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In the last few months, larger chunks of the American population have started to hear the alarm bells that others1
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have long heard and rung. The kindling has stacked up for decades: deeply underwhelming choices for personal health, too little emphasis on public health policy,4 confused priorities regarding policing, betrayal by the court system, paranoia regarding neighbors, librarians, and teachers—the list goes on and on.
From Taiwan, the bells are audible, but I'm a few steps away from acute distress.5 This is fine, says part of me. It's probably the only reason I've been able to set down a few thoughts. This essay is based on my experience as a journalist in Kansas, Michigan, and California, filtered through a few years of reflection.
I think others have put together better thoughts, so at the end of this essay, I've arranged some of their words into a kind of conversation. (There are clickable footnotes here, and more below to get to the original texts.)
In one of the stories my English students read a few weeks ago, Marta and her dog, Nicky, are outside, looking for something to do. Marta sees her mom weeding the garden, and asks if she can help. No, says her mom, because it's hard to tell the flowers from the weeds. Her mom asks her to sweep the sidewalk.
I think Marta's mom made a mistake, but there isn't much time for critical analysis in my classroom. I'm not even sure that any of my nine-year olds have an interest in plants. Some are interested in computer games and the stores that sell them. Like American kids, many spend weekends getting and spending.6
You can't really blame them. Concrete and asphalt dominate much of the landscape here. I nurse the hope that my students have a few ceramic or plastic planters on a balcony at home. They might eventually discover for themselves an archaic belief; you'll have to play a part, unless you want everything run by the unruly elements.
For a long time, the newspapers somewhat corralled them. You could lean against the pen and hear them whinny at your leisure. Since many have decided local journalism isn't a utility worth paying for, the beasts run wild once again.7 You'll have to decide if this bothers you.8 9 10 If it does, you'll have to step in–regularly–to shape your immediate environment.11 (If it doesn't bother you, there are other noble reasons to tame the wild elements.21)
I'll leave it to others to advocate for the three kinds of political engagement that most people have experienced. Voting is largely interpreted as giving carte blanche to elected officials for two or four years. Jury duty often comes along at the worst times and consists of waiting for rejection. Direct action usually consists of protests, strikes, civil disobedience, and flouting regulations/black market activity.12 Unfortunately, these types of engagement usually come at the end of decisions: boosting a known candidate who has an unwavering agenda, prosecution for breaking an existing law, refusal to accept existing law.
By all means, do those things, but I don't think they're enough. Some are too infrequent and others are too passive. What I saw13 while covering state and local politics suggests that calm maintenance14 of one's own system15 is far more important. It's the active ingredient in that fusty old word, “civics.” Before your eyes glaze over, let me side with you in expressing my disgust with this word. It belongs in the dumpster and I won't use it again.
In my lifetime, the topic of c**** has been a way to complain about the failure of other (especially younger) younger people, without actually talking about the subject, explaining it, or demonstrating it. Instead, it's presented as a virtuous, but vague and therefore optional exercise—maybe something once taught in the schools.
It's too bad that this handy, six-letter term now only functions like an Edgar Allan Poe story. When you peek inside out of curiosity, you get a psychological beating, and for far too long. Maybe you've heard rumors of loved ones, having stepped into cafeterias, assembly halls, and conference rooms, later stumbling out, gasping for air. Perhaps they've managed to snap a photo of a child or grandchild, clutching a Good Deed certificate. Remember Aunt Sally's bragging, about when, in a crisis, she managed to stomp in, say her piece, and stomp out? As for your cousin, well, I still blame that consultant from the big city, who smuggled in 3M-brand straitjackets, made out of butcher paper and sticky notes. Let us bow our heads for Roger, he that lost his mind during a Public Listening Session.
Dump the old term, then, and its accompanying bugaboos. Choose an older word, from the ancient Greeks, who had some ideas about participation, including taking turns and facing questions.16 Or borrow from the scientific laboratory; observation, theories, and conclusions all play a role. Forestry management may also lend words; controlled-burns and invasive species inhabit this realm. For now, I'm going to call it weeding.
It's nearly impossible to weed a state, let alone a nation. Riding lawnmowers are inefficient to drive up and down the highways, and the gas mileage is even worse if you try to haul one around on a trailer. They are also imprecise tools.
The better technique is to start exactly where you are17 and use a little trowel or garden fork. I spent one summer pulling up garlic mustard. You want to get the roots. Bagging it up is the best way, some say, to eliminate it. Some with experience say you can compost it. Or cook and eat it. In your own garden or your own neighborhood, you have much more leverage. If it starts to get too hot, your place isn't far away and you can rest—or you know where the nearest shady bench is. Best of all, there is cause and effect. You can see a spot you've cleared. Since you live there, you'll notice if more work is needed.18 Satisfaction is possible in the short-term, and it will help in ten years, too.
