(Note: This post is not intended as a response to the philosophical ideas of Søren Kierkegaard, whom I generally admire. Kierkegaard believed that the Hegelian dialectic had devalued the crucial principles of individual autonomy and free will. I understand what he meant, although there are still things that I like about Hegel.)
The Great Either/Or is a fallacy in logical thinking that I have encountered my entire life, even among highly educated people. Richard Taruskin has documented its destructive effects on my own field of musicology in the introduction to his Oxford History of Western Music. Carl Dahlhaus, he points out, famously asked whether art history is the history of art, or the history of art? In a lighter vein, David Hackett spoofed this line of thinking by asking "Basil of Byzantium: Rat or Fink?" The point is that it's quite possible Basil was both a rat and a fink, and it's also quite possible that the history of art is actually the history of art, whatever that might signify. Both/And is usually the more realistic answer. Nevertheless, I have been accused more than once, after making that assertion, of wanting to repeal the Principle of Contradiction.
So here are some things I want to vouch for:
• It's quite possible to be a liberal and still believe strongly in individual responsibility.
• It's also possible to believe there is an important role for communal responsibility without being a collectivist, a socialist, or any other kind of "ist."
• Most of the reality of what politicians supposedly deal with is lived out in the gray area between extremes, and political change generally consists of shifting positions within that gray area in incremental ways.
Nevertheless, Tony Perkins, of the Family Research Council, was quoted this week as saying that Jesus was “a free marketer, not an Occupier. Jesus rejected collectivism and the mentality that has occupied America for the last few decades: that everyone gets a trophy—equal outcomes for inequitable performance. There are winners and yes, there are losers. And wins and losses are determined by the diligence and determination of the individual.”
First of all, I want to lay to rest the idea that in American schools these days, everybody gets a trophy. My son, for example, is a senior in high school. For the past four years, he has been participating in a series of auditions that will ultimately lead an elite group from all over Texas to the All-State Choir, which will perform next spring for the annual meeting of the Texas Music Educators Association in San Antonio. The competition is stiff and unrelenting. After four years of trying, Jeremy is one audition away from qualifying, and he must study a varied repertory of music from three centuries and in three or four different languages in order to even sing that audition. There's still no guarantee that the trophy will be his. In my experience as a parent, things like this are more the rule than the exception.
The broader point, though, is that Perkins makes himself irrelevant the moment he opens his mouth by implying that everybody is either an Occupier or a free marketer. The possibility that somebody —e.g. yours truly—could be both doesn't even seem to occur to him, so deeply has he bought into the Great Either/Or. If somebody doesn't agree that the diligence and determination of the individual are the Alpha and the Omega of moral values, then that person is presumably sitting in an Occupy encampment handing out trophies. There is no middle ground.
I don't mean to pick on Tony Perkins; he's too easy a target, and his comments wouldn't even be worthy of attention if they didn't serve my broader point. It must be particularly difficult, though, for a religious leader to have to rule out a priori the idea that there can be something more important than the actions of individuals. After all, as another well-known religious figure recently wrote, "It's not about you." At some level, Perkins must understand that. Nevertheless, he is so steeped in the Great Either/Or that when he looks beyond his own nose all he can see is collectivists.
So just remember, the next time somebody says that there are two kinds of people in the world, that there are indeed two kinds of people in the world: those who divide the world into two kinds of people and those who don't. In an ideal world, everybody would be in the second group.
Showing posts with label Occupy Wall Street. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Occupy Wall Street. Show all posts
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Saturday, December 3, 2011
I am the 0.00000033%
It was Joseph de Maistre who said that every nation has the government it deserves. Maistre was apparently a monarchist, so his statement should probably be read as a pointed critique of democracy. And so I have to read it in the context of the devolution of our democracy over the past few decades, which has led to our current state of governmental near-paralysis. Do we deserve this? More importantly, what does it say about us if we do?
An Op-Ed in this week's New York Times asks what Mahatma Gandhi, whose example has been repeatedly invoked by Occupy Wall Street protesters, would make of the protests.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/30/opinion/what-would-gandhi-do.html?_r=1&smid=fb-share
Gandhi, says Ian Desai, would have rejected the slogan "We are the 99%." Societies operate as wholes, and the income stratification that the OWS protests have highlighted exists because we all accept and enable it.
If Desai is right, the obvious question is "Why?" Given that the US is rated between Ghana and Senegal in terms of income inequality, and far below any other "developed" nation, can it be true that we not only allow this situation to exist but actually approve of it? When I say "we," I mean the 100% that Desai says Gandhi would have addressed. I, personally, don't approve of it, and I know many others who don't. Placing our desires in conflict with those of the collective, though, is in Gandhi's view the wrong way to go, even if we have 99% of the collective on board. It is the 100% that will have to create any meaningful change.
So what is it about the American people that makes us so resistant to such change? Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, which I've been reading on the recommendation of a Facebook friend, provides some interesting hints. What Gladwell is interrogating in the book is, in the broadest sense, the peculiarly American doctrine of the "self-made man." It is part of our national mythology that we are an open and egalitarian society in which anybody can succeed, simply by dint of hard work, grit and determination. The outliers—the upper 1%—are the ones that have done so, and those of us who haven't shouldn't complain; we should get to work.
