So this might seem like a stretch because I am trying to blog about the process of finding balance in my 28th year, which means, for me, losing some of this weight I've put on in grad school and continuing my e.d. recovery. But I actually DO think that the "Occupy Wallstreet" movement is really important to this project and I'll try to reflect briefly here on why I think this is.
The first thing I feel when I see the protesters from my perch here in Columbus is pure, unadulterated jealousy. Beautiful weather for hanging out on the streets of NYC (even if it is stupid, smelly wallstreet) accompanied by the wafting smell of the Shake Shack Shroom Burgers in Battery Park. And the time not to experience bleary-eyed dissertation reading from the confines of a cold-war style basement bomb-shelter graduate office.
But then of course, I know this makes me sound fill-in-the-blank and bit like I'm missing the point.
And I remember the time I spent in early recovery in the anti-war protests. Standing every Friday at noon outside the post office with Women in Black, joining weekend vigils around New England and New York, which, in my memory, were always in the deepest freeze of winter. There's something about the comraderie that protests facilitate that makes focus on something as important as state-sponsored mass violence that we call wars-on-terror feel like the only important message in the world. These protests brought me outside of myself, made me feel like my letters to the editor and my contributions of NPR as a young journalist were worth something. And it's not that because I'm 28 I'm jaded now. I still think protesting is important. I still think ending this war-that's-been-happening-my-entire-adult-life is really, really important. But physically, my body protests protests. And my standing in solidarity can only be metaphorical.
And here's the bigger reason why I'm "standing" in solidarity. We need a radical left movement. Period. And this is directly related to my mental health.
Once I got past the institutionlizing and not-always-as-helpful-as-it-could-be focus of the eating disorder treatment industry, and I became healthy enough to spend time in self-reflection, I realized all of the ways that my bulimia was a really clever tool for dealing with all of the institutionalized oppression I was feeling related to class. We don't talk about class in the United States (unless, of course, we mean "saving the middle class" which is really about saving a particular heteronormative, patriarchal family ideal stemming from the mad-men-era consumer campaigns of the 1950's), but here is a small microcosm of facts as I have experienced them. Because of my class, and the way we fund public schools on property taxes, I had a dismal early education. So dismal, that not only did we not have access to things like libraries and gyms and cafeterias and after-school programs and arts education, but for a three year-period we didn't even had a building. It was condemned when slates flew off the roof.
This, in turn, made it difficult to succeed in standardized tests (a skill learned early in school and class and raced privileged as a result). It also made it difficult to develop "extra curriculars" that colleges look for to give scholarships. When time came to go to college, I went to public university where, because of poor funding, we lacked resources and internship opportunities. Because I was paying my own way, I worked three jobs.
When my medical team questioned why I was missing appointments or lapsing in treatment, I would explain my work schedule or my lack of health insurance.
And school made me bored and restless. I needed more. After graduating with minimal loans and working poverty-wage jobs (because Maine was already going through a recession), I realized that in order to get into a PhD Program, I needed to invest. So I did a MA for $50,000 of debt. I have succeeded in getting into a PhD program and anticipate entering into the relatively class-privileged field of academia. Except that, with loans between 74,000-90,000, I will have repayments of over $700/month. My partner will have the same. For which we will "pay back" a government that charged us in the first place for education that should be free. Education we got to do social justice work, work the government should be doing.
And we'll continue to only be able to eat the cheap foods--the ones produced from industrialized scraps from corporate America because good food--nutritious food--is being sold by Whole Foods, a corporation that is colonizing land for profit-making enterprise the way Europe colonized indigenous land in North America.
All this to say: we need a leftist movement. We need a government that is responsible for the well-being of its citizens: providing affordable, nutritious food, preventative healthcare, healthcare of illnesses like cancer which are a result of environmental practices of profit-making corporations, free and equal education at all levels, and a legislature free of the persuasive money of the less-than-one-percent of Americans. And until this happens, we will see Americans continue to come up with creative ways to manage institutional oppression, some of these creative ways being extremely detrimental to long-term health and wellness.
Health is not individual.
My health relies on a forward movement toward state principles of responsibility and care.
Principles of profit and exploitation hurt all of our bodies.
Thank you to the Wallstreet Protesters.
This is a project about finding balance in my twenty-eighth year. And losing some weight. This in the midst of beginning a longer-distance relationship with my partner, taking my PhD Candidacy exams, and continuing my mental health recovery.
Have you ever read "Escape from Freedom" by Erich Fromm? He argues that capitalism has pushed forward the process of "individuation" to a point that people are under more psychological stress than ever before. In the past with "primary bonds" of community, tradition, and religion people were oppressed, but yet secure. They had purpose and meaning in life, secure in a community, and no need to try to prove their self worth, compete against others, and question their value.
ReplyDeleteIn our modern world we are free from tradition, custom and religion -- yet we lack that security. Psychologically this creates a level of stress and anxiety that is constant (not like a brief rush when being chased by some wild animal). For Fromm that explained Fascism (He was a German Jew trying to understand how Germany could turn to Hitler). People wanted meaning and community, they wanted to 'escape from freedom' and fascism provided it -- albeit in a sadistic and masochistic manner.
To succeed the left has to offer an alternative that is not just about economics, but also about community and security. There has to be a way to couple individual freedom with social solidarity. OWS could be the start of a real alternative, it's probably the best hope in a long time.