We celebrated our anniversary yesterday. Being the good social scientists that we are, we thought we should run a little analysis on our marriage. Here are some frequencies we generated:
Years married: 11
Houses owned: 2
Cars owned: 6
Dogs: 1
Cats: 4
Birds: 2
Children: 2
Masters degrees: 2
Jobs: 8 (4 each)
Cars stolen: 1
Break-ins: 2
Tiffany lamps: 8
Overseas trips: 2
States resided in: 2
Churches attended: 3
Of course, a qualitative analysis would yield a thicker description our our collective life, but these numbers say quite a bit. As Jerry notes, we've pretty much accomplished the major things that married people are supposed to do (according to our social scripts) and then some. It's been a good 11 years. Assuming Jerry makes it to 75 (average life expectancy of U.S. males) and I outlive him, we've got at least 42 years to go. I have no doubt we'll find ways to fill the time...
Our Marriage by the Numbers
Reflections on Fresh
I was out a bit late tonight watching Fresh, a new documentary on the alternative food movement. It's a worthwhile movie. Currently without a distributor, though, so they're reliant on finding local venues willing to host them. If you've read Michael Pollan, you know the main story: industrial farming encourages monocultures, which breeds disease and is not pleasant (or even that profitable) farmers.It's reliant on a host of inputs--feed, antibiotics, pesticides. The movie argues it's unnatural. Alternative production methods (Joel Salatin and Will Allen are particularly highlighted) emphasize diversity that makes all that purchasing largely unnecessary. It's a great illustration of that.
However, there's a few points the movie could have developed further, again, common issues in the alternative food area:
- There's a heavy emphasis on different production methods, but relatively little on developing distributional networks for these products, which is a major issue in constructing a local food chain.
- Farm owners are the focus, and labor conditions are addressed only briefly. The welfare of animals and consumers is also emphasized. More could have been said about the kind of jobs provided by these enterprises.
- The producers tend to essentialize nature. Salatin, for example, talks about emphasizing the chicken's "chickenness." Yet his farm (and Allen's) are both very much "produced landscapes." That is, it's a humanly crafted agricultural system using livestock with centuries of breeding. The difference is in the kind of landscape produced in each system. Neither is exactly "natural."
- Only a brief mention of how to make this food accessible to low-income consumers
- Local here is unquestionably good--better than industrial. But one might ask about how power and economic inequity affect local farms as well. Who gets to grow and buy this food?
- The film closes with an appeal to consumers to buy local. There's little effort to mobilize efforts toward changing farm policy or food regulation, both major issues in the construction of the current food system. The result is a politics that's a tad anemic.
The Irresistable Revolution--A brief review
I breezed through Shane Claiborne's The Irresistible Revolution recently. Claiborne's been getting some press online, much related to his speaking engagements and a more recent book, Jesus for President. This, I believe, was his first book. I found it readable (or at least compared to my grad school work) and engaging, but wanted to jot down a few more specific thoughts.
First, to summarize, Claiborne grew up relatively middle class, but through some experiences at Eastern College (home of Tony Campolo among other notables), became increasingly involved in social issues. Much of this book tells the story of that journey. In particular, while a student he and several others rallied to support a group of displaced families squatting in an abandoned Catholic church in urban Philadelphia--a protest that ultimately seems to have been successful. After graduation, Claiborne spent some time in Calcutta with Mother Teresa, and then jumped right into an internship with my childhood church, Willow Creek, in the posh Chicago suburbs. Most recently, he's been a part of a neighborhood focused, "emergent" church in Philadelphia, The Simple Way. They emphasize building relationships with community members and seek to model virtues one might associate with monasticism: extreme simplicity and a life of service. (That's oversimplifying, but if you want more, read the book). It's extremely NON-institutional--more on that in a sec.
Claibone's main point, which he comes back to several times, is that community is at the heart of the gospel. In America, materialism is its main obstacle. To see broader social transformation, those with material means must experience conditions for those at the political and economic margins. The relational connections formed when people really step out of their priveleged positions are transformative, releasing the hold of greed and reorienting people toward a different, much more just, form of life. There's an emphasis on a communal lifestyle--one which prizes relationships over possessions. But at the core, it's this interpersonal connection that is most important for Claiborne.
It's this that, to me, is the most recognizably evangelical element of Claiborne's writing. In contemporary America, it seems, evangelicals consistently look at interpersonal relationships as the place where the gospel works. Our personal relationship with God and others is what matters most. The immediacy of such connections is powerful--it makes for great stories. Yet it fails to consider the importance of much less personal, more structural concerns (i.e. urban housing policy, international trade patterns, etc.). Certainly, the actors involved in these systems themselves may need personal transformation, but the ways in which such atomized experience filter into systemic change isn't quite clear. There's many mentions of other "partners" in other places, but little sense of how that larger network gets mobilized. In addition, the belief that rich folks would sign on to his movement just by talking with poor people seems, well, naive. It fails to consider the various ways in which being rich itself makes such a transformation difficult to achieve or even consider, especially on a broader scale.