Gladwell documents some of the ways in which this mythology can blind us to what's really going on when people succeed beyond expectations. For example, I was born in 1955. That means that I could have been Bill Gates. Literally. If I had practiced programming computers during my adolescence with the kind of determination with which I practiced the piano, I could have been ready to get in on the ground floor of the personal computer revolution and make a fortune. There were only two problems: I wasn't very interested in computers, and I didn't have the access that Gates did growing up in a computer-obsessed area of Washington state, or that Steve Jobs did growing up in Silicon Valley. So I've ended up a moderately successful musicologist instead of a phenomenally successful computer entrepeneur.
I'm not complaining. I like what I do and I wouldn't trade places with most people who make far more than I can ever dream of making. I suspect, though, that many Americans who do complain about their lot in life still have a deep-down conviction that it's solely their own fault. In fact, there's something even more pernicious going on, and it's what has enabled the current Fox-News-driven blame the poor mentality. Many Americans believe that successful white baby boomers like myself grew up on a level playing field full of equal opportunity, but that the field has been eroded and pockmarked and all but destroyed by freeloaders demanding special treatment. That's why Newt Gingrich is able to denigrate the OWS movement in such blatantly demeaning terms and receive cheers from some of the very people who would most benefit if the current protests succeed.
I did not grow up on a level playing field, and I know it. I came from a family that gave me intellectual autonomy as a birthright, and treated the pursuit of knowledge as a worthy goal. I grew up in an upper-middle-class household that allowed me to waltz into an elite college and an Ivy League graduate school. I was able to spend countless hours playing the piano and listening to music because I didn't need to hold odd jobs to get by and supplement the costs of my education. I was blessed, and I regard the career that I was given as a vocation, not a birthright. I seek to give back to society some of the special insights and unique gifts that have been handed to me, because I know that I do not own those gifts.
I am just me, though. The 0.00000033%. I feel incredibly fortunate to be there, but I am also part of the 100%, and I wish we had a mythology that would enable us to act in the collective interest and not just that of 300 million individuals. That's not socialist; it's just reality. As long as we cheat ourselves of that understanding, we will, I'm afraid, continue to have the society we deserve.
An Op-Ed in this week's New York Times asks what Mahatma Gandhi, whose example has been repeatedly invoked by Occupy Wall Street protesters, would make of the protests.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/30/opinion/what-would-gandhi-do.html?_r=1&smid=fb-share
Gandhi, says Ian Desai, would have rejected the slogan "We are the 99%." Societies operate as wholes, and the income stratification that the OWS protests have highlighted exists because we all accept and enable it.
If Desai is right, the obvious question is "Why?" Given that the US is rated between Ghana and Senegal in terms of income inequality, and far below any other "developed" nation, can it be true that we not only allow this situation to exist but actually approve of it? When I say "we," I mean the 100% that Desai says Gandhi would have addressed. I, personally, don't approve of it, and I know many others who don't. Placing our desires in conflict with those of the collective, though, is in Gandhi's view the wrong way to go, even if we have 99% of the collective on board. It is the 100% that will have to create any meaningful change.
So what is it about the American people that makes us so resistant to such change? Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, which I've been reading on the recommendation of a Facebook friend, provides some interesting hints. What Gladwell is interrogating in the book is, in the broadest sense, the peculiarly American doctrine of the "self-made man." It is part of our national mythology that we are an open and egalitarian society in which anybody can succeed, simply by dint of hard work, grit and determination. The outliers—the upper 1%—are the ones that have done so, and those of us who haven't shouldn't complain; we should get to work.
Gladwell documents some of the ways in which this mythology can blind us to what's really going on when people succeed beyond expectations. For example, I was born in 1955. That means that I could have been Bill Gates. Literally. If I had practiced programming computers during my adolescence with the kind of determination with which I practiced the piano, I could have been ready to get in on the ground floor of the personal computer revolution and make a fortune. There were only two problems: I wasn't very interested in computers, and I didn't have the access that Gates did growing up in a computer-obsessed area of Washington state, or that Steve Jobs did growing up in Silicon Valley. So I've ended up a moderately successful musicologist instead of a phenomenally successful computer entrepeneur.
I'm not complaining. I like what I do and I wouldn't trade places with most people who make far more than I can ever dream of making. I suspect, though, that many Americans who do complain about their lot in life still have a deep-down conviction that it's solely their own fault. In fact, there's something even more pernicious going on, and it's what has enabled the current Fox-News-driven blame the poor mentality. Many Americans believe that successful white baby boomers like myself grew up on a level playing field full of equal opportunity, but that the field has been eroded and pockmarked and all but destroyed by freeloaders demanding special treatment. That's why Newt Gingrich is able to denigrate the OWS movement in such blatantly demeaning terms and receive cheers from some of the very people who would most benefit if the current protests succeed.
I did not grow up on a level playing field, and I know it. I came from a family that gave me intellectual autonomy as a birthright, and treated the pursuit of knowledge as a worthy goal. I grew up in an upper-middle-class household that allowed me to waltz into an elite college and an Ivy League graduate school. I was able to spend countless hours playing the piano and listening to music because I didn't need to hold odd jobs to get by and supplement the costs of my education. I was blessed, and I regard the career that I was given as a vocation, not a birthright. I seek to give back to society some of the special insights and unique gifts that have been handed to me, because I know that I do not own those gifts.
I am just me, though. The 0.00000033%. I feel incredibly fortunate to be there, but I am also part of the 100%, and I wish we had a mythology that would enable us to act in the collective interest and not just that of 300 million individuals. That's not socialist; it's just reality. As long as we cheat ourselves of that understanding, we will, I'm afraid, continue to have the society we deserve.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
On unemployment
My last post went viral, in a kind of small-scale way. Since I started this blog in January, my posts have averaged just under 100 hits each. A few, like the one last March where I described testifying before the Criminal Justice Committee of the Texas State Senate, were linked to outside sources and got a few hundred hits. Some of my most deeply felt posts have struggled to reach even the 50-hit mark. Some are read when they first appear and then never receive any more visits. Others inexplicably continue to draw interest for months.
