I’m admittedly technologically behind the times, so it was only this weekend I discovered Youtube.com First thing I searched for: chinchilla videos. If you”ve got a network connection or broadband, this could eat up all of your time. It’s eaten up a lot of ours today! It makes me tear up thinking about my little Matilde, no longer with us, but it makes me laugh in delight at all the precious creatures I’m viewing.
If I’m slow returning emails, you know what I am up to.
By now, most folks have heard of Mel Gibson’s arrest this past weekend for drunken driving. The mainstream media and the blogosphere have posted most of the details of his arrest and its aftermath, including reports of his vicious, misogynistic, anti-Semitic tirade directed at sheriff’s deputies. It’s an ugly episode, clearly, and one for which Gibson was right to apologize profusely.
This morning, while driving to work, I listened to the radio. The hosts of one program were positively gleeful about what might happen to Gibson, whom they called a "fake Christian" and a "hypocrite." "He’ll never work in this town again", they said, and there was a note of hope in that prediction. Some bloggers I know (no names to be mentioned) have seemed filled with schadenfreude at what took place. Gibson is not well-loved on the left, particularly in the aftermath of Passion of the Christ. It’s widely assumed that he is one of Hollywood’s most influential cultural conservatives, and to have him humiliate himself in the fashion he did this weekend seems, well, too delicious a topic to resist.
I am not a Gibson fan. I wrote my doctoral dissertation on the Anglo-Scottish wars of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and I can’t ever remember being as offended by a movie as I was by "Braveheart", for which Gibson won an Oscar. The historical license he took was perhaps no worse than that taken by other directors who make epics, but it was about what was then my chosen field — and I was angered and dismayed. I liked the "Passion", I’ll admit, even as I struggled with the strong and unrelenting violence. I honored the craft behind the story-telling, even as I was troubled by many aspects of the film.
But this morning, I find myself in considerable sympathy with Mel Gibson. As someone who drank heavily and embarrassed himself many times as a result, I know this about alcohol: it lies. One of the great mistakes folks make about those of us who are addicts is that we are more honest when we’re loaded — that drugs or booze reveal our secret thoughts. Thinking back over my years of heavy drinking, I recall being told (after the fact) of dreadful things I had said while loaded. I said things I did not mean, and hadn’t even thought. Sometimes, when drunk, anger poured out in every imaginable direction. My drunken words did not always reflect my real convictions; they reflected an inchoate rage at the world.
I have no idea if Mel Gibson is anti-Semitic or not. He may well be. But what he said when he was drunk doesn’t count as evidence that he is. When I was drunk, I regularly told strangers on the street how much I loved them, and how grateful I was that they understood me. I once told a paramedic that I was sure he was Jesus, and I wanted him to wash my feet! Did those words reflect my innermost sober beliefs? Of course not. And I have no reason to think that the ugly things Gibson said while loaded in Malibu this past week reflect how he really feels.
I’m reacting protectively to this story because, of course, I recognize parts of myself in Mel Gibson. I’m not as handsome or as successful or as conservative, but I know what it is to be an addict who undergoes a profound religious conversion. I also know what it is to struggle with relapse, with shame, and with anger. If I were to relapse as Mel did, and my words while drunk were to become public, I would be deeply and profoundly shamed. My relatively small number of readers include a contingent of critics (most of whom are men’s rights advocates), some of whom would no doubt be gleeful at what they would see as my comeuppance. In a very minor way, I know what it is like to suddenly be revealed as human and flawed!
Above all, I’m angered at those who question Gibson’s faith. Those of us who walk with Christ are not instantly given the power to turn from all forms of sin. Though grace comes into our lives, our struggles will often remain with us for as long as we live in human flesh. Conversion is not an instant process, but rather a gradual, painful one filed with stories of temptations resisted — and temptations not. Walter Wink was right:
Christians have never dealt well with the inner darkness of the redeemed.
When we come to Christ, we become a new creation. But that creation is still in an earthen vessel, in mortal flesh, still subject to sin and to darkness. One of the great realities of the Christian journey is that many of us stumble, post-conversion. It isn’t all sweetness and light on the other side of being born-again. The inner darkness doesn’t always vanish even after we embrace Christ as our Savior. For Mel Gibson, as for many of us, the struggle to live in to our redemption can be a day to day battle. By grace and will together, we win that daily struggle most of the time. But at one time or another, most of us, in one way or another, will fall. The measure of a person’s faith is not whether she falls, but whether she repents in the aftermath of the fall, and redoubles the effort to live a Christian life.
I’m praying for Mel Gibson this morning. I may not think much of his movies, but he is my brother and does not deserve the calumny, the schadenfreude, and the scorn he is enduring this week.
I’ve been running in the local mountains for years. I have fallen many times, run into bears and rattlesnakes and bobcats and intoxicated hunters. But until yesterday, I had never had a bee sting. Half-way through yesterday’s run, as we descended Mt.Zion, we ran into a mule team transporting gear for some campers. As we passed them, the mules disturbed a beehive — and things got nasty.
