This has been a strange time in my little world: I’ve been traveling for work while my computer stayed home and lost its mind. I’m glad to say that sanity (i.e., memory, software, and general order) has been restored, and while I still have the sort of compulsive desire to tell the tale that afflicts survivors of accidents, I will spare you most of the saga.
What both journeys—mine and the computer’s—have given me is the opportunity to reflect on the workings of human minds, including my own. In particular, I’ve had a close-up look at the desire to believe, especially to believe the reassuring drone of those in authority.
Earlier this month, I gave a talk at Harvard that focused on some of the key ideas in The Culture of Possibility: Art, Artists & The Future. I focused especially on the way Corporation Nation has consigned artists to a trivial and undernourished social role, instead of understanding artists as an indicator species for social well-being akin to the role oysters play as bio-monitors for marine environments. I pointed out how arts advocacy has steadily failed (e.g., President Obama asked Congress for $146 million for the National Endowment for Arts [NEA] in the next budget, $8 million less than this year, when he should have requested $440 million just to equal the spending power the agency had 35 years ago). Yet advocates keep making the same weak arguments and pretending that losing a little less than anticipated constitutes victory. There’s an Emperor’s New Clothes flavor to the whole enterprise, a tacit agreement to adjust to absurdity and go along with the charade.
After my talk, a student asked me what arguments should be made instead. I pointed out that what we are actually spending our commonwealth on seldom gets engaged in this conversation. What does it mean that we spend more than two annual NEA budgets a day, seven days a week, on war? What does it mean that in many places cultural allocations are less than a hundredth of a percent of prison budgets? I posed the questions that ought to guide this debate:
Who are we as a people?
What do we stand for?
What do we want to be known for: our stupendous ability to punish, or our vast creativity?
The student nodded vigorously as I answered. I could see that she was with me: that the curtains of default reality had parted, affording a glimpse of the truths beneath the charade. And then something happened, something I’d seen before: some students’ excited expressions began to fade, shoulders slumped a little, breathing returned to normal. “Realism” had set in. What I mean by “realism” is the self-ratifying notion broadcast by every power elite: the message that the existing order of things is so firmly entrenched, so well-funded, and so effectively guarded that it is pointless to resist. Be realistic: surrender!
This is the real obstacle we’re up against. The pull of “realism” is felt in nearly every mind, even the minds of those whose lives are devoted to righting injustice and expanding liberty. Paulo Freire called it “internalization of the oppressor,” pointing out that when we hear often and insistently enough that we are weak, that we should cede our power to others who know better, we start to mistake that voice for our own. There is one skill that every power elite possesses, and that is the ability to persuasively assert its own mighty rightness. But there is one power that each of us possesses, and that is to cultivate the ability to recognize and reject this propaganda. It takes awareness, commitment, and choice to hack through false consciousness and begin to see clearly. It takes all those capacities to recognize that the voice of “realism” is generally propaganda for the existing order of power (and powerlessness).
I am struggling in several ways to get this point across. Especially when speaking with young people, I see them glimpse truths that light up their faces, and then too often, I see the light fade as “realism” sets in. Often I am speaking in institutional settings where messages about being “realistic” are pervasive: choose a course of study that seems to promise a good salary, not one that speaks to your passion; don’t ask too many questions, or at least be sure the questions you ask position you as merely curious rather than challenging; consider how your actions today will affect your future social position and income.
I tend to make myself an exception to these pressures. It isn’t a huge stretch for a contrarian: I’ve had a lifetime of asking challenging questions, risking my future on what seems right but not politic, and pursuing passion at the expense of profit. But the desire to lean into the comforting reassurances of the people in charge is just as much a temptation for me as anyone—maybe more. While my computer was out of commission, for instance, I had several almost identical experiences with Geniuses, who must all take the same course in Advanced Cooling Out The Mark. They looked deeply into my eyes, told me they sympathized, assured me that this time they understood the root of my problem, and that it would be fixed that very day. Here’s the thing: each and every time, I believed because I wanted to believe, but none of them told me the whole truth.
On the final go-round—no eyes this time, because the last phase of my misery was conducted via telephone—I was bumped upstairs to an expert who offered lavish sympathy, telling me that he would be my companion at every step, that after performing each step toward healing my computer, I could easily reach his direct number to get the next step, and that he would stick with me all the way. I sighed, leaned back, and felt safe and protected as I followed instructions. I awoke from the trance of “Don’t worry, I’m in charge” when it took him 48 hours to return my call after step one. He had a personal reason. I sympathized until it took him 48 hours to return my next call.