My line-by-line commentary on the sign held by a college student who claimed to be about to graduate completely debt free, however, behaved in a way I had never seen before. Within 48 hours of my posting it the Friday before last, it had received over 200 hits. It continued to be viewed regularly throughout the next week, and as of this writing it has over 600 pageviews, surpassing the all-time previous record by 50%. And it's only been up for 9 days!
Obviously this post is being read by people who go far beyond my normal Not Ready for Facebook constituency. When you search "I am a college senior about to graduate completely debt free" on google it is the third item to come up. Thus, anybody wanting to find out more about the sign and the claims it makes is going to be directed straight to my post. And so the hits continue to come in.
I have no idea whether this will lead to a broader readership in the long run. I am going to take the opportunity, though, to write a little more about my experience with un- and under-employment—the six years I alluded to in the last post. In an atmosphere in which the man who is now considered the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination can say that the unemployed have brought their situation on themselves and receive loud cheers—in which the very state of being unemployed is being viewed by some as an automatic disqualification for further employment—I need to explain that long-term unemployment is something that can happen to anyone, even if you play by the rules and jump through the hoops and pat yourself on the back and expect things to fall into place.
After attending the elite private college I alluded to in my last post, I went on to an even more elite graduate school. All right, it was the same Ivy League institution that four out of the last six presidents have attended. One of those places that trains most of the Wall Street bankers and other highly successful people who make up the 1% whose privileged, insular existence the Occupy Wall Street protesters have been complaining about. While there, I did everything I was supposed to do. I broadened my knowledge in many directions in order to prepare for the college teaching career I was anticipating. I got classroom teaching experience, first as a TA and then as an adjunct instructor. I won a major award for my teaching, and got reviews from my students that topped the charts. I wrote a dissertation that was quickly snatched up by Cambridge University Press and, after some revisions, was published as a book less than three years after I received my PhD.
And I still couldn't find a job. After four years of flitting from one temporary lecturer position (academic-speak for a dirt private with no rank or privileges) to another, I found myself unable to get even an interview for a tenure-track job (sort of the equivalent of a non-commissioned officer—you still have to jump through all kinds of hoops to get into the diminishing circle of those lucky enough to have tenure). It didn't matter that I had a doctorate from Yale (the name will out after all), a book published to warm reviews, and substantial, highly successful teaching experience. I couldn't even get my foot in the door, and that situation lasted for six years.
I soon discovered that I was "overqualified" for almost any other kind of job. It wasn't that I didn't look at or consider other careers. I simply learned that the fact that I had spent most of my 20s getting a PhD in the humanities made me practically unemployable. I was reduced to signing up with temp agencies and begging the local office of Princeton Review to hire me as a tutor. I found a church with a grand piano that was willing to let me use it to teach, and I developed a private piano studio that at its high point consisted of seven students. I decided to try teaching high school, which meant that I had to go back to school and take even more classes in education. One of the low points came in the middle of my semester of student-teaching. I had earned an Ivy League PhD, gone deeply into debt with student loans and published an acclaimed book, all to be paid $14,000 a year to teach part-time at a private school in the morning before going to my unpaid gig at a public school in the afternoon, where I tried to force-feed Shakespeare and Orwell to students who simply couldn't imagine that any kind of literature was not BORING!! It was hard and often degrading work, and I was being paid a pittance for my slave labor. I nearly broke down in frustration, especially after the experience with the principal that I described in my post last June titled "Dead Poets Redux."
I literally would not have made it through that time if my wife had not been able to find work as a registered nurse at the drop of a hat. It didn't hurt that she also received a substantial financial settlement over the death of her first husband. After my first child was born, I spent nearly two years as the custodial parent while Barbara worked. I did the shopping, cooking and house-cleaning as best I could, and bonded with my infant daughter in a way few men get to experience. That part of it was nice, although there were many times when I thought I could feel my brain cells disintegrating from lack of use. Then I finally got the phone call that led to the interview that led to the job that got me onto a tenure-track and, eventually, led to a tenured job, which led to another one, which led to my current position as a full professor at a major university.
Yes, I persevered when many people would have given up. Yes, I showed a willingness to do all kinds of things as needed, and refused to let my lack of professional success define me. (I had seen others fall into this trap, and saw how easy it was for them to become consumed by anger and frustration, which only made it harder and harder for them to get a job.) Nevertheless, I know beyond a doubt that where I am today was as much as result of luck as it was of hard work. I know beyond a doubt that there are many very good people out there who have never gotten a break, despite having played by the rules and done everything right. I know that unemployment is not a choice, that the unemployed are not responsible for their plight, and that anybody who thinks otherwise has simply never been there.
That's why, even though I have a good job, a lovely family, a nice house, thriving retirement funds and adequate health insurance, I stand with the people occupying Wall Street and not with the people looking down their noses at them. Nobody is self-made. Nobody succeeds without a great deal of help from others and a measure of good luck. Nobody. To the extent that our national mythology has bought into the idea that anyone can pull him or herself up by his or her own bootstraps, we are sacrificing community, compassion and mutual support on the altar of a false and soul-destroying individualism. Beware of this false idol, because it will tear our society to shreds without an ounce of regret. Then, like all idols, it will destroy its worshipers as well.
