Month: November 2004

Robert Lowell’s “After the Surprising Conversions”

Unable to limit myself to reading economics for an extended period of time, I’ll be continuing to jump back and forth between economic theory and poetry for the next little while.

At the moment, I’m reading Robert Lowell’s Selected Poems, one of the major poets of the 20th century I somehow managed to overlook in a lifetime of reading poetry. I’m still not sure who brought him to my attention, perhaps it was Diane McCormick. As usual, I’ve had the book around for quite awhile, waiting its turn to be taken down off the shelf.

I’m finding the poetry, to say the least, somewhat challenging, and more than a little depressing. What I’ve read so far manages to convey much of the angst of T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland combined with the much more personal despair of a Theodore Roethke. Lowell is one of those famous New England Lowell’s who was incarcerated as a conscientious objector in World War II. He was also a manic-depressive who was hospitalized many times during his tumultuous lifetime.

Those things probably wouldn’t be worth mentioning except that they all seem to show up regularly, even in his early poetry. Like Hawthorne, who also seemed to be haunted by famous relatives, Lowell’s poetry is populated by famous New Englanders, who, unfortunately, are less famous to those of us not steeped in New England history. Many of the poems would seem to require considerable decoding that could only be accomplished by research that does not seem to be readily available on the internet yet. Luckily, other poems stand on their own, or at least become clear within the context of the other poems in this volume of poetry.

Some like this one:

AFTER THE SURPRISING CONVERSIONS

September twenty-second, Sir: today
I answer. In the latter part of May,
Hard on our Lord’s Ascension, it began
To be more sensible. A gentleman
Of more than common understanding, strict
In morals, pious in behavior, kicked
Against our goad. A man of some renown,
An useful, honored person in the town,
He came of melancholy parents; prone
To secret spells, for years they kept alone-
His uncle, I believe, was killed of it:
Good people, but of too much or little wit.
I preached one Sabbath on a text from Kings;
He showed concernment for his soul. Some things
In his experience were hopeful. He
Would sit and watch the wind knocking a tree
And praise this countryside our Lord has made.
Once when a poor man’s heifer died, he laid
A shilling on the doorsill; though a thirst
For loving shook him like a snake, he durst
Not entertain much hope of his estate
In heaven. Once we saw him sitting late
Behind his attic window by a light
That guttered on his Bible; through that night
He meditated terror, and he seemed
Beyond advice or reason, for he dreamed
That he was called to trumpet Judgment Day
To Concord. In the latter part of May
He cut his throat. And though the coroner
judged him delirious, soon a noisome stir
Palsied our village. At Jehovah’s nod
Satan seemed more let loose amongst us: God
Abandoned us to Satan, and he pressed
Us hard, until we thought we could not rest
Till we had done with life. Content was gone.
All the good work was quashed. We were undone.
The breath of God had carried out a planned
And sensible withdrawal from this land;
The multitude, once unconcerned with doubt,
Once neither callous, curious nor devout,
Jumped at broad noon, as though some peddler groaned
At it in its familiar twang: “My friend,
Cut your own throat. Cut your own throat. Now! Now!”
September twenty-second, Sir, the bough
Cracks with the unpicked apples, and at dawn
The small-mouth bass breaks water, gorged with spawn.

seem remarkably relevant to our times. In a sense, by employing the language of the past, the language of the early Puritans, it brings our whole past to bear on our present.

In another sense, it reflects our own times where even the best of our Institutions are perverted to lead us astray, as if “At Jehovah’s nod/ Satan seemed more let loose amongst us.” We find ourselves mired in an “unholy” war against an “axis of evil” committing despicable torture that is somehow dismissed as “part of war,” as if we weren’t all part of that war.

Unfortunately, the poem also reminds me of an all-too-real incident that happened when I first started teaching high school years ago and a brilliant young student whose parents were teachers and long-standing members of the community committed suicide to protest the Vietnam War, at least according to the note he left. Some said the young man had too sensitive a conscience, that he “He showed concernment for his soul. Some things
In his experience were hopeful.” “Right after his death, another student also committed suicide; as a result, more and more students began to question the war, while others increasingly despaired of ever ending what they considered an unjust war.

