why am i an annoying leftist?

I'm not proofreading this. Don't judge me.

I have the best and the worst job. My job right now is to read about social movements and to teach people about the agency they have in their lives. I read from the left. And everyday, despite warnings that when I 'grow up' and have a mortgage (which I do), my politics will somehow soften and I will become less rather than more radical. I've worked in non-profits, I've explored the community service sector, and my analysis only became more radical rather than less. The problems I was addressing - poverty, sexual assault, domestic violence, drug abuse, incarceration - are the logical and systematic outcomes of the inner workings of a social structure designed to marginalize the many at the expense of the few. I scarcely believe, as the logic of survival of the fittest suggests, that those at the top are somehow smarter, better, and more worthy. As I read and think about how popular leftist movements work and what they are fighting for, I become more and more convinced that the world as I see it is common sense; that is, until I read mainstream press or talk to people outside my little bubble of indignation and struggle.

In The Subversion of Politics: European Autonomous Social Movements and the Decolonization of Everyday Life, George Katsiaficas writes, "In short, the conditions of life are being destroyed at the same time as previously independent realms of everyday life are increasingly subsumed by the commodity form and criteria of profitability" (2006: 6). He argues that the rise of autonomous social movements in the 80s in Italy and Germany (he focuses mainly on Germany), was an important, yet under-recognized current of social movements that understood both the state and corporate form as colonizing forces that not only perpetuated all of the -isms that continue to separate and marginalize, but also that increasingly make the psychic and physical landscapes totalizing and seemingly inescapable. He goes on to say, "Privacy continues to be invaded, family life destroyed, job security made non-existent, environmental conditions degraded, water made unfit to drink, and the air made poisonous to our health" (6). These conditions seem inevitable and the solutions remain in the hands and subsumed by the logic of those who created the conditions in the first place. That is, 'the people' let keep reaffirming the hegemony of the powerful.

Sadly, the popular upsurges in the US - the upsurges I follow in the corporate media - are the Tea Party or its 'countermovement' to restore 'sanity.' Neither of these movements are particularly appealing to me (the former, obviously not, and the latter only strategically in this moment). I don't believe in the kind of sanity defined by existing conditions 'cause guess what - existing conditions are totally insane. I don't believe I'll ever see anything close to the kind of world I wish to inhabit. But I will not lay down and I will discuss my logic and I will be called crazy and as much as I feel alienated, I will have a sense of humor about how the world works and continue, like a sad clown, to fight. The contours and intensity of my 'fight' will vary. But fight I will because I think if I sat down with most people and spoke frankly about my beliefs - not my beliefs as issue-based (What should immigration policy look like? Who should have access to health care and how should it be organized?*) - but my pie in the sky beliefs about a totally unattainable world, I am sure, if we suspended our political rationality for just a second, people would say - "Of course, sure, but that's not possible." So what? I'm sure it's not. Just like it's never possible to do a lot of things that we continue to aim for - how to raise the perfect kid, how to have the perfect marriage, the perfect job, the most fully functional economy, a free market - blah blah blah. We aim for the impossible all the time and fail. But we do it.

This system only exists because we allow it to. We accept it and the majority of people, especially in rich western countries, do not try to create new structures based on new logics because they are 'impossible' - people are too selfish (yet we see selflessness all the time in a system that rewards selfishness), it's too hard, it's utopian, you're a 'socialist' (yet people complain about toll roads and the cost of private school). Another world possible - or as David Harvey said, it's coming whether we like it or not. I believe that it can look so so different and that 'different' is actually a sort of common sense that we've been told from the beginning is naive. FUCK that.

Rambly rambly rambly...

*These are all important questions but stay with me for a moment.

Oh, and READ THIS BOOK

I was never a riot grrrl proper. But I was so inspired by the movement. It really gave me an initial framework for understanding my experiences - and then eventually seeing beyond them. This book is amazing. It takes the movement very seriously but doesn't cut it any slack either. It's well-researched and well-written. READ IT!

Ramblings

I had a really inspiring weekend. I actually think it's a culmination of events that are making me feel fairly welled up with possibility. I had a weekend long meeting with the editorial committee (EDCO) and advisory board (ADBO) of a journal I work with - I'm on the ADBO. It's an interesting journal called Upping the Anti: A Journal of Theory and Action (UTA) (www.uppingtheanti.org) and it occupies a curious position in the lexicon of journals as well as activist publications. It's fairly dense by the standards of "lay" publications; that is, non-academic publications. Yet, it offers a rigorous account of movements on the ground. And because it straddles a disparate set of worlds: academia - where the theorizing happens vs. activism - where the "action" happens; and because it self-consciously recognizes that these two worlds should not be as far apart as they are, it is doing something very important. But, the EDCO and ADBO are primarily (but not) comprised of white, middle-class grad students. One ADBO member remarked that people call the UTA folks "gradicals."