I ended up with a single sting. On my butt. Somehow, one of the little fellas ended up inside my running shorts and stung me directly on the right cheek. It hurt like the dickens, as bee stings will, but it mystified me more than anything else. How did the bee get in there? Why was I stung nowhere else? What does it all mean?
I’m posting on a Saturday to clarify a couple of points from my Thursday post on divorce. First off, I’m delighted that Amanda at Pandagon linked to the piece with her own thoughts.
I wrote last year about the notion of a "good divorce." Unfortunately, both after that post and after Thursday’s, folks have confused that concept with the idea that I am suggesting that "divorce is good." Folks, there’s a world of difference between saying that sometimes, given the circumstances of the marriage, divorce can be the best option for all concerned, and saying that divorce is, a priori a terrific activity in which everyone ought to engage regularly!
Death, for example, is not a good thing. I am still just beginning the process of coming to terms with my father’s death last month. But the fact that death entails loss and sadness doesn’t mean that there isn’t such a thing as a "good death." (I believe my father had one.) It doesn’t mean that we can’t mark a death with ritual and prayers; it doesn’t mean that in the end, when it finally comes, those who die and those who survive can’t be grateful that the long struggle is over at last.
I held my father in my arms in his final hours. I saw his rapid, devastating decline unfold over eight hard weeks. I’ve learned a lot about death this year. And yes, I’ve been divorced three times, so I know a bit about how marriages end. I am a deeper, richer, better man for having gone through my father’s death experience with him as best I could. I am a deeper, richer, better man for having gone through these divorces. If I had my way, there would be no death — and marriages would last forever, too. But in our fallen world, our bodies are marked for death, and our individual lifestyle choices play only a partial role in the length of our lives. And just as bodies age and change and decay, so too do relationships.
My parents divorced when I was small. If you read my father’s obituary, you’ll note that among his survivors are listed his siblings, his four children, and his former wife — my mother, as well as my stepmom. My parents had a very civil, even cordial divorce; they remained great friends till the day my father passed on. My mother and stepmother genuinely love each other, and as a result, my brother and I are very close to our half-sisters. Indeed, I consciously never call them my "half-sisters", as that would seem to devalue the closeness of our bond.
As we shared the experience of Dad’s death together as a family, I thought to myself over and over again how damned grateful I am that my parents separated when I was a boy of six. (Yes, I was hurt by the divorce. Indeed, the wounds of that divorce stayed with me a long time. But as a young adult, I got to know plenty of people whose parents stayed in unhappy marriages for the sake of their children; I found that these folks were no better equipped for adulthood and maturity and mental health than I. Look, on some level, Phillip Larkin was right! No matter what parents do, together or apart, they inflict wounds. The wise child grows into the adult who can forgive.) The point is this: my life would be so much less rich if my parents had stayed married! I can’t imagine life without my gentle and kind stepmother, who has loved me unconditionally for thirty-plus years. My sisters, now grown women of 27 and 24, are beautiful, talented, loving, wonderful human beings. They are my dear friends today, and without my parents’ divorce, they would not have come to be. I cannot think for a second of my own childhood hurt without thinking of all that I have gained.
Earlier this year, I wrote this post in tribute to my mother. Here are three relevant paragraphs from that post:
My parents divorced when I was six; my brother and I were raised by a single mother. (Our father visited regularly, and theirs was — thank God — a civil and even cordial separation.) It was not easy being a single mom to two very young sons. We might have lived in Carmel, but money was tight at times, and my mother had to cope with all of the anxieties and doubts that come in the aftermath of a divorce, separation, and the assumption of sole permanent custody.
But as we talked about on Saturday, my mother also gave a great gift to my brother and me: she always made it clear that she wasn’t sacrificing her life for us. From the time we were small, our mother always took time for herself. She had her poetry group, her work with the League of Women Voters, and other social and community activities in which we were not involved. Now mind you, she was a loving and devoted mom! My brother and I grew up knowing we were cherished and protected and cared for. But we also knew that our mother did not exist merely to meet our needs — she had a mind of her own, wants of her own, and she was going to make time for herself as well as for her sons.
What my mother wanted to do, and succeeded in doing, was liberating us from the horrible pressure of living our lives to pay back a mom who had "sacrificed everything for us." My mom had seen too many parents devote everything they had to their children, with their only joys coming from their kids’ successes. She had seen some of those kids grow up into anxious and guilt-ridden adults, who were continually haunted by a sense that their mothers and fathers (more often their mothers) had given up so damned much for them. There are few burdens more awful, she felt, than having to live a life that justifies all of your parent’s sacrifices!
Had my parents not divorced, I doubt I would have learned these lessons nearly so well.
Death hurts. Divorce hurts. No one looks forward to divorce eagerly on their wedding day, but few look forward to death when they are young and vital, either! Some marriages will end in death, and others in divorce, but they will all surely end. While love endures past the end, marriage does not — Jesus makes that pretty darned clear. That’s okay by me, frankly. I will see my father again on the far side of the Jordan. And when we all gather at that river, I will be with my mother, my stepmother, and all of those who go before and, eventually, come after. And it won’t matter at all what promises were made, what promises were kept, and who started over with whom. What will matter is love, a love far more powerful than the vows we exchanged in its name.
