Living in the United States: a Thanksgiving Message

“But if you’re asking my opinion, I would argue that a social justice approach should be central to medicine and utilized to be central to public health. This could be very simple: the well should take care of the sick.” ~Paul Farmer

It was from Dr. Paul Farmer that I learned that living in the United States meant privilege, not freedom, or prosperity, or any other idealization that our government and ruling corporations tell us believe about living in the USA.   We are privileged to live here because there is so much abundance of food, medicine, durable goods, and consumer goods– not to mention wealth.  We have these things in the United States in abundance because many other nations have next to nothing, especially when compared to our excess.

This is the simple consequence of the utterly un-Christian and immoral system that is called Capitalism.   Capitalism requires winner and losers: the United States has won big time since the end of World War II and a host of nations around the world have lost big time.   That our (i.e. the USA) time for winning is coming a close should not be anything more than a prosaic observation at this point, but I will save that discussion for another time.

The fact of the matter is that living in the United States as an everyday, moderately financially stable US American citizen remains a privileged position in the world.

An Excerpt from  Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder

“Paul’s face grew serious. ‘I think whenever a people has enormous resources, it is easy for them to call themselves democratic.  I think of myself more as a physician than as an American.  Ludamilla [a Haitian co-worker from the book] and I, we belong to the nation of those who care for the sick.  Americans are lazy democrats [not the political party], and it is my belief, as someone who shares the same nation as Ludamilla, I think that the rich can always call themselves democratic, but the sick people are not among the rich.’  I thought he was done, but he was only pausing for interpreter to catch up. ‘Look, I’m very proud to be an American.  I have many opportunities because I am an American.  I can travel freely throughout the world, I can start projects, that that’s called privilege, not democracy.’”

Be thankful for this privilege on Thanksgiving, but don’t be thankful for democracy that we do not have, i.e. do not extend, to the poor of the world, or even, increasingly, to the poor of our own nation!  Our contentment in the satisfaction of a stable American middle class lifestyle on the backs of millions of the world’s poor is, in my opinion, an affront to Thanksgiving and the teachings of Jesus Christ.

It was, after all, Jesus who said:  34″Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’”

But, as a nation we steadfastly refuse to do it…

…And here is what Jesus has to say about that:  41″Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

And this part, which is actually at the beginning of this passage, is how Jesus tells us nations will be separated :

31″When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.”

More and more I am coming to believe when and if there is a judgment such as is described in this passage attributed to Jesus, the United States of America will be among the goats on the left.  I am, therefore, happy to count myself as an ex-patriot and naturalized citizen into the nation described by Dr. Paul Farmer.

If you have ears, hear what I am telling you friends.

Happy Thanksgiving.

On quite a few numbers of occasions I have thought about deleting my Facebook account.

I have never been a simple person and I have come to believe that none of us are. We are complex through and through and certain deep human needs join us together as a species. Among these needs is the need for intimacy, i.e. the feeling of being in a close, personal, and empathetic relationship with others. Especially with regard to our wives, husbands, children, friends, and lovers… we long for intimacy.

And if we are able, we cultivate intimacy with these others, while excluding a vast host of important other others we’ve met on our path.

We had walked together with the other others a while until the road forked; we then watched them walk a while until they were gone, out of our lives forever.

Oh we might have, in the days gone by, run into one of these other others by chance, had a cup of coffee together and talked about the good times…

…then came along social networking.

For the past 1 year every person I can think of fondly from my high school years has reentered my consciousness via Facebook. Peering into their lives, seeing their children, interests, political affiliations, religious views, status posts, favorite books, has caused me to discover another human emotion that I cannot put a name to. I sometimes spend an hour or two looking at pictures I have seen before, reading old status comments—simply mesmerized by the sight of old friends who have been suddenly and radically brought out of my memory and into my present reality.

But it’s not just the persons are brought out of memory and into present reality, it’s more than that. My personal memories, part recollection and part fantasies, about these other others are also obliterated out of existence. Then I am left with what I am not so sure I really wanted: reality.

