In Milan Kundera’s classic The Unbearable Lightness of Being, he posed not just any question. He posed The Question: do we choose lightness or do we choose weight in our lives?
Not to extend the metaphor too much, but that strikes me as a pretty heavy question.
The truth is that few of us are lucky enough to have an opportunity to answer the question, much less lay around a dorm room at an expensive college trying to understand Kundera, Foucault or other literary/philosopher luminaries. Most of us are too busy dealing with the choices that have already been made for us. To consider what postmodern academic feminism teaches about the value of storytelling in understanding real lives is similarly frustrating for those whose access to time and education prevent them from telling their stories. (I can’ t wait to write about that topic.) Essentially, the luxury of engaging in that sort of education might interfere with finding the can of coffee that matches the dollar-off coupon you misplaced in your wallet as your toddler screams that he wants the $7 box of T-Rex Super Sugar cereal that is guaranteed to land him in a diabetic coma by the time he’s 16.
Not that I am a great student of Kundera, nor was I an English or Philosophy major, but to me Kundera turned the whole question on its head in a way that fails to honor not only the people who sometimes try to think about big questions, particularly in a postmodern capitalist culture, but those who don’t have the time to do very much of it at all.
To get the full picture, try to get through Kundera’s tome and then read Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickled and Dimed. As Ms. Ehrenreich – hardly an anti-intellectual in her own right– demonstrates so powerfully, the minimum-wage working people who appear to have made no choice between lightness and weight live every day with the weight – practical and philosophical – of working 16 hour days or actually trying to find 16 hours a day of work. I would venture to say that for these people, a week’s vacation on a nice beach with a fruity cocktail would not be considered unbearable lightness at all even if there were an existential component to consider.
Real students of Kundera who read this piece will certainly have a good argument that I have completely mangled the whole message and that it’s taken completely out of context. After all, Kundera’s world, in the aftermath of the Prague Spring of 1968, is arguably very different from post-modern America 30 years later. That’s an entirely valid criticism. But is it so different?
When we talk about the insignificance and, in Kundera’s mind, worthlessness of small decisions (i.e., “lightness”), we presume that those decisions are actually made by individuals, not by the institutions we have created. I’m not so sure that’s true, especially for classes of Americans who take ordinary jobs or lack the economic, social or academic resources that haven’t yet trickled down through our system of making public policy.
The reason I delve into this at all is because I think there is a huge divide in this country among three groups (maybe more but let’s keep it as simple as possible) that have redefined our class system in this country. It’s not just about money and address anymore. It’s about education, expectations, ambition, social insecurity and a range of other issues that our grandparents didn’t seem to worry so much about.
I think that the current state of the class system can be generally described as follows:
Group One consists of the intellectuals: not necessarily wealthy and sometimes poor who spend most of their time finding ways to get enough leisure time to read important books, comment on important books, write important books or do a host of other cool things like make art or find ways to give away their own money. (Think Salman Rushdie, Brooke Astor, Lucien Freud)
Group Two consists of the Big Middle: This group is not necessarily as well-educated as Group One; their real education tends to halt when the last mortarboard gets tossed in the air. They generally continue to read but usually off the Best Seller Lists and especially in book clubs. Many get really good jobs that pay very well, particularly if they went to elite schools or were smart business folks. Many more make a decent salary but have no retirement savings. It’s possible that they might live on the same street despite wide differences in salaries. A large portion of Group Two wants to hang out with Group One members and become patrons of the poorer Group One people. They will often need to tell you whom they know from Group One and will lament the plight of Group Three people while doing little or nothing to help them. A person can start out life in Group Three and, by dint of ambition and education, make it into the top of Group Two. (Think Tom Golisano, the New York billionaire owner of Paychex, which ironically cuts the checks for most of Group Three.) They are often the most afraid of returning to Group Three because they know it’s not an easy gig. This subset will likely, but not necessarily, vote Republican. Another subset of Group Two, who had never experienced life in Group Three, seems to be the least afraid of Group Three members and donate lots of money and time to help them. They w ill tend to vote Democratic but expect excellent public services in their own neighborhoods. They will, like their Republican counterparts, enter into intense debates about why there is a Group Three at all and how to fix it. (Think investment bankers, lawyers, teachers, physicians, middle managers.)
Group Three consists of the People with the Fewest Choices: These folks probably started life with parents in Group Three and most of their teachers pegged them at 5 years old as lifelong members of Group Three, and therefore generally ignored them and deprived them of the kind of education that might have helped them avoid unemployment or a dead-end job. They do all the jobs that Groups One and Two don’t want. (Exception: College students and people like David Sedaris, who grew up in Group Two and who took dead-end jobs so he could create time to write his way into Group One.)