I’m about to eat some words, something I’ve done more than once around here. Almost two years ago, I put up a post entitled The Obstinate Instructor. In it, I explained why I was refusing to apply for the entirely honorary title of associate professor, something to which I was entitled by virtue of my longevity and my degree. (Here’s the PDF file that explains PCC’s policies on rank.)
And the weird bit from that policy is this:
Professional rank shall not become a factor in determining salary.
All faculty members holding one of the professional ranks will be addressed uniformly as "professor."
So, I can technically call myself a "professor" while remaining an instructor, and I can do so with the complete confidence that whether or not I remain an "instructor" has no bearing on my salary. Indeed, since salary is largely tied to seniority, I actually make more than some of my colleagues who have jumped through the hoops to become assistant or associate profs.
In 2004, I wrote that my refusal to apply for a rank improvement was due to my own reverse snobbery:
I am simultaneously inspired by a principled objection to titles, by pride, and by what, frankly, is puerile rebelliousness. In this instance, those three very different motivations work towards the same end.
But now, I’m going to apply at long last for a title "upgrade". I’ve been elected to represent my division in the Academic Senate,and have been told that like it or not, having the title "instructor" will handicap my ability to be an effective advocate. I’ve wrestled with whether or not I should soldier on, refusing to change, forcing my colleagues to acknowledge my relative seniority in the absence of the title that normally accompanies that. But gosh darn it all, the older I get, the more careful I get about picking my battles. I find our college’s version of academic rank to be uncommonly silly. But is it worth sacrificing my ability to be a good leader because of an objection to silly protocol? Increasingly, I think not.
I confess another motivation as well. As more of my stuff ends up getting published, and as I submit articles for consideration, the title "instructor" may be a handicap. Yes, by PCC’s strange set of rules, I can call myself a "professor" any time I like, and may demand to be addressed as such. But I can’t use the title on a formal document unless I fill out the damned forms. We may have reached the time where I will need to do just that.
Sigh. Another small compromise, but — perhaps — a justifiable one.
This will be the last FRT for a while; I’m ready to give it a break. All of these save for #6 are mine, and #s4,5,8, and 10 are special favorites. "Estranged" is my favorite GNR track ever; "I’ve Loved These Days" is my favorite Billy Joel song. Both, at different times in the 80s and 90s, were my "theme songs." You’d have to look up the lyrics to know why. (And yes, I really do own several Charlotte Church tracks. Don’t start.)
1. "Paperlate", Genesis
2. "Mercy Street", Peter Gabriel
3. "The Promised Land", Bruce Springsteen
4. "Love Song", Third Day
5. "Better Than You", Terri Clark
6. "Gold Digger", Kanye West
7. "Men of Harlech", Charlotte Church
8. "I’ve Loved These Days", Billy Joel
9. "City on a Hill", Third Day
10. "Estranged", Guns n’ Roses
Bonus Tracks: "Sexuality", Billy Bragg; "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters", Elton John
No more FRTs for at least four weeks, I promise. As much pleasure as I take in inflicting my musical tastes — and the stories behind the songs in my life — it’s time to give it a short rest.
But for those of you out there who do FRTs, you ought to do more than just list songs — tell us if one or more of them have special significance from your life.
Folks, if you’re having trouble commenting, please know it is not because you have been banned. Typepad has been wonky lately — let me know if you have had problems.
A long ‘un:
I posted two days ago about the coming republication of my August 2005 post on "The Good Divorce". Some of my more conservative readers, while stopping short of condemning my current marriage, have disagreed vigorously with my original thesis that in certain instances, a loving divorce can be a good outcome. Sean writes
I am glad your divorce was amicable. But I will make two points.
The first is that my comment is aimed at the idea that only in America do we so regularly glorify failure in marriage. Almost everyone I know who has gone to a marriage counselor has found that the counselor has been divorced at least once. I love to hear the complaint that a Catholic priest can’t counsel a married couple because of his lack of experience in marriage, but some one who has failed once or twice is an expert. For every 10 "sage" observations printed about marriage from the perspective of a divorced person, I doubt you’d find one written by someone married for, say 20 years. It’s nuts.
Second, divorce is in and of itself a social evil - perhaps necessary, but still bad. Yours may be happy, but next month I am helping a dear friend move from her home into a shabby duplex with her teenage son because her husband of 19 years needed to "be happy" - of course with a new girlfriend. Her life, emotionally, spiritually, socially, and financially is a wreck. That, in my experience is the face of divorce.
I hope the best for you and your new bride, but were I a betting man I wouldn’t lay odds on a long life together - sorry, but those are the stats.
Celebrating a happy divorce is like bragging about the weight you lost in chemotherapy.
I’ll ignore the last line; my father died five weeks ago today, his body emaciated by stomach cancer. I’ll also try and ignore the crack about the "odds" of my marriage surviving. I’m sure Sean was just being helpful, perhaps believing that I am blissfully unaware of contemporary statistics about serial marriage and divorce.
