On reading Hillbilly Elegy

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...on a quilt made by my grandmother.

There is a challenging pivot point between observations made as an 'insider' and those from an 'objective' outsider. Often the person on the inside is too close to the subject to speak comprehensively about a given matter; however, the outsider risks generalisations and fills gaps with assumptions based on limited knowledge. (I think this is where good journalism marries the two; a competent journalist can give voice to the insider who would otherwise not be heard.)

There is a tradition of memoir told from both perspectives. We have inner monologues about a person's life in a given place that provide a slice out of time picture. We also have the other extreme such as Black Like Me that tells a story from a perspective that could only be manufactured. Everything here is valid; I don't have any criticism for one or the other as they tell the story in different ways. However, there is another layer on top that involves the expectations of the audience and their inherent bias and suppositions. Hillbilly Elegy was promoted as a portrait of Appalachian life and culture. I had read several reviews (from national publications; I should also read reviews from regional papers), that touted the book as a view into the lives of Appalachians. This is simplistic and not something I think the author intended. It's possible to attempt such a book; it's just not what this book is. The risk of promoting or reading it with that purpose in mind though is that, of course, one gets a skewed image of 'those people' (in the same way that you can't read a book about a Chinese family in Chicago and know all about Chinese people).

What it does relate is a simultaneously tragic and hopeful story of one man's experience growing up in Ohio and Kentucky. Much of it resonated with me; I wasn't raised in the same poverty or difficult family situation as he but it was always something a few doors down. If you're from Appalachia, you are never far from poverty; however, most people are also distant from extreme wealth as well so I think, at least in my experience, there was a certain type of equity (you didn't think less of neighbours or relations because they had less as long as they were upstanding good people). The picture J.D. Vance relates in his book chimes with that but the tragic trajectory of his story brings us into the present where people are giving up hope and aspiration.

The book has called on me to reflect further on whether I still look at West Virginia from my perspective as an insider or now from outside. The several times I've been back in past years to my parent's (and grandparent's) hometown, I've visited a place in decline and decay. Almost the only people who are left are pensioners and apparently younger people are mostly on welfare. There seems to be little life or industry to the place or people (the county has the highest unemployment in one of the poorest states in the nation). I remember, as a child, seeing this same place as a more vibrant and interesting. How much of this change is what happened in the place or what has happened from my change in innocence and experience? I can sense the damage to the place brought by years of exploitative industry—to both the land and the people. There is this evident decline in spirit, like a draining in colour visible in people across the state (witness the ill health, obesity, and prescription drug addiction).

I also struggle with leaving 'home'. Vance now lives in San Francisco; I'm on the other side of the planet in Sydney. Like so many Appalachians, we've felt compelled to leave in order to make sensible lives for ourselves. For some of us, there will always be a gnawing call back to the hills and this feeling that we've abandoned them. The opportunity for careers there are limited; but, equally, the opportunity to bring healing to a damaged place and people is overflowing. I hope that people can read the book and look past their own suppositions about the region; it's not simply a huge swath of land populated by rednecks. It's clear that, especially with the election of Donald Trump and the shock that followed in the wake of this, much of the country does not understand the social and economic situation of people in Appalachia. To think 'they' are just a bunch of lazy people on the dole is to misunderstand the promise that was given that they could work hard and obtain a decent life. For millions of people in the region, it's not that this isn't a given—it's truly out of reach. Appalachia has this knockabout history of poverty and despair; that's the picture that's been in the travel guide for generations. But, I'm not entirely sure how true that's been on the whole when jobs could be had and there was some way to keep one's family fed. Now, we need to hear and retell these stories. We need, both on the inside and out, to consider closely what is happening as there is always some means of empowerment in this. We need the truth of what has happened—but, again, as I said in my last post, we also need better stories about what is possible. Perhaps, regardless of where we are, 'The Expats of Appalachia' can write both into being. 

The Book of the Unconscious

When C.G. Jung was in his late 30’s, he passed through what he called his creative illness. During this time, he composed a book concerning the content of his dreams. He mentions this book in his writings, but very few people have ever seen it; after his death, the family locked it in a vault…and so it has been under wraps for nearly 100 years.

However, for whatever reason, they’ve decided to release it to the public! This is the diary of one of the fathers of psychology as he passes through a psychological illness (he realised what an opportunity it was that he was able to observe the process and record it). The book itself is fantastic; it’s bound in red leather (he called it The Red Book) and looks like someone cross-bred Blake and Tolkien.

See a NYT article on the book and its release here or here is another shorter article

Lexus in Lagos

I’ve just come across this article on Mike Davis’ book Planet of Slums. Note the juxtaposition of the book cover and banner ad.

Illusions of Humanity

This is a comparative essay written for my course on Henry David Thoreau’s Walden and Free to be Human by David Edwards.

