Browsing Tag

society

how I learned to stop worrying and love: empathy in politics

I was giving Melody* a drive back to campus and her car. All of the grad students had met up at Moe’s for dinner, and it had been a rousing time– lots of conversations, ideas being hashed out, laughter… You put a dozen humanities grad students at the same dinner table and what you wind up with is a whirling dervish of friendly discussions. That night, we’d even managed to get around to politics, and the resulting debate had been lively, entertaining, and intriguing. There were as many political stances as there were people, and I found myself feeling comfortable with my lack of political identity– no one else at that table was any more firm than I was.

But, during the drive back to campus, Melody laughingly said something that has stuck with me:

“You’re kind of required to be a socialist if you’re an English major. You don’t read Dickens or Dostoyevsky and walk away a capitalist.”

My instantaneous reaction to that was rejection: I wasn’t a socialist, and I doubt I ever would be. I no longer fell inside of the “capitalism is the only biblical economic system!” camp and I’d already given up my Reagan worship, but socialism? No, I didn’t think I’d ever think that was a good idea.

And then.

My second-to-last semester in grad school, I took a course on Utopian literature, but most of the works we studied were dystopian– 1984, We, The Handmaid’s Tale . . . For two of the projects, I worked with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (which is the inspiration for Bladerunner) and V for Vendetta (primarily the film adaptation of the graphic novel). Part of studying these works was asking the question what about these works makes them dystopian? which is a bit harder to answer than one might think.

In Do Androids Dream, one of the primary themes of the book is studying what it means to be human. In the book, part of how humans identify themselves is by setting themselves against the otherness of the androids– I am not an android, therefore I am human. However, this alignment is based on the belief that humans have emotions, primarily empathy, while androids don’t. When Deckard discovers this is not the case, his identity begins unraveling.

As I worked through Do Androids Dream for my project, I found myself heavily contemplating the idea that emotions, especially empathy, are a basic human quality. And, in other research I was doing about disordered conditions and character disturbance, the more I realized that Philip Dick was right– empathy should be universal, and when it isn’t, we notice.

At least, we should.

My project for V for Vendetta revolved around comparing V’s rhetoric to Sutler’s rhetoric, with the premise that you can lie to tell the truth. Sutler almost always tells the truth as he sees it, but it’s actually a lie, and V almost always tells a twisted version of the facts that are the truth– both to himself, to Evie, and to society at large. But, I also realized that the truth they told had everything to do with the world they saw: Sutler saw a world where people were essentially bad, a world that needed a strong, moral, Christian government, or it would spin into chaos and perversion. V saw a world where people are neutral– neither essentially good or bad– but capable of freedom, of making personal decisions that affected them and no one else, with empathy to guide them.

And then . . .

I met one of Handsome’s friends from high school and college. He works with a social program in Detroit– helping young men and women get their GEDs, take college placement exams, and training them in some kind of career skill. When he talks about his work, everything about him lights up. When he talks about the people he works with, there’s love and joy in his voice. He sees the steel-edged hardness of their lives, and he believes in doing everything he can to enable them toward a more hopeful future.

We were sitting on his living room floor, playing a board game, when he started talking about Marxism, and I remember inwardly flinching when he somewhat flippantly threw out “Karl Marx is my hero, man.”

I couldn’t help myself. “But didn’t Marx advocate for bloody revolutions?”

“So what?” He shrugged. Inwardly, I cringed, somewhat horrified. How could he say so what? “Thomas Jefferson said ‘the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.’ Marx wasn’t arguing for anything very different from that.”*

I was speechless.

Karl Marx, and Thomas Jefferson, in the same sentence? It felt like sacrilege.

And then . . .

I met Handsome’s sister, who was working toward her degree in social work. She’s spent a substantial part of her college career overseas, and at the time I met her, was working with convicted sex offenders. She would go on to assist in a program dedicated to helping single mothers in Chicago. All I did was listen to her, and to the stories she told. I listened to her talk about how ineffective she felt, how her hands were tied against actually helping anyone because of the endless bureaucracy and red tape, how the system was infected with apathy.

After I heard her stories, I went looking for more. And I started soaking them up, and for the first time, listening to the suffering going on around me that I had no idea was there. Once the scales fell away from my eyes, I couldn’t look away. I started going back, sifting through all my old memories.

I went back to the single time I walked through the government-subsidized housing in my hometown. I remembered what I felt, what I thought, walking through that neighborhood. The absolute disdain and revulsion I felt for the people who answered their doors. Crack heads and alcoholics, all of them, I was positive. Wasting good government money on booze and cigarettes. Lazy. Perfectly willing to sit on the tax payer’s dime, laughing all the way to the bank. If a man doesn’t work, neither should he eat, I would think as I invited them to church and ask them if they were going to hell.