I’ve mentioned that I’m spending a lot of time in a men’s group this summer. We’re a mixed bunch of guys from a variety of religious backgrounds — I’m the only evangelical, but I have a good buddy in the group who’s a Congregationalist and another who’s Roman Catholic. But one of our members is a rabbi, and he said something remarkable the other day: "I’ve come to realize that sometimes divorce is a mitzvah". (A mitzvah, of course, is an act of sharing, a profoundly good deed.)
When I heard my friend the rabbi say that, I perked up pronto! I haven’t had a chance to talk with him further about what he meant; my knowledge of Jewish teaching on divorce is quite limited. I’m hoping that he and I can chat soon in more depth about the experiential, psychological, and theological foundations of his conclusions that divorce can sometimes be a mitzvah! But from what I can gather, it sounds an awful lot like what I was talking about in my post approximately one year ago.
What I have been doing is thinking more and more about the purpose of marriage. I’m not an expert on marriage, nor do I claim to be one. Sean complains: For every 10 "sage" observations printed about marriage from the perspective of a divorced person, I doubt you’d find one written by someone married for, say 20 years. I defer to his no-doubt superior knowledge of the contemporary secular and Christian literature on marriage, though I’m not at all certain he’s actually right. But if he’s trying to make the case that those of us who are multiply divorced cannot claim to be experts on what makes marriages work, I’ll ruefully agree! I’m something of an expert on weddings, and buying diamond engagement rings; few men I know have been through those experiences four times before they’re forty! I’m also, sadly, something of an expert on divorce.
I do not write here as a marriage counselor. Though I have various book ideas percolating in my head, I promise I’ll hold off on trying to write the marital handbook until my wife and I have celebrated many more anniversaries together. But while experience is not always the best teacher, it is a teacher nonetheless — and I’ve learned one or two things along the way.
Marriage has meant different things in different time periods; almost everyone knows that. Marriage has been as much about property, security, and male control of female reproduction as it has been about romantic companionship. Indeed, the idea of "companionate marriage", as anyone with a background in social history knows, doesn’t become widespread until the middle of the nineteenth century at the earliest. As any seminarian who spends much time on the New Testament soon discovers, the Pauline ideal of marriage is hardly an elevated one: 1 Corinthians 7:1 is not exactly a ringing endorsement of the institution! Marriage, in the early Christian world seems to be more of a concession to human frailty than a particularly blessed sacramental state.
In our world, where so many men and women have access to sex and financial security outside of marriage, the old rationales for marriage seem insufficient. I may be an evangelical with (privately) an intensely conservative sexual ethic, but I did not marry either for sexual fulfillment or for economic opportunity. I believe that the best reason to marry, for Christians and non-Christians alike,is that monogamous marriage has the potential to be the most extraordinarily successful vehicle for personal growth. One of my old Twelve Step friends used to say: "Being married is like having Miracle-Gro poured on to your defects of character, every single day." Marriage, at its best, is a mirror that reveals to us our flaws and our shortcomings, and challenges us like nothing else to overcome them and transform. To borrow biblical language, to be married is to "know" one’s spouse on several intensely intimate levels — spiritually, emotionally, sexually. Only someone with that kind of intensely intimate knowledge can accurately identify where it is that we still have room to grow, and only someone we love that much can push us that hard without fear.
No serious Christian can say that marriages today, even the best and most faithful ones, are in significant ways similar to those contracted in Jesus’s day. What marriage was in first century A.D. Palestine, what it was in twelfth-century France, what it was in eighteenth-century Holland, what it was in twentieth-century Nigeria,and what it is in twenty-first century America are all very different things — even if all of the marriages in that litany were between two believers in Christ! That doesn’t mean that certain essential truths about marriage don’t survive across two millenia. It does mean that we can be damn sure that no one in Galatia in 280 AD, for example, read 1 Corinthians 13 at their wedding ceremony! Those overused and misquoted lines of the Apostle may show up in innumerable contemporary services (I had ‘em in my first wedding, a Catholic one), but they weren’t intended to describe marital love when written twenty centuries ago.
God’s love is immutable and unchanging. The truth of Scripture is as relevant today as it ever has been. But how we understand God’s love is always changing, and how we read His word is always evolving. God hasn’t changed — but we have. We still may see through a glass darkly, but time and human progress have cleared at least some of the mist that fogged the pane. And one way in which we have evolved is to new understandings of the meaning of marriage. I suggest that one model for contemporary marriage, Christian or not, is a model that places the individual growth of the two parties to the marriage front and center. Once children come into the picture, the model becomes triangulated — the continued spiritual development of the parents remains essential, but the nurturing of the little ones assumes equal importance. But always, the focus is on love, forgiveness, and transformation.
