Last week, while tossing textbooks off my bookshelves in preparation for finally leaving grad school, I came across Standing Up to the Madness by Amy and David Goodman, hosts of Democracy Now! I couldn’t remember the last time I had read a non-course related book, so I opened it up and felt my world receive a much needed shake. When your life is taken up by relentless research and banging your head on a keyboard, you tend to miss everything else going on out there in the world. Sure, I read headlines and listened to the news and was “up-to-date” through social networking sites. And I was more than aware that most of it was filtered and organized to suit some agenda, but I figured that was the best anyone could do.
Reading this book, I was reminded of why I had gone to grad school rather than getting a job. No, it was not in an attempt to continue to leech off my parents (thanks, mom & dad), or to avoid the grueling tyranny of a nine-to-fiver for as long as possible. It was because I believed information, knowledge (the two are NOT the same thing) and education were crucial to social revolution. And while I had heard of the crystal tower of academia, sacred authority on all things actually irrelevant, I made the faulty assumption that there was no better place to become involved with everything going on in the world than a college campus, where opinions and ideas were inspired and broadened and discussed, all with the intent of formulating a socially-conscious intellectual.
Nope. Nada. Not at all. And I am very sorry to say that I got sucked into it. That is not to bash higher learning. It’s the bee’s knees, as they say in the Old Country. However, like every institution, it has its faults. Rather than the world around you, your attention turns to completing assignments, fulfilling requirements, keeping up on the newest research, developing theories, apply those theories through endless rounds or research, and eventually, you begin to feel the library walls close in around you. Everything that had concerned me before – global events, social issues, the ironic repetition of history, the exchange of culture – faded away as papers and exams and grades interceded.
Last month, I finished the thesis paper required to earn my masters degree in cultural anthropology. It is a completely irrelevant paper. I am not proud to have written it. I don’t care if it gets published or not. Perhaps the fault was my area of research, but in reconnecting with the world and all the things that once commanded my attention, the madness discussed in Amy Goodman’s book, I am aware of how disconnected I have become. Not from my friends or family or my partner, but from my community, which extends beyond the city and the country and out into the world. There is a lot going on out there, and my intention has always been to be a voice, though I’ve never been sure if that voice was going to speak up, speak out, or simply comment on what’s going on. The latter seems so passive, but for while I’m getting my feet back underneath me, that may be what happens here.
This blog is my first small step in getting involved. It’s not much, I know. You can say to me that there are plenty of other things to do, especially since there is absolutely no guarantee that people will read this. You can say: join an organization, give money, take up a cause. To which I am ashamed to reply: I need to get a job, I don’t have much money, and there are so many causes, how can you possibly choose? I’ve always been good at writing, at expressing myself and my concerns. So writing a blog seems like a good first step. I know in this world of mass media, flashing headlines and twitter – I will proudly admit right here and now, I hate hate hate twitter – that my posts will be considered too long. And maybe my voice is not as amusing or as engaging as the pundits. Give me some credit, though. This is merely a first step. I have dreams, you know. One day, I would like to be involved up to my nose, fully dedicated to some great cause for social change. “When I grow up, I wanna be an activist!” But for now, I will settle for joining the rank-and-file of wanna-be bloggers. It’s a bold new – it’s not really new anymore, is it? I kinda missed the last boat out, so this is me in a borrowed canoe, trying to catch up to the flotilla – world, baby!
The quote that inspired the title of this blog is taken from the writer and humorist Finley Peter Dunne, a Chicago author from the turn of the 20th century. He’s famous for his Mr. Dooley sketches, in which an old-school version of a Mary Sue – that being Dooley – spoke on behalf of Dunne about then-current political and social issues. His choice of venue? Irish pubs in old Chicago. If we spun the digital clock back to the late Victorian era and everyone agreed to temporarily don top hats and monocles, he’d be Stephen Colbert. They both have Irish heritage, so it works. His remark seems aptly timed for a world facing numerous natural disasters and conflicts. For every bit of ground we seem to gain, whether in the struggle for human rights, the environment or simply disseminating common sense, we take one iridescent Na’vi-sized step backwards. Global warming, gay rights, international relations, to name just a few. Never mind that we still consider movies like Avatar to be blockbusters (maybe it’s just the years in academia talking but, hello! Orientalism, anyone?) and we’ve got a new youth culture in American that considered it cool beyond cool (or sick beyond whatever; I am so out of touch) to be above actual concern for anything not ironic.
The world, as Dunne so aptly notes, isn’t changing, despite all our efforts. It just keeps spinning. That is not to say any efforts are hopeless or pointless or naïve. All quite the opposite, I believe. But it is as important to notice the advances as the regressions, and to acknowledge the continued support of the status quo. In pointing that out, maybe people will start to take notice, like I did, and want to do something to change that. Remembering that the world is just going to keep turning can also keep us from losing hope when nothing seems to change. I mean, in the 1950s, everybody thought they were going to have their skin melted off in a nuclear apocalypse long before now. They couldn’t imagine beyond the Cold War, and when they did, life involved a racial (species-ist?) struggle between men and rubber-lipped monkeys. For everything that we as a generation and a world face now, you’ve got to wonder – maybe eagerly, maybe in slight pants-wetting terror – of what’s beyond now.
This has been a very long-winded introduction – I can’t promise my posts will be any shorter – to say that this blog serves as a place where I post my ponderings about the world and the direction in which it turns. I don’t know where it’s going, but I’m eager to find out, and maybe along the way, I can become involved with all the other helping hands that are trying to turn our world in the best possible direction.
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