How monstrous that our minds, our very hearts and souls should be intruded upon thus; that the young and tender memories that we kept are cruelly altered, sometimes beyond repair, while we sit physically passive and emotionally activated in front of our computer monitors!

Perhaps tomorrow I will delete my profile.

*surfs over to check out the pics of his most recent FB friend*

“Viewed from an existential standpoint, questions of choice, freedom and responsibility cannot be isolated or contained within some separate being (such as ’self’ or ‘other’). In the inescapable interrelationship that exists between ‘a being’ and ‘the world’, each impacts upon and implicates the other, each is defined through the other and, indeed, each ‘is’ through the existence of the other. Viewed in this way, no choice can be mine or yours alone, no experienced impact of choice can be separated in terms of ‘my responsibility’ versus ‘your responsibility’, no sense of personal freedom can truly avoid its interpersonal dimensions.”
~ Ernesto Spinelli, 2001, The Mirror and the Hammer: Challenges to Therapeutic Orthodoxy, p. 16

Yalom’s Existential Factors and Group Therapy

Leave it to a medical doctor to add something as substantial to the human experience as existential factors as “almost an afterthought” in his list of primary therapeutic factors for successful group psychotherapy (Yalom, 2005, p. 98).   One can hardly fault Yalom for doing this. “Ultimate questions,” i.e. questions that are subsumed in the label “existential factors”— like about the meaning of life, death, our own aloneness and utter responsibility for our lives— are hard to quantify.  Medical doctors are, after all, part healer and part scientist.  But in the pursuit of healing, Yalom noticed that something was missing that he recognized as “important sentiments expressed by both clients and therapists” (Yalom, 2005).  To account for these sentiments Yalom added a factor that included “these five items:

1. Recognizing that life is at times unfair and unjust
2. Recognizing that ultimately there is no escape from some of life’s pain or from death
3. Recognizing that no matter how close I get to other people, I still face life alone
4. Facing the basic issues of my life and death, and thus living my life more honestly and being less caught up in trivialities
5. Learning that I must take ultimate responsibility for the way I live my life no matter how much guidance and support I get from others” (Yalom, 2005).

These five elements account for the major themes of existentialist philosophy and give a good framework for using them in the healing process of group therapy.

Yalom further illuminated these principles of existentialism and how they work themselves out in group therapy in an interview that was published in the Journal of Psychotherapy in the summer of 2005, just before the 5^th edition of The Theory and Method of Group Psychotherapy was released.  Yalom pointed out in this interview that much of the work that is done in group therapy within the realm of existential concerns cannot be put in a treatment manual since so much of it requires immediacy, genuineness and spontaneity (Overholser, 2005).  Furthermore, he noted that while he views existentialism factors as an important aspect of group psychotherapy, he has never understood existential psychotherapy as a free-standing therapy “akin to schools like cognitive-behavioral.” He also asserted that “existential sensibilities” have to be “grafted onto or added onto a well-trained, well-rounded, dynamic psychotherapist” in order for them to be maximally useful in the group experience (Overholser, 2005).

The idea that existential factors may be “useful” in group therapy was explored in a short article entitled Existential Group Therapy as a Treatment Modality for Exiting Christian Fundamentalists (Brent, J. S. 1991).  This article deals with a group therapy scenario wherein the members were tackling the problem of separating themselves from a system of belief that unequivocally answers all of the existential questions/problems raised by Yalom’s existential factors 5 items; thus, freeing adherents from their responsibility (Yalom’s item 5) and their freedom.  It illustrates how the “fundamentalist” worldview is “acutely unable to tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty in life” and how existential thought can be used to help group members become more “authentic” and “courageous” despite how this may bring on “deep anxiety” that was previously masked by the “certainty” of their religious faith (Brent, J.S. 1991, p. 2).  In other words, religion can be a way to escape existential responsibility for our lives.