I do not boast of my three divorces. I do not believe that everyone "ought" to go through a divorce in order to grow. But particularly in the Christian world, we are too quick to pathologize and condemn divorce. Persistence and tenacity are important Christian virtues, but they are not at the summit of Christian ethics. A willingness to stick it out is admirable, but not to the point of mutual destruction. Only a fool gets off a boat when it first shows signs of leaking, but he is also a fool who continues to bail pitifully after the waters are up to his chin. The trick is knowing the difference between what is salvageable and what is not. Saying "God can salvage any marriage" is a comforting thought, but it’s based on the assumption that God thinks every marriage worth saving. I’m not at all sure that’s the case. Last year, I quoted Hall and Oates, and I quote them again:
"It ain’t a sign of weakness girl, to give yourself away
Because the strong give up and move on
While the weak, the weak give up and stay"
Yes, sometimes third-rate Seventies love songs contain valuable Christian truths. And sometimes, strength means having the courage to leave a marriage where the room for growth is limited for a marriage where the chance to transform is far greater.
When my third wife asked for a divorce, she told me that someday, I’d thank her. "I can’t love you as you deserve to be loved, Hugo", she said, "we can’t help each other grow anymore." At the time I protested that she was giving up too soon, but over time, I came to see she was right. To borrow my friend the rabbi’s language, my third ex-wife did me a mitzvah. My growth curve following our divorce was exponential, and I am in a marriage today that is far richer and more challenging than any I have known. Had I had my way, my third marriage might never have ended and I would have missed this extraordinary opportunity with which I am now presented today. In a public forum, I can say today to my ex, "You were right. Thank you."
My conservative friends will accuse me, to paraphrase Paul, of endorsing sin so that grace may abound more fully. (I’m reasonably good at anticipating my critics). But I’m not so sure I accept that divorce is inherently sinful. Divorce is never the best of all possible options. But it is a reality in a fallen world, just as death is. We all want perfect health, but we know that our bodies will change and die. We all want wonderful marriages, but sometimes marriages die just like bodies. Quitting at the first sign of trouble is the sin of weakness, no doubt — but continuing to remain in what is loveless and lifeless is the sin of pride and stubbornness. After a reasonable and concerted and prayerful effort to solve the problems that are killing a marriage, it is indeed a mitzvah to let one’s spouse go with love and in peace.
This week’s short poem comes once again from my father’s dear friend John Ridland. John has become a reader of this blog, and he sent me this after reading my post last week on grading. A long-time English professor at UCSB, he knows better than most the anxieties — and misplaced certainties — that come with marking student papers. With his kind permission, I reprint this fine piece.
Grading
"An experienced teacher can grade anything.”
––An experienced teacher
He grades the cat on being cat
(straight A), the grapefruit on juiciness
(B+) and sweetness (B), his wife
on sleeping soundly (last night, D
minus)he grades the morning (C
plus, Be more definite), the dog
for coming quickly when she’s called
(A‑‑, good dog, good dog), for
fetching the paper (Fetch it!–F).
In broad daylight he grades the moon
last night at midnight, Well defined,
clear and complete (pure A, pure A);
his breakfast lunch and dinner (Pass);
his shoes (Unsatisfactory);
of course he grades the morning paper
(low C for content, C for form);
the window (B, maybe B‑‑,
Try to be more imaginative).
He grades the way he drives to school
(B+ woops, D), the radio–
rather, its choice of music (A
+, for Segovia’s guitar
followed by Goodman’s clarinet),
the fat opossum in the road
(plain D for Dead), the old man trudging
in red sweatsuit and jogging shoes
(Not Pass), the parking lot (OK),
colleagues for cordiality
(A, B, C, D, none of the above)
and courage in the line of duty
(Withheld: cf. the Privacy Act).
He’s graded God (You should do better
than this, with Your Advantages.
Try to improve by putting more
of Yourself into it: C‑‑);
and homo sapiens (Barely passing,
YOU ARE IN TROUBLE!); and himself
(Delivery, B; Coherence, C;
Organization, D; Good will,
A! A!), and grades his grading (C,
Inflated, whimsical), his life
(B+ as far as it goes, keep going);
Tomorrow and tomorrow and
tomorrow (Where’s your outline? C,
No, Incomplete. Please see me soon.
Yesterday’s post about college attire and t-shirts briefly diverted onto a subject of dress and class. I wrote:
To generalize enormously, the less privileged the background, the more intense the sense of competition among young women. Far too many young ones grow up with a sense that their sexual desirability is a more marketable commodity than their intellectual accomplishments; this is all the more likely to be true in families where there isn’t a history of women going to college. (If you don’t believe me, visit any American community college on a hot day — and then visit an elite university in the same weather. You’ll see more mini-skirts and heels in five minutes at Pasadena City College than you will in five hours at Berkeley or Stanford. That’s anecdotal, sure, but don’t take my word for it — try it yourself.) The bottom line: class and sexual competitiveness among women are, to say the least, not unrelated!
Glendenb’s comment was so good I wanted to repost part of it:
I think the difference was between people who saw education as a right and those who saw it a privilege. Among the students at the cc, they dressed in their best (which for some was heels and mini skirt) to show that they deserved the privilege but also to combat a social dis-ease; they were aware that they were moving across a social dividing line and were attempting to prove they belonged. Students who were first in their family to attend college were straddling a social dividing line - breaking from a set of values that weren’t comfortable with the extreme casualness around sexuality, but not yet fully embracing a set of values in which sexuality was (far too often) separated from emotion.