I relived a moment at the grocery store, when I saw a woman pulling out food stamps to buy her processed food. She should be buying meat and vegetables with that, not macaroni and cheese. I had absolutely no idea that meats and vegetables are some of the most expensive food items you can buy– until I started doing my own grocery shopping on $80 a month, and I spent most of my time in the grocery store enviously looking at fresh produce when I couldn’t afford it.

More and more, I started shrinking away from everything I thought I’d believed about economics, about politics, about society. Phrases that I’d had pounded into me started echoing louder: if you’re not a liberal when you’re young, you don’t have a heart, but if you’re not a conservative when you’d older, you don’t have a brain. All this time, I’d believed that being a liberal meant being stupid. When I started talking about the ideas I was wrestling with, I was dismissed– as ignorant, as young, as foolish, as stupid. I was told that I’d grow out of it, that, eventually, I’d learn to see it “their way” again, and I’d realize how silly and nonsensical I’d been in my 20s.

I pray to God I don’t.

Because, out of everything I’ve learned in the past few years, the basic lesson has been in empathy, in “loving your neighbor as yourself.”

*specifically, in an an interview at the Chicago Tribune, he said “no great movement has begun without bloodshed.”

July 24, 2013 by SamanthaField

Feminism

Fascinating Womanhood Review: putting him first

I’m just going to leap head-first into this chapter, “Make him Number One”:

A man wants a woman who will place him at the top of his priority list, not second but first. He wants to be the kingpin around which all other activities of her life revolve. He doesn’t want to be the background music to her other interests and dreams. This desire is not necessarily a conscious one, but an inner need which surfaces violently when not adequately met, when his wife places other things first . . . Being placed in this inferior position can cause a man to form bitter resentments toward his wife and even his children.

Through the rest of the chapter, it becomes blindingly obvious that Helen means exactly what she says here. The rest of the chapter goes on to explain all the different ways that a woman can make her husband feel “inferior.” Housework, children, money, beauty . . . She barely even mentions having a career, and when she does, it’s clear what she thinks about a career woman:

One of the greatest threats to your husband’s position of priority would be if you were to earnestly pursue a career . . . If you finally reach a pinnacle of success, you would overshadow him and make him feel unimportant.

This is a serious problem with highly successful women . . . You should always be willing to sacrifice your career for his sake.

If it hasn’t already been apparent (which I can tell from your comments that it has been), Helen has an exceedingly low opinion of men. Any kind of man who can easily be “overshadowed” and for that to make him “bitterly resent you” is not worth his salt, but Helen argues that this is all men, without exception. And any man who would require you to sacrifice your dreams just so he doesn’t feel that he’s in “second place,” is– well, that man is a first-class a-hole.

I’m not overly fond of the idea of “going to work.” Having a traditional career doesn’t align well with my personality, my health, or even just the way I operate. I’m a night owl, and corporate America doesn’t exactly revolve around people like me. So, I work from home, and my work is fairly light. I spend most of my time in creative endeavors– like my blog, or writing. But, even though I work from home as a freelancer, work-life balance is still a concern. I can be up to all hours of the night doing research, and Handsome finds most of the work I do . . . unpleasant. I spend a lot of my time delving into some pretty heavy, depressing issues, but it doesn’t weigh on me like it does on him. So, I’m working to make sure I don’t burden him by constantly talking about these things.

It’s not a hard thing to do– I’m not “sacrificing” or “giving up” anything by leaving my “work” at “work.”

But that is not what Helen means here. She even goes on to say that you’re not allowed to develop your talents, your dreams. You can pursue these things, but not with dedication or passion, less your husband feel “inferior.”

And then she smacks you with this:

It it not always possible or even even right for a man to make his wife number one in his life. This is due to the nature of his life. His number one responsibility is to provide the living. His work and life away from home may be so demanding that it must take priority over all else if he is to succeed. This often means he must neglect his family.

Helen is not kidding about this stuff. She is dead serious. And she goes on to justify the difference thusly:

[Men] have been the builders of society, have solved world problems, have developed new ideas for the benefit of all. This challenging role of public servant is not easy and also demands the man’s attention away from his family.

Oy vey.

Women, you must never, ever, do anything that could even hint at your husband being second-place in your life, or his feelings of inadequacy could “surface violently.” You must not pursue any talents, skills, positions, or carer– ever. You must never do anything that could possibly be construed as him not being your top priority. The second he walks through the front door from a long, hard, grueling day at the office, you must be there to great him with his slippers and his pipe (no, really, page 104).

And why must you sacrifice all of this?