There’s a connection between these two things: my desire to believe when those who have authority (whether through political or economic power or through expertise) tell me they’re in charge, they know what they’re doing, and I can go about my business while they do it; and others’ willingness to believe the voices of “realism” when it comes to changing inequitable or unjust systems, to uprooting entrenched power. Whether we give into it or not, I think we share a longing to hear that authoritative voice lift the burden of responsibility.
My computer turned out to have what medical professionals call an iatrogenic problem, which is to say one caused by treatment. I took it in to have the internal microphone replaced and wound up having to rebuild all my data when backups wouldn’t restore. The expert who kept me waiting for a callback advised me to follow a very time-consuming and tedious procedure that involved restoring apps one at a time until I found the glitch. I counter-proposed restoring from a backup prior to my taking the computer for repair, which would take far less time to update. He advised against it—one of those disclaimer-rich set pieces about the limitations imposed on the advice he can give. Figuring I had nothing to lose but a little time, I went ahead and it worked.
Our social systems and wicked problems are complex, to say the least. But there are simple underlying truths that “realism” evades, because if we comprehend them, the next step is evicting the voice that counsels pliant passivity rather than full, active cultural citizenship. The math is simple: there are zillions more of us than the relatively small group that benefits from the current distribution of power and wealth. When we recognize that, all things are possible.
In the meantime, I have both a political and a personal reason to put myself on the side of awakening from “realism.” The political reason is obvious, I’m certain: the greatest obstacle to a social order of justice tempered by love is in our own minds, the preemptive, self-censoring, self-shrinking beliefs that keep us from acting on the glimpses of possibility we see. The personal reason is that I’m tired of banging my head against “realism” in action. I love to offer talks and workshops, I love working with students especially, but groups of all ages and conditions. Happily, I am invited to do what I love. But as a friend of mine put it, too often my work is seen as a “spice.” I get tired of being called “provocative.” I like to be thought-provoking, of course, but I’m starting to read that as a code-word for “I love what you say but is it ‘realistic?’”
Is it realistic? Is it feasible? Is it promising? Do I by now know enough from experience to say yes to all three? Yes, without a doubt.
So to the next person who finds my proposals “unrealistic,” let me say this: whether or not the self-ratifying propaganda of the powers-that-be remains the default setting for “realism,” well: that’s up to you. See how it stands up to these three questions:
Who are you?
What do you stand for?
How do you want to be remembered?
What I know of the vast possibility, the moral grandeur, the creative freedom of the human subject, I know in my bones. What I know—in real, practical terms—about how to access our best and inscribe it in our hearts, our organizations, our communities, I know from lived experience. This is real, not “realistic.” I doubt I will ever be persuaded to renounce this knowledge. But I’m frustrated, I admit it. I’m searching for whatever will release that feeling, inside my own mind or out in the world. For now, not knowing will have to suffice. Joe Henry, “God Only Knows.”
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Dear Arlene, I am so thrilled that you are spreading your beautiful wings to the Tikkun community. dominique
Thank you, Dominique! It is lovely to connect with you here.
YES, as they said to the borg on Star Trek, “We will not assimilate!” Thanks for a great article. It may be easier and less frustrating for you if you see that you’re planting seeds in people’s hearts that may take years to germinate. But know that many people, especially young people – are having their eyes opened. Keep up the wonderful work you do!
Thanks, Georgie! Much appreciated!
Thank you, I wonder if I could pass your message on to our political parties, we have an election this year.
To this octogenarian every word you say rings true. Thank you again.
Of course, Kath. Please feel free to pass it on. The original post can be found at http://arlenegoldbard.com/2014/03/27/realism-and-its-discontents/.
all good wishes,
Arlene
And don’t let anyone tell you that this is not connected to a uniquely American understanding of the world. Whitehead basically served as a systematizer of the radical pragmatism of a prominent American philosopher named William James. Whitehead left the UK and emigrated to Boston to become a philosophy professor at Harvard where he did all of his work on process philosophy, basically developing a system of philosophy that captured the ideas of James and Bergson and others who were beginning to break from the dominant Newtonian world-view that was about to wreak havoc on the world in the form of two terrible world wars that dominated the history of the 20th century. It is far past time to wake up and smell the coffee. The mechanistic Newtonian world-view is continuing to produce disastrous consequences that we see all around us throughout our delicate natural ecosystem that supports our existence and of which we are an integral part. We are the Earth-bound, and it is far past time that we realize what that really means. And understand what are our responsibilities and obligations as existents within the natural world.
