Stanford: Seeds of Revolution
April 19
In IHUM section, the teacher is on vacation, so we’re here to watch a movie. While we’re waiting for someone to go fetch the film, a kid asks me how my talk with the teacher last time went. ‘Did she tell you that the classroom is no place for freedom of speech?’ one asks. ‘No,’ I say, ‘she did the left wing version: she told me that since I was a privileged white male I as intimidating the other students.’ The whole class gasps. ‘She really said that?’ a girl asks. I wasn’t expecting such a reaction, so I backpedal: ‘Well, she said it in a nice way.’
The students all bring up their own grievances with the teacher, collectively putting together quite a case. I had no idea it was like this, I had no idea the student solidarity was so strong. It’s an organizer’s paradise. Actually, that’s probably a pretty good idea for some aspiring activist: unionize the students.
It seems clear the teachers are clueless about this. Maybe they all hung out in teacher’s-pet crowds during school and never saw such discussions? Maybe something about the job makes them forget?
The film we watched was a documentary called Maids and Madams about domestic service in South Africa. The pivotal scene shows a black woman waking up early to leave her land of total poverty — brown ground with some wooden posts stuck together to make a shack — to clean up a house of total wealth. As she cares for her master’s kids, we see how her kids have been left behind with their grandparents. As she browses the supermarket with its hundreds of cans of all different varieties, we see how her children have to scoop brown goop out of a community pot. As the master’s children go to Montessori school, we see her kids run around an empty field with a tree branch.
Soon after, a woman needs to find a new nanny. She interviews a candidate in her home and begins to list all the chores that will be necessary before naming the pay. “Yes’m,” is all the black woman will say.
Watching this scene, I couldn’t help but wonder “How can people be so cruel?” A wealthy white woman telling a poor black woman to neglect her own children clean up the house? How could people do such a thing? And then I remembered I’d seen it all before, not in some far off country, but right at home.
Most of the kids at my school came from very wealthy families. Many had live-in housekeepers, although the wealthy ones would hire immigrants, not blacks. I would go over to friend’s houses and they’ take me on tours. ‘Oh, and that’s where the housekeeper sleeps,’ they’d say, and I’d cringe inside. How could anyone imagine themselves so important as to force another person to take care of them full time? More awkward still would be when we were playing and the housekeeper would clean things up for us or get us drinks. I’ve always felt terrible ignoring hired help like busboys and cab drivers, but assuaging my guilt by pretending they’re just friends seems even worse.
Howard Zinn writes memorably about what this looks like from the other side, when he was a waiter on New Year’s Eve:
I hated every moment of it. The ill-fitting waiter’s tuxedo, borrowed from my father, the sleeves absurdly short (my father was five-foot-five and at sixteen I was a six-footer). The way the bosses treated the waiters who were fed chicken wings just before they marched out to serve roast beef and filet mignon to the guests. Everybody in their fancy dress, wearing silly hats, singing “Auld Lang Syne” as the New Year began and me standing there in my waiter’s costume, watching my father, his face strained, clear his tables, feeling no joy at the coming of the New Year.†
That feeling that you are a non-entity, a machine to serve your betters.
I’ve always been distasteful of money and embarrassed by wealth. I wear lame clothing and don’t try to look nice. And I’ve been doing so for as long as I can remember. Even back in second grade, I remember that when the kids were discussing money, I insisted that money didn’t buy happiness. ‘Money isn’t what makes you happy,’ I said. ‘There are lots of rich people who are sad. And lots of poor people who are happy. Other things like friends are much more important.’ I never did convince those other kids. Now that they’re in college, I wonder what they think.
At the bike racks by a law school, a law professor is unlocking his bike while explaining things to a student. They’re talking about Kosovo, so I decide to stop and listen in.
‘I think what Kosovo shows is that our respect for international law was so strong that we were willing to admit that what we were doing was blatantly illegal,’ explains the professor. I try to stifle a laugh, but the student is trying to seriously wrap her mind around this blatant absurdity. Earnestly, she asks ‘But didn’t we just say that because we didn’t want to set a precedent that other countries could use?’ ‘Well, it’s the same thing, isn’t it?’ the professor asks, ‘we wanted to maintain our reputation. I’ve got to go home and see my kids now.’ The student wraps up the conversation and I walk on. A few minutes later, the professor bikes by me as I walk out of his path. ‘Sorry,’ he says.
In Communist countries, we are told, they forced you to believe that two plus two is five if the Party says so. In capitalist countries, the students convince themselves.
posted April 25, 2005 05:21 PM (Education) (7 comments) #
How could anyone imagine themselves so important as to force another person to take care of them full time?
Wait a minute, are we talking about slavery here? Oh right, “wage slavery.” This is an improper use of the word “force.” And this is no minor point. Clearly, if the housekeeper voluntarily accepted (i.e., was not physically coerced) the position, it was the best among his/her alternatives. We can bemoan the lack of alternatives, but this is the fault of natural scarcity, not capitalism, “the system,” money, greed, the “white man,” or anything else. It’s called reality.