Luckily, I haven’t heard of any bloggers literally committing suicide over Bush’s re-election or our war in Iraq, but I have heard considerable despair over his re-election. That expression of despair has spread to the point where some, despite their personal efforts to turn the country around, find themselves feeling personally responsible for what is happening.

Buyer’s Remorse

By far my favorite of the three articles that appeared in the Winter 2002 Wilson Quarterly is one entitled “Buyer’s Remorse,” a philosophical, yet satirical, look at American’s materialistic views, and those who write about those views.

I was forced to laugh when I read:

By far my favorite of the three articles that appeared in the Winter 2002 Wilson Quarterly is one entitled “Buyer’s Remorse,” a philosophical, yet satirical, look at American’s materialistic views, and those who write about those views.

I was forced to laugh when I read:

Why do we need a class of professional worrywarts-.a.k.a. the intelligentsia – to warn us, from the stern pulpits of Cambridge, Berkeley, and other bastions of higher education (and even higher real estate prices) about the perils of Consumerism run amok?

but I was also taken aback enough to wonder if it was, indeed, hypocritical to consider writing about materialism while sitting here typing on my expensive Apple G-5 computer connected to the internet through an expensive cable modem while listening on iTunes to Tracy Chapman singing “Mountains of Things.” Nah, couldn’t be. Otherwise I wouldn’t be doing it.

Besides, as Daniel Akst points out, Thoreau is often seen as the patron saint of American intellectuals, and I’ve loved him since I first read him in high school, long before I had enough money to worry about it:

Thoreau’s instinctive disdain for money- making, his natural asceticism and implicit environmentalism his embrace of civil disobedience, and his opposition to slavery all fit him well for the role of patron saint of American intellectuals.

With my Bostonian, Christian Scientist background, perhaps I could even claim Thoreau and, more importantly Emerson as my natural heritage.

By choosing to become a caseworker and then a teacher rather than pursuing job offers in banking or sales, I did show a natural anti-materialist bias, for as Akst notes:

” journalists academics, and intellectuals have already self-selected for anti-materialist bias by choosing a path away from money, which may account for why they’re so down on consumerism (unless it involves Volvo station wagons). In this they’re true to their ecclesiastical origins; monasteries, after all, were once havens of learning, and intellectuals often operated in a churchly) context.

Be that as it may, it’s obvious that concerns about materialism are not limited to just “intellectuals:

When Princeton University researchers asked working Americans about these matters a decade ago, 89 percent of those surveyed agreed that “our society is much too materialistic,” and 74 percent said that materialism is a serious social problem. Since then, a good deal has been written about materialism, and magazines such as Real Simple (filled with advertising) have sprung up to combat it.

Of course, in the face of such answers consumer debt has continued to rise, cars have gotten bigger, and voters continue to demand an end to taxes., no matter how good the cause.

Though I’m less sure of this point, Akst argues that:

We may not articulate it, but what really has us worried is how we think God wants us to behave. And on that score, materialism was making people nervous long before there was an America. In the Bible, the love of money is said to be the root of all evil, and the rich man has as much of a shot at heaven as a camel el has of passing through the eve of a needle. On the other hand, biblical characters who enjoy God’s blessings have an awful lot of livestock, and other neat stuff as well.

While such religious appeals may have an indirect effect on me, I think I’m more concerned with how materialistic goals affect my happiness. Although I’m the first to admit that some possessions are important to me, in truth I’ve generally found that given the choice between time and possessions, I will almost invariably choose time.

I never worked summers while I was a teacher because I had enough money to be comfortable and I loved, positively loved, that time off, time spent with kids, time spent woodworking, time spent hiking. Hell, even when I was financially strapped because of my divorce, it never once crossed my mind to get a summer job. Better to sleep on the floor on my futon and live with rooms and rooms full of nothing rather than sacrifice precious time working.

I have no doubt that we would have a better world with happier families if most adults got three months off a year, even if they had to sacrifice some material possessions to do so. And, no, this statement doesn’t mean that I am so naive that I don’t realize that there are too many families where it would be disastrous if the main provider didn’t work all year long, perhaps at two jobs.

Why do we need a class of professional worrywarts-.a.k.a. the intelligentsia – to warn us, from the stern pulpits of Cambridge, Berkeley, and other bastions of higher education (and even higher real estate prices) about the perils of Consumerism run amok?

but I was also taken aback enough to wonder if it was, indeed, hypocritical to consider writing about materialism while sitting here typing on my expensive Apple G-5 computer connected to the internet through an expensive cable modem while listening on iTunes to Tracy Chapman singing “Mountains of Things.” Nah, couldn’t be. Otherwise I wouldn’t be doing it.

