Humanæ
Humanæ
Humanæ is a work in progress by the Brazilian artist, Angélica Dass.
Based in Madrid, Dass is documenting the range of human skin tones through her portraits. To create her human mosaic, she paired each of nearly 4,000 portraits with specific PANTONE® ‘guides’—reference cards used by the world’s designers since the 1960s.
Dass follows a system that intentionally strips away many of the decisions an artist might make. All participants are volunteers who hear about the project and agree to be photographed. There is no formal selection process. The background for each portrait is a PANTONE® color identical to a sample of 11 x 11 pixels taken from each face. Subjects are photographed without the cultural ‘markers’ of makeup, wardrobe, or jewelry and hair is worn naturally. All are framed the same relative distance from the camera, using the same lensing.
Using the iconic aspect-ratio of the PANTONE® cards makes each photo a mirror of all the others in size and shape.
Thus, without fuss, with the extraordinary simplicity of this semantic metaphor, the artist makes an “innocent” displacement of the socio-political context of the racial problem to a safe medium—the (PANTONE®) guides—where the primary colors have exactly the same importance as the mixed ones. It even dilutes the figure of power usually held by the photographer. — Alejandro Castellote
At present, more than 3700 images exist in the project. They have been taken in 28 cities, in 18 different countries: Madrid, Barcelona, Getxo, Bilbao and Valencia (Spain); Paris (France); Bergen (Norway); Chiasso (Switzerland); Groningen, The Hague (Netherlands); Dublin (Ireland); London (UK); Tyumen (Russia); Gibellina and Vita (Italy); Vancouver (Canada); Gambier, Pittsburgh and Chicago (USA); Quito (Ecuador); Valparaíso (Chile); Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil); Córdoba (Argentina); New Delhi (India); Daegu (South Korea); and Addis Abeba (Ethiopia).
PANTONE® and other Pantone trademarks are the property of, and are used with the written permission of, Pantone LLC. PANTONE Color identification is solely for artistic purposes and not intended to be used for specification. All rights reserved.
absence presence
absence presence
In December 2007, I was asked to participate in, Pulling Down, an exhibition and performances about the Holocaust, honoring the Day of Memory, held at the auditorium in Rome, Italy in January 2008.
I was staying in the neighborhood of the Jewish Ghetto and spent many hours walking the streets both day and at night in preparation for the exhibition. I sensed that the streets themselves would let me know what they wanted me to express- that I would find my inspiration there- since it was there the Jews were forced to evacuate their homes.
Coming from a Jewish family, I was interested in exploring my origins and the historical events that took place in those streets during the Holocaust from an artist perspective. From there, the exploration of absence presence was born.
In absence, there is presence. Without presence, there is absence. Empty streets and houses hold a haunting feeling as though the streets themselves know that something is missing. It has been said that the spirit often returns to the places it has known, trying to make sense of its experiences and to find its body.
As more an intuitive rather than rational artist, I’m interested in the invisible manifestation of movement that resides below the surface of knowing. In the process of creation, that invisible world shows me what is there, and its gentle but guiding hand always comes up with more interesting and surprising results than I could have imagined.
I’ve discovered that there is an invisible veil between worlds that creates the illusion of separateness in our lives; however, when people and things begin to materialize from the fiction of one’s art, the question arises not only about how everything is connected, but what is actually real, and which comes first, fact or fiction?
In terms of space, where does the hidden world lie: below, above, next to, or, as in dreams, inward? Does it matter, or is it necessary to place it? Whatever the case, there is still a vanishing quality even in the materialization of this invisible world. And the meaning that comes has a multiplicity effect within the ephemeral world implicit in the invisible.
Presence requires inhabiting the body.
Presence is essential to all spiritual practices and to life. If we are not present we are missing our experience and the opportunity at hand. With this in mind an exploration of absence and presence evolved. Although I establish my parameters—my frame—what takes place within that context is unknown, subject to movement and presence. Shooting only at night, there is absence of light.
