Natasha linked to this diary by Clio Bluestocking in her Tuesday "Morning No" diary:
Abolition as a Self-Help Movement
I've been grading for the past two days. As Babu used to say, "I wept for the future of America, then I made pie." The grades didn't make me weep. Some did well, others did not. The usual. Their answers about ending slavery -- which are typical of answers that I have graded over the past several years -- made me weep.
For example, in the past few years, I have read essays that refer to the conditions of slavery as a "lifestyle." I have read essays framing the strengths and weaknesses of the different methods of anti-slavery societies as the successes or failures of the members' determination, perseverance, and work ethic. I have read essays that say the failure of the abolitionists -- and they do seem to think that the abolitionist movement failed -- was the result of a failure to "work with" the white people, presumably the slaveholders. I've read essays that described pro-slavery arguments as "politically incorrect." I've read essays that say the mission of the abolition movement was to inspire the slaves to have better lives. I have read reports on emancipation as the slaves' reward for hard work.
In my more fatigued moments, I have to restrain myself from outright snark. In my more inquisitive moments, I wonder how they could have come up with these ideas. Why are they describing slavery and abolition this way? The book doesn't describe either in these terms, so where are they getting this language? Then, I became painfully aware that my students, as part of the public at large, have been indoctrinated into a culture of "achievement" and "self-help" to the point that that they do not have the language to describe relationships of power or the fight for justice. I'm seeing the students attempt to evaluate abolitionist tactics -- the ways that a handful of people attempted to eradicate a system of human property -- using a wholly inadequate narrative.
This passage--along with the rest of the diary--resonated with me on a number of levels, and I want to try and tease out just a few of them. Most directly, however, I was struck by the sense that Clio's students seem to misread the Abolitionist movement in much the same way that Obama's core constituency misreads the nature of politics in general.
After all, what is a more perfect embodiment of "a culture of 'achievement' and 'self-help' than a candidate-centered "movement" united by the slogan "Yes We Can"?
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Ckio goes on to write:
In this narrative, if you work hard enough, if you believe enough in yourself, if you persevere, then you will succeed and have a better life. From students' introductory assignments -- the ones that I have them complete at the beginning of online classes to get an idea of who these faceless names are -- this is the narrative that gets them through their lives. Many use the very same terms about their desire to make good grades in school in order to have a better life as they do to describe the slaves' desire to be free or the abolitionists' desire to end the institution of slavery. They attempt to describe the failures of the abolitionist movement as the personal failures of individuals and using the same buzzwords that we hear in the sound-bite attacks of politicians who aren't getting their way.
I don't mind them finding inspiration in the lives of historical figures like Frederick Douglass or Harriet Tubman because that is their own business; but I doubt that either Douglass or Tubman would see the problems facing slaves or abolitionists as personal weaknesses or a poor work ethic. They both spoke of systems of power. They spoke of injustice that prevented hard-working, determined, persevering people from being anything more than chattel. They intended to end that injustice by attacking the system, slavery. Examining the hows and whys of that is part of the purpose of studying history.
One thing that I see in this is my oft-referred to dividing line between Robert Keegan's Level 3 and Level 4 of cognitive development. At Level 3, one's self is defined in terms of the roles and relationships of the surrounding society. It is impossible to really question these, although they may feel very uncomfortable, because one is actually embedded in them, and can't separate oneself enough to gain a critical perspective on them.
This is the typical level of adult functioning in a traditional, pre-modern society. And it's a natural facet of this condition that one cannot clearly see, much less critique and struggle against the power systems operating through the society that in turn defines the very nature of oneself. Of course, achievement narratives are the bread and butter of this level of consciousness. After all, that's how the society reproduces itself, by teaching its members how to successfully carry out their roles.
What began to change all this several centuries ago, was that societies became too successful. They were becoming too dynamic, and there arose a need for people to take on new tasks at a level of volume that had never been seen before. There had always been some individuals who went beyond Level 3 consciousness, but they had to live "in the world, but not of the world" so to speak. They could have a different level of perception about things, but could do very little to alter things around them to accord with their insights about how they could be better arranged.
Once the countries of Early Modern Europe began experience a certain pace of change, this situation began to change. It was no longer enough for boys to simply follow the line of work of their fathers. New roles were needed, or more commonly far more of certain roles were needed than had ever been needed before, so there was a need for employment to shift. This actually started with improvements in agriculture that made farming much more productive, this making it possible for more people to live in villages and towns, engaged in manufacturing, repair and commerce. But the pace of change picked up considerably as growth shifted to larger towns and cities, and emerging national capitals.
The framework of British rights is one of the things to come out of this process. Original such rights were tightly tied to a given station in life, and were not what we might think of as rights at all, but rather privileges of rank or station. But as the pace of change picked up, and one might well move from one station in life to another, rights started to become detached and more generalized. With more rapid change, and more complex life choices in general, there was increased pressure pushing people toward developing Level 4 consciousness, which made it relatively easy to deal with problems that were virtually insoluble with a Level 3 consciousness.
Level 3 consciousness was still far more commonplace, of course, even in the more complex and fast-paced realms of the most advanced countries, but there was enough Level 4 consciousness that it began to show in philosophy, art and literature. This is when modern liberalism began to emerge. And this is where we begin to get a much wider range of writings about political power, not just the power of specific larger-then-life individuals.
Thus, at one level, what Clio is writing about is how many of her students are, in effect, living in a state of pre-modern consciousness--a state that's quite compatible with traditional conservatism, and which has a very hard time making sense of modern liberalism, with its core foundation in individual autonomy--not merely a choice of options, but a critical independence that allows for consciously choosing between alternatives that are not simple given to one, but that are carved out by the individual making choices for themselves.
This does not mean that only liberals attain Level 4 consciousness, or that Level 4 consciousness automatically makes one a liberal. But there is a strong elective affinity between the two. For one thing, liberalism has been around long enough that it has greatly reshaped our world, so that much of what shapes people with Level 3 consciousness may be quite liberal in content, even if the formal relation is not. One may, for example, accept racial diversity and inter-racial respect as "traditional", whereas the opposite would have been the case in previous eras.
This, I think, helps clarify the nature of Obama and the kind of mass support he has inspired. It tends to be liberal in content--accepting, even celebrating diversity--but consrvative in form, accepting, rather than challenging established social definitions, including those that have been intentionally promoted by conservative activists engaged in hegemonic struggle, which is a deliberate form of political activity that aims alter the definitions of things, so that one cannot think otherwise than to be in agreement. In short, hegemonic struggle is the intentional shaping of what shapes Level 3 consciousness. And naturally, one cannot engage with, and counter such struggle, so long as one thinks only in terms of Level 3 consciousness, of which achievement narratives are such a central part. |
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