My line-by-line commentary on the sign held by a college student who claimed to be about to graduate completely debt free, however, behaved in a way I had never seen before. Within 48 hours of my posting it the Friday before last, it had received over 200 hits. It continued to be viewed regularly throughout the next week, and as of this writing it has over 600 pageviews, surpassing the all-time previous record by 50%. And it's only been up for 9 days!
Obviously this post is being read by people who go far beyond my normal Not Ready for Facebook constituency. When you search "I am a college senior about to graduate completely debt free" on google it is the third item to come up. Thus, anybody wanting to find out more about the sign and the claims it makes is going to be directed straight to my post. And so the hits continue to come in.
I have no idea whether this will lead to a broader readership in the long run. I am going to take the opportunity, though, to write a little more about my experience with un- and under-employment—the six years I alluded to in the last post. In an atmosphere in which the man who is now considered the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination can say that the unemployed have brought their situation on themselves and receive loud cheers—in which the very state of being unemployed is being viewed by some as an automatic disqualification for further employment—I need to explain that long-term unemployment is something that can happen to anyone, even if you play by the rules and jump through the hoops and pat yourself on the back and expect things to fall into place.
After attending the elite private college I alluded to in my last post, I went on to an even more elite graduate school. All right, it was the same Ivy League institution that four out of the last six presidents have attended. One of those places that trains most of the Wall Street bankers and other highly successful people who make up the 1% whose privileged, insular existence the Occupy Wall Street protesters have been complaining about. While there, I did everything I was supposed to do. I broadened my knowledge in many directions in order to prepare for the college teaching career I was anticipating. I got classroom teaching experience, first as a TA and then as an adjunct instructor. I won a major award for my teaching, and got reviews from my students that topped the charts. I wrote a dissertation that was quickly snatched up by Cambridge University Press and, after some revisions, was published as a book less than three years after I received my PhD.
And I still couldn't find a job. After four years of flitting from one temporary lecturer position (academic-speak for a dirt private with no rank or privileges) to another, I found myself unable to get even an interview for a tenure-track job (sort of the equivalent of a non-commissioned officer—you still have to jump through all kinds of hoops to get into the diminishing circle of those lucky enough to have tenure). It didn't matter that I had a doctorate from Yale (the name will out after all), a book published to warm reviews, and substantial, highly successful teaching experience. I couldn't even get my foot in the door, and that situation lasted for six years.
I soon discovered that I was "overqualified" for almost any other kind of job. It wasn't that I didn't look at or consider other careers. I simply learned that the fact that I had spent most of my 20s getting a PhD in the humanities made me practically unemployable. I was reduced to signing up with temp agencies and begging the local office of Princeton Review to hire me as a tutor. I found a church with a grand piano that was willing to let me use it to teach, and I developed a private piano studio that at its high point consisted of seven students. I decided to try teaching high school, which meant that I had to go back to school and take even more classes in education. One of the low points came in the middle of my semester of student-teaching. I had earned an Ivy League PhD, gone deeply into debt with student loans and published an acclaimed book, all to be paid $14,000 a year to teach part-time at a private school in the morning before going to my unpaid gig at a public school in the afternoon, where I tried to force-feed Shakespeare and Orwell to students who simply couldn't imagine that any kind of literature was not BORING!! It was hard and often degrading work, and I was being paid a pittance for my slave labor. I nearly broke down in frustration, especially after the experience with the principal that I described in my post last June titled "Dead Poets Redux."
I literally would not have made it through that time if my wife had not been able to find work as a registered nurse at the drop of a hat. It didn't hurt that she also received a substantial financial settlement over the death of her first husband. After my first child was born, I spent nearly two years as the custodial parent while Barbara worked. I did the shopping, cooking and house-cleaning as best I could, and bonded with my infant daughter in a way few men get to experience. That part of it was nice, although there were many times when I thought I could feel my brain cells disintegrating from lack of use. Then I finally got the phone call that led to the interview that led to the job that got me onto a tenure-track and, eventually, led to a tenured job, which led to another one, which led to my current position as a full professor at a major university.
Yes, I persevered when many people would have given up. Yes, I showed a willingness to do all kinds of things as needed, and refused to let my lack of professional success define me. (I had seen others fall into this trap, and saw how easy it was for them to become consumed by anger and frustration, which only made it harder and harder for them to get a job.) Nevertheless, I know beyond a doubt that where I am today was as much as result of luck as it was of hard work. I know beyond a doubt that there are many very good people out there who have never gotten a break, despite having played by the rules and done everything right. I know that unemployment is not a choice, that the unemployed are not responsible for their plight, and that anybody who thinks otherwise has simply never been there.
That's why, even though I have a good job, a lovely family, a nice house, thriving retirement funds and adequate health insurance, I stand with the people occupying Wall Street and not with the people looking down their noses at them. Nobody is self-made. Nobody succeeds without a great deal of help from others and a measure of good luck. Nobody. To the extent that our national mythology has bought into the idea that anyone can pull him or herself up by his or her own bootstraps, we are sacrificing community, compassion and mutual support on the altar of a false and soul-destroying individualism. Beware of this false idol, because it will tear our society to shreds without an ounce of regret. Then, like all idols, it will destroy its worshipers as well.