You're going to have to go to the most local meeting you can find (neighborhood, school district, parks district, township, village, county board) and make it a routine.19 Seriously: decide which meeting to attend based on your interests and the distance from your house or job, so getting there is not in itself an obstacle. This will be a new habit. Start by making it as easy for yourself as possible. (You'll probably have to cut back on TV shows and movies.)
Your job is to listen and observe, at first. These people are your specimens.
Eventually, your senses will be honed.20 You'll understand the acronyms. Then, when you detect a rough edge or debris, you can engage, even on the smallest matters:
-calculations that don't up, if you're good at math
-ideas that are incomplete, if you read a lot
-a lack of drawings or plans, if you're an engineer
-not enough consideration for the poor/speakers of other languages/the disabled/the unrepresented, if you think of others
-rushing a process or bullying, if you have sensitive emotions
When you raise a small issue politely–after the meeting–as you would with a favorite uncle or grandmother, you're looking for a reciprocal response (respect, sincere interest, follow-up, diligence).
When the most basic request, at a small-potatoes level, goes unanswered, you have found the weed that won't grow into anything better. You're not seeking perfection, just responsibility. Your questions can bring out information, prick their consciences, or simply reveal sincerity. When you find the snotty person, or the one who ignores you, or laughs you off, now you know who is likely unfit for basic political office, and who should also be denied the political trellis. You can give them a second chance, if you think they were just having a bad day. Otherwise, you may have seen their true temperament.
This is where your personal or local leverage will mean something. Weed them out, before their fellow members elect them as chair of the board, or secretary, or liaison to another board. If they can't or won't respond properly to your basic, repeated questions—whatever those might be—you can then publicly wonder out loud why.
Eventually, they will give up, if they know more questions from more people—and mounting criticism—are in their future. Good. They will avoid you at the grocery store they share with you. They will decide it's just not worth it—and it won't be. Sometimes this strategy can work in a few months. Other times, it may take a few years.21
To extend this metaphor just a bit further, you can customize the degree of weeding based on your location. Which zone are you in? Is it likely to grow back quickly, or will the sun bake any new seedlings to a crisp? Your own values will guide you in how severely you trim it back or entirely obliterate it. Similar weeds may grow elsewhere in the country and some will insist on a specific remedy. This usually comes in the form of TV commentary, which will probably have nothing to do with what you see and your own response. The talking heads have spewed enough Roundup pesticide as it is. They are irrelevant to anything you can affect.
If you, however, block your own crummy neighbors from continuing to the upper levels, it will count for something. Today's zoning board secretary is next decade's state senator. Attempting this at higher levels of office usually fails; there's not really any leverage to work with, outside the confines of your neighborhood, township, or county. The weeding has to be done early.
On the other hand, you may notice the newcomer or even the student who needs some encouragement. Along with weeding, there's composting, irrigation, and landscaping. Can you offer that? Reinforcement and propagation is how the good traits become part of the system. Every day, another couple of teenagers wake up with a glimmer of self-knowledge about speaking, confidence, or intellect. The current and future generations need support.22 Can you lend your expertise and guidance to them, gently? What can the system tolerate? You'll have to be the judge.
Diplomacy
You'll have to approach this with patience and the bearing of a good friend. These people are your neighbors, after all. A large percentage is probably attempting to do this work on your behalf. Be respectful and show a sense of humor. Embarrassing them and grandstanding at public meetings isn't the point; the troglodytes are already hurling their own shit. Your mission is to suss them out and act as a gatekeeper.
Meeting times
In some places, local meetings have been timed to fit the schedules of 9-to-5 government staff and agency personnel. If you want to attend, because the work by the committee or board speaks to you, say so. Go to one, if you can, and speak up afterwards about the difficulty of the meeting time. Accessibility is itself a criterion for evaluating your public servants.
I think this is how we reintroduce—in a purely local way23—some of those values that we subscribe to for individuals, but can't quite promote on a national scale. Many have been trained in the habit of denial–to others and to ourselves. Is this baked into the Puritan credo that later American principles were formed around? I wonder. Bob will give anyone the shirt off his back, but he sneers at the word "charity." Kim believes in her local hospital and even helps at its fundraisers, but laughs ruefully at "welfare." We pay into a system designed to be used, but we hesitate to claim anything called “entitlements.” Various elected officials have twisted perfectly-good words into a peculiar set of American profanity. If these words can be restored to their original meaning through local c*****, maybe the term for the method itself can someday be spoken aloud again.
