squirrels" that way, because no one wants to think of themselves as lazy or whiny.
Everyone is afraid they're not good enough, not bright or pretty or lucky enough. They're afraid their inherent inferiority is the reason why their hard work hasn't brought them a comfortable lifestyle like the "industrious squirrels" have. No one wants to be a "lazy squirrel." Some squirrels work hard their whole lives, and curse luck, and curse fate, and curse themselves that they never managed to turn their hard work into enough nuts to support their family. They keep their heads down and don't complain and think to themselves, "I'm not like these other squirrels, who are *actually* lazy. I'm an industrious squirrel, and any day now, I'm going to have the nuts to prove it."
And sure, some of them look around, see how dismal the options are, recognize the sizable obstacles in the way of squirrels like them ever having a lot of nuts, and they give up and let the system take care of them. But your average "lazy squirrel" works 2-4 jobs and/or overtime just to survive, thanks to union busting, minimum wage suppression, outsourcing, administrative pay inflation, predatory lending practices, irresponsible financial management by the "industrious squirrels."
Why do we think they're "industrious" again?...Oh, right! Because they have so many nuts. Squirrels never inherit nuts, do they?...or have a crazy stroke of luck that has nothing to do with hard work?...or steal a bunch of nuts by lying to lots of squirrels about the value of their investments? (...seriously, watch "Inside Job.")
Your "lazy squirrel" story just doesn't hold up to reality, my friend. But it's a handy tale for, say, trust fund squirrels, who are invested in believing it because they didn't actually *earn* anything they have (not in the sense that a squirrel with nothing would have to earn it), don't actually work hard now, and enjoy a lifestyle that essentially kills hundreds of children every day. That sounds like hyperbole, but think about it. There aren't unlimited resources in this world, which means that any resource used in one place is not available to be used in another place. When "industrious squirrels" throw fabulous parties that cost millions of dollars, those dollars are not going into the paychecks of sweatshop workers. They're not going towards feeding the starving, healing the ill. They're not saving hundreds of squirrel families from foreclosure. They're not going to the public school systems. Those dollars will not help victims of the wars the "industrious squirrels" found ways to profit from.
There is a global cache of resources. It is not unlimited. Taking more than your fair share is not a victimless crime or people wouldn't be *starving.* But hey. You're not the bad guy, you're the industrious squirrel. Those lazy squirrels need to stop whining about how many nuts you have and get their own nuts.
A lot of "industrious squirrels" actively work to defend the squirrel myth so that all of the "lazy squirrels" won't know who to blame for the nut shortages. Without misdirection, the abuses would quickly become clear; they're not subtle, after all. I mean, Citizens United? Totally unsubtle. So they misdirect the blame.
The squirrel myth is strong. Once you already assume (subconsciously) that squirrels who don't have a ton of nuts are pretty much lazy or otherwise inadequate and unworthy, it's easy to make everyone look down on the squirrels who have less nuts than they do--and at the very bottom of the food chain you typically find the squirrels who have benefited the least from the current system (i.e. the ones who have been so screwed over by the "industrious squirrels" that they know for a FACT that the "lazy squirrel" myth is a lie.) So whoever is attuned to the myth, that is, whoever believes that squirrels should stop trying to point to injustices in the system and pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get to work, those squirrels are already oriented to dislike and distrust squirrels who have less power than they do. (And to respect and trust and feel inferior to those who have more.)
So who do the "industrious squirrels" blame for social ills? The least powerful, of course, and the easiest to mark as "different" and/or "morally inferior." Immigrants. Single mothers. Squirrels of color.
This is pretty ingenious, actually, because the ones who have been screwed over by systemic oppression are the most likely to track down the "industrious squirrels" who stole all of the nuts right from under us, and come after them. They're the most likely to have intimate knowledge of the loopholes in the system that allow for abuses. They're the most likely to call for justice. In one fell swoop, the "industrious squirrels" keep the growing "lazy squirrel" population from figuring out the cause of the nut shortage, and get them to turn against the segment of their own ranks that is most likely to catch the perpetrators and rectify the injustice.
