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.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Cuisinart Families
I have decided that my family is being placed into a cosmic Cuisinart. I'm getting excited.
When my sister gets married in June, we'll have Catholics (devout and cafeteria-style), Anglicans, born-again Christians, Jews, atheists, agnostics, gays, lesbians, lawyers, bankers, teachers, professors, truckers, mechanics, musicians, nurses, doctors, waitresses, salespeople, computer programmers, wine merchants (thank goodness) and about 10 other occupations I don't even know about yet. Education levels will be all over the map whether you ended up rich or poor or somewhere in between.
Some will be rich by most standards; most will be middle class wherever they live; some will be poor. I suspect that only a minority will have decent health care.
Their ancestry will be Italian, German, English, Scottish, Irish, Indian (most by country of origin but some of Native American heritage), Polish, French and I suspsect a fair amount of African-American origin. We'll be overweight and underweight, tall and short, light and dark.
Our fears will be different. Our hopes will be different. Our ambitions will be different.
What will bind us together? I'm convinced that it will be a common love of two people who have decided, after 10 years together, to make a life. I've decided that you don't need much more than that.
Bonus
As most of us have heard, Wall Street is announcing bonuses of approximately $20 billion this year. That covers thousands of employees, including CEOs, middle managers and – yes, believe this – secretaries and administrative assistants. If the Wall Street bailout comes in at a whopping $1 trillion, which is not unlikely, the bonuses amount to 2% of the bailout. Let’s not forget that the number includes institutions seeking nothing from the federal government.
These are the guys and gals we love to hate right now but there were plenty of barkeeps, party planners, travel agents, general contractors, private school teachers and lots of other regular people who were quite happy to profit handsomely from selling expensive bottles of wine, booking trips to Tuscany, adding on a custom kitchen and keeping little Johnny’s dream of Harvard alive. They earned some of that Wall Street money and they did so without so much as a whiff of complaint of the “excesses” of Wall Street.
I’m not apologizing for $4,000 shower curtains or Roman Holiday birthday parties. I am convinced as so many others are that much of the executive compensation, especially cash payments that were not tied to stock price performance, was obscene. But don’t we need to separate out those kinds of excesses from what we as a society tolerated – even celebrated – as we lulled ourselves into believing that our houses would continue to see 20% increases in value year-over-year and then using those illusory gains as ATMs to do some of the things (albeit writ small) that these new demons were doing all along? You may not have renovated your perfectly nice kitchen for $250K but a great many people did so for $50K. They probably took out a home equity loan or refinanced their house to do it. Their real estate brokers probably told them – as did every bad HGTV show – that they would get back 80% of what they spent. Check your local Home Depot these days. It sure isn’t the Stainless Steel Appliance Party it once was. That isn’t just because of the credit crisis. It’s because the builder’s colonial that was "worth" $280K in 2008 was always really worth $220K whether it had white melamine cabinets or cherry wood. I’m not financial genius but when folks kept telling me that our place was worth 100% more than we paid for it 5 years ago, I laughed and said it was worth absolutely zero until we tried to sell it. Unless wages are going up by 20% a year, house prices generally ought to follow buyers’ increases in salary. That’s what your grandmother would have told you. She was right.
We all had a role to play in this, except for those unfortunate people who were deprived by our educational system of basic economic knowledge. Maybe one good start is to re-write the curricula of high school Home Economics classes, make the classes mandatory and train the teachers to understand how the credit system really works.
Demonize all you want. Take away all the bonuses so we can get rid of the current crew and hire boneheads willing to work for peanuts and live in studio walk-ups in nasty sections of New York City for the honor of working 14 hour days 6 and even 7 days a week and make even worse mistakes than the smarter guys whose bravado and lack of government understanding or oversight got the better of them. The result won’t be any better. It’ll likely be worse.
It’s time to stop worrying so much about the 2% and focus on the future which, quite frankly, is the 98%. Regulate, regulate, regulate. Curtail the derivatives business. Cut or eliminate the bonuses or fire the men and women who took too much risk and did so without regard to the fundamentals. The financial system is clearly worth saving. Bloviating about bonuses does almost nothing to do that.
If anyone actually reads this, I’m likely to get some really good contrarian opinions. Bring them on. I wouldn’t mind hearing others’ opinions.