Students at my undergraduate college perceived education as their right – the hedonism, brazen sexuality, deliberate crossing of behavioral barriers that were not crossed in their upper-middle class families were seen as part and parcel of the college experience – the icing on the cake. They didn’t have to prove they belonged at college to anyone, least of all themselves. At the community college, many students were trying to prove to themselves that they deserved to be there. What to my eye was sexualized behavior, was really a more carefully studied mimicking of what was perceived as appropriate collegiate behavior. Clothing choices were made that would help students feel brash, or strong, or confident in ways that students from the upper middle class didn’t feel they needed.
The bold emphasis is mine. To use the Anglicism to which my passport entitles me, that’s "spot on".
I note this phenomenon is not merely confined to women. Many first-generation male students, particularly but not exclusively East Asian (PCC is over 33% Asian), are ostentatiously fond of labels, particularly those that they associate with the "establishment." Every year, even on hot summer days, my classes will be filled with remarkably neat young men in pressed khakis wearing Ralph Lauren, Lacoste, A&F, or even — oh, flashbacks to ’80s preppydom! — Brooks Brothers polo shirts. The labels are always conspicuous. Reading Glendenb’s comments, it occurs to me that these young upwardly mobile fellows are indeed mimicking what they imagine to be the appropriate attire of the privileged. (Only later will some of them transfer to Cal, Stanford, and Georgetown and discover that the real privileged tend to be far more unkempt.)
The names of many young men — particularly young Chinese from Hong Kong — are often rather touchingly quaint. This summer, I have — these are first names, mind you — a "Fitzgerald"; a "Woodrow"; three "Benedicts" (my middle name); two "Henrys"; one "Maxwell"; and, my favorite, one "Colfax." It sounds like a parody of the membership roster of my grandfather’s fraternity, circa 1926! And at the risk of sounding horribly classist, it strikes me as a rather naive attempt to deliberately appropriate WASP cache. Imagine all of these parents, newly immigrated, working long hours to clothe young "Winston Wilberforce Chan" in what television has led them to believe is the outfit of success: polo shirts and chinos with shiny penny loafers. From the perspective of someone who grew up in WASP country-club culture, this sincere attempt at imitation strikes me as, at the least, oddly misplaced!
But as Glendenb points out, those of us who have "made it" and have an easy sense of entitlement ought not to be too quick to judge those who are eager to ascend the social ladder our ancestors climbed for us. This morning, I’m wearing a pair of slightly distressed women’s jeans and one very bright multi-colored paisley cowboy shirt. I’ve got a Paul Frank watch on (with Julius the Monkey in Mariachi garb.) The affect is no doubt garish, and probably — outside of major urban centers — decidedly effeminate. But I’ve got tenure, and I’ve got the security to know that my authority in no way hinges on whatever get-up I get myself in to. I can afford to dress for comfort and to honor my own admittedly odd fashion sense. Even when I was younger, as an undergrad or a grad student, I slouched around Berkeley and Westwood in old concert t-shirts and ripped 501s. Like most of my compatriots, my certainty that I "belonged" gave me the freedom to be slovenly. It wasn’t "affected working-class chic"; it was laziness, and a laziness reinforced by the certainty that such sloppiness would not be an obstacle to acceptance in a milieu that was, after all, mine by birthright.
In thirteen years of community college teaching, I’ve learned to be a hell of a lot less judgmental of my students. I’m not offended, aroused, angered, or distracted by anything my students do or don’t wear — though from time to time, I’ll confess I’m still amused (a reaction I keep to myself as much as possible). Glendenb’s point is well-taken: what students wear tends to reflect not only their personal style, but also their perception of what college is, and their own ease with being here. I do well — we all do well — to remember that as we comment on the remarkable diversity of choices our students make each morning as they dress themselves.
Happy news. Entirely unsolicited by moi, Gale/Greenhaven Press have asked to reprint my August 2005 post A Long Reflection on the "Good Divorce". It will be in an upcoming edition of their Contemporary Issues Companion Series; the volume in which my little piece will appear will be on "Divorce and the Marriage Contract." And they’re payin’ 10 cents a word, which just might pay for a celebratory dinner. It’s the first explicit offer of money, however small, to reprint something I’ve blogged. Yay.
Here’s an excerpt from that piece I wrote nearly a year ago:
We (my third ex-wife and I) began the therapy process with Dr. K hoping the marriage could be saved. But we continued to see him for weeks AFTER we had both agreed to divorce. Our goal in those remaining sessions was not to find a way to stay together; rather, it was to make the separation experience as vital, as cleansing, and as cathartic as possible. It was a great gift that my ex-wife and I gave each other. On the final night of therapy, I walked my ex to her car after we were finished. "I feel elated", she said, "giddy." "I know", I replied, "me too." We hugged tightly for what would be the last time, and just before saying goodbye, we thanked each other once again. The thank you was for all the effort each had put into the marriage, but also all the honesty and forgiveness and grace we had each brought to the divorce experience. I wept as I drove away that night, but I was not in agony; the tears were tears of incredible gratitude for the amazing experience that I had just completed.