Aaron’s response: So it’s natural scarcity that says that rich people get huge houses with swimming pools and fast cars and lots of servants while the servants themselves have to live in their cars or homeless shelters? Huh?
posted by Jeremy at April 25, 2005 05:34 PM #
Jeremey, you should read Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. It’s short and breezy but it might open your eyes.
posted by DC at April 25, 2005 05:45 PM #
So it’s natural scarcity that says that rich people get huge houses with swimming pools and fast cars and lots of servants while the servants themselves have to live in their cars or homeless shelters? Huh?
We all start out in a natural state of poverty. Those that have lots of “stuff” got it through a combination of alleviating scarcity on their own and their ancestors doing the same.
you should read Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. It’s short and breezy but it might open your eyes.
I admit that I haven’t read it, but I’ve sure read a lot about it, so I’m familiar with the basic argument (which is nothing new).
Yes, I get it, people are poor. We all start out this way (at some point in the past, at least). The question always is, how best to eliminate this poverty? By redistributing existing wealth, or creating more wealth? We have the same ends (I think? hope?), just disagree on the means.
Aaron’s response: Oh, so “we” don’t all start out in a natural state of poverty, because some people have rich parents. So are you saying everyone has a grandparent that at one point was poor? I doubt this is true in any meaningful sense, but who cares?
People don’t get money because they work hard in this society; they get money because they steal it from others.
Maybe we should fix things by stopping people from stealing.
posted by Jeremy at April 25, 2005 06:28 PM #
I’ve always been distasteful of money and embarrassed by wealth. I wear lame clothing and don’t try to look nice. And I’ve been doing so for as long as I can remember. Even back in second grade, I remember that when the kids were discussing money, I insisted that money didn’t buy happiness. ‘Money isn’t what makes you happy,’ I said.
Embarrassed by wealth? Money doesn’t make you happy? Well, I guess so, as long as you have enough money to buy a $3,400 bike, a Stanford education, plane tickets to see your family whenever you have a break from college, new web servers (1) (2)
, workstations, and an Internet connection. Where would you be today if your parents, like mine, hadn’t been able to afford to buy a computer, let alone an Internet connection?
Actually, I think I just defeated my own argument. If your family wasn’t rich, and you didn’t have a computer as a kid, you probably would have grown up to be a normal, balanced, social person who wasn’t so bloody screwed up.
posted by Justin at April 25, 2005 07:34 PM #
FWIW, only the plane tickets and the Internet connection were paid for by my family (and I think even the net connection was subsidized for part of the time). But I’m not sure what this has to do with what I said. Obviously I’m fortunate that I got a nice house and a computer and an Internet connection and a nice school growing up and got into Stanford. And obviously it’s unfair that other people don’t get the same.
The question is: what are you going to do about it?
posted by Aaron Swartz at April 25, 2005 07:42 PM #
The whole service job thing is a complex case. I am total creeped out by the power distance of nannies and housekeepers, I don’t know if I could really have one, but I also feel guilty about that. It means I’m keeping my money to myself or to richer, whiter institutions in many cases. Some people do have more money than time, and hiring someone can make life run smoother. Almost everyone is in that position at some point. On the other end, poor people often need to work ourside of their home to provide for their own children. If the relationship is respectful and pays a living wage, it’s pretty hard to argue with. If you only hire local college students to help you, you’re probably keeping money away from the people that need it most.
FWIW, I’ve waited tables, probably more than Ehrenreich or Zinn. Honestly, I loved it. Sometimes I still miss it- but it helped that I didn’t really see the people I was serving as my betters. I saw it as my job to give them a great night. Service jobs aren’t inherently coersive, but I certainly understand that they can get that way awful quick. I’ve been in that position, too. Jeremy- it doesn’t require physical coersion. A whole environment of coersion can grow up around you, worse than anyone with a baseball bat.
The only thing I’ve really seen address this kind of issue is unionization, which isn’t exactly in vogue these days. But unions are pretty good at establishing and defending the humanity of their constituants.
posted by quinn at April 25, 2005 08:09 PM #
People don’t get money because they work hard in this society; they get money because they steal it from others.
Could you please give your definition of “stealing.” I suspect it’s radically different from, or rather broader than mine (taking someone’s property without their permission).
it doesn’t require physical coersion. A whole environment of coersion can grow up around you, worse than anyone with a baseball bat.
Wow, I must really be brainwashed by pro-capitalist propaganda, because I’m having trouble fathoming what this “environment of coercion” is, and how it differs from the state of nature our ancestors were born into and most in third world countries are still born into. Pretend I’m dumb (maybe I actually am?), and explain it to me. Or if it’s particularily involved, just point me to someone that has already done so.
posted by Jeremy at April 25, 2005 08:24 PM #
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