These are the guys and gals we love to hate right now but there were plenty of barkeeps, party planners, travel agents, general contractors, private school teachers and lots of other regular people who were quite happy to profit handsomely from selling expensive bottles of wine, booking trips to Tuscany, adding on a custom kitchen and keeping little Johnny’s dream of Harvard alive. They earned some of that Wall Street money and they did so without so much as a whiff of complaint of the “excesses” of Wall Street.
I’m not apologizing for $4,000 shower curtains or Roman Holiday birthday parties. I am convinced as so many others are that much of the executive compensation, especially cash payments that were not tied to stock price performance, was obscene. But don’t we need to separate out those kinds of excesses from what we as a society tolerated – even celebrated – as we lulled ourselves into believing that our houses would continue to see 20% increases in value year-over-year and then using those illusory gains as ATMs to do some of the things (albeit writ small) that these new demons were doing all along? You may not have renovated your perfectly nice kitchen for $250K but a great many people did so for $50K. They probably took out a home equity loan or refinanced their house to do it. Their real estate brokers probably told them – as did every bad HGTV show – that they would get back 80% of what they spent. Check your local Home Depot these days. It sure isn’t the Stainless Steel Appliance Party it once was. That isn’t just because of the credit crisis. It’s because the builder’s colonial that was "worth" $280K in 2008 was always really worth $220K whether it had white melamine cabinets or cherry wood. I’m not financial genius but when folks kept telling me that our place was worth 100% more than we paid for it 5 years ago, I laughed and said it was worth absolutely zero until we tried to sell it. Unless wages are going up by 20% a year, house prices generally ought to follow buyers’ increases in salary. That’s what your grandmother would have told you. She was right.
We all had a role to play in this, except for those unfortunate people who were deprived by our educational system of basic economic knowledge. Maybe one good start is to re-write the curricula of high school Home Economics classes, make the classes mandatory and train the teachers to understand how the credit system really works.
Demonize all you want. Take away all the bonuses so we can get rid of the current crew and hire boneheads willing to work for peanuts and live in studio walk-ups in nasty sections of New York City for the honor of working 14 hour days 6 and even 7 days a week and make even worse mistakes than the smarter guys whose bravado and lack of government understanding or oversight got the better of them. The result won’t be any better. It’ll likely be worse.
It’s time to stop worrying so much about the 2% and focus on the future which, quite frankly, is the 98%. Regulate, regulate, regulate. Curtail the derivatives business. Cut or eliminate the bonuses or fire the men and women who took too much risk and did so without regard to the fundamentals. The financial system is clearly worth saving. Bloviating about bonuses does almost nothing to do that.
If anyone actually reads this, I’m likely to get some really good contrarian opinions. Bring them on. I wouldn’t mind hearing others’ opinions.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Patterson's Choice
Kirstin Gillebrand might turn out to be a good United States Senator. The problem is that the governor shot her in the foot with an amateurish, vain, nearly-Shakespearean "search" for the right candidate.
Caroline Kennedy might not have been the best choice for the Senate - at least at this moment - but to suggest that she is "unfit" for the office or to permit aides to anonymously question her integrity says more about the governor's minor league approach to the appointment than it will ever say about Ms. Kennedy. I don't buy this whole American Royalty nonsense. That's not the reason to treat her with respect. She deserves respect because she is an American who has stepped up and served her nation with extraordinary humility and dignity and, by the way, for no compensation whatsoever. Don't tell me she "doesn't need the money". There are plenty of multi-millionaire public servants who have no trouble at all accepting a government salary.
As for the few "ums" and "y'knows", stop by any elite university and you will find that lots of Phi Beta Kappas with the humility of Ms. Kennedy pepper their otherwise thoughtful comments with some filler from time to time. They don't do it because they are stupid or callow. They do it because they are understandably nervous and didn't spend all of their time at school learning form over substance or taking classes in political interview etiquette, nor do they pore over the newspapers to ensure that they always sound perfectly well-scripted.
Say what you want to about Andrew Cuomo - a history of being an abrasive guy with sharp elbows and a love of the spotlight - but he's really smart and really committed to public service. We're lucky that he decided to run for attorney general and not sit around some white shoe law firm figuring out ways to shield irresponsible corporations from liability.
Don't forget the other great potential candidates. Steve Israel comes to mind. He has an extraordinary Congressional record but apparently he wasn't as telegenic as Senator Gillebrand, wasn't as geographically strategic or didn't kiss the right ring at the right time.