Conversely, healthy religious faith can be useful in providing a framework for dealing with existential factors.  Gerdenio M. Manuel dealt with how religion can be useful along these lines in his article entitled Group Process and the Catholic Rites of Reconciliation (1991). He argues that group curative factors as described by Yalom are present in the rites of the Catholic religion in general and specifically in their Rites of Reconciliation (Manuel, 1991, p. 125).  Quoting Yalom, Manuel agrees with him and notes that what most people in group report to be “the most difficult to share” is a “deep conviction of basic inadequacy” and a “deep sense of interpersonal alienation” (aloneness) (Manuel, 1991; Yalom, 2005, p.8).   Therefore, it is argued by Manuel that what both the Rites of Reconciliation and the group therapeutic process are attempting to ameliorate are the same. Generally speaking, religious faith can be useful in dealing with existential factors in group therapy.

At this intersection of existential factors and religion[1] one will likely find their value system.  Bernard Frankel, in his article entitled Existential Issues in Group Psychotherapy, points out how existential thought is both a philosophy and a values system (Frankel, 2002).  He argues that in an age of increasing alienation of “man from himself” the features of existentialism can be applied as a unifying values system, something that Christianity used to provide for the Western world (Frankel, 2002).  A component of this new existential value system is the search for meaning.   Frankel suggests that a cooperative search for meaning helps group members to establish and clarify their values system and move forward in the therapeutic experience (Frankel, 2002, p. 218).

This search for meaning out of life is fundamental task that readily comes to mind when speaking of existential philosophy. As Frankel (2002) says “our common fate is mortality” and this, in part, is what binds group members together in the common search for meaning.  Victor Frankl’s Logotherapy is thus defined as a system of therapy where this need to have a meaningful existence is leveraged for therapeutic work, what he called “will to meaning” (Frankl, 2006).   For Yalom, on the other hand, this knowledge of our own mortality is not fundamental, nor is meaning making the primary therapeutic task (Overholster, 2005).

Nevertheless, Yalom has been deeply committed to the pursuit of existential concerns in his work.   In fact, the integration of these multiple, perhaps disparate, aspects of the application of Yalom’s existential factors can be found in Yalom’s famous book Love’s Executioner (1989).  In Love’s Executioner, Yalom describes his therapeutic relationship with ten clients.  Each of these clients has a particularly poignant clinical issue that touches upon the fundamental existential experience.  This book moves the reader from the textbook description of what existential factors are right into the immediate experience of them in therapy.   And more than anything else, the existential factors concern immediate states of existence and how group and therapist deal with and make meaning of the five items subsumed by existential factors.

Personal Reflection
The existentialist/humanist psychotherapist owes a debt of gratitude to existentialist philosophers such as Jean Paul Sartre, Frederick Nietzsche, and Martin Heidegger.  Each of these groundbreakers in modern philosophy gave shape to the way that postmodern persons think about their own existence.   Nietzsche (1844-1900) gave us the Übermensch (the Humanist Superman) , and the “death of God” with its perspectivism[2]; Heidegger (1889-1976) gave us the word and, perhaps, the concept of Dasein (existence), which can easily be distilled into the concept of a “here-and-now” focus without doing all that much damage to the root concept. Certainly Heidegger seems to have understood Dasein as active, like what happens in the here-and-now focus of a psychodynamic group therapy session—it is part and parcel of the group existential.  Sartre (1905-1980) dealt with freedom and responsibility. In his seminal lecture l’Existentialisme est un humanisme (Existentialism is a Humanism) Sartre explained his belief that freedom entails total responsibility (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm). For Sartre this meant, in part, that no divine power could be thanked or blamed for our personal existential state.  In fact, he theorized that our existence precedes our essence; or rather the brute fact that we are physically present in the world comes before any meaning at all is assigned to that presence (existence).  This is the Atheist, and sometimes humanistic position with regard to the assignment of responsibility for one’s life. All of the therapeutic movement that we expect to see  happen in clients is predicated on this belief, at least under Yalom’s framework.   To summarize, I mean to say that each of these notable philosophers emphasized a part of the intellectual underpinning of what we now take for granted as necessary in a psychodynamic/interpersonal type group: each group member’s perspective, a here-and-now focus, and personal responsibility.