The bottom line is, it's not okay to spend millions and millions of dollars on big adult toys and playtime and fun and pretty things while people starve and suffer, and we need to stop acting like it is. It's not just the way things are--we *create* the way things are through our actions (and inaction). Until there is enough for all, extravagance is shameful, and tasteless, and sickening.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Monday, October 3, 2011
Migration
I feel like there's something in the air. Something compelling us to move, to take action. A sort of herd sense. Things seem to be accelerating...it's harder to keep secrets in the new information era, knowledge is power, and the people are recognizing it. Obama, Egypt, Michael Pollan, Wikileaks, The Rally to Restore Sanity, Occupy Wall Street, gay rights--Lady Gaga, even. We're taking a hard look at our relationship to the planet, our relationship to the Other, our systems of government. Something is happening, and if we're lucky, we're going to be a part of it.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Summer. Tornado. Love.
Today marks exactly one month from the tornado that devastated our town, and what a strange month it's been. Even before the tornado, my life was shifting quite a bit.
April 21st, one week before the tornado, there was a storm in the morning. I was lying in bed with my dog, thinking as always "this house is very old and although the storm seems terrible, there are no sirens and we have weathered worse" and then my windows blew into my room with a loud clattering of glass. My contacts were out and it seemed to me that the wind had done it. I screamed and jumped out of bed and ran downstairs. Brett could tell something was up, because she followed me right to the darkroom in the Art Kitchen downstairs. We huddled there for a while, wondering if a tornado was, in fact, coming through, then we had to go back upstairs and deal with a room full of glass, rain, things knocked over on the floor, dirt. I decided to move that day. I rented a moving truck, and with the help of my neighbors and Anthony, had everything out of the pink house and into my new over-the-garage house in no time.
That same Sunday: Anthony and I broke up.
Then, on Wednesday, I was trying to grade and/or read stuff for my Joyce essay when the sirens went off again, and again, and again. Then someone said that the tornado was heading right for campus, so we all huddled in an inner room and some of us passed around tiny bottles of wine for nerves. I was very terrified. Afterwards, we weren't sure if it was really over or if more tornadoes were coming, so we huddled in the student center basement (the Ferg, for those in the know) until it seemed safe to leave. I hurried home to let poor Brett out--she'd been stuck at home for nearly twelve hours while I waited out the warnings.
The next day I really didn't know what to do, so I went to Edelweiss, my favorite cafe here, and got some coffee and tried to work on my paper. That night, I gathered with friends in the darkness (their power went out, then back on, while I was there) and we took comfort in each other's presence, seeing people that we had worried about, knowing they were safe. It wasn't until the next morning, when I gathered with a roving group of MFA's, who would continue to roam the affected neighborhoods, offering helping hands to clear away debris for the next few weeks, that I saw the damage firsthand.
There are no words. Seeing it on TV is so, so different from seeing it in your town. On TV, you feel bad, sad, scared, but you have a little "tragic disasters" box that you can put it in. Maybe you donate some money. And then it's not your problem, except in the abstract "human family" kind of way. When you can't recognize a street you've driven along a hundred times before, whole blocks that used to be tree-lined, neat, filled with familiar landmarks and friendly people--when that turns into a wasteland overnight (or more literally, in a matter of minutes) your internal world rearranges itself too. And life didn't just go on--classes were cancelled. Finals were cancelled. Graduation ceremony was cancelled. Everyone was out trying to make sense of it, volunteering by day and drinking and sticking close by night.
Anthony was very close to the affected areas and actually saw the tornado go by. He was left without power, and I offered to let him charge his phone at my house. We talked about the disaster, about our personal disaster, and many other things, disastrous and redemptive, and at some point over that week of recovery, began to take some steps towards recovery ourselves.