Send a letter to Governor Patterson and let him know that Senator Gillebrand's coattails may not be so long when she appears on the ballot with him in the next election. I come from upstate New York. It's the height of cynicism to think that an endorsement from the NRA for your U.S. Senate candidate will innoculate you from criticism for turning a sober process into a bad rip-off of American Idol.
Caroline Kennedy might not have been the best choice for the Senate - at least at this moment - but to suggest that she is "unfit" for the office or to permit aides to anonymously question her integrity says more about the governor's minor league approach to the appointment than it will ever say about Ms. Kennedy. I don't buy this whole American Royalty nonsense. That's not the reason to treat her with respect. She deserves respect because she is an American who has stepped up and served her nation with extraordinary humility and dignity and, by the way, for no compensation whatsoever. Don't tell me she "doesn't need the money". There are plenty of multi-millionaire public servants who have no trouble at all accepting a government salary.
As for the few "ums" and "y'knows", stop by any elite university and you will find that lots of Phi Beta Kappas with the humility of Ms. Kennedy pepper their otherwise thoughtful comments with some filler from time to time. They don't do it because they are stupid or callow. They do it because they are understandably nervous and didn't spend all of their time at school learning form over substance or taking classes in political interview etiquette, nor do they pore over the newspapers to ensure that they always sound perfectly well-scripted.
Say what you want to about Andrew Cuomo - a history of being an abrasive guy with sharp elbows and a love of the spotlight - but he's really smart and really committed to public service. We're lucky that he decided to run for attorney general and not sit around some white shoe law firm figuring out ways to shield irresponsible corporations from liability.
Don't forget the other great potential candidates. Steve Israel comes to mind. He has an extraordinary Congressional record but apparently he wasn't as telegenic as Senator Gillebrand, wasn't as geographically strategic or didn't kiss the right ring at the right time.
Send a letter to Governor Patterson and let him know that Senator Gillebrand's coattails may not be so long when she appears on the ballot with him in the next election. I come from upstate New York. It's the height of cynicism to think that an endorsement from the NRA for your U.S. Senate candidate will innoculate you from criticism for turning a sober process into a bad rip-off of American Idol.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
A trip to the South
I just returned from a trip to Savannah, GA, with my partner, mother and aunt to see the sights and get to spend some time with my sister's prospective in-laws who relocated from my hometown to Brunswick, GA a few years ago. Our visit coincided with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. parade that - as luck would have it - passed right by our hotel. The townsfolk couldn't have been nicer, more hospitable or prouder of their beautiful city. It almost shocked me that Obama didn't carry the state.
I got to spend my 44th birthday in Savannah and came to the same conclusion I had come to so many years ago. There is much less that divides us than binds us together. I was hoping that President Obama's inaugural address would touch on those themes and I wasn't disappointed.
When I started my little blog - one of the more vain things I have done in awhile - I wasn't sure that my worldview was shared by many folks. I'm finding out that there are more fellow travelers than I ever would have imagined.
These are important days. I hope we can all look for ways to be honest with each other about our fears, ask questions even when we think that they are dumb and try to get to know each other a little better. Fannie Lou Hamer had it right all those years ago when she testified before Congress to lobby for passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act: "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired."
Here's to you, Ms. Hamer. We have a long way to go but this is - as Churchill said - not the beginning of the end. It's the end of the beginning.
I got to spend my 44th birthday in Savannah and came to the same conclusion I had come to so many years ago. There is much less that divides us than binds us together. I was hoping that President Obama's inaugural address would touch on those themes and I wasn't disappointed.
When I started my little blog - one of the more vain things I have done in awhile - I wasn't sure that my worldview was shared by many folks. I'm finding out that there are more fellow travelers than I ever would have imagined.
These are important days. I hope we can all look for ways to be honest with each other about our fears, ask questions even when we think that they are dumb and try to get to know each other a little better. Fannie Lou Hamer had it right all those years ago when she testified before Congress to lobby for passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act: "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired."
Here's to you, Ms. Hamer. We have a long way to go but this is - as Churchill said - not the beginning of the end. It's the end of the beginning.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Dr. Martin Luther King Day
This January 19th, let's not forget that it was only about 25 years ago that Ronald Reagan and lots of others resisted making Dr. King's birthday a federal holiday. Of course, that was around the same time that the Reagan administration dragged its feet on responding to the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic and told us that we were unpatriotic socialists if we didn't believe in a trickle-down American dream. Those were the days when ketchup was considered a vegetable at school lunch tables and Grenada was considered to be the next firewall in preventing communist expansion in South America.