If this feels like too much right now, punt this to your children, nephews, nieces, or grandchildren. You can drop them off at meetings while you go for ice cream. If politics are merely like the weather to you, then I refer you to Hans Magnus Enzensberger, below.21
In Other Words: a Conversation in Others' Words
1this country might have been a pion eer land. once. and it still is. check out the falling gun/shells on our blk/tomorrows 3You would not know that the souls of old Texans are in jeopardy in a way not common to other men, my singular friend. You would not know of the long plains night where they carry on and arrange their genetic duels with men of other states-- 5What's going on here? Can no one help them? Must everyone witness their downfall? This reduces us all. Someone must show up at once to save them, to take everything off their hands right now, every trace of this life before this humiliation goes on any longer. Someone must do something. I reach for my wallet and that is how I understand it: 6we lay waste our powers;-- Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hears away, a sordid boon! 9Quite unexpectedly as Vasserot The armless ambidextrian was lighting A match between his great and second toe And Ralph the lion was engaged in biting The neck of Madame Sossman while the drum Pointed, and Teeny was about to cough In waltz-time swinging Jocko by the thumb - Quite unexpectedly the top blew off: 12And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the mass hardens 13I have split the earth and the hard coal and rocks and the solid bed of the sea And went down to reconnoitre there a long time, And bring back a report 15A man has to begin over and over – to try to think and feel only in a very limited field, the house on the street, the man at the corner drug store. 17You can know all about what Henry James really meant, or the art of the fugue, but if you are not at home in the world under your feet and before your eyes, you are actually uncivilized. 19There is a kind of love called maintenance, Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it; Which checks the insurance, and doesn't forget The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs; 21what matters is that you graft the right slip onto the right tree (selah) if the executioners then knock on the door they come too late a few ice-ages pass and the youngsters will then savor your delicious apricots 23Mind your own yard. | 4No water in the water fountain No phone in the phone booth […] He gave me a dollar A blood-soaked dollar I cannot get the spot out but It's okay it still works in the store 7A collection of loud tales Concentrating eternal stupidities, That in remote ages lived unhaltered, Roaming through a fenceless world. 8[Aldous] Huxley grasped, as Orwell did not, that it is not necessary to conceal anything from a public insensible to contradiction and narcoticized by technological diversions. 10creating a sequencing of information so random, so disparate in scale and value, as to be incoherent, even psychotic. 11I am not interested in preventing Asia from being Asia and the governments of Russia and Asia will rise and fall but Asia and Russia will not fall the government of America also will fall but how can America fall I doubt if anyone will ever fall anymore except governments fortunately all the governments will fall the only ones which won't fall are the good ones and the good ones don't yet exist But they have to begin existing they exist in my poems 14Dictated a long time ago, but its time has still Not arrived, telling of danger, and the mostly limited Steps that can be taken against danger Now and in the future, in cool yards, In quiet small houses in the country, Our country, in fenced areas, in cool shady streets. 16ἔπειτα γονέας εἰ εὖ ποιεῖ, καὶ τὰ τέλη εἰ τελεῖ, καὶ τὰς στρατείας εἰ ἐστράτευται. (Whether he treats his parents well, and whether he paid the taxes he owes, and whether he served his military service.) 18a car had passed over the clay just where the ant came out busily with its pine needle now […] Time after time it slid back down with its tottering load and worked its way up again 20it's you, Potentilla Anserina, an old acquaintance from Tartumaa and Vorumaa farmyards we can never forget as we cannot also forget gooseshit I so often stepped in and that stuck between my toes 22My young son asks me: Must I learn history? What is the use, I feel like saying. Learn to stick Your head in the earth, and maybe you'll still survive. Yes, learn mathematics, I tell him! Learn your French, learn your history! |
Sources:
1. “Right on: white america,” Sonia Sanchez
2. Tombstone marker for Washakie, Chief of the Eastern Shonone, Ft. Washakie Cemetery, Wind River Indian Reservation, Wyoming
3. “Slinger, Book 1,” Edward Dorn
4. “Water Fountain,” Tune Yards
5. “Distress Sale,” Raymond Carver
6. “The World is Too Much With Us,” William Wordsworth
7. "War is Kind," XII 'A Newspaper is a Collection of Half-Injustices,' Stephen Crane
8. Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman, p. 111, 1985
9. “The End of the World,” Archibald MacLeish
10. Introduction to the Twentieth Anniversary Edition, Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman, p. xi, Andrew Postman, 2005
11. "Death to Van Gogh's Ear!" Allen Ginsberg
12. "Shine, Perishing Republic," Robinson Jeffers
13. “I am the Poet,” Walt Whitman
14. "The One Thing That Can Save America," John Ashbery
15. Sherwood Anderson, from a letter (to Roger Sergel, 1939)
16. Question set 55.3, Constitution of Athenians, per Josh Nudell, “Bring Back Dokimasia”
17. Kenneth Rexroth, His Corner of the World, NYT Book Review, October 27, 1957
18. “Rubber,” Rolf Jacobsen
19. “Atlas,” U.A. Fanthorpe
20. “My Wife and Children,” Jaan Kaplinski (trans. with Sam Hamill and Riina Tamm)
21. “Cultivate Your Garden,” Hans Magnus Enzensberger (trans. Eduoard Roditi)
22. “My Young Son Asks Me,” Bertolt Brecht
23. Jack Hicks, Emeritus Professor of English, UC Davis, circa 2000
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