Perhaps more closely associated with asking the kinds of questions that Yalom means to address with his therapeutic dimension of Existential Factors was an earlier philosopher by the name of Soren Kierkegaard.   In Kierkegaard’s (1813-1855) famous book Fear and Trembling, he dealt with the very poignant existential problem encountered by the great Patriarch of the Judeo-Christian faith, Abraham.  The book is about “working out” one’s salvation, hence, the title Fear and Trembling is taken from a biblical passage in the New Testament that reads “…continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12).  In the first part of the book Kierkegaard lays out Abraham’s problem: Yahweh (or so Abraham believed) has told Abraham to sacrifice (i.e. kill) his beloved son Isaac on a sacrificial mound.

This frightful story, of course, brings forth a moral problem of the first order.   It is what philosophers might call a Teleological problem; Teleology being the study of design and purpose.  Therefore the first order problem in this case is “Whose morality is higher?                Humanity’s, which says do not kill your son? Or Yahweh’s whose morality, at least in this case, requires a blood sacrifice?”   This striking teleological questioning is at the extreme end of what I think happens on a much smaller scale in any mundane psychotherapy group.

Indeed, I think it is a rare case when a person comes to a psychotherapy group already convinced of the alternative to some kind of personal Teleology.  The alternative is the metaphysical naturalist position that says all of nature has no design or purpose—this is not common, even among Atheists.   For the truth is that we all seem to crave some meaning, some design and/or purpose  and when in a psychotherapy group this craving becomes all the more relevant and universal.  We bring Nietzsche’s disparate perspectives, we employ Heidegger’s Dasein (working in the here-and-now), and Sartre’s utterly irreligious sense of personal responsibility… and yet we still long for a deeper, more universal purpose and meaning in our conversations about, for instance, the end of life.
The enormous existential problem wherein stems all of our root anxiety, or what the existentialist philosophers often called dread is the knowledge of our own death.  Kierkegaard’s antidote to this dread was each human being’s own rationality, which he argued would serve in dealing with it as far as it was adequate.  But he also said that at the end of the day our rationality is inadequate to deal with existential problems such as death— and I agree (Kierkegaard, S., 1978).  When the group’s therapeutic task is to come to a place of acceptance and comfort around the grim reality of death, it seems axiomatic that the comfort will come, at least in part, in the realm of the irrational, i.e. the realm of faith, superstition, tradition, legend, etc.  I do not believe that this principle is mitigated or changed in any way by race, gender, age, sexual orientation, culture or ethnicity—it simply strikes at the core of us all.  That being said, I think it is especially important for group therapists of all religious (or nonreligious) backgrounds to thoroughly examine their own biases when dealing with existential factors.   As I have pointed out, “existential problems” are enormous and “existential answers” are deeply personal—what Yalom might refer to as the “subjective experience of the client,” but a more sacred subjective experience since it deals with subjective ultimate reality. (Yalom, 1980).

As mentioned previously in this paper, religion can work for or against the existential therapeutic work.  On the one hand religion can provide existential answers, but on the other hand, as was in the case in the fundamentalist article, religion can deny us our authenticity and ability to deal with existential issues.  Either way, if the group members are to feel completely at liberty to explore Yalom’s existential factors safely, religious belief cannot be taboo, it is simply too closely related to existentialist questions and answers.

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[1] a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/religion

 

[2] Nietzsche believed that the loss of belief, i.e. the “death of God” would cause human beings to lose all “perspective” and that society as a whole would then degenerate into many, disparate perspectives with no unifying base to any of it.  The famous pop song Locomotive Breath by Jethro Tull is a nod to Nietzsche’s perspectivism.