As I prepare to get married again, I am filled with genuine confidence that my beloved and I will be able to challenge each other and help each other transform — all while making the marriage grow and survive…
I am confident of this not only because of the tremendous depth of love I have for my fiancee, but because I feel that we each have a formidable "skill set" of spiritual and psychological tools that we can bring to the table. In my case, I acquired those tools from many sources: from various spiritual communities, wise mentors and pastors, dear friends, and the grace of a loving God. But I also acquired those tools through the immensely painful — and yet also immensely transformative – experience of my three divorces. When I stand with my bride-to-be not long from now, I will have thoughts of no one but her in my head. She is my "now", and she is my "tomorrow", and Lord willing, will be my tomorrow for all the tomorrows to come. But I am only truly ready to be hers because of all of my yesterdays, and all that they taught me.
This summer, at least on the PCC campus, I’m seeing a tremendous revival of the vulgar t-shirt. Many of my students have the most extraordinarily hostile –and occasionally funny — messages across their chests.
What bothers me most, however, are the ones that play on traditional female rivalries and anxieties. "Tell Your Boyfriend I Said Thanks" read one I saw in the hall yesterday; "Tell Your Boyfriend to Stop Calling Me" read one from last week (on a different young woman, mind.) T-shirts like these — and there are others — trouble me more than the ones that read "All American Bitch" or "So Many Men, So Little Time". Displays of sexual bravado like these may be somewhat embarrassing and juvenile, but they aren’t designed to do damage to other women.
If there is one consistent lament I hear from the women in my feminist studies classes, it’s about the presence of intense competition in their lives. Not academic competition, but sexualized competition. As has often been noted here on this blog and elsewhere, this competitiveness on an "attractiveness market" is more intense in a community college with primarily lower middle class and working class students. To generalize enormously, the less privileged the background, the more intense the sense of competition among young women. Far too many young ones grow up with a sense that their sexual desirability is a more marketable commodity than their intellectual accomplishments; this is all the more likely to be true in families where there isn’t a history of women going to college. (If you don’t believe me, visit any American community college on a hot day — and then visit an elite university in the same weather. You’ll see more mini-skirts and heels in five minutes at Pasadena City College than you will in five hours at Berkeley or Stanford. That’s anecdotal, sure, but don’t take my word for it — try it yourself.) The bottom line: class and sexual competitiveness among women are, to say the least, not unrelated!
I realize it’s problematic for a fortyish man from a relatively privileged background to "tut-tut" with annoyance at the realities of the "attractiveness market" on which so many (but by no means all) of my young female students compete. But as I’ve said over and over again, at least part of living a feminist life is learning not to see other women as rivals. You can’t be committed to women’s liberation and see other attractive women as one’s enemies. One of the sad fruits of a sexist culture is the sense of isolation that many women have from one another. Internalized misogyny and competitiveness do not rest easy with a belief that women ought to be seen as complete human beings.
It’s unlikely, of course, that any young woman is going to be directly threatened by the "Tell Your Boyfriend I Said Thanks" shirt. But it’s also equally unlikely that the shirt is intended to be interpreted ironically, as a wry commentary on the state of women’s competitiveness and anxiety. The shirt makes a claim about the wearer and her desirability — and it suggests that attractiveness is a zero-sum game for women. The sexier girl gets attention from other girls’ boyfriends. Fear about playing that game — and losing at it — is a major factor in the lives of many of the young women with whom I work.
I’ve had four entries up in recent weeks on modesty, women’s dress, and male self-control. Having insisted six ways to Sunday that lust is always the problem of the luster, I stopped short of saying that we ought not ever consider others when we dress ourselves. And yes, if what another woman wears makes you feel jealous and insecure, that’s as much your problem as it is for a man who is aroused by the same display. But I draw a distinction between the accidental and the intentional. A woman who is perceived as beautiful will be envied — and perhaps even disliked — by a few of her female peers regardless of what she wears. That’s not her fault. But if she wears a "Tell Your Boyfriend I Said Thanks" shirt , she’s being quite deliberate about her desire to elevate her own status in a mildly shocking but deeply competitive manner. For that she is responsible, as in a small but significant way, she’s choosing to be actively hostile towards other women.
My hits have skyrocketed today after "reddit.com" and the Tour de France blog linked to my post this morning about Floyd Landis and the national anthem. A reader sent me a link to this photo of Landis riding on the Champs Elysees carrying the American flag, asking if this action doesn’t contradict my point this morning about Floyd’s Mennonite principles.
Actually, carrying the flag on a bicycle and refusing to place the hand over the heart during the national anthem are both quite consistent with Mennonite principles. To be a Mennonite, classically, is to believe that citizenship in the Kingdom trumps national allegiances. In practice, that means refusing to swear oaths of obedience to any temporal authority; it means refusing to salute flags or to genuflect before earthly kings. But there’s an important difference between saluting or pledging allegiance to the flag on the one hand, and waving it on the other!