In terms of movement and what I know about the fluid system—thanks to my practice of Continuum Movement which recognizes the body’s fluid intelligence and capacity to orchestrate—when there are any isolating phenomena, as there was during the Holocaust—the fluids will compress, forming a barrier to the world. This results in a kind of hologram of survival which can be read like a diary. The social consequences of these behavior barriers give rise to a loss of fundamental resonance, resulting in an inability to feel. The Holocaust was an example of this condition. Unfortunately, aspects of this malady are being acted out now with alarming intensity, both nationally and worldwide.
After shooting in the Jewish Ghetto in Rome, my exploration of absence presence continued in my studio in Brooklyn. Walking into the frame or parameter of the camera and the passage of light, I am able to learn something new about myself, others, and my environment.
Having painted for many years, this process of painting with light is a natural progression. My work is not constructed but emerges as life presents itself moment to moment. The photos are one-shot and not constructed in Photoshop, though I have begun compositing as well. Having worked in various art forms for many years, I have learned to welcome whatever form seems to beckon, rather than reject its entrance into my work.
My intention with these photos is to capture what is hidden, invisible, or that which is not normally seen. And to enter into a non-linear, unpredictable dream state, like a conversation where what is not said has just as much or sometimes even more relevance than what is.
In looking back at my work with absence presence over the last years, I only now fully understand the alchemy of it. That’s the beauty of an art practice. It’s as though an invisible force drives you to create, and in the creating, you are able to work through exactly what’s needed. Like homeopathy, the medicine takes its miniscule root from the ailment—”let like be cured by like”—and in doing so heals you. Not to say that all art is a healing process, but in the relatedness of all things, art itself takes you to the next step of your evolution. It’s only in the reflection, however, that you realize where you have been and how you’ve gotten there.
The Night I Didn't Stand Up
The Night I Didn’t Stand Up
The Night I Didn’t Stand Up
That rock concert in New Haven took me by surprise
and why – the national anthem and the crowd was ready.
As one, the many stood and hooted for the band.
I didn’t, a white girl whose knees knocked.
Angry under the videos of carpet bombing
of Cambodia, over-the-top, over-the edge saturation
killing in Cambodia. This was my country tis of thee.
I sat in protest. Forty years later a quarterback kneeled
with more courage than I had in that pot-smoke crowd.
I ducked when some guy yelled I should stand.
There are times when you can’t, when the wrong
is too great, and the great isn’t great enough. So when
Judge Ruth says it’s wrong not to stand but not illegal,
I know it can be right and the only thing you can do.
Better to let wrong drive you to your knees
than sit like a numb ass.
(from the recently published How I Learned to Be White now available from Antrim House )
Three Poems
Three Poems
Should you ever start to pray –
and you know who you are –
avoid bedsides, pews, steepled
fingertips, and words mumbled
through a billion mouths.
Forget pleading with angels, saints,
gods, or the aunt who died last year.
They don’t want bothering
about lost jobs or driving grief
when they’re tending broken wings
and holding tides in place.
Rather, from your yard – front or back –
launch crucial questions
toward the random Universe:
Where was Light before Chaos arrived?
What’s the space between despair and hope?
How many lies can one mind tolerate?
The truth? – if you care to know:
curiosity is blessing in disguise.
Questions are enough.
Of course, answers may slip
through a wobbly black hole
like mists of poetry rising
from fallow fields, like hums
of rogue planets soothing
failing stars.
Listen to the poem, read by Carolyn Martin.
You do not have to be good.
– Mary Oliver, “Wild Geese”
Ain’t that a kick in the head!
After all the bunk about straights and narrows,
wrongs and rights, confessionals
where venial sins are laughable,
it’s come down to this: we’ve been duped.
Friday fish, forty fasting days, crownings
in the Mary month of May; rosaries,
callused knees, indulgences that smudge
our sins: they don’t add up to good.