Back to “lightness vs. weight”. Group One would certainly generally agree that they have chosen “weight” – the “weight” of the creative process, of thinking about big ideas. Lots of people in Group Two dearly wish to be viewed as having chosen “weight” through their associations with Group One members even as they worry about the crabgrass popping up in their manicured lawn.
Group Three members would laugh themselves silly (maybe with a tinge of resentment) and probably tell us that there is very little lightness in not having the time to read a newspaper or in going without health insurance. To them, “weight” is quite literal and without sounding too glib, usually involves lifting heavy items with the threat of lumbar strain on every midnight shift.
Public policy debates are heavily freighted with the tensions among these groups and subgroups. Barack Obama – a brilliant guy who has spent some time in each Group – has perhaps the best chance in a generation to find a way to get Group Three and a chunk of Group Two to care about funding for the Arts. Group One needs to get on board with the value of funding practical and theoretical education through high schools and community colleges. Group Two members who don’t already do it might consider having their teenagers spend some time working in jobs that Group Three members usually take because the y have no choice. Even better, some Group Two members might take a risk and hire a Group Three member and train them to make the kind of money that would lift the family out of poverty.
Whatever your Group (or, as I suspect, a combination of Groups either all at once or at various points in our lives), I have my own question. How can we bridge these divides on a very personal level to make public policy make sense for everyone? To me, the project ought to be about getting more people into the position where they can cross between Groups – not a flat, socialist society that robs most people of their creativity or ability to create real wealth, but one where people like me take more time thinking about the impact of our decisions on Group Three folks first, not because it’s the nice thing to do but because it’s the smart thing to do. If it’s true that we are only as strong a society as our weakest members, we have a tremendous amount of work to do. Who knows? There might be a poor young kid from a tough neighborhood that, with a little mentoring, better Pell grants and access to a top-notch education, could find a cure for cancer or create something else so game-changing that we would all pat ourselves on the back at our prescience.
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5 comments:
I have to start by saying it is criminal, David, that you are not teaching and/or publishing your work. Most of my heroes are those individuals who negotiated the ridiculously tall hurdle I seem to set to grab my attention. I am, as you reference in your latest blog, swept up with a great deal of lightness - lightness disguised as weight – possibly the worst kind. You have not only grabbed my attention but challenged me to think and question. I thank you for the gift.
There are a lot of thoughts to convey. Here are a few:
Ever since I settled into Washington, DC, I was struck by the lack of weight. That may sound counter intuitive. I would go to a party or overhear a bit of a conversation on the sidewalk talking about 'H.R. 1350' or 'its held up in appropriations' or mention Kansas's 3rd District and everyone would, of course, know the congressman being referred to, as they could name all 435 Members of Congress. I would listen quietly, thinking I had so much to learn. They were talking a language I wasn't that well versed in. Fast forward 4+ years, and I can talk the language well enough, but I came to realize it was all a game. It didn't matter what H.R. fill-in-the-number did - who it helped, who it hurt, it was all about the game of power and passing a bill, depending on your side, meant you have it or you don't. The same goes for the members of congress - These people aren't advocates or challengers - they are CLIENTS - funding an industry of number crunchers, media consultants and the like. I have given this a lot of thought over the years - how do people who have the good educations and the opportunity, shun the weight, they don't even care about knowing the folks from Group 1 - how do they lead us? How do they lighten our load or have any capacity to understand?
Another thought you stirred up is thinking about my place in group 2. Working in the labor movement is an interesting place to think about these groups. Group 1 embraces the Ivy League. And like you, I got my seal of approval from those elite institutions. And then I used those ideas and skills to advocate for Group 3. It is a tricky tightrope to walk. And yet, how did I get the chance to go to a good school? The labor movement built up the middle class and in one generation, my parents went from modest upbringings living in Brooklyn to settling in an area of Long Island so privileged that the public school could rival any private one. I embody the labor movement’s success. But I play my background down.
I am an amateur art aficionado. I like to spend my precious free time enveloped at an art exhibit. Art has made it over my hurdles, challenging me to think. But I also love art for symbolizing weight. I never quite thought of it in those terms before – weight vs. lightness. Art makes us reflect on our choices as individuals and as a society. I work in the labor movement because many people might have jobs that focus on the lightness, but no matter what the job, it should afford the opportunity to take in the weight. Art’s existence reminds me of why I do this work. It is a product of Group 1, funded and made possible by Group 2 and should inspire and reach Group 3. Give us bread but give us roses.
I have more thoughts, but am distracted by the lightness paying the bills at the moment. More to come.
Thanks but I'm not sure that my message(s) would resonate as much in a classroom or in a column or policy debate.
On a personal note, it strikes me that your entire nuclear family has spent most of its time doing exactly what I am advocating: taking the choices you were all given (or created for yourselves) and using those skills, gifts and labor to give choices to those who either don't have any or don't think that they have any.