There's no escaping the fact that every time we pass one of the busiest intersections in Tuscaloosa--McFarland and 15th Street--we'll meet a scene of desolation. Those of us who live here, who will live here for another year or five or fifty, we get to keep seeing that daily, and it will be a long time before real normalcy returns. I have seen some good things in the people around me in the wake of this disaster, but I am not going to claim that it changes anything--not in human nature, not in individuals. It rearranges, sure. It's not necessarily revelatory. We will continue to be the same people we are. This will affect our characters only as much as our reactions to anything slowly, slowly, incrementally shape us. Decisions are being made, have been made. I am finding myself more and more okay with the fact that our decisions shape us, but only slowly, only gradually.
April 21st, one week before the tornado, there was a storm in the morning. I was lying in bed with my dog, thinking as always "this house is very old and although the storm seems terrible, there are no sirens and we have weathered worse" and then my windows blew into my room with a loud clattering of glass. My contacts were out and it seemed to me that the wind had done it. I screamed and jumped out of bed and ran downstairs. Brett could tell something was up, because she followed me right to the darkroom in the Art Kitchen downstairs. We huddled there for a while, wondering if a tornado was, in fact, coming through, then we had to go back upstairs and deal with a room full of glass, rain, things knocked over on the floor, dirt. I decided to move that day. I rented a moving truck, and with the help of my neighbors and Anthony, had everything out of the pink house and into my new over-the-garage house in no time.
That same Sunday: Anthony and I broke up.
Then, on Wednesday, I was trying to grade and/or read stuff for my Joyce essay when the sirens went off again, and again, and again. Then someone said that the tornado was heading right for campus, so we all huddled in an inner room and some of us passed around tiny bottles of wine for nerves. I was very terrified. Afterwards, we weren't sure if it was really over or if more tornadoes were coming, so we huddled in the student center basement (the Ferg, for those in the know) until it seemed safe to leave. I hurried home to let poor Brett out--she'd been stuck at home for nearly twelve hours while I waited out the warnings.
The next day I really didn't know what to do, so I went to Edelweiss, my favorite cafe here, and got some coffee and tried to work on my paper. That night, I gathered with friends in the darkness (their power went out, then back on, while I was there) and we took comfort in each other's presence, seeing people that we had worried about, knowing they were safe. It wasn't until the next morning, when I gathered with a roving group of MFA's, who would continue to roam the affected neighborhoods, offering helping hands to clear away debris for the next few weeks, that I saw the damage firsthand.
There are no words. Seeing it on TV is so, so different from seeing it in your town. On TV, you feel bad, sad, scared, but you have a little "tragic disasters" box that you can put it in. Maybe you donate some money. And then it's not your problem, except in the abstract "human family" kind of way. When you can't recognize a street you've driven along a hundred times before, whole blocks that used to be tree-lined, neat, filled with familiar landmarks and friendly people--when that turns into a wasteland overnight (or more literally, in a matter of minutes) your internal world rearranges itself too. And life didn't just go on--classes were cancelled. Finals were cancelled. Graduation ceremony was cancelled. Everyone was out trying to make sense of it, volunteering by day and drinking and sticking close by night.
Anthony was very close to the affected areas and actually saw the tornado go by. He was left without power, and I offered to let him charge his phone at my house. We talked about the disaster, about our personal disaster, and many other things, disastrous and redemptive, and at some point over that week of recovery, began to take some steps towards recovery ourselves.
There's no escaping the fact that every time we pass one of the busiest intersections in Tuscaloosa--McFarland and 15th Street--we'll meet a scene of desolation. Those of us who live here, who will live here for another year or five or fifty, we get to keep seeing that daily, and it will be a long time before real normalcy returns. I have seen some good things in the people around me in the wake of this disaster, but I am not going to claim that it changes anything--not in human nature, not in individuals. It rearranges, sure. It's not necessarily revelatory. We will continue to be the same people we are. This will affect our characters only as much as our reactions to anything slowly, slowly, incrementally shape us. Decisions are being made, have been made. I am finding myself more and more okay with the fact that our decisions shape us, but only slowly, only gradually.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Roller Derby
I've thought about blogging my derby love for a while, but I'm writing derby for a class and reading about and practicing derby for hours every week, so I didn't. But I attended/participated in my first home bout in Birmingham this weekend, and I feel the need to say this: I f*ing love roller derby. It's not a magic solution to all of my problems, but I used to grind my teeth in my sleep and I don't anymore. And there's this need in me that I didn't exactly know was there before but I can definitely feel the difference now that it's being met. And I'm finding brand new kickass girl writers to love. Hooray.