Neither do tidy rooms, top grades in school,
nor mandatory modesty.
So let’s delete the snake behind the apple tree
and every bite of stale theology.
Let’s resurrect original wildness
and ramble through valleys scratched and scarred,
down unquiet streams, across raging fields
of blooms disguised as weeds.
Let’s celebrate every fleshy flaw,
each mistaken thought that turns out true.
Let’s race wild geese to the nearest star,
cheering on imperfect
nakedness with disheveled glee.
(Previously published in the Gyroscope Review)
Listen to the poem, read by Carolyn Martin.
In Praise of Retiring in Pacific Standard Time
The country’s at it again: the Dow’s dipped two dozen points,
O’Hare digs out of snow, Vegas hoses off another night.
All that industry before my coffee’s ground and dripped,
before joggers pound the Waterfront and bikers shift their gears.
I’ve grown keen on laziness and lie awake to dream
about Chicago’s Mile and McCarren’s slot machines;
about conferencing with bankers, engineers,
and high tech CEOs from New York to Los Alamos.
I’m through with hotel rooms and nights alone; with minds
that wouldn’t heed, mistakes I had no answers for.
In eight zones west of Zero Longitude – where the sun
tints Mt. Hood and east winds wind through Douglas firs –
forty years of work whittle down to soothing words:
It is beautiful to do nothing and rest afterwards.
Let the doorman on Park West brush off his uniform
and Minneapolis scrape its iced windshields.
Let Denver planes re-calibrate their flights through
nagging thunderstorms. Let vendors unpack snapper
at Pike Place and freeways start their stalls.
Let today attempt to guilt me into work. I’ll answer
with a stroll around my yard, delete a weed or two.
Beautiful, the firs will say, admiring my industry.
(Previously published on WritersDigest.com)
Listen to the poem, read by Carolyn Martin.
Falling
Falling
In these awe-filled days of fire and flood
We watch and wait and wonder
When that fierce hand
Might reach at last for us.
Those of us not yet touched by calamity
Quake, knowing in our bones
That though we may be spared
This time, time will level us all.
No magic amulets, no prayers,
Good deeds or good looks
Can promise protection
From our terminal condition.
And those who have watched a child
Swept forever from our arms
Or fled the flames that swallowed
Our hopes and our memories
Or hid from the bombs
Or the predator’s gaze
Know that nothing now will ever be the same –
As if anything ever were.
For all of us are falling
Like ashes, like rain,
Like petals or leaves;
But we all are falling together.
And if we knew, in truth,
There was nowhere to land,
Tell me: could we know the difference
Between falling and flying?
Glide
Glide
Glide
In the checkout line at the supermarket
I spot a man I recognize from years ago
when I was in my twenties. Back then
he was the boyfriend of a girl I knew.
They used to skate together at the local mall,
she in one of those red velvet dresses
you’d see in the Ice Capades, her leggings
white and studded with sequins, a tiara
in her tied-back black hair. He wore
ordinary street clothes: bluejeans
and some unremarkable sweater,
which let her stand out even more,
as though she were a woman
a man like him could only
dream into being.
Today he’s stooped and gray.
His raincoat so large, it drapes
over his shoulders making him look
like an afterthought beneath it.
In his shopping cart only milk, eggs.
On the ice he was the one I’d watch,
so unlike other boys, other men.
How unobtrusively he’d glide,
maneuver his partner as though his job
was to appear to disappear beside her.
I wish I could remember his name.
Purposeful Memoir as a Path to Alignment
Purposeful Memoir as a Path to Alignment
by Jennifer Browdy
Most people think of memoir as a recounting of what we already know about our lives. But, in fact, what we already know is only the beginning of the journey of what I call purposeful memoir, particularly when we’re looking to align the personal, political, and planetary in our life experience—meaning, to understand how our personal choices are shaped by, and affect, both the social and environmental landscapes in which we live.