Because he’s a man. He’s the one who’s capable of “building society” and “developing new ideas.” Men do that. Men. Not women. Never women. It’s not that we’re not capable of changing the world, it’s that we’re not supposed to. Our only priority must be our husband. We must constantly be aware of how week and feeble his ego is, and do everything we can to shore it up. And we should be so proud of our husbands who are so consumed by their career that they neglect their children. If our husband is Don Draper, we should just be thrilled and have dinner waiting for whenever he comes home.

See what I mean abut Helen being even more anti-feminist than Debi?

And Helen also passes along her usual threats– if you don’t do this, his character and personality will become “ugly.” He’ll “bitterly resent you.” In the “success stories” she shares at the end (these are usually so sickening I don’t even comment on them) she threatens her readers with husbands that will have multiple affairs, or worse, get into a car accident and die before you have a chance to make him feel like he’s the most riveting, all-consuming thing in your life.

She continually emphasizes that “making him number one” is a basic need of your husband’s. It is paramount that you meet this basic need before you even attend to the basic needs of yourself or your children.

The biggest problem, I think, with this chapter is that Helen is making a huge assumption about a woman’s needs. To Helen, a woman’s only need is to be loved by her husband. And yes, if my husband didn’t love me, that would be . . . awful. I’m pretty sure I’d be miserable. However, human beings are more complex than this. Any man is not some robot that you can push his buttons and “make” him love you. There are things we all can do to help make our relationships more healthy, but that will vary from person to person. We have to get to know the person we married. He or she is different than any other person on the planet, and they are not solely defined by their gender (which is a much more fluid thing than Helen can even comprehend).

However, my husband’s love is not my only need. I also need to feel useful, like I’m contributing. I’m just as miserable feeling useless than I do feeling unloved– it’s possible that I feel worse when I feel useless. I also need challenges and ideas to puzzle out. I’m not easily bored, but I have found that if I don’t exercise the skills I’ve acquired through grad school, I start feeling restless and empty. I need laughter and companionship.

But, to Helen, no one is allowed to be complicated. No one is allowed to have multi-layered, multifaceted desires and wants and needs. Men are driven entirely and exclusively to have their ego stroked. Women are only driven by an overwhelming need to be loved. What Helen describes are empty, hollow, shallow stick figures. Not people.

____________

This is the seventh post in a series. You can find links to the rest of the series here.

July 22, 2013 by SamanthaField

Feminism

learning the words: worldly

Today’s guest post is from Melissa, a reader who grew up in the Independent Fundamental Baptist movement, but eventually left it with her husband. “Learning the Words” is a series on the words many of us didn’t have in fundamentalism or overly conservative evangelicalism– and how we got them back. If you would like to be a part of this series, you can find my contact information at the top.

Worldly – perhaps no word is quite so “fundamental” to the way hyper-fundamentalists view how they should or should not live as this one. During my upbringing in the independent fundamentalist Baptist movement (church, school, college), I heard this word used countless times, and always in a highly negative sense.

Simply put, worldly is defined by Webster’s as “of, relating to, or devoted to the temporal world: not religious or spiritual.” In our lingo, however, it was further defined as describing the things “the world” did and, conversely, things which “we” did not do. “The world,” by the way, is anyone outside of the IFB mindset. In short, wordly = bad, sinful, the opposite of Godly. The less worldly one is, the better, closer to God, more spiritual one is. The idea is based on Bible verses that say things like, “come out from among them and be ye separate,” and that Christians are “a peculiar people.” [Editor’s note: that particular example is a form of Dominionism, a common fundamentalist heresy.]

Almost anything could garner the adjective “worldly,” depending on who was talking about it, and what his or her personal beliefs were. I have heard the word applied to the following: clothing, hairstyles, music, amusement parks, malls, movies and movie theaters, TV and TV shows, education, government, books, jewelry, games, make-up, hobbies, jokes, magazines, and probably a few others I can’t remember right now. In utter defiance of Webster, worldly was also used to describe decidedly spiritual things like churches, Christians, preachers, and Bible translations other than ye olde KJV 1611.

Worldly was used to distinguish the “sinful” forms of these items from the “Godly” ones. For example, there were “worldly hairstyles” and “Godly hairstyles” – long hair on a man was worldly, as was extremely short hair on a woman. I remember the handbook for my Christian school containing a picture of a “Godly” male student’s hairstyle, which looked remarkably like the hair of all of the male characters on “Leave It to Beaver.” Jesus, apparently, could not have attended our school.

Many rules were created to keep us from becoming worldly. Flip-flops represented the hippie movement, so they were worldly. (I believe this led to rules about girls having to wear socks or hose—it makes it harder to wear hippie footwear!) Wire-rimmed glasses were worldly because John Lennon wore them. Black lipstick/nail polish was associated with the worldly Goths. Can’t use a standard deck of cards, even for solitaire, because that’s what worldly gamblers use. And worldly music, even Christian music . . . well I don’t even have time to get into that can o’ worms!