Brock, G. (1990). Ritual and Vulnerability. Journal of Religion and Health, 29(4), 285-295.

Frankl, V. E. (2006). Man’s Search for Meaning (1st ed.). Beacon Press.

Kierkegaard, S. (1978). Soren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers, Vol. 5: Autobiographical, Part 1: 1829-1848. Indiana University Press.

Manuel, G. M. (1991). Group Process and the Catholic Rites of Reconciliation. Journal of Religion and Health, 30(2), 119-129.

Overholser, J. C. (2005). Group Psychotherapy and Existential Concerns: An Interview with Irvin Yalom. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 35(2), 185-197. doi:10.1007/s10879-005-2699-7.

Slochower, H. (1948). The Function of Myth in Existentialism. Yale French Studies, (1), 42-52.

Texter, L. A., & Mariscotti, J. M. (1994a). From Chaos to New Life: Ritual Enactment in the Passage from Illness to Health. Journal of Religion and Health, 33(4), 325-332.

Yalom, I. D. (1980). Existential Psychotherapy (1st ed.). Basic Books.

Yalom, I. D., & Leszcz, M. (2005). Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy, Fifth Edition (Fifth Edition.). Basic Books.

Inadequate Truth

Since I left the Christian religion I have done a lot of hanging out with the disenfranchised, the disillusioned, the unbeliever, the backslider, the irreligious, the spiritual, the agnostic, and especially, the “Atheist”– and of all the groups that I have been spending my time with these six years, the one that I most clearly have grown to despise is “the Atheist.”

I want to be able to clearly lay out what it is that I hate Atheism but I cannot.

Oh it would be easy enough to sum it up by saying “I have never been to an Atheist gathering that didn’t feel like ‘Christian bashing hour’.” But that is not really a sufficient answer and, on the contrary, I give Atheist organizations a pass on this point because I realize how hard it is to be a minority philosophical position when it comes to matters of faith, or the lack of.

Consequently, I never tell anyone how much I hate, despise, and even loathe Atheism.  Instead I explain that Atheism, for me, is inadequate.  This is a bit of a problem because I cannot help but to be an Atheist most days of the week, and yes, this includes my Sundays, which increasingly features a trip to the Quaker meeting house.   In fact, I am an Atheist, it’s that simple—but I didn’t choose this despicable disbelief, it chose me, grabbed hold of me and won’t let go.

In the Roman Catholic Tradition, this place that I find myself in might be called “The Dark Night of the Soul.”   This is, of course, the title of the famous poem written by Saint John of the Cross, pictured above.  He was a Spanish Christian mystic who lived and wrote in the 16^th century.   Not only is this poem considered to be among the best poems ever written in the Spanish language, it has also been deeply meaningful to millions upon millions of people struggling with the existence of God …

If I was at liberty to choose what I would be when it comes to belief in God, I would not choose Atheism.   But what I have found is that when a person is really being honest with him or her selves, when they are being intellectually fearless (as it were), then matters of faith happen to them, and not the other way around.  It would be no more possible for me to choose to be a Christian than it would be for me to choose to become another sex, or race, or species.   All of the benefits that come with belief in God are therefore irrelevant to this stark, dreadful fact: I am an Atheist.

But I am happy with this miserable state because, as the late great Carl Sagan once said “It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. “  And I agree… it is far better to grasp reality as it is… in fact I demand this of myself:  that I honestly deal with what is, that I don’t believe simple answers without evidence, that I don’t believe stories that are clearly fabrications of reality… that are outlandish myths which not are not only naturally impossible but are part of a collection of writings that has held humanity back, and continues to do so.

(to be continued)

Read a story of the bitter rift between old and new Atheists

The Rational Response Squad (RRS) i.e. Brian “Sapient”

Recently I deleted some blog entries I had regarding the RRS, Rook Hawkins (real name Thomas Verena), Kelly (a.k.a. Kacey the pron whore), and Brian “Sapient” because I figured it was all over for the atheist cult “squad.”