Friday, October 14, 2011
My statement
A picture of an unidentified person with no face, a skinny midriff and very large hands was all over Facebook yesterday. He/she was holding up a sign that offered some pungent commentary on what he/she apparently believed to be the tone (I know, there aren't any goals) of the Occupy Wall Street movement. After thinking about that sign for over 24 hours, I've decided to offer a counter-commentary that describes my own experiences. Please note that I am not claiming to be more virtuous than the sign-holder, and that I am probably 33 years older. When I entered Oberlin in 1973, the cost of a year's tuition, room, board and fees was a little over $5000. They no longer have a "need-blind" admission policy, and I probably couldn't afford to send my own kids there now. Money market funds haven't paid double-digit interest for longer than most college students have been alive. I am downwardly mobile. Nevertheless, I am what I am.
I am a college senior, about to graduate completely debt free.
That's very good. I graduated from college debt free as well. My story is a little different, though, as you'll see.
I pay for all of my living expenses by working 30+ hrs a week making barely above minimum wage.
When I was in graduate school, I had a fellowship that paid a living stipend. It stipulated that I could not hold any other employment while receiving the fellowship. There was a reason for that. Colleges want their students to be focused on their studies. Having taught college now for most of my adult life, I can assure you that this was a good idea. If I had a full-time student who was working 30 hours a week outside of class, I would strongly advise him/her to cut back on work or attend school only part-time. The number of students I have had who can really do well in college while working that many hours is minuscule.
I chose a moderately priced, in-state public university & started saving $ for school at age 17.
17 was the age at which I started college. I went to an expensive private college because I knew my parents could afford it. (They told me so.) I had savings, but it was only because my family had been giving me checks to hoard away for college for years. My family was in pretty good shape financially, and that strongly influenced some of my other decisions, as described below.
I got decent grades in high school & received 2 scholarships which cover 90% of my tuition.
I got excellent grades in high school. However, I was not eligible for financial aid at Oberlin because of their "need-blind" admission policy, which guaranteed that any student they admitted would receive as much financial aid as he or she needed. Since I didn't need financial aid, I wasn't eligible to receive it.
Here's something else I want you to think about. I turned down the chance for a national merit scholarship. I was a finalist, so I could have applied. I understood, though, that the national merit program was designed to help people pay for college who couldn't have afforded it otherwise. It never even occurred to me that someone in my position might apply. Simply having qualified as a finalist was distinction enough.
I currently have a 3.8 GPA.
I honestly don't remember what my GPA was in college, although I know it got better with each passing year. As a freshman I didn't get the kind of grades I had hoped for, largely because I entered with a semester's worth of AP credit (which allowed me to graduate early, saving my parents some money) and took all sophomore- and junior-level classes that year.
Since I've started teaching college, I've learned to be a bit suspicious of students who boast about their GPAs. The students I know who have the highest ones are usually the ones who play it safe, taking only classes they know they will do well in and avoiding exposing themselves to new ideas. I know this is a big generalization. I've also taught students who graduated with 4.0 GPAs who were truly brilliant. I have to say, though, that you sound more like a risk avoider to me.
I live comfortably in a cheap apt, knowing I can’t have everything I want. I don’t eat out every day or even once a month. I have no credit card, new car, iPad or smart phone – and I’m perfectly ok with that.
One of the apartments that I lived in as a student had a floor on which you could place a marble and watch it roll to the other side of the room. I learned to cook for myself to save money. Students couldn't get credit cards in those days; I didn't have one until I was 28. I also didn't have a car until I was 27. Up until then, when I wanted to go anywhere, I walked, or took the bus or train. Students at my college who lived on campus (which almost everybody did) weren't even allowed to have cars. In other words, I'm with you on this one—and then some.
If I did have debt, I would not blame Wall St or the government for my own bad decisions.
I did have significant student loan debt by the time I finished graduate school, although it was probably nothing by today's standards. I didn't blame anybody for it. In fact, when I got my loan check at the beginning of each year, I put it in a money market fund, which at that time allowed me to earn 17 or 18% interest.
I remember having a discussion with another graduate student who told me that he knew people who were doing the same thing and spending their earnings on stereo equipment. I assured him that the only thing I intended to earn from my investment was enough money to finish graduate school. I'm sorry you didn't have that opportunity. At that point, investment firms were still interested in helping people with limited means.
I live below my means to continue saving for the future.
Ah, so do I. However, I didn't expect my wife to go deaf in her 40s and have to stop working. I also didn't expect her loss of employment to be accompanied by medical expenses that nearly bankrupted us. That's the way life is. You try to plan for the future, but it has a tendency to blindside you.
I expect nothing to be handed to me, and will continue to work my @$$ off for everything I have.
That’s how it’s supposed to work.
See above. Until you actually fail at something, you will likely continue to carry around a severe compassion deficit that could make it difficult or impossible for you to sympathize with the difficulties that others experience. This is likely to poison your relationships with loved ones and coworkers. The best thing that could happen to you would be to have to spend a year or two un- or under-employed (I spent six), looking for work and unable to find it. You will emerge from the experience a much stronger person and a much happier one.
I am NOT the 99% and whether or not you are is YOUR decision.
Well, actually, it was my decision not to pursue a career that could put me in the top 1% of wage-earners in our society. Instead, I chose one that would allow me to give back to society with the skills that God gave me, and to do something deeply meaningful with my life. So I am definitely part of the bottom 99% of wage earners, and that was the best decision I've ever made. You, of course, are in the bottom 99% as well. Given that you could have invested all of your savings in an effort to win the lottery instead of going to college, that was probably a very good decision on your part too.
OK, that's pretty much it. I am still trying to make up my mind whether that was a real person in the picture (the absence of a face is kind of suspicious), and not a Koch brothers plant. Assuming that it is, though, all I'm trying to say here is that I'm a real person too, warts and all. I didn't do it all myself (nobody does). I have no desire to get rich. Life has thrown me some major curveballs. Most of the time I don't complain; some of the time I do, just like everybody else I've ever known.