The avoidance of all things worldly, quite naturally led to some practical problems, such as where the line between worldly and godly should be drawn. I remember a friend in my church had never been to an amusement park, and had only been to a mall once or twice because, according to her father, those “are things the world does.” Even as steeped as I was in the IFB ideology at the time, I remember thinking, “but ‘the world’ also goes to grocery stores and eats food and drives cars, and we don’t think those things are wrong.” Another major problem, of course, is pride. Because so many worldly things were visible, we could tell at a glance how spiritual someone was. And because worldly = ungodly, the more worldly items we avoided, the more we could congratulate ourselves on how much better we were than “the world,” including those “worldly Christians.”

The first time I encountered the word worldly used in a positive light was just before graduating from my IFB college. I was with a guy (who is now my husband) at a bookstore and came across a slim volume in a black and gold dust jacket with the title Worldly Virtues by Johannes A. Gaertner.

HUH?

It seemed like an extreme oxymoron, akin to saying “holy devil” or something. We were intrigued and each picked up a copy and started reading right there in the store. The book is filled with one-page reflections on various aspects of being human. It covers such worldly traits as tact, perseverance, and commitment. From it I learned:

that worry is “an eminently healthy, normal, and human trait.”
that fear can be positive because “the person who knows no fear…is either incredibly stupid or harbors a secret death wish.”
that discernment is a way to prevent “being manipulated day in, day out, virtually every waking hour of the day.”

We each bought a copy, and from that day I began to understand Webster’s second definition of worldly: “sophisticated or cosmopolitan.” Kind of like that most worldly of movie heroes, “Bond–James Bond.” Mr. Gaertner actually helped me reclaim a number of words that hyper-fundamentalists had perverted for their own use. Now, the label of worldly doesn’t make me cringe – it’s a label I strive to live up to.

June 5, 2013 by SamanthaField

Social Issues

learning the words: rights

Today’s guest post is from Sheldon, an agnostic who writes to expose some of the problems in the Independent Fundamental Baptist movement and fundamentalism in general at Ramblings of Sheldon. “Learning the Words” is a series on the words many of us didn’t have in fundamentalism or overly conservative evangelicalism– and how we got them back. If you would like to be a part of this series, you can find my contact information at the top.

Rights.

Rights are something that you are not supposed to have as a child, teen, or even young adult in fundamentalism. You’re taught from a young age that you don’t have rights, only your parents do. You see this in the way HSLDA wants a parental rights amendment to the US Constitution, but does everything it possibly can to dismantle legal protections for children.

You see it in the way fundamentalist circles often read Ephesians six, stressing the “honor your father and mother”, but skimming over or ignoring verse four, “do not provoke your children.” I saw it in an argument a few years ago, when at 21 years old, my own mother told me that if she were to beat me, I would deserve it, failing to see the hypocrisy of how she always talked about the way her father beat her as a child as though it was the horrible crime that it is. She was shocked into silence and walked away when I pointed that out to her.

Almost anything is acceptable so long as a parent does it. Why?

Because you have no rights.

You have no rights to your own opinion: you must agree with us at all times; after all, we’re the sole determiners of what is is isn’t acceptable when it comes to anything, at anytime.

You have no rights to your own emotions: it’s not just enough to agree with us, and follow our commands, but you should follow our commands without any expression of frustration, no matter how extreme or ridiculous the commands are. You should be a mindless, happy robot all the time, never acting angry, depressed or anxious– because after all, true happiness come from serving your parents and God the way we say you should. If you do become depressed, we’ll blame you for it. We’ll say that your depression and resulting nervous breakdown was nothing more than “guilt” and “not having a right relationship with God.”

You have no rights to your own body. If we want to hit you, or get up in your face shouting, and threaten violence against you, we can. If we want to hug and you don’t want it, tough luck. Personal space means nothing to us. To this day, I still can’t stand it when people crowd in too closely near me when there’s no good reason for it (plenty of space around), or decide to stand in front of all the exits to a room.

If I sound angry, it’s because I am. Not so much for myself, for what I was put through. There’s hope for me, I have bought a house, and will be rebuilding it, and moving into it soon [editor’s note: Sheldon, due to circumstances, is required to live at home. The situation is less than ideal]. I’ll finally be able to put some distance between myself and my family and my past, but many others aren’t so fortunate.

I’m angry for the children, teens, and even young adults who are still trapped with parents like this, there are still many out there. No one should have to live in a family like this, and I want to see the abusive culture within fundamentalism end.

Everyone should have rights, everyone should be free to be themselves, and not live in fear.

June 3, 2013 by SamanthaField