(Note the Mudluscious shoutout on my helmet)
(Note the Mudluscious shoutout on my helmet)
Monday, December 27, 2010
Thursday, November 11, 2010
List-Making
I am a maker of lists.
Due to the extremely jumbled, distractable, and random state of my head-workings, I am led to believe that it is not the innate, organized nature of me that prompts me to make lists, it's actually a feeble but comforting compensatory routine, shrouding the rat king of my thoughts in a rusty tarp of order.
Lists I have made or been tempted to make of late (a list of lists! shroud on!):
Progeny of My High School Friends
It is becoming hard to remember who has one, who has two, who has one-in-the-oven and two kneeling cherubically in prayer by their bedsides, and somewhere between my sixteen year-old plans to have four children and three finished books and live on Prince Edward Island, Canada by age twenty-five and my relief that instead of beginning to have children at age twenty-one, I began to have legal shots of tequila, I have an itch to make an Excel spreadsheet documenting the increase in walking fruit of my Utah besties' loins. I think I would get a perverse satisfaction out of seeing how few of my circle have made it to the ripe old age of twenty-five without giving birth.
Things I Need to do Better in Life
Depressingly, most of the items on the list have held a place of prominence for over a decade now. Things that were not on the list at age twelve: Spend less time obsessing over my neuroses. Keep up with housework. Drinkless smarter.
Things That Have Gone Wrong in My Relationships
This may sound like a violation of the first item on the previous list, but strangely enough I feel as though there is a funny and lyrical essay/story/thing waiting to be sprouted from this pile of manure.
Animals That Have Appeared, Have Not Yet Appeared, and Will Never Appear in My Stories
1. Rabbits. Bats. A drawn and quartered Yorkie. 2. Jackalope. Rabies spider. Manatee. 3. A cow that is happy to be eaten (Douglas Adams beat me to it). A donkey that poses as the savior of beastkind (already been done, thank you C.S. Lewis) HEY! Wait a minute!!! A donkey... A democrat! ....OBAMA!
Due to the extremely jumbled, distractable, and random state of my head-workings, I am led to believe that it is not the innate, organized nature of me that prompts me to make lists, it's actually a feeble but comforting compensatory routine, shrouding the rat king of my thoughts in a rusty tarp of order.
Lists I have made or been tempted to make of late (a list of lists! shroud on!):
Progeny of My High School Friends
It is becoming hard to remember who has one, who has two, who has one-in-the-oven and two kneeling cherubically in prayer by their bedsides, and somewhere between my sixteen year-old plans to have four children and three finished books and live on Prince Edward Island, Canada by age twenty-five and my relief that instead of beginning to have children at age twenty-one, I began to have legal shots of tequila, I have an itch to make an Excel spreadsheet documenting the increase in walking fruit of my Utah besties' loins. I think I would get a perverse satisfaction out of seeing how few of my circle have made it to the ripe old age of twenty-five without giving birth.
Things I Need to do Better in Life
Depressingly, most of the items on the list have held a place of prominence for over a decade now. Things that were not on the list at age twelve: Spend less time obsessing over my neuroses. Keep up with housework. Drink
Things That Have Gone Wrong in My Relationships
This may sound like a violation of the first item on the previous list, but strangely enough I feel as though there is a funny and lyrical essay/story/thing waiting to be sprouted from this pile of manure.
Animals That Have Appeared, Have Not Yet Appeared, and Will Never Appear in My Stories
1. Rabbits. Bats. A drawn and quartered Yorkie. 2. Jackalope. Rabies spider. Manatee. 3. A cow that is happy to be eaten (Douglas Adams beat me to it). A donkey that poses as the savior of beastkind (already been done, thank you C.S. Lewis) HEY! Wait a minute!!! A donkey... A democrat! ....OBAMA!
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