I am the 99%.
I am a college senior, about to graduate completely debt free.
That's very good. I graduated from college debt free as well. My story is a little different, though, as you'll see.
I pay for all of my living expenses by working 30+ hrs a week making barely above minimum wage.
When I was in graduate school, I had a fellowship that paid a living stipend. It stipulated that I could not hold any other employment while receiving the fellowship. There was a reason for that. Colleges want their students to be focused on their studies. Having taught college now for most of my adult life, I can assure you that this was a good idea. If I had a full-time student who was working 30 hours a week outside of class, I would strongly advise him/her to cut back on work or attend school only part-time. The number of students I have had who can really do well in college while working that many hours is minuscule.
I chose a moderately priced, in-state public university & started saving $ for school at age 17.
17 was the age at which I started college. I went to an expensive private college because I knew my parents could afford it. (They told me so.) I had savings, but it was only because my family had been giving me checks to hoard away for college for years. My family was in pretty good shape financially, and that strongly influenced some of my other decisions, as described below.
I got decent grades in high school & received 2 scholarships which cover 90% of my tuition.
I got excellent grades in high school. However, I was not eligible for financial aid at Oberlin because of their "need-blind" admission policy, which guaranteed that any student they admitted would receive as much financial aid as he or she needed. Since I didn't need financial aid, I wasn't eligible to receive it.
Here's something else I want you to think about. I turned down the chance for a national merit scholarship. I was a finalist, so I could have applied. I understood, though, that the national merit program was designed to help people pay for college who couldn't have afforded it otherwise. It never even occurred to me that someone in my position might apply. Simply having qualified as a finalist was distinction enough.
I currently have a 3.8 GPA.
I honestly don't remember what my GPA was in college, although I know it got better with each passing year. As a freshman I didn't get the kind of grades I had hoped for, largely because I entered with a semester's worth of AP credit (which allowed me to graduate early, saving my parents some money) and took all sophomore- and junior-level classes that year.
Since I've started teaching college, I've learned to be a bit suspicious of students who boast about their GPAs. The students I know who have the highest ones are usually the ones who play it safe, taking only classes they know they will do well in and avoiding exposing themselves to new ideas. I know this is a big generalization. I've also taught students who graduated with 4.0 GPAs who were truly brilliant. I have to say, though, that you sound more like a risk avoider to me.
I live comfortably in a cheap apt, knowing I can’t have everything I want. I don’t eat out every day or even once a month. I have no credit card, new car, iPad or smart phone – and I’m perfectly ok with that.
One of the apartments that I lived in as a student had a floor on which you could place a marble and watch it roll to the other side of the room. I learned to cook for myself to save money. Students couldn't get credit cards in those days; I didn't have one until I was 28. I also didn't have a car until I was 27. Up until then, when I wanted to go anywhere, I walked, or took the bus or train. Students at my college who lived on campus (which almost everybody did) weren't even allowed to have cars. In other words, I'm with you on this one—and then some.
If I did have debt, I would not blame Wall St or the government for my own bad decisions.
I did have significant student loan debt by the time I finished graduate school, although it was probably nothing by today's standards. I didn't blame anybody for it. In fact, when I got my loan check at the beginning of each year, I put it in a money market fund, which at that time allowed me to earn 17 or 18% interest.
I remember having a discussion with another graduate student who told me that he knew people who were doing the same thing and spending their earnings on stereo equipment. I assured him that the only thing I intended to earn from my investment was enough money to finish graduate school. I'm sorry you didn't have that opportunity. At that point, investment firms were still interested in helping people with limited means.
I live below my means to continue saving for the future.
Ah, so do I. However, I didn't expect my wife to go deaf in her 40s and have to stop working. I also didn't expect her loss of employment to be accompanied by medical expenses that nearly bankrupted us. That's the way life is. You try to plan for the future, but it has a tendency to blindside you.
I expect nothing to be handed to me, and will continue to work my @$$ off for everything I have.
That’s how it’s supposed to work.
See above. Until you actually fail at something, you will likely continue to carry around a severe compassion deficit that could make it difficult or impossible for you to sympathize with the difficulties that others experience. This is likely to poison your relationships with loved ones and coworkers. The best thing that could happen to you would be to have to spend a year or two un- or under-employed (I spent six), looking for work and unable to find it. You will emerge from the experience a much stronger person and a much happier one.
I am NOT the 99% and whether or not you are is YOUR decision.
Well, actually, it was my decision not to pursue a career that could put me in the top 1% of wage-earners in our society. Instead, I chose one that would allow me to give back to society with the skills that God gave me, and to do something deeply meaningful with my life. So I am definitely part of the bottom 99% of wage earners, and that was the best decision I've ever made. You, of course, are in the bottom 99% as well. Given that you could have invested all of your savings in an effort to win the lottery instead of going to college, that was probably a very good decision on your part too.
OK, that's pretty much it. I am still trying to make up my mind whether that was a real person in the picture (the absence of a face is kind of suspicious), and not a Koch brothers plant. Assuming that it is, though, all I'm trying to say here is that I'm a real person too, warts and all. I didn't do it all myself (nobody does). I have no desire to get rich. Life has thrown me some major curveballs. Most of the time I don't complain; some of the time I do, just like everybody else I've ever known.