Besides, as Daniel Akst points out, Thoreau is often seen as the patron saint of American intellectuals, and I’ve loved him since I first read him in high school, long before I had enough money to worry about it:

Thoreau’s instinctive disdain for money- making, his natural asceticism and implicit environmentalism his embrace of civil disobedience, and his opposition to slavery all fit him well for the role of patron saint of American intellectuals.

With my Bostonian, Christian Scientist background, perhaps I could even claim Thoreau and, more importantly Emerson as my natural heritage.

By choosing to become a caseworker and then a teacher rather than pursuing job offers in banking or sales, I did show a natural anti-materialist bias, for as Akst notes:

” journalists academics, and intellectuals have already self-selected for anti-materialist bias by choosing a path away from money, which may account for why they’re so down on consumerism (unless it involves Volvo station wagons). In this they’re true to their ecclesiastical origins; monasteries, after all, were once havens of learning, and intellectuals often operated in a churchly) context.

Be that as it may, it’s obvious that concerns about materialism are not limited to just “intellectuals:

When Princeton University researchers asked working Americans about these matters a decade ago, 89 percent of those surveyed agreed that “our society is much too materialistic,” and 74 percent said that materialism is a serious social problem. Since then, a good deal has been written about materialism, and magazines such as Real Simple (filled with advertising) have sprung up to combat it.

Of course, in the face of such answers consumer debt has continued to rise, cars have gotten bigger, and voters continue to demand an end to taxes., no matter how good the cause.

Though I’m less sure of this point, Akst argues that:

We may not articulate it, but what really has us worried is how we think God wants us to behave. And on that score, materialism was making people nervous long before there was an America. In the Bible, the love of money is said to be the root of all evil, and the rich man has as much of a shot at heaven as a camel el has of passing through the eve of a needle. On the other hand, biblical characters who enjoy God’s blessings have an awful lot of livestock, and other neat stuff as well.

While such religious appeals may have an indirect effect on me, I think I’m more concerned with how materialistic goals affect my happiness. Although I’m the first to admit that some possessions are important to me, in truth I’ve generally found that given the choice between time and possessions, I will almost invariably choose time.

I never worked summers while I was a teacher because I had enough money to be comfortable and I loved, positively loved, that time off, time spent with kids, time spent woodworking, time spent hiking. Hell, even when I was financially strapped because of my divorce, it never once crossed my mind to get a summer job. Better to sleep on the floor on my futon and live with rooms and rooms full of nothing rather than sacrifice precious time working.

I have no doubt that we would have a better world with happier families if most adults got three months off a year, even if they had to sacrifice some material possessions to do so. And, no, this statement doesn’t mean that I am so naive that I don’t realize that there are too many families where it would be disastrous if the main provider didn’t work all year long, perhaps at two jobs.

You Are What You Buy

The Winter 2004 Wilson Quarterly issue mentioned yesterday contains three separate articles devoted to consumerism. The first of these is entitled “Shop “til We Drop?” My favorite part of the article is the opening sentences,

We shop, therefore we are. This is not exactly the American credo, but it comes close to being the American pastime.”

Unfortunately, it somehow seems appropriate to substitute the word “shop” for “think” in that famous line when it comes to modern American society.

The author is quick to point out that consumerism has a long history in America, being noted by Alexis de Tocqueville as early as 1830. Not only does it have a long history, it seems endemic in our society, beginning with infants barely out of the cradle and ending with conspicuous caskets that mark our final departure:

Even infants and toddlers quickly absorb the consumer spirit through television and trips to the supermarket (” I want that” is a common refrain). As we age, consumption becomes an engine of envy, because in America the idea is that everyone should have everything-which means that hardly anyone ever has enough.

Although conspicuous consumption may have been a constant throughout our history, household debt has skyrocketed in recent years, going from roughly 20% of household income in 1946 to 120% in 2002:

In 2002, consumer spending accounted for 70 percent of U.S. national income (gross domestic product), which is a modern American record, and a much higher figure than in any other advanced nation. In Japan and France, consumer spending in 2002 was only 55 percent of GDP; in Italy and Spain, it was 60 percent.