This profound interconnection is expressed by the Buddhist concept of interbeing. We inter-are with everything else on the planet. The Western attitude of individualism, separatism, and exceptionalism is an illusion bred by the arrogant thinkers of the so-called Enlightenment, which was in fact the beginning of a 500-year period of gathering darkness, leading us to the crisis moment we face today.
We have all, inescapably, been part of the political and planetary patterns of our lifetimes. To take my own life as an example, I was born in New York City in 1962, the year Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was published, just after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and just before the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Bobby Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. I was too young to understand the tumult around me in my early years, and, yet, these political and planetary happenings shaped who I would become.
On the personal level, I knew that as a child, in what I call ‘Earth’ years up to age 12, I loved spending time out in the woods and fields around my family’s country home. What I had forgotten- and remembered in the course of writing my memoir- was how that dreamy love of communion with nature had been socialized out of me by my teenaged desire to fit in with my peers, and by my formal education.
Once I wrote my way back to that understanding, I found the purpose of my memoir: describing how my own lack of alignment with the natural world I adored was mirrored exponentially, like a creepy funhouse, by the alienation from nature of the dominant society around me.
Writing my memoir was a process of unlearning what I’d been taught in what I call the ‘Water’ years of life: the teenage and young adult years when we humans tend to want to go with the flow of the society around us, seeking approval in conformity. I was catapulted into this exploration by the challenges I met in the ‘Fire’ years of my adulthood: on the personal level, divorce and career troubles; on the political level, frustration with a relentless politics of domination and destruction; and on the planetary level, waking up- horrified- to the unfolding crises of climate and ecological devastation.
Purposeful memoir that aligns the personal, political, and planetary is a tool for deeper understanding of how we got where we are today, as individuals, as a society, and as an interconnected global system.
It is also visionary: we explore the past and present in order to be able to more clearly and boldly imagine the future into which we want to live.
We look backward over our lives in order to see clearly the values and dominant narratives that have structured our relationships and guided our assumptions about what was possible. We soberly assess how we contributed to a present moment that is undeniably in crisis on the political and planetary levels. And then—in a glorious leap—we envision how we can make our own lives a strong link in the chain between past and future generations.
In purposefully following the trail of our own life experience, we follow a kind of Ariadne’s thread back out of the dark labyrinth of the present moment. It helps to have company on the journey, which is why I ended my memoir with a vision of “doing hope with others”—working together in circles of other people who have awakened to the necessity of aligning the personal, political, and planetary in the quest for a thriving future.
Writing this kind of memoir is a slow, grounded form of activism, and I believe it’s just as important as marching and shouting and signing petitions. The more of us who take the time to do the deep work of understanding our own life histories and how our individual lives have intertwined with the larger human and non-human communities on the planet, the stronger we will stand, together, as Gaian warriors who fight for Life.
Two Poems
Two Poems
A Thin Line
Once, I saw a river of bats
stream like black confetti over my head,
fan out across the valley,
wing and swerve to swallow mosquitos
in their thin throats. Imagine:
their winged hands in the dark air,
their nipples and warm bellies and tiny shouts
bouncing back the geometry
of moth wings in an ocean of night.
I have a friend who placed them side by side–
two skulls meticulously cleaned: wolf and bat–
the same slide down the nose, hollowed caves
for eyes, even those curved canine teeth.
Almost identical except one was tiny,
one could be crushed to crumbs
between two fingers. He set them on his table
made of black stone with fossils
spiraled like shooting stars. We crouched
on the floor, eye to eye, to see.
There’s not much between us
on the sinewy earth. The sky
is an eggshell that keeps us warm.
Things repeat themselves– and then startle
in their newness, the way bones are
rivers for awhile, and then become river
beds with curves and sockets
where life pooled and chewed.
Memory, too, circles back, the thick
resting weight of your hands on me
like a bat wraps her shawl of wings
around the warm planet of her pulsing heart,
the ice-light of stars a breath away.