The separation of these worlds has always marked my reluctance to go back to school. I would very much like to think that we are, I am, doing work that materially advances my politics. I have absolutely no commitment to a value-free sociology as practiced in the United States. I want to take a position and learn how to defend that position. I want to create meaning out of the rad fucking things I see around me. I want to interpret the world according to my values. But I don't want to do in that right wing scary kind of way.

Anyhow, back to being inspired... UTA has been publishing for 5 years now. If you saw how and where the work is being done, you would be amazed that they've pulled it off. It's such hard work and it comes out of, well, kind of nowhere. There's no office, no staff - just a really dedicated group of people. The EDCO really works hard and long to make it happen. One of the reasons the journal is so outstanding is that it has really high-quality publishing standards. The challenge is that it's working with many on the ground organizers who may not have the academic training that many on the EDCO have, thus they may feel intimidated by the process of submitting and subsequently editing their work. That's been identified as a BIG problem. So, we brainstormed for a good long time about how to expand the EDCO's pedagogical capabilities - their bedside manner as well as their ability to unmask the writing process - in order to advance the journal's capacity to invite a variety of writers and over time expand the journal's ADBO and EDCO outside the privileged milieu they (we) don't seem to be able to address. I think that educational capacity is profoundly political and a precursor to broader democratic control over the journal in this instance, and our larger political lives in general.

I am under no illusion that what we do significantly turns the tides that I am observing in the mainstream political world. Toronto just elected a total douchebag as its mayor. The Tea Party, funded by billionaires, is the voice of the populace somehow - even though there are huge and important gatherings of left-wing thinkers and activists converging all over the fucking place doing amazing fucking things. I struggle constantly for people to change the terms of the debates in order to see that those terms have been set by the linchpin of history and power but it is in our obedience that they remain. I think that the world as I see it in my heart is entirely possible. I don't think that people are too dumb to see it. I see a psychic longing in my students all the fucking time. We just have to make our movements a place where they can tap in and feel at home. I don't think we've done that yet. And I think that the problems that UTA is facing is reflective of larger activist world to some extent.

It's exceedingly difficult to confront people at their points of privilege. It's never been easy for me to face, though those have been the moments that I've learned the most. I think UTA is struggling to see outside its own positioning and I think it'll be a stronger journal if it figures it out.

Why Work?

In my 'academic' work, I am interested in, well, work. I am not a vulgar Marxist. But Marx, to me, offers a compelling analysis of capitalism. He suggests that in the transition from feudalism to capitalism, people became 'free' to sell their labor on the market for a price. Of course, the 'price' of that labor is deeply tied to assumptions about what kinds of work is meaningful, skilled, and so on. And, the more that marginalized people occupy particular kinds of work, the less it is worth. Relatedly, marginalized folks often occupy 'less-skilled' positions in the marketplace.

Work is not the *only* arena in which social inequality reproduces itself, but the way in which work is set up is structures and is structured by other systems of inequality. Citizenship, gender, race, able-bodiedness, sexuality, 'professionalism', affective labor - all of these things structure how most of us are compensated for the work that we do, what jobs are available, and what people understand as worthy ways to spend the majority of their lives. Like, really, what the fuck to hedge fund managers do that contributes to the social world meaningfully? In my opinion, very little. In the opinion of the marketplace, that is if compensation were an adequate measure of social worth, they do a whole hell of a lot.

Furthermore, the need for global economic growth eclipses most other measures of economic well-being. As long as growth remains the yardstick for a healthy economy, people and the environment will suffer. PERIOD. Therefore, new economic systems MUST emerge that opt out of traditional measures of a healthy economy. This is important for several reasons:

1. Industrial capitalism is the primary lens through which social policy around work is structured - both in terms of the economic stimulus but also in terms of the traditional labor movement be they trade unions and even poor people's movements. This is a problem as it leaves unquestioned the fact that most of these jobs - selling and buying shit that nobody needs and that will wind up in a landfill - are soul deadening and planet killing. It's just the 'double movement' wherein the most egregious exploits of capitalism are somewhat alleviated but the system itself remains intact.

2. It's not that labor movements aren't important. They are. But I think work can very well be understood differently. In fact, work must be understood differently if this planet is to survive. That is, if economic growth is the primary driver of greenhouse gas emissions and both wealth and job creation in their contemporary forms create that growth (jobs so that people can shop so that industries remain profitable), then the way work itself is structured is profoundly flawed. Yet work (not necessarily jobs) is the means through which needs are met. And needs can be met in new ways - ways that allow people more time to creatively pursue their interests, have more "free time", and engage in a myriad of activities. What are those ways?