Social critics have not ignored these tendencies:

To critics, this ‘consumption treadmill” is self-defeating, as Cornell University economist Robert H, Frank put it in his 1999 book Luxury Fever: Money and Happiness in an Era of Excess. People compete to demonstrate their superiority, but most are frustrated because others continually catch up. Meanwhile, over-consumption – homes that are too big, cars that are too glitzy – actually detracts from people’s happiness and society’s well-being, Frank argued. Striving to maximize their incomes, workers sacrifice time with family and friends-time that, according to surveys, they would prize highly. And society’s reluctance to take money out of consumers’ pockets through taxation means too little is spent to solve collective problems such as poverty and pollution.

Despite such criticism, spending continues to spiral out of control, spurred on by businesses that have become masters at meeting the needs of consumers, even if the “needs” are produced by industry itself. As society has changed, businesses have learned to exploit those changes as Paco Underhill points out in an essay entitled “Inside the Machine:”

The restaurant and retail food industries have been utterly transformed by the needs of women who work. ‘Meal replacement” has become the hottest growth area in the food industry. Supermarkets are forever increasing the space devot- ed to making and selling prepared foods; you can hardly find a market today that doesn’t include a bakery, charcuteric, soup station, salad bar, sushi chef. And what the supermarket doesn’t do, the fast-food and family restaurant chains do. We can complain all we like about the quality and nutritional value of the food these businesses provide (and about a possible connection between the boom in prepared meals and the obesity epidemic), but we must give them their due when it comes to identifying and meeting a need.

In his essay, retail anthropologist Underhill explains the sophisticated planning that goes into a mall to keep consumers shopping as long as possible and to maximize profits. Considering the planning that goes into our malls, it’s no wonder that even critics of malls often find themselves shopping there.

Considering how much money I’ve spent at Amazon, I’m afraid to even think what kind of evil genius went into designing that site. Do you think they spent months studying people who hate to shop when they designed their site?

Do You Own What I Own?

The following quotation from the opening page of the Winter 2004 issue of The Wilson Quarterly feature story, “Shopping and the American Way of Life” clearly delineates some of the reasons I’ve wanted to reconsider consumerism and my own relationship to things:

In America, shopping is a national pastime, and consumer spending the engine of prosperity. But consumerism is also the source of deep ambivalence. One moment, Americans decry the country’s rampant materialism; the next, they jump in their cars and speed off to the mall, on a mission as consumers to save the nation from recession. Indeed, it’s American consumers’ seemingly insatiable taste for more that has kept America’s economy-and the world’s-afloat the past few years. Is our consumer society sustainable? Is it defensible?

Though I’ve always considered myself rather frugal, I’m embarrassed to admit that though I dress like a “granola” many of my tastes run more towards a “yuppie” life style.

Although my wardrobe runs towards, sandals, jeans, hemp shirts and GoreTex jackets, I prefer fancy restaurants to Burger King or McDonalds. I’ve probably eaten hamburgers out four times in the last year, all with grandson Gavin, but I’ve eaten out at relatively expensive restaurants many times during the same time period. Generally I prefer “ethnic” restaurants, particularly Thai restaurants, but it’s also hard to ignore the fine local seafood restaurants.

I either made all the furniture I have or I got it second-hand from my parents years ago, but I didn’t feel guilty about buying a top-of-the-line sharpening machine recently. Though the Inca table saw that I made most of my furniture with is over twenty years old, it, too, was considered “extravagant” when I bought it. In fact, I’ve never bought a tool that I didn’t consider “top-of-the-line” because I hate to have to replace a tool that I already own. I’m willing to pay top price if it means that the product will last longer and work more effectively.

As a result, except for my computer equipment most of what I own is “old,” just like me, but unlike me, most of it works as well as, if not better than, similar new items. Heck even my HP scanner, the one with SCSI port plugged into a Firewire adapter, is ancient by modern standards.

Though I’ve never been able to afford the kind of art that I really like and generally settle for relatively inexpensive prints, I have managed to spend upwards of $500 for individual watercolors and pottery I really liked.

In other words, like most Americans I’m deeply ambivalent about what I buy and don’t buy. At the same time I’m throwing things away and trying to simplify my life, I’m buying new things in order to do the things I want to do.