I am the 99%.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
The Civility Crisis
I walked a tightrope for four years. Shortly after I got my first tenure-track college teaching job, I found myself caught between an administrator and a mostly tenured faculty who despised each other. I understood that when I came up for tenure, it would really not matter how good a teacher I had been or how much I had contributed to my field. Without the support of both my colleagues and the administration, I could not possibly get tenure, because both were absolutely essential. Because of the prevailing climate, though, earning and maintaining both was nearly impossible.
Somehow I succeeded. I did my job with unfeigned dedication and tried to stay out of trouble. Neither did I hide my opinions, and when called on to do so I expressed them. I refused to kiss anybody's you-know-what, but I remained civil and respectful toward all those I had to work with, understanding that the health of the entire college depended on others' and my willingness to do so. As a result, I earned enough respect to survive the tenure gauntlet.
Ever since Henry Kissinger said it, it's become a standard gambit to compare the vicious, feuding world of academia with the comparatively civil one of politics and international diplomacy. Even Kissinger must have to admit, though, that our national political conversation has come to resemble Harvard at its worst. Thus, I want to make my own contribution to the growing debate over what exactly the Occupy Wall St. (hereafter OWS) protestors might be trying to accomplish. I can't speak for anyone else, but I sense a growing frustration that people throughout our entire political culture seem to have stopped talking to each other. Civility—the glue that holds democratic institutions together and allows them to function—has stopped working. Nobody in Congress seems to be acting in good faith, willing to put the well-being of the nation and the survival of democracy ahead of the overriding goal of demolishing the other side.
This culture of dysfunctional name-calling has been building for decades. It would be sorely out of form for me, in an essay with this subject, to point fingers and assign blame for this situation. Let me just say that I don't watch MSNBC and I never have. The few times I tried to listen to Air America I turned it off in sheer boredom. Thus, I feel completely justified in asking people to stop watching Fox News. It was, in fact, my attempt to do exactly that which led to my voluntary withdrawal late last year from Facebook as a vehicle for political discussion. Looking back at what happened, I realize that all I was trying to do was persuade a few people who were clearly getting their talking points from Fox to talk to me as well and hear a different perspective. All refused. Several called me a bully and unfriended me. Incivility gained the upper hand.
So I set up shop here and seized it back. That's why I've been writing this blog and inviting others to join me. I sense a similar type of frustration, and a similar kind of initiative, in the OWS protests. These are people who have tried to work within the established framework, but have found that the framework no longer works because glaring, habitual incivility has completely destroyed it. There is no other place left for them to say what they know needs to be said. What they and I would love more than anything is for the public square to become open again to voices like ours. That, however, would require a commitment from everybody to the process of communication—to doing the hard work of democracy, which inevitably involves swallowing your personal pride and indignation so that the health of the entire country can be maintained and we can continue to function.
If OWS and I have a single message to convey—one that trumps everything else—it's this: you won't get anywhere if you let the conversation be controlled by people who won't talk to each other. This rag-tag coalition of mostly young people are currently the adults in the room. I take my hat off to them.
Somehow I succeeded. I did my job with unfeigned dedication and tried to stay out of trouble. Neither did I hide my opinions, and when called on to do so I expressed them. I refused to kiss anybody's you-know-what, but I remained civil and respectful toward all those I had to work with, understanding that the health of the entire college depended on others' and my willingness to do so. As a result, I earned enough respect to survive the tenure gauntlet.
Ever since Henry Kissinger said it, it's become a standard gambit to compare the vicious, feuding world of academia with the comparatively civil one of politics and international diplomacy. Even Kissinger must have to admit, though, that our national political conversation has come to resemble Harvard at its worst. Thus, I want to make my own contribution to the growing debate over what exactly the Occupy Wall St. (hereafter OWS) protestors might be trying to accomplish. I can't speak for anyone else, but I sense a growing frustration that people throughout our entire political culture seem to have stopped talking to each other. Civility—the glue that holds democratic institutions together and allows them to function—has stopped working. Nobody in Congress seems to be acting in good faith, willing to put the well-being of the nation and the survival of democracy ahead of the overriding goal of demolishing the other side.
This culture of dysfunctional name-calling has been building for decades. It would be sorely out of form for me, in an essay with this subject, to point fingers and assign blame for this situation. Let me just say that I don't watch MSNBC and I never have. The few times I tried to listen to Air America I turned it off in sheer boredom. Thus, I feel completely justified in asking people to stop watching Fox News. It was, in fact, my attempt to do exactly that which led to my voluntary withdrawal late last year from Facebook as a vehicle for political discussion. Looking back at what happened, I realize that all I was trying to do was persuade a few people who were clearly getting their talking points from Fox to talk to me as well and hear a different perspective. All refused. Several called me a bully and unfriended me. Incivility gained the upper hand.
So I set up shop here and seized it back. That's why I've been writing this blog and inviting others to join me. I sense a similar type of frustration, and a similar kind of initiative, in the OWS protests. These are people who have tried to work within the established framework, but have found that the framework no longer works because glaring, habitual incivility has completely destroyed it. There is no other place left for them to say what they know needs to be said. What they and I would love more than anything is for the public square to become open again to voices like ours. That, however, would require a commitment from everybody to the process of communication—to doing the hard work of democracy, which inevitably involves swallowing your personal pride and indignation so that the health of the entire country can be maintained and we can continue to function.
If OWS and I have a single message to convey—one that trumps everything else—it's this: you won't get anywhere if you let the conversation be controlled by people who won't talk to each other. This rag-tag coalition of mostly young people are currently the adults in the room. I take my hat off to them.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
The Other 99%
This is my first blog entry in a few weeks, since I am recuperating from my second abdominal surgery this year. As I have lain in bed timing painkillers and waiting for my hernia "repair" to heal, I have had lots of time to think but little energy to write. If I make it to the end of this post, it means my equilibrium is at least on the way to being restored.