3. Not all, but a lot of work is soul-deadening. I don't think it has to be. And we do too much of it in its formalized incarnation.

4. Collective work structures can mean radically reshaping both the *point* of work as well as its processes. Forging new economic models can forge new definitions of work and radically alter the value structures upon which work rests - e.g., the work of caring, the work of reproducing everyday life - often the things we think of having to do *after* work (or hire someone else to do for us). It can give people the sense that they do have a say in the conditions of their lives. It can create ways of meeting needs that do not kill the planet.

These, to me, are profoundly political questions. From all of this, I need a focused research question for my grant writing. Anyone? Anyone?

Deeper Tendencies

One thing I've learned to do over the years is control my temper. I know I've mentioned this in earlier posts. I would say that my two worse features are my temper and my tendency to needlessly worry about everything making me somewhat controlling. I've learned to let go a bit, but I'm by no means close to being able to let go. Imagine, then, a situation where I worry and worry all the while being pissed off.

I have learned over the years to observe myself in order to assess my behavior. I am not unreflexive. Yet there are times where I simply cannot control myself. I see myself and I know how I appear but still I can't control it. Why can't one stop herself in the midst of behavior she knows isn't benefitting anyone? After the fog wears off, I always feel a sense of regret and embarrassment. Some situations (and some people) just bring it out in me. What is that?

Head in the Game

I am trying like hell to get my head back into school mode. It's weird, I have this aversion to reading ever since I started grad school. It's like reading has become a task rather than a pleasure. I think I have to ease my way back in with a novel or something (not too heavy - suggestions???).

I know I can talk some shit about Toronto and if you've heard me do it already, stop reading 'cause you will most likely be bored by my observations. I've heard two radically different things about Toronto. Most artists and musicians that I've come across call it (and I've heard this several times) "magical." I believe that "magical" Toronto must happen when I've already gone to bed. Then there is the Toronto I've heard described as "hard" and "cold". This, of course, does not describe its inhabitants individually. Rather, there seems a collective sense that one keeps to herself, does not talk to strangers on the street, and does her best to be "polite" when encountering others. It's cultural. This is not what I am used to.

A Torontonian friend of mine recently visited New York. This was his first visit to a major US city since he was a kid. He noted that people were so warm and friendly despite New York's reputation for having rude inhabitants. It's different, for sure. And juxtaposing Toronto and Baltimore once again, so closely, I am really homesick already. I miss the warm greetings, hellos and such.

I associate all of this with school. School represents to me anxiety, competition, and insecurity encased in a cold, hard city of people who would sooner run me down than say hello. Needless to say, I have to get the fuck over it and get myself started.

Really?

It's been fun working on the house with my dad and Ray. Chris has been feeling a little bit better but a lot of his energies have gone toward working on his actually paying job. I've been at the house weekdays from 7:30 am until about 4 pm almost everyday unless I have to work - write a paper or teach yoga or something like that.

Yesterday Chris was to finish his project and come to the house - we finally were going to get to work together. The couple days he's been there to work on the house have been great. In fact, the point of this whole thing was not only to have a home but to build the home together (with the help of my dad of course). It was supposed to temper all the struggling we've done in Toronto - his and my incessant schedule, doing tedious work in the same home - all of the things that makes life a bit tedious. Needless to say, I was really excited for us to work together.

Yet, fate (literally) hit me on the head once again. The kitchen ceiling/office floor had to be torn down and rebuilt. This week, my father and I spend our time measuring and building new joists. While my father was putting the plywood down, I was adamant about tearing up the remaining kitchen floor, eagerly awaiting Chris and looking forward to this week spent working together. I thought, "finally, we get to hang out and do this together as we planned." As I was struggling with the floor, my father asked if I wanted to come up and help him screw in the plywood. I, again, insisted on tearing up the floor so we could get our final dump run in. My father was sawzalling the plywood above me, the plywood got away from him and the sheet came crashing down onto my head.

I knew it was bad when my father, ordinarily NOT an alarmist, came running down the steps in a panic. I realized that my head was bleeding pretty bad. I called Chris who was at the hardware store, and told him to get there. He ran over, and we decided it was best to go to the ER. Between the tetanus shot I had to get last week for stepping on a nail, the ER bill that will surely be a doozy from yesterday, and the massive ER and ambulance bills from Chris's fall, we've racked up a load of medical bills. You'd think we'd learn our lesson and at least wear a fucking hard hat. The moment I saw Chris, I bursted into tears. It's been great but really disappointing.

The cut hurt. The staples they used to suture it is excruciating. The doctor was training a resident and while the doctor had a delicate and decisive click of the staple gun, the resident was much more hesitant and slowly drove the damn things into my head. Patsy told me that new residents start in July so it's best to visit an ER in May or something. I'll keep that in mind.