Times are tough for most of us right now, but we can at least hope that President Obama and his team can easily skip over all of the divisive fearmongering and take bold action to protect depositors, homeowners, the unemployed, the underemployed, those lacking decent health care and others who are among our most vulnerable.
If the last six months has taught us anything, I hope it finally taught us that none of us is immune to hardship and no matter your political stripe or demographic group, we all need each other to put our parochial interests aside and work toward a common good. That was Dr. King's message. Don't be jealous that he had it right decades before the majority of us. Be grateful.
Those of us who spent time marching to protect reproductive freedom, against nuclear proliferation, for the right of labor to organize without fear of reprisal, against complacency on HIV/AIDS, against apartheid and for the full inclusion of lesbians and gays in our constitutional framework, January 20, 2009 should be a celebration. We are no longer on the fringe of anything. We're poised to become mainstream.
Times are tough for most of us right now, but we can at least hope that President Obama and his team can easily skip over all of the divisive fearmongering and take bold action to protect depositors, homeowners, the unemployed, the underemployed, those lacking decent health care and others who are among our most vulnerable.
If the last six months has taught us anything, I hope it finally taught us that none of us is immune to hardship and no matter your political stripe or demographic group, we all need each other to put our parochial interests aside and work toward a common good. That was Dr. King's message. Don't be jealous that he had it right decades before the majority of us. Be grateful.
Those of us who spent time marching to protect reproductive freedom, against nuclear proliferation, for the right of labor to organize without fear of reprisal, against complacency on HIV/AIDS, against apartheid and for the full inclusion of lesbians and gays in our constitutional framework, January 20, 2009 should be a celebration. We are no longer on the fringe of anything. We're poised to become mainstream.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Defining Generosity
If you watch as much bad TV as I do, you probably remember the ubiquitous Lexus holiday commercials over the last few years that invariably featured a pristene stone house with a circular driveway, a dusting of new snow and a Lexus LS450 parked in front with a large bow tucked around the hood. The holiday gift was revealed when the blindfold was removed. All was good. Of course, I imagined more goodies under the tree that had already been opened: ivory cashmere throws, sterling serving pieces, silk shantung jackets and at least a few ironic, but nevertheless expensive, items that would elicit a chuckle from the shiny wife or shiny husband.
Over the last boom years, I never got the Lexus (damn it) but I certainly got and gave the gay male couple equivalent of the rest of it. I'll admit it. I loved every second of it. My beloved even took care of the charitable bit to the point it seemed like we were tithing.
Lap dissolve to 2008. He's in finance (laugh or feel sorry for me; I don't care) and I made the spectacularly well-timed decision to give up my steady public sector law gig for private practice.
I'm trying, like most folks, to rethink what it means to be generous - all of this without resorting to the easiest answers gleaned from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas or The Charlie Brown Christmas special. This is difficult. The last time I made something (chocolate truffles), I placed them under my parents' tree on Christmas Eve and by morning they were covered with ants that must have traveled down the trunk of the tree and looked heavenward at their good fortune.
This year, like so many of us, I have pared back. My mother convinced me that the best thing we could do this year was to give a family gift to the local food pantry and have a Recessionista Open House for Christmas - food-centered. I think she's right.
Maybe I'll even go to Midnight Mass this year. That would be a big stretch but if I can get past the politics, I might give it whirl.
Happy Holidays.
Over the last boom years, I never got the Lexus (damn it) but I certainly got and gave the gay male couple equivalent of the rest of it. I'll admit it. I loved every second of it. My beloved even took care of the charitable bit to the point it seemed like we were tithing.
Lap dissolve to 2008. He's in finance (laugh or feel sorry for me; I don't care) and I made the spectacularly well-timed decision to give up my steady public sector law gig for private practice.
I'm trying, like most folks, to rethink what it means to be generous - all of this without resorting to the easiest answers gleaned from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas or The Charlie Brown Christmas special. This is difficult. The last time I made something (chocolate truffles), I placed them under my parents' tree on Christmas Eve and by morning they were covered with ants that must have traveled down the trunk of the tree and looked heavenward at their good fortune.
This year, like so many of us, I have pared back. My mother convinced me that the best thing we could do this year was to give a family gift to the local food pantry and have a Recessionista Open House for Christmas - food-centered. I think she's right.
Maybe I'll even go to Midnight Mass this year. That would be a big stretch but if I can get past the politics, I might give it whirl.
Happy Holidays.
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