Listen to a reading of the poem “A Thin Line”.
curse
maybe there is always a moment
of knowing loss before it arrives
feeling the space we will leave already
filling and welling up as a wave doubles
back rushing into itself even as it pulls
out to sea easy to say from here perched
as I am in this wide field of far where
I study that fire making marks
like wing prints in snow where
the rabbit tracks vanish into glittering
blank we lived a year on the heat
between us falling into tongues skin
I never knew hunger like that on the streets
with no queers we walked side by side
not touching the simmering between us
polishing linden trees and jugglers at traffic lights
the snowy cordillera behind the city rising
clear in a rain-rinsed sky and towards
the end I felt us crest felt that wave
thickening into us even in the dissolve
we sat in the crowded café not talking
our tongues fat and quiet and still
dumb as time in honey mute as spoons
I think we barely touched fingertips
under the table half-filled coffee cooling
in cups din of talk around us and under
the steady hum of cars on the avenue
trees in their muscled slow language and worms
twisting under the grass and under
your tongue your mother’s curse sat
like a stone worse than death she said
and we were quiet and helpless as we filled
into our bodies our breath blood yes our love breaking
over us more than we could bear
but what choice did we have
some hollowing between us inside
us some hiss of air leaving even
as it was rushing back in
A Thin Line was previously published in Terrain.org
curse was previously published in Nimrod International Journal for Prose and Poetry.
Listen to a reading of the poem “Curse”.
An Uncommon Song
An Uncommon Song
One week in early February, a local artist visited our class and led us in the painting of a mural. Using thick creamy paints, the kids took turns filling a piece of craft paper the size of a kitchen table with whimsical plants, sunbursts, and big, fat raindrops. There was a red heart in the center. It was winter, but we painted outside in shirtsleeves. It had been warm and dry for months, and we needed those raindrops desperately.
Throughout painting, we sang. The children followed along at first, then carried the melodies into their brushstrokes. Our visiting artist hummed. Birds whistled. Moving my hand back and forth in the water bucket, we soon had a sloshy rhythm section. I am not a musician, but I have come to love the sound of living things—tree branches that sound like marimbas, pinecones like tiny thumb pianos, the blip, bloop, blop of stones as they fall into the river.
The relationship between song and education is well-known. Many have written on the subject, perhaps most famously Plato in The Republic. In the story, Socrates warns about the dangers of teaching certain ungodly songs. If the gods are portrayed as vengeful and cruel, he says, what will prevent our children from emulating them?
My daughter grew up in an intentional community. Song permeated our days. It filled our meetings, our meal blessings, and even our work parties. For most of my life, I recoiled at such sentiment. Too cheesy. Or worse, evidence of cultism. And that is precisely the message Plato intended—song invades the mind and heart, and whatever message rides that melody buries itself deep in a person’s bearing. So, do not think this an idle subject. It is one of the most potent forces known to humankind—song.
Song can hold us as individuals, but it can also carry a whole group, a movement, a nation. As the children dabbed bright colors in their little aprons, the mural slowly expanded above their heads. A massive blue sky—the real one—towered over us, and each brushstroke was lifted with song. The kids beamed with the task. The task of painting. The task of singing. The task of being alive. Birds flew by. Trees danced in the wind. There were only nine of us there, just a handful of humans on this planet, but we squeezed every last ounce out of that moment, achieving something all too rare and precious today—unadulterated life.
This was how we prepared for Valentine’s Day.
School for the Earth Children, our small outdoor kindergarten, usually begins with Silke leading the kids on a walk into the woods or a nearby canyon, me sweeping stragglers in the back. The mountains and canyons of New Mexico offer a rarefied classroom and we take every advantage. There is no school building. But on this particular day, we braved the morning traffic and met in the center of town. We put on heart bands and necklaces and began walking toward the bank. Along the way, we sang.
