Are You Slightly Privileged, Slightly Uneasy?

"And young people like yourselves, despite the allure of careers and comfort, have defected. Our only hope for real change lies in the possibility that all of us who are slightly privileged and slightly uneasy begin to see that we are like the guards of the prison uprising in Attica: expendable. That the establishment, whatever rewards it gives us, if necessary to maintain its control will kill us. But if the guards stop obeying, if you stop obeying, the system falls."

--Howard Zinn in "The American Ruling Class"

This is the quote that keeps running through my head since I first watched "The American Ruling Class". Not shocking: Zinn is talking directly to me. I'm slightly (well more than slightly) privileged and slightly (well now, a little more than slightly) uneasy. While I can see that things are very bad for so many people in this world, things are just good enough for me that I can convince myself that things are alright for those who are struggling. Or, maybe I recognize that I want to do something, so I become involved in the within-system organizations that are available for upper class liberals like me. I join the Democrats, and fight for their cause, to increase equality in our country. That's the right thing to do, right?

But it seems to me that Zinn is suggesting being a democrat is no better than being a republican, it's only a better lie you can tell yourself when you are feeling uncomfortable about the bad situations that you see around you. By representing the elite liberal viewpoint, I'm actually just playing my role in the system that oppresses those that I want to help. I'm the prison guard, without me, the prisoners would not be kept where they need to be--after all, I am who is suppose to be representing them in the negotiations.

This question is very challenging. I have been struggling with it a lot, and I don't know the answer. Is it possible to change a broken system from within? Or by working in the system are you just perpetuating it? The current political situation is an interesting one to examine. Now, we have Obama, whose election, in many ways, was suppose to represent the causes of the previously disenfranchised, the anti-Bush. But the incredible struggle for health care simultaneously invigorated the far right while watering itself down to the point of distaste for many 'very' liberal democrats. Meanwhile, the economic 'recovery' could be summed up as rich people being uncomfortable for a short period and then thankfully becoming rich (and in some cases *goldman sachs* richer), while 1 out of 6 americans are currently unemployed with the poverty rate higher than it has been in decades. So, it does appear to me that cheering the current democratic 'victory' is something of a sham. It entails swallowing a whole lot of things that I think are wrong, and accepting that the things I want "aren't possible", when that really means "not possible within the current system".

On the other hand, am I really going to claim that progress has not been made within the system as it is? Aren't we, as individuals, as nations, as a world better off than we were 20, 100, 200 years ago? It's a very debatable question, but hard to unequivocally say that things are getting worse. Not to mention I can only barely conceive of what working 'outside of the system' or 'stop obeying' could mean practically. What else can I do besides join the fight that has been making some progress some of the time using the channels that are available to it?

Zinn's quote paints a dim picture of me, the liberal elite. It's not that I have the wrong ideology, but rather because I have the right kind that complacency is so alluring. If I have a vague notion that things aren't right, I can vote for a democrat and chalk up their failures to politics as usual, while I go along my business living a comfortable, free life. And there is a big part of me that thinks there is something really wrong with a system where this is a natural, common choice. But if I'm honest, I think all it can definitely imply is that there's something really wrong with me for choosing it.

On Using the Word Retarded

About two weeks ago, the WSJ reported that Rahm Emanuel called some liberal democrats "fucking retarted". Sarah Palin fired back, asking if he has any decency, and a flurry of very interesting posts by liberal bloggers called her out on her hypocrisy, the best examples being Tiger Beatdown and Shapely Prose.

As Sweet Machine stated in Shapely prose "It’s awful to say something is “retarded” because the punch of the word is based on the equation of “disability” and “bad.”. I think she is absolutely right, and that the vast majority of the time when people say something or someone is retarded they are making this equivalence. But, I also think that when people call others out for using the word, or feel uncomfortable about its usage, they are continuing to make this equivalence.

In my ideal world, a person with mental disabilities would not be immediately be assumed to have a lower quality of life or be devalued as an individual in society. This person would just be different, in the same way that shy people differ from outgoing ones. In other words, the value judgment that I think is currently intrinsically married to the concept of people with disabilities would be eliminated.

If you agree that this would be an ideal, then the question becomes how best to bring it about. Obviously, using the word retarded when you really mean bad, low-quality, inferior, or lesser in any way would be counter-productive. But what if you use the word retarded to mean something that is stupid, or "less intelligent than average"? I think the problem with saying that people should not use the word retarded if they mean 'stupid' is that it implies (whether intentional or not) that being less intelligent than average is inherently bad. Taking for granted here that the word retarded has been co-opted from its original meaning of slow growth to be a catch-all for people with mental disabilities, if we weren't making this value judgment, then why would calling something retarded, if you mean stupid, be wrong? Wouldn't it just be the case that some things are less intelligent, on average, than other things, and to state this would be a matter of fact, like pointing out the speaker's tie was green?

This is a difficult concept to wrap one's head around, because there are a lot of people whose value systems are built around the concept that intelligence is a fundamental good and stupidity is its opposite. I'm not sure if this is something that could ever change, but I do think that considering the assumptions that are inherent in what makes you uncomfortable is important. If you don't like people saying something or someone is retarded, why don't you? What exactly is it about the word that makes you uncomfortable? Is it the concept of people with mental disabilities in general?