Humans make reality; or, rather, we build our society and psychology based on notions of what reality is or should be. These notions are generally understood to come from individuals; the citizens of a “free” country are the masters of their own destinies. They are capable of making decisions that shape everyday life and the future. Thoreau and Edwards contend the issue is more complex. In Walden, Thoreau proposes these decisions cannot be made freely unless the individual chooses a life and manner of thinking that allows for freedom; a century and a half later in Free to be Human, Edwards questions whether the structure of society and economics allows for intellectual freedom at all.

Both authors contend that ignorance counters freedom; one cannot be free if unaware of the environment (either natural or built) in which one exists. Thoreau went to Walden Pond to, “...live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach….” His was an experiment of awareness and awakening to the “natural world”; though perhaps it would be better to say he was trying to awaken what was natural in him. Throughout the book are references to a sleeping society unable (or unwilling) to awaken. The balance of his philosophy, outlined in the first third of Walden, deals with the contemporary desire for material gain. Thoreau designed simplicity into his life to avoid what he saw as unnecessary complexities. His personal economy was parsed out to only necessities; as “superfluous wealth”, to him, could only purchase “superfluities”.

Though the base of Thoreau’s argument is, of course, intellectual, the practicalities of such life changes in the 19th century were comparatively straightforward (the barriers between life in town and the “simple life” were breached by a forthright decision and a few miles walk). Thoreau could live simply in his cabin, his exploration of personal and intellectual freedom was little threatened by New England society—though New England society lay within easy reach. The physical distance between was a great part of the intellectual distance as well. Today, though the geography has not changed, such an experiment would be a greater challenge.

Edwards discusses the innate social conditioning of society. Though Thoreau was educated at Harvard and was a product of New England culture, his was a time relatively untouched by encompassing control of education or corporate advertising. At the risk of romanticism or simplification; most people educated in Thoreau’s time were equipped to be “free thinkers”. There were, as Thoreau contests, many hindrances to this freedom; but the tools, should an individual choose to use them, were available. Edwards outlines how these tools have been gradually removed from our educational system; replacing them are entirely different means of thinking. This new system of thought encourages people to become “cogs in the wheel” of a mechanistic society. No longer is the simple life nearby in the village wood; it is beyond easy geographic reach and only accessible with a complete abandonment of a life considered “normal”.

Edwards asserts that, beyond poorly equipping students for free thought, our educational systems are actively encouraging ignorance. His basis for this argument is that our society has become wholly un-natural and incapable of supporting freedom and health (both physical and intellectual). To counter what would otherwise be an obvious fact to free thinking people, the systems of education, governance, and socialisation must discourage thought and observation. This is not, according to Edwards, necessarily a grand conspiracy of command and control (though there are certainly concentrated areas where this may be true). It is, instead, the way things must fall in to place for such a society to function at all.

Society operates on a set of necessary beliefs; Edwards provides a list of these beliefs for our world which have both acceptable behaviours and proscriptions. Of course, the biggest taboo in our society is to reveal the absurdity of it all. One of the limits society places on the cogs is that they not delve deeply into the workings of the machine. This necessary ignorance, over time, develops into outright stupidity concerning the reality of life and nature. The evidence of this, in a democratic system, is most apparent when we choose leaders who amplify our own ignorance; either they themselves are overtly ignorant or they do no call upon the governed to think individually. Worst yet is when we choose ignorant leaders who also discourage thought. The end result is a massive machine running at full with no governor; it will produce in excess till entropy grinds it to a halt or it flies apart.

Both authors encourage the reader to break out of convention and shape a life that fosters intellectual freedom. For Thoreau, this meant finding oneself from within; though he made a physical move to the woods, the most difficult encumbrance, he realised, is the mental barrier to freedom. Edwards proposes that men and women are lost not only intellectually, but, to an equal extent, physically. We are so distanced from nature and the realities of our world, that the impediments to freedom are higher and more imposing than any time in human history.¹ Unfortunately, the barriers to truth and clarity are reenforced as we become more distant from reality; the necessary lies under which we live must become continually grander to maintain any semblance of sanity.

This genre of books are, unfortunately, often seen as essays on solipsism; they are, rather, guides to finding one’s place in society—finding connexions. The argument of both books is that we are easily bound by illusion; our chains are rarely iron, but the rust that shackles our minds.

¹ Note that Edwards is not necessairly talking about a “return to nature” in which he advocates we should live like Thoreau; he is rather discussing our ignorance concerning the consequences of an industrial economy and the effect it has on the world.

Afterthought: I realise I’m using many “words” in my writing. I’m not sure if this means the “concepts” discussed lack “real” terms or that my writing is just “weak”. Also, I’m getting rather “confused” by this whole British—American English divide (punctuation around quotations and so on). My “writing” from the course is probably an inadvertent hash of both; hopefully my tutors will have “mercy”.