Read the Gifford Lectures that were given by philosopher Gilles Latour:
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/humanities-soc-sci/news-events/lectures/gifford- lectures/archive/series-2012-2013/bruno-latour
There are different philosophies of the real that lead to very different conclusions about existence and what it is about. There is a new emerging philosophy that has been termed “relational realism” that is based on the process thought of Alfred North Whitehead which is a very different approach and understanding of the fundamental nature of reality than is the current materialist understanding. It is linked to a new scientific understanding that is tied to process as primary to experience, where the understanding that substance is illusory. All is in flux. Relational realism is actually a more valid understanding of the universe and its operation and consistent with the new understanding of reality that emerges from the recognition of the principles of physical reality that emerge from quantum mechanics and Bohr’s Principle of Complementarity. This might seem a far cry from the gist of this plea by Ms. Goldbard, but it is not. The issue is not “realism” per se, but the form of “realism” that has been falsely conveyed by the vestiges of the Newtonian world-view that understands existence only from the perspective of the distant and separated observer. Bohr maintained that we cannot be observers only. We are also participants in Nature and that recognition leads to a profound change in our perspective as well a our responsibility, both to Nature and to each other. Link Bohr to Levinas and place it all in the context of a Whiteheadian process-oriented pan-experientialist cosmology and we have a very different experience and consequent undertanding of reality, and a very different understanding of what science is, as well. Science is not exclusively about understanding mechanistic principles. Science can, and must, be extended to the world of meaning and value by recognizing that we are not observers of Nature alone. We are also participants, actors, who, whether we want to be or not, are deeply engaged players on the stage of Life, and in the moment-to-moment unfolding of relationship and reality that comprise our experience of the world.
And don’t let anyone tell you that these ideas are not connected to a uniquely creative American understanding of the world. Whitehead basically served as a systematizer of the radical pragmatism of a prominent brilliant American philosopher by the name of William James. Whitehead left England and emigrated to Boston to become a philosophy professor at Harvard where he did all of his work on process philosophy, basically developing a system of philosophy that captured the ideas of James and Bergson and others who were beginning to break from the dominant Newtonian world-view that was about to wreak havoc on the world in the form of two terrible world wars that dominated the history of the 20th century. It is far past time to wake up and smell the coffee. The mechanistic Newtonian world-view is continuing to produce disastrous consequences that we see all around us throughout our delicate natural ecosystem that supports our existence and of which we are an integral part. That includes the idea of a deterministic world in which all is pre-determined and creativity, the possibility of something unique and new, something holy, is outside of the realm of analytic explanation and therefore not recognized as real. Whitehead, basing his process philosophy and thought on the discoveries of the new physics, recognized that the Newtonian world-view was not only incorrect and inadequate, but it was also morally bankrupt. In Whitehead’s cosmology, creativity plays a central and critical role. New possibilities arise at each moment of existence. The ‘stubborn facts’ of the past are constantly being creatively transformed into the future through relational processes that enact what Whitehead termed the ‘creative advance’ occurring in the present moment. Creativity is a fundamental truth. There is free will. And there is responsibility to make the right choices. To follow the ‘lure’ that is set before us.
We are the Earth-bound, and it is far past time that we realize what that really means. And understand what are our responsibilities and obligations as existents within the natural world.
Read the Gifford Lectures that were given by philosopher Gilles Latour:
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/humanities-soc-sci/news-events/lectures/gifford- lectures/archive/series-2012-2013/bruno-latour
Interesting you should bring up Whitehead, Gary. I’ve just been in dialogue with a number of his followers who are planning a large conference at Pomona. But of course, my blog wasn’t making a point about philosophy, whether of the process variety or any other, but about the way the exhortation to “be realistic” is used in our society to suppress criticism and discourage opposition to the existing order. I doubt this is grounded in a philosophical stance: it seems to have much more to do with raw power relations.
I have no doubt that a philosophy recognizing the centrality of change and relationship is more useful (and to me, more true) than a mechanistic one that sees the world in terms of fixed objects. But the challenge for any philosophy is how it is enacted in the world. Much of this discourse is taking place inside institutions that themselves have the character of fixed objects. In academia, power relations, social relations, knowledge categories are pretty tightly bounded. In a philosophical discussion, individuals may recognize lived local knowledge as equal to credentialed knowledge, but our academic institutions seldom reflect this larger truth in any way. What we believe matters less than how we act on it.