One can be a radical Christian (a phrase many Mennonites apply to themselves) and love America! It is one thing to love America, another to pledge solemn allegiance to it. To wave the flag can be an expression of affection for one’s native land, akin to waving the banner of one’s university or favorite football team. (I once had a very large Cal banner that I waved with great enthusiasm.) Floyd Landis may be a Mennonite, but America is the nation of his birth — there is nothing in Anabaptist theology that suggests he can’t be fond of, even proud of, his country.
When Italian football fans the world over waved the red, white, and green after their World Cup triumph, they did so to celebrate a sports victory that made them proud. They did not do so to express any particular loyalty to the modern nation-state known as Italy. (Many Italian-Americans who madly waved that flag — and there were lots of ‘em in Los Angeles two weeks ago — probably have never heard of Romano Prodi, the current prime minister. They had no intention of promising loyalty to his government.) Theirs was a celebration of cultural pride, not a promise of fealty or patriotic commitment. Without knowing his mind, but knowing his upbringing, I am fairly sure that Landis carried the Stars and Stripes around Paris in that spirit.
Though I have left the Mennonite Church, I retain the Anabaptist commitment to refuse to swear loyalty to nation-states. (I am a dual national with a UK passport, but with all respect to Elizabeth Regina, I am not her majesty’s subject. "No king but Jesus"…) When the national anthem is played at sporting events (and I go to lots of sporting events) I stand respectfully. I don’t draw attention to myself by remaining sitting — that would be ostentatious. I don’t put my hand over my heart, however, and I don’t sing. When they say the pledge of allegiance at faculty senate meetings, I stand with my hands clasped; my head lowered, my lips closed. I try to be as inconspicuous as possible, not wishing to give offense, but unwilling to pledge allegiance to anything other than Christ my king. Only once have I been quietly asked by a colleague about my stance, and I gave her a simple and respectful answer which she accepted.
I have a sincere affection for this, the land of my birth, and I honor the lawful authorities who wield temporal power within it. This is a country of great physical beauty, filled with people for whom I have an easy and genuine affection. I will give my taxes to Caesar, obey his traffic laws, even vote in his elections. It is possible to be a Christian and an American, but it is not possible to swear fealty to both Christ and Caesar unless one believes that the demands of each are always congruent. Knowing that they aren’t always compatible, I choose to pledge loyalty only to the one I intend not to betray should conflict arise.
It is very hot, and the heat seems to have melted my brain’s ability to remember anything blogworthy at the moment. More soon.
In the meantime, off for coffee. I’m a great believer in the old theory (no doubt utterly specious) that drinking hot drinks on hot days makes the body feel cooler. Mind you, I don’t do this when I’m working out. It’s lunchtime, it’s in the mid-90s, and I’m off to Starbucks for a Venti Drip of whatever they’ve got. It will power me through my afternoon class, where we’ll be on 1920s feminism and the role of the automobile in transforming American sexual experience.
Internet access on campus has been spotty this morning, so the first post of the day will be very brief indeed.
I’m a life-long Californian and a seventeen-year resident of Los Angeles County, and I’ve never before experienced heat and humidity like we had this weekend. Yesterday, I went for my "long run" of the week at 6:00AM; at what is perhaps the coolest moment of the day, it was 79 degrees as I stepped out of my car to begin a jog up Brown Mountain. Truly, deeply, profoundly unpleasant. I note that my home town, Carmel, is one of the few spots in the nation that hasn’t hit 80 degrees once this summer. I was very lucky as a child…
I made it home from my run in time to see the awards presentations following the Tour de France. I am very pleased to see Floyd Landis win, not least because of his Mennonite background. As I turned on the TV yesterday morning, I predicted that what Floyd Landis did during the national anthem (always played for the country of the Tour winner) would indicate the degree to which he still embraces his Mennonite heritage.
Mennonites, particularly traditional ones, don’t salute the flag or sing the national anthem. Though much of the press coverage of Landis’ traditional upbringing has been interesting and accurate, I’m sorry that no one seems to mention that the Mennonites aren’t just conservative Christians. In their commitment to voluntary simplicity, an abhorrence of all forms of violence (even in self-defense), and a disdain for displays of patriotism, Mennonites — like all Anabaptists — are radically different from what we tend to regard as the stereotypical American conservative Christian! Many Mennonite schools don’t fly the US flag anywhere on campus — something that could hardly be said of most Reformed or Baptist private schools!
I was pleased to see that Floyd Landis stood respectfully, hands clasped in front of him during the American national anthem. His posture was identical to that of the 2nd and 3rd place finishers, a Spaniard and a German. 
Click to enlarge. Note that the American ambassador has his hand over his heart.
Lance Armstrong always put his hand over his heart during the national anthem (you can find such images easily on the web) after winning the Tour.
I may no longer worship in the Mennonite church (neither does Floyd), but I was pleased by what I was able to interpret from his stance yesterday. Whatever he retains of his Anabaptist roots, he seems to remain committed to the principle that to be a Mennonite is to be a citizen of God’s Kingdom, not of an individual country. His simple, respectful, humble refusal to engage in a patriotic ritual of pledging allegiance to but one corner of that Kingdom is admirable, and a sign perhaps that Landis is still, in some real sense, a true Mennonite.
Good on you, Floyd.
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