Larva

I’m re-reading Thoreau’s Walden for my course; he describes how young insects tend to eat more than their adult counterparts then goes on to make a comparison:
bq. The gross feeder is a man in the larva state; and there are whole nations in that condition, nations without fancy or imagination, whose vast abdomens betray them.

Reading Walden is a delight (though I had forgotten how Mr. Thoreau tends to ramble. Still, a delightful ramble). I’ve wondered how things would be different had people actually taken his words to heart or, were he writing today, what his advice would be per the situation we are in.

But, those thoughts are moot. I somehow doubt we are any better equipped to hear such words today than a century and a half ago. It is not the time or society that squelches wisdom—it’s the deafness of our own nature.

My hope is that some larva do become butterflies.

Quote of the Day–Freire

I’m reading Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed for my core course in the MSc. It’s brilliant; however, the translation reads like someone absorbed a bunch of Marxist literature and decided that the key component for successful writing is plenty of verbiage. For instance:

In general, a dominated consciousness which has not yet perceived a limit-situation in its totality apprehends only its epiphenomena and transfers to the latter the inhibiting force which is the property of the limit situation.

Why do people feel compelled to write this way? I can understand what it means (after a bit of parsing); however, the major theme of this book is collaborative work with the masses of people who are dispossessed and have little access to “traditional” education. What good are these thoughts of they are only accessible to people who have a high level of literacy? (I realise this argument is moot as Freire’s works have definitely proved themselves over the past 30 years; perhaps I should learn Portuguese and read the original texts.)

Fast Food Nation II

I saw the film version of Fast Food Nation last night (with a Czech audience of about 10). It was patently disappointing; after reading the book, I felt informed and indignant. After watching the film, I felt utterly bored (actually, boredom set in about 30 minutes into the experience). The film just didn’t bring out the strong messages of the book. Structurally, it opened up multiple storylines without satisfying resolution; also, for a topic that was covered so comprehensively in the book, the film felt very confined and contained. It was as if we were trying to view Australia looking down from two meters off the ground.
I thought Linkletter’s Waking Life was excellent; however, A Scanner Darkly was lacklustre and this third film was just forgettable. All three films consisted of people standing or sitting around talking. Which, for Waking Life worked perfectly; in Fast Food Nation it felt like a parody of old PBS documentaries (it would have been a much better use of resources if he had made a documentary that had the liberty of traversing more time and space). The dialogue was forced out upon the audience in a very “we have something important to say so let’s just have everyone exposit as much as possible” fashion. Especially bothersome was the cliché student activist group!

This was an important topic that should be opened up to public debate; however, mediocre elitist drama is not the way to accomplish any such goal. I would imagine many audiences were drawn to the film from the trailer (which erroneously leads one to believe the film is a comedy), then forced to sit through a ponderous two hour exposition on what’s wrong with everything. This, I would imagine, has not endeared many people to the cause.

(I thought it ironic though that the film was set in Cody, Wyoming. This was were I first had food poisoning.)

Fast Food Nation

The first time I had food poisoning was from a hamburger in Cody, Wyoming. It was not pleasant; I ended up hospitalised. I do not know what circumstances contributed to that particular instance. Was it improper washing of a dish; mishandling of the ingredients during preparation; bad meat from the wholesaler; improper packing or slaughtering? From my plate (it was a plate; we ate in a “family-style” restaurant) to the beast that provided the raw material, there is a line of potential mishap. At one time, during the middle part of the 20th century, the instance of mishap was abated by government regulation and the fact that most of the meatpacking industry consisted of well paid, unionised, career meatpackers. This is no longer the case.

I have just finished reading Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation: What the All-American Meal is Doing to the World. It is a thoroughly researched account of the history, marketing, employment practices, safety issues (both the food itself and the people working with it), economic ramifications (from the “farm” to the counter), and worldwide reach of the fast food industry.

I’ll not rattle off statistics here; however, it’s enough to say that a particular fast food restaurant’s logo is now more widely recognised worldwide than the Christian cross. Its mascot is more trusted by children than many other given authorities. It is the largest purchaser of beef and potatoes in the United States and one of the largest employers. With this power, it has vast influence over agricultural practice and government policy concerning wages and the environment.

The book is a bizarre and, at times, harrowing account of what goes on behind the facade of happiness promoted by the fast food giants (after reading once chapter in particular, I broke down into tears). This is a truly unpleasant book to read (certainly not for the weak stomached). It is not a tirade against any particular company or industry. If anything, it is somewhat sympathetic to men who were the original pioneers of this phenomenon; they were living out the opportunity of the American Dream. What is does do is trace the results of dreams when compounded with massive amounts of money and the unchecked openness of American society to allow corporate growth (and the self-regulation of these corporations).

I have had food poisoning several times since that first incident in Wyoming; this is to be expected, I’ve travelled all over the world to some fairly dodgy places. However, the dodgy places are not where I’ve been poisoned. Except for one instance, it’s all been in the States. After reading this book, I’ve a better understanding of why that may be.