The first folks we met stood with hardened expressions outside the Presbyterian Church. It appeared to be an early AA meeting. Silke led us directly through them, singing The Heartbeat of the Universe. One of them, a young man smoking a cigarette, smiled uncomfortably. Another ducked inside. But several men and women caught our eyes and smiled back. The kids handed out felt hearts.
Then we hit the bank. The tellers, all women, nearly swooned. My old boss was inside. We hugged, then sang together, and shared valentines all around. Stepping outside, we crossed the street to the bakery. It was closed. But the owner was in the back and he came out with a tray of snacks for the kids. The children gave him a felt heart and a cookie, then drew chalk hearts all over the sidewalk.
We went to the copy store, the fiber arts store, and a construction site—all impromptu. Silke led our merry train. We waved at cars and attracted the eyes of pedestrians all over Taos. We had done much the same at Christmas, caroling the holiday hit list. This time, the children smiled and sang love songs. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” I said from the caboose with a smile.
Just before noon, we arrived at World Cup, the coffee shop at the center of Taos. The kids got hot cocoa and sang with the patrons inside, then we scurried out the door and headed toward the plaza. We only had a moment to get there to meet the rest of our group, but along the way we ran into a young man, a street musician dressed all in black. He had downcast eyes and a severe expression. I assumed we’d smile politely and pass by—Taos is full of drifters like this—but Silke stopped us front and center and asked him for a song.
The young man looked up uncertainly. One of our kids complimented him on his guitar. Another asked if he was a real musician. We all laughed. One child noticed a pen near his foot, picked it up and placed it in his shirt pocket. Finally, the young man sang. He called it a lullaby, but I think it was a love song. Every young man yearns to be noticed. Every human being craves to be touched. When he finished, he looked up with a soft expression, then recalled himself. Silke placed a few dollars in his hat, and the kids waved goodbye.
We crossed the street to Taos plaza. Four other teachers met us there, along with their students and several other men and women. There were two-year-olds and kindergartners; first-, second-, third-, sixth-, and seventh-graders; mothers, fathers, babies, uncles, grandmas. All told, about 50 big-hearted folks.
We held hands and sang songs. We jumped rope and laughed. We smiled shyly, then brashly, at passersby. Silke wove us through the plaza, hand in hand, like a train. As we sang, I recalled the painting of the mural, the AA meeting, and the bankers; the coffee shop and the bakery; the street musician. A police truck rolled by. Life is imbalanced sometimes. Songs come and go. Sometimes we aren’t beautiful. Winters can be dry.
That evening, I learned that a young man in Florida had walked into school and opened fire on his classmates, robbing us of the lives of 17 young men and women who no longer have a voice to sing.
Valentine’s Day.
That night, it rained all over Taos.
The Habits of Schooling
The Habits of Schooling
I remember sitting in the library one night early in my graduate school career. I was writing my first 20-page seminar paper on a subject with which I was wholly unfamiliar (Hellenistic painting). I had questions: about the topic, about the assignment itself, about the source material. But I was afraid. One part of me was urging the other part of me to get up, go to the professor, and seek clarity. The more fearful side of myself was anxious about being judged a fraud for being accepted to grad school at all; apprehensive of being yelled at or belittled; afraid to appear anything less than being in complete control.
My inner cheerleader was scathing. “What’s the worst that can happen? What has made you so afraid? Her job is to help you in situations just like this. You are in graduate school to seek the mentorship of these professors. What is wrong with you?!!”
I had to agree; what was wrong with me?
This internal questioning was new to me. Through all my previous years of schooling, a more timid voice controlled my inner landscape. That voice kept me on the straight-and-narrow path of good grades, high test scores, raising my hand, answering when called upon, and trying to remain unseen while getting by with minimal effort. Learning, if it happened at all, was merely a by-product. Even in my undergraduate years, I avoided any interaction with professors, took classes that I felt I could easily pass, did the bare minimum, and graduated with a degree in Ancient Greek at the expected pace of four years with precisely the number of credits I needed to emancipate myself. I did not travel or take advantage of any extras that required undue “adult” attention. I was expert at avoiding that. I listened to my timid voice.