This seems like the right moment for a brief retrospective. I am in my tenth month of recording here, with what now looks to me like astonishing prolixity, my thoughts that once seemed too "hot" to appear as Facebook notes. My "friends" there, including people I had known for a very long time and others I barely knew at all, had been taking offense, so I decided not to bother them. If you've started reading my blog since then, that explains the title.
I'm glad to say that my ruse has worked. I have gotten no complaints, even though I link every new post on Facebook and now on Google+ as well. I seem to have been accepted as harmless. I've taken advantage of that, and have written here, with what I hope has occasionally bordered on poetry, of the often unbearable tension that simply following current events can create within my American soul.
I am, as I have said before, an American liberal, who was born in the 50s, grew up in the 60s and came of age in the 70s. I have always understood liberalism to mean passionate advocacy of the greatest possible freedom for the most possible people. I have been happiest when our politicians have acted with the people's interest at heart, and most miserable when they have colluded with wealth and power to squelch opportunity and enforce conformity. I do not recognize myself in the mocking caricature of the "big government liberal" to be found frequently on Fox News and elsewhere. I am the real thing.
I have recorded here my ongoing disillusionment with being forced to live out my adult life in an America vastly different from what I expected it to become. But I have also expressed my hope that my fellow Americans are better than they often seem, and that we still have it within ourselves to continue to offer the world genuine leadership. If I'm wrong, we will simply become increasingly irrelevant, while continuing to be an active drag on the world's economy and physical environment. I hope I'm not wrong, and when I have expressed disillusionment here, it has been solely in the hope of reaching out. I know, based on many private communications I've received, that I'm not just preaching to the converted. I may not have a huge readership, but I am expanding people's minds.
Today I simply want to go on record saying that the current Occupy Wall Street protests, now spreading to other urban areas throughout the country, are the most hopeful and encouraging thing I have seen in a very long time. Like many, I have been confused by what exactly they are and what the protesters hope to achieve. I may be getting a vague idea of what 60s radicalism looked like to people who were my age when it began. I will be generous enough to assume that the mainstream media have been baffled too, and have not, as can easily appear to be the case, simply been ignoring the protests. I am writing this from my sickbed because I want to make it clear that they are too significant to be ignored. The onus will increasingly be on those who are baffled to justify their bafflement, and to search their souls to figure out just what they are missing.
There is no reason to be baffled. It's been a long time coming, but we finally have a critical number of people whose awareness of wrong, and whose hope for the future, wealth and power cannot control. Whether or not the rest of us have caught on yet, they are the other 99%. They are America. If this country meets its current challenges, it will be because of them. If it fails, it will be despite them. Fortunately, it looks like they're here to stay.
This seems like the right moment for a brief retrospective. I am in my tenth month of recording here, with what now looks to me like astonishing prolixity, my thoughts that once seemed too "hot" to appear as Facebook notes. My "friends" there, including people I had known for a very long time and others I barely knew at all, had been taking offense, so I decided not to bother them. If you've started reading my blog since then, that explains the title.
I'm glad to say that my ruse has worked. I have gotten no complaints, even though I link every new post on Facebook and now on Google+ as well. I seem to have been accepted as harmless. I've taken advantage of that, and have written here, with what I hope has occasionally bordered on poetry, of the often unbearable tension that simply following current events can create within my American soul.
I am, as I have said before, an American liberal, who was born in the 50s, grew up in the 60s and came of age in the 70s. I have always understood liberalism to mean passionate advocacy of the greatest possible freedom for the most possible people. I have been happiest when our politicians have acted with the people's interest at heart, and most miserable when they have colluded with wealth and power to squelch opportunity and enforce conformity. I do not recognize myself in the mocking caricature of the "big government liberal" to be found frequently on Fox News and elsewhere. I am the real thing.
I have recorded here my ongoing disillusionment with being forced to live out my adult life in an America vastly different from what I expected it to become. But I have also expressed my hope that my fellow Americans are better than they often seem, and that we still have it within ourselves to continue to offer the world genuine leadership. If I'm wrong, we will simply become increasingly irrelevant, while continuing to be an active drag on the world's economy and physical environment. I hope I'm not wrong, and when I have expressed disillusionment here, it has been solely in the hope of reaching out. I know, based on many private communications I've received, that I'm not just preaching to the converted. I may not have a huge readership, but I am expanding people's minds.
Today I simply want to go on record saying that the current Occupy Wall Street protests, now spreading to other urban areas throughout the country, are the most hopeful and encouraging thing I have seen in a very long time. Like many, I have been confused by what exactly they are and what the protesters hope to achieve. I may be getting a vague idea of what 60s radicalism looked like to people who were my age when it began. I will be generous enough to assume that the mainstream media have been baffled too, and have not, as can easily appear to be the case, simply been ignoring the protests. I am writing this from my sickbed because I want to make it clear that they are too significant to be ignored. The onus will increasingly be on those who are baffled to justify their bafflement, and to search their souls to figure out just what they are missing.
There is no reason to be baffled. It's been a long time coming, but we finally have a critical number of people whose awareness of wrong, and whose hope for the future, wealth and power cannot control. Whether or not the rest of us have caught on yet, they are the other 99%. They are America. If this country meets its current challenges, it will be because of them. If it fails, it will be despite them. Fortunately, it looks like they're here to stay.
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