I'm not suggesting that we should all use the word retarded when we mean stupid or refer to people with mental disabilities as retarded. As I have throughout this post, the language preferred by those with disabilities is 'people first', which I've come to see as a brilliant way of changing the script and in turn altering our perception of those with disabilities. It's outlined beautifully on this website, "Disability is Natural". What I'm saying is sometimes we are uncomfortable about the use of a word because of underlying assumptions we are making about the group we want to defend. And examining these assumptions in ourselves is as important as demanding the word's demise in society.

Why Is Privacy Important?

I don't know if I've ever seen an article be so popular on nytimes.com: "The 3 Facebook Settings Every User Should Check Now" sits pretty at #7 most emailed, and it was published almost two weeks ago. Clearly there are thousands upon thousands of people who are highly concerned about their privacy on the internet.

I'm not immune to this--I've set all of my Facebook controls to "only friends". But, like a lot of things, when I try to determine exactly why I want to keep my facebook private, it's hard to come up with reasons that make a lot of sense. Mainly, it's because I get a feeling I can only describe as the 'jeebies' about anyone who wants to look at all the shit I post on my profile.

Here's what pops up off the top of my head: 1. Identity theft, as best evidenced by the citi bank identity theft commercials 2. Stalkers, as in people sending you annoying messages or worse coming to your house and 3. Companies using the information to market products to you 4. Bosses, as in your future/current employer rejecting/firing you for incriminating evidence found and 5. The "Jeebies" I mentioned above

Upon closer inspection, these reasons don't really stand up. 1. From what I can understand about identity theft, thieves need your SS number or some other official private data to really succeed, if all it took was your name/address/phone number, identity thieves could just use the phone book. 2. Fear of stalkers is maybe a bit more legit, especially if you are really hot or something, but I think it's safe to say that the risk of acquiring a truly dangerous stalker (this is stranger stalkers I'm talking about) is pretty freakin' low, and having a public facebook profile and being out in public are probably the same amount of risk. 3. As for companies, having more directed advertising...well...how is it so different from the aimless advertising we have now? Granted the advertising might be more annoying, but probably just because it will be more persuasive. But I think it's mostly your job to try to combat the messages corporations send you about what you want (not that it's easy..). 4.As for bosses, this is a toughie. We sometimes want to have different personas for our work and persona lives. I don't think there's necessarily something wrong with that, but I do think that in general jobs that jive well with our personalities/lifestyle make people more happy.

So there are some risks involved in putting all our cards on the table, but I still think the main reason I don't it is these 'jeebies'. And when I try to determine what these 'jeebies' are really about, I can only think they are some combination of insecurity/shame/idea people will think I'm an exhibitionist. Since all of these feelings stem from fear, it doesn't seem like a legitimate reason to stay private. But what am I afraid of?

Let's imagine for a moment that most people weren't very private, that it wasn't valued or seen as important. This would mean that vasts amounts of information about your day to day life would be public domain, accessible as quick as it is to type your name into a google search bar. Ah! How vulnerable it would make me...but if everyone was doing it, how vulnerable is one measly individual? Instead, I think there would just be an increase of understanding between individuals, and a decrease of all the insecurity and shame that stems from our conviction that we are in some definitive ways different from most people. One can imagine through search engines we could instantly become connected to thousands of people who are really similar to us, and the creation of valuable networks would be even easier than they are now. And as a bonus, there might be a healthy dose of deflation for those who, because of external markers, have been lead to believe that they are significantly better than others, as there would be an increased recognition of equality. Also, as a bonus, I think the amount of inane reality television would be squelched by an increase in the amount of freely available "reality", a la Internet Killed Television.

I think the internet is already heading in this direction, but there is still significant resistance to things becoming public. And even after writing this whole damn post, I dunno if I'm quite ready to get over my jeebies and make my facebook profile public. It's a difficult thing to do when there are few others who do it as well. But I always think it's worthwhile to really consider why something is valuable to you, and whether the reasons make sense. And when it comes to privacy, I don't think the reasons stand up. Unless some of yall have others?

To A Mayfly, We're a Mountain

Powers of Ten is one of my all time favorite videos. Issues of scale have been interesting to me for a while now. The scale that all human life is on, both in terms of size and time, is so hilariously particular and random. This idea was really brought to light for me when I watched those time release videos from planet earth. Our assumptions about what makes something alive vs. inanimate is so clearly tied to the amount of time we spend on earth. If human life was as long as a mountain's life span, we would have a sense of the enormous amount of movement, growth and change a mountain makes. Then, I think, it would be harder for us to judge so clearly that a mountain was inanimate. And think of what a mayfly, lifespan of about 30 minutes, thinks of us, as we are sitting by the pond, taking an hour long nap in the sun. We're nothing but a mountain to him. Because our size and the amount of time we experience is so essential to us, it's easy to over look how much our scale effects the way we create certainties about the world outside of us.