Social Alienation and the School of Fish Theory of Social Change

Did you miss me? You’ve been busy, with world-shaking, front-page social change happenings. In my sleep-deprived fog even I noticed that things were getting exciting, and I missed you. My six-month leave from work to look after my 2 kids, aged 3 and 10 weeks, respectively, poses its own challenges, to be sure. The fulltime parent’s world can get very very small, as it is completely inhabited by basically mundane, essentially mindless tasks and demands, each preceding the other in a steady drumbeat. You live in your very own kidland, with its own unique language and culture, virtually impenetrable to the outside world. Yet within that world, along with all the obvious things, love, warmth, need, etc. is an encompassing sense of connection. I’ve wondered, as my brain has slowly softened with milk, blood, and tears, can I possibly keep thinking and writing about politics? What does it take to maintain commitment to left ideas and actions? Terms such as “patriarchal capitalism,” “corporate globalism” and “supremacist ideologies” seem impossibly alien when your day is spent reading Dr. Seuss stories, pretending to be a monster, and humming the theme song to “Teletubbies” (and actually enjoying it.) Without that personal sense of both engagement with and alienation from adult society, without my yearning for a deeper connection, would it be possible for me to keep a critical edge?

It’s to that sense of connection that a recent Harper’s magazine article on anarchists in Eugene attributes both apolitical consumerism and radical activism. Both, the author writes, arise out of “the feelings of absence and compulsion that overwhelm us all at some point or another in our lives and are not our fault.” That is, people “can’t help wanting Nike sneakers” but “the desire to smash the windows of Niketown makes sense, too.” While this article is a condescending and disdainful one, the siting of connectedness as a motivating force seems correct to me, and I wonder if it is something the left relies on quite crucially.

One can almost hear the plaintive desperation of those leftist wannabes yearning for connectedness. I recently attended a political lecture by the feminist and environmentalist Vandana Shiva. After an impassioned speech, littered with references to upcoming teach-ins, rallies, and political meetings, a woman stood up to pose a question. “But what can we do?” she wanted to know. I laughed inside, because Shiva’s whole talk, and indeed the entire body of her work, is arguably about what we can do. Shiva repeated herself graciously, referring once again to the gatherings and events coming up, replete with details on where, when, and URLs scribbled on the board behind her. The questioner sat down, but I imagined she wasn’t really satisfied. She knew about all that stuff. Her question was about something else. Not what can she do as an anonymous participant, swept up in activities planned in advance and with their own momentum not of her making. I imagine it was about what can she do that only she can do, what can be her unique contribution, one that would be ensconced in a sea of recognition, and resulting in a direct, personal connection to the poverty-stricken, devastated farmers oceans away? I imagine it wasn’t about how she can act in solidarity, but rather how can she actually FEEL solidarity? Some people can get that intense feeling of connectedness in crowds. I imagine that corporate globalization had no direct personal ramification on some significant portion of the people who were protesting it in Seattle and Washington. There must have been folks who hadn’t lost their jobs, or their farms, or their homes, but who were there anyway, guided by some philosophical understanding of what is good and bad in the world. When they were surrounded by seemingly like-minded others, chanting the chants and singing the songs, did they then feel connected to something bigger than themselves? Without that feeling, would they have still been willing to navigate the various life hurdles and complexities—the competing demands of work, family, other life interests--to get themselves there?

Wandering around the aquarium the other day, three-year-old enraptured by starfish, me stumbling about with sore shoulders from the infant in his sling, I paused at a display about school fish. The fish have a special organ on their sides specifically for sensing the whereabouts of the other fish in the school. It gives them the ability to swim together in perfect synchrony, darting en masse this way and that, with nary a collision or a bump. What would that feel like, an emptiness when the others are too far away, a perfect buzzing warmth when they are exactly near? I can almost imagine it.

But the trouble with relying on social connection to motivate one’s social justice activism is it is so easily squelched. A few boring meetings and you ’re outta there. A bigoted comment or two and it’s over. Obviously, committed activists are motivated by more lofty things, moral vision, ideological commitment and the like. But ideally one wouldn’t have to be personally devastated, socially alienated, or unusually virtuous to be part of building a peaceful, just society. Ideally, it would be as easy and necessary and good as nursing a hungry baby, putting a blanket on a sleeping child. It would be your job, your life, your connection, and all the rest of it. Then, it wouldn’t matter so much if you were happy or miserable, alienated or content, morally strong or weak. You could be a jerk, or a laze, or a mooch or a lay-about, even a milk-addled sleep-deprived mom, and still be on the side of equity, democracy, and peace.

In a few months time, I’ll go back to my parttime, nonprofit job of making books about justice. I’m lucky to have it, as they aren’t easy to sustain in our superstore economy. It’s good that I love the work, but even if I didn’ t, I’d go back because I need the job. And since it is constructive work that helps more than it hinders, populated by friendly, warm people, that is just as well, I think.