There's much in Claiborne's writing that is reminiscent of anarchist movements (or at least what I know of them): a disdain for governmental action, an emphasis on performative protest (at one point, they drop $10,000 in change on Wall St. for anyone to take), and the creation of small, quasi-utopian communities. While theology certainly changes thing, I would have been interested to see Claiborne think more thoroughly about the importance of such a connection. To say that communities such as his exist only in the church denies this affinity, and it's language that comes up in church conversations on justice too often in my opinion. The church may end up being the hope of the world, but that doesn't mean we've got the corner on every good idea.
Lastly, and this almost goes without saying, this book (and perhaps this movement) has an audience: people like Claiborne--relatively well off and educated. In that context, it's prophetic. But what about for the poor folks where communities like The Simple Way choose to relocate? I've seen some discussion of this on the God's Politics blog, but when a life of faith means giving up privilege, what's that mean for those who have no privilege? What's their story sound like? How might it challenge some of the assumptions and theology of Claiborne and others?
This all said, I found this an engaging and often challenging book. It represents the cutting edge of social justice within the evangelical church. And from what I've heard, Claiborne's been getting a rather large response. But no movement is without its flaws. I'll be interested to follow how this movement develops in the years ahead.
The zero inbox
As I'm getting serious about starting some research projects, I'm feeling the need to get more efficient. Or to use academic speak, I'm wanting to adopt some of the hegemonic self-management characteristic of the post-Fordist neoliberal state. To that end, I was quite inspired today by the talk below given by Merlin Mann about getting email down to zero each day. In particular, the metaphor of a deli was helpful: workers there don't just "check" orders, they act on them. The same with email. It's all about filtering things out and focusing on the important. Nothing revolutionary, but I'm revamping my email system toward this end. Check it out if you have time/interest:
Gonna miss my little hunchbacked buddy
I have a habit of making friends with the people whose work I read. Most of the time this friendship isn't real in any practical sense (especially if they are deceased - no seances have or will occur!). But I often find myself feeling an odd kind of personal affection when I really vibe with a particular author/theorist/researcher.
And so it has been these past five weeks with Antonio Gramsci. I've been reading his work as part of my course in contemporary sociological theory and have been wooed by his pragmatic, multifaceted approach to understanding social change. I'm gonna miss the lil' guy as we move on to Bourdieu this week. Who knows how Pierre and I will hit it off...
10% completed, four years remaining
Sometimes graduate school feels like one really, really big downloaded file. On an average day, I probably spend three to four hours reading through what can be quite dense/technical (though--happily--mostly interesting) material. My job is to understand that material, synthesize it with related opinions, and form my own critical response. It's definitely a test of intellectual endurance, and I still have four more YEARS of this to go. Is there enough hard drive space in my head for it all? At the same time, I love it--constantly engaging with new ideas and having to argue them out. But that doesn't mean at times I wish I could be Neo in the first Matrix--just download the kung fu (or social theory) to my brain already!!!
Green Reentry
The Wall Street Journal published this story today on a program in Los Angeles to retrain former gang members in the emerging "green collar" workforce. Research studies on desistence from crime have found that employment is a key factor in lowering recidivism rates among ex-offenders. Programs to help ex-offenders with job search and skills training have existed for decades, though my experience working for one speaks to a frequent dearth of funding and staff to support widespread access. This particular program intrigues me for two reasons:
- The attempt to get ex-offenders on "the cutting edge" of the job market. Most job programs I'm familiar with, in and outside of prison walls train ex-offenders in industrial manufacturing or construction skills (ask me about my client who was well-trained in the dying art of industrial underwear sewing after his 10 year stint in the Big House). There seems to be adequate evidence that the job market for such skills in the U.S. is waning, if not dead. But solar panels and other "green" technologies? Now there's something to think about.
- The mix of "regular folks" and ex-offenders in the program. According to the article, the demand for training in solar panel technology has led to enrollment in the program by both ex-offenders and those without criminal backgrounds, as the following quotes illustrate: "After months searching for a training program, Mr. Chung decided the Homeboy course would give him the skills he needed. But when he informed his wife that most of his classmates would be ex-felons, she was worried. "I told her, 'Honey, just give me a week to try and see,' " he recalls. On his first day, he says a fellow student asked: "What were you in for?" Mr. Chung, a 45-year-old Malaysian immigrant, didn't understand. "I asked him to repeat the question."" and
"Doug Lincoln, 61, who once managed luxury-car dealerships, was offered admission to the Homeboy course after he inquired about a faster-paced class. On hearing it was mainly for ex-cons, "I thought it was a joke," he says.
Now, Mr. Lincoln is about to graduate. He plans to start a solar-panel-installation firm, he says, and hire some of his former Homeboy classmates. "These guys are more motivated than hundreds of employees I've managed," in the car business, he says."