“Stay invisible,” it said, “just do what is necessary to get a good grade. Then you can move on to the next phase of life. Real life.”
Flash forward eight years: I was 30 years old and in a prestigious graduate program for archaeology. I began seeing myself as a competent adult with worthwhile thoughts and interests. During these years, the more sensible voice started to make itself heard. At first a whisper, then a shout: “What is wrong with you? Why are you so afraid to be seen and heard?”
Eventually, I was able to answer that question for myself. There are many reasons we remain small and invisible, but my fears and self-defeating habits were rooted firmly in schooling. Since kindergarten, I was anxious about my teachers. They were judge, jury, and sometimes “executioner”—I witnessed corporal punishment—and I noticed that this fear of authority and many other ‘habits’ prevented me from thriving as an adult and were so self-defeating that I missed out on opportunities. When doors would open for me, personally and professionally, I was often too scared to even recognize them, much less walk through them.
Here are some Habits of Schooling, as I see them:
- Learning happens as a rhetorical conversation between the “one who knows the answer” and “those who don’t know the answer.” Passive learning is the norm.
- Learning comes in different subjects—like math, literature, biology, music, social studies—and those subjects are autonomous silos.
- People should only learn with same-age groups, and any learning environment with mixed ages is unnatural and weird.
- The younger a person is, the less they have to offer.
- Learning takes place indoors, in spaces with lots of books or test-tubes. Outside time is extraneous to education and only useful for “play” (not-learning) or “sport” (not-learning). Nature is a pastime.
- Grades are a competition. It is a dog-eat-dog world, and I lose if my peers win.
- Western-style education is a healthy way to learn and should be universal across cultures. Anyone not educated precisely like I have been educated is underprivileged, regardless of their culture.
- The educated elites (like me!) are at the pinnacle of human evolutionary development. We are doing vital work, bringing humanity to an intellectual utopia. It is only a matter of time.
Once I realized these axioms were profoundly flawed, I became free. I saw my schooling clearly for what it was. I also was able to set it aside and leave academia when it no longer suited me.
Charles Eisenstein speaks and writes about our cultural story and the “new story” that he and others see emerging today. He has an interest in how schooling and modern education inculcates our collective mythology and speaks about the “habits of schooling” like the ones that I identified, above. Charles takes each habit one step further, however. He notices that each habit we learn in school is a coping mechanism and comes with a mirror image of rebellion. The rebellious act— when done automatically and unthinkingly—is as much a habit of schooling as the unconscious ones.
Here are some examples:
For every habit outlined, there is a reactive habit, and um, gulp, guilty as charged. Charles calls these “Habits of Submission” or “Habits of Defiance.” One might ask: “But aren’t all these habits just part of our culture at large? Where does it all begin and end?”
Well, yes, of course, that is true. However, school is the primary way that our culture indoctrinates our young into cultural norms. Family is a mitigating influence, but schools are set up to socialize our children in line with broader cultural values. That is the primary role of our educational system. And it is based on an industrial model: training workers and citizens who can read and will accept their superiors without question—making useful citizens. Today, we are ‘manufacturing’ people who will partake fully in neoliberal capitalism and consumerist culture.
The deschooling process for me is never-ending because it requires healing from the deep wounds of our culture. The good news is, there are many people out there doing this work, people who are creating networks for reskilling, mindfulness, and a “commons” to help others do this unlearning work more effectively and more deeply. There also is a growing trend to educate kids outside of the school system so that we minimize the habits of schooling for the next generation.
To unlearn our self-defeating practices, we can begin by acknowledging that working together is not ‘cheating’; that imagination is our birthright; and that thinking for ourselves is the most fundamental skill we possess as humans.