Your father spent an entire career helping consumers cut through billions of dollars of advertising to find quality products. He could have made multiples of his salary as an engineer devising ways to build dirty coal plants in China but he instead chose what I consider to be the weight of taking responsibility for doing good. I don't know your dad or why he made that choice, but from where I sit, he is part of the solution.
Your mother spent the majority of her non-parenting life as a patient advocate. Navigating the medical care system easily makes the top ten list of issues that are critical to a healthy, informed society. Again, it's all about choices and the fact that so many people don't understand how many they have or don't understand that they have any at all. Even wealthy people with lots of connections are afraid to confront physicians and other medical professionals, often leading to bad decisions that are made by well-meaning but - let's face it - fallible human beings. She chose weight as well and has probably saved scores of lives in the process. There's nothing "light" about that.
Let's not forget your sister - who could have traded a law degree for loads of money protecting all sorts of corporations from responsibility for their actions. She chose weight in two ways - on the flip sides of the coin. She works on behalf of artists who need a voice and does so to promote art. How many people can proudly say that?
And you.....
You've spent your entire adult life, and a good chunk of your adolescence, screaming out loud to get as many people as possible to hear about the lives of real people and to organize them, get them information and, most important, show them that they do have choices and can do things to actually expand the choices that individuals have to change their lives. Add in that you managed to push through two Ivy League schools and never abandoned your ideals puts you permanently in the Weight category.
I spend a lot of my time in the sometimes not-so-unbearable lightness of being and not always with the kind of guilt I should feel. I like nice things. I even feel entitled to some of them. When I choose what I consider to be weight, it's mostly from an armchair, a computer and the comfort of a great education and a warm, beautiful place to live in a city filled with diversity, energy and museums filled with all of the "weight" of Group One.
I won't apologize too much. I'll just try to do better every day. (What else is absolution and atonement for, after all?) Since I won't apologize, you can't apologize. Keep doing exactly what you are doing. You come from a family tradition of understanding the difference between getting real things done and noblesse oblige. That is probably the best compliment I could pay anyone and what, in my best moments, I respect the most.
That means you owe me dinner.
Leaving aside for the now the questions set forth by Kundera, Nietzsche and the like in favor of a more practical examination of public policy, government and its effect on the masses, you raise many interesting points. You have touched upon the thorny subject of the social, economic and educational apartheid of modern culture in the United States – a relative few making all encompassing decisions for the many. Decisions that as you rightly point out, leave many without the means and/or wherewithal to ponder how things came to be, or how they can be changed.
Our society is one that has reached a point where many of those in group three, as well as many in group two, are just as likely to be “educated” and socialized through a broken penal system, that has veered off down the dangerous path of for-profit incarceration, than through a public education system that has long been ignored, and has had its back broken by the burden of the cost of good intentions.
Our society has also reached a point where the ugly face of greed, in the form of unfettered and unregulated capitalism, has re-emerged from the giddy darkness of prosperity. It’s as if we had all placed napkins over our heads to dine on the forbidden Ortolan. As long as the riches rolled it, no matter where they came from.
I like to think that the recent presidential election shows that we have collectively chosen weight over lightness – for the first time in years. When asked by a reporter yesterday, how the passage of the stimulus bill in the Senate would affect his family, Sen. McCain stumbled briefly, before responding: “Well, I don’t know your family……” Seems to me that despite all the posturing, pandering, and rhetoric, we can all point to one leader for whom our current situation does not seem to be overwhelmingly weighty.
While I don’t mean to single out McCain (though, in fairness, I admit to holding him in disdain), I simply get the impression that President Obama has a greater understanding of where we are as a nation and what needs to be looked at. I celebrate the fact that he is in office, and that his opponent is not.
I shudder, still, however, at the memory of all those many months of nail biting while the election was a toss-up. It can certainly be argued that those making the decisions have been placed in the position to do so by the many that they are meant to serve. But in a country where roughly 50% choose not to partake in the governmental process, is this in fact the case? As debates rage on and questions are raised, I hope that we can find a way to engage all in the process, so that whether we tackle the “weighty” issues of the day or the unbearable lightness of being, all voices will be heard, and the process can begin to resemble that of its vision.
This blog certainly makes me think. I'll be honest, I had to read this several times before it clicked. Unfortunately, the bulk of my reading is non-fiction in general and history in particular. Therefore I am not too familiar with the authors. It seems to me that we (collectively) tend to make "light" decisions as if they are "weighty" and vice versa. So many people in postions of power make the "light" decisions look "weighty", so that when a truly weighty decision needs to be made nobody knows what to do. That's my take on it. I'm sure I missed the point, but now I have something new to get at the library.
You didn't miss the point at all. You're way too smart for that.
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