Rook Hawkins has grown up and is trying to actually make something of himself self.  Good for him.

Kelly has disentigrated into her sexual squalor and is now a prostitute and porn “star.”  She was leaning toward the libertine side when she was into activism and now that she has left the RRS (and Brian) it shouldn’t be that big of a surprise to anyone that she has ended up in the sex industry as a product.  I wrote a short piece in response to her ridiculous notion that it was perfectly normal for human beings to let themselves be sexually exploited here.

Brian had been laying low for several, several months for unknown reasons.  My guess is that he was deeply depressed and couldn’t muster the energy to be active on his website or to make any inflammatory stickam videos.

Evidence to suggest he might have major depression is here:

Something like this has to come from a place of deep need…

But in other news about Brian “Sapient,” he has been stomping around Facebook, answering questions and being just as beligerent, obnoxious and arrogant as ever… apparently his abject failure with regard to every close relationship he had within the RRS has taught him nothing.   Watching Brian trying to resurface is like watching a person just run over by a train get up like nothing happened and start walking towards the station.

Poor guy, I am actually starting to feel sorry for him now, but not enough to lay off him if and when he starts spewing vitriol and hate again.

For further reading:

Atheist RRS Member “Rapper” Friend Punches Brian
Former RRS member Kelly’s adult Website (NSFW)
Thomas Verenna leaves atheist activism (Good for him!)

For a comical history of the whole sordid affair that is the RRS check out Encyclopedia Dramatica’s version (NSFW, and remember, comedy and satire contains lots of truth and in the case of this article, it’s more truth that comedy, unfortunately)

Jesus and “The Common Good”

In the Gospel of John there are seven stories of miracles that are referred to in the text as signs.  These signs are as follows: the turning of water into wine at Cana, the healing of the Nobleman’s Son, the healing of the palsied man, the feeding of the five thousand, the storm on the lake and Jesus walking on the sea, the healing of the blind man, and the raising of Lazarus from death.  Each sign is a word picture about some aspect of the Jesus of Faith that the early Church community wanted record for their posterity.

These early Christian recorded the story of a Jesus who was first, perhaps foremost, interested in the lives of the common person.  Each of the seven signs were miracles for the common person.  They were to show his power and benevolence towards the common, the poor, the lame, the hopeless, and even the faithless.   He was a Social Justice Jesus and his message was that he was the answer to their desperation.

In other words, John’s Jesus of Faith seemed to have had what is a fundamental principle of Catholic Social teaching: a preferential option for the poor.  In my opinion, this is a different Jesus than the one worshipped in the Conservative Christian Church.

If you believe that this is an unfair, wide sweeping and hasty generalization about American conservative Christianity then I guess that I owe you an explanation.

My evidence: An organization that (dubiously) speaks on your behalf unamimously opposed a public option for healthcare.  (More about conservative Christians and health care reform). Why?  Where in the bible are we taught that the government shouldn’t provide medical care to the poor?  What does this have to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ in the first place?

And finally, what would Jesus say about an organization that seems to always find moral and/or religious reasons to maintain social systems that seem obviously inherently unjust?

Would he say “Ἀπόδοτε οὖν τὰ Καίσαρος Καίσαρι καὶ τὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ τῷ Θεῷ”?
…or rather “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s”?

Interestingly enough, this ambiguous statement attributed to Jesus comes from the Gospel of Matthew, a Gospel wherein Jesus is portrayed as “the Righteous,” and which is the foundation of the Church’s historic involvement in Social Justice issues.

So in our rendering, what is Caesar’s part and what is God’s part?

Caesar’s Part

Caesar’s part in this case was coins, i.e. taxes paid in coins with his picture stamped on them. Jesus was answering a question about the necessity of paying taxes and his response was “pay them.”  The question was important for a Rabbi of his standing to address because some Rabbis (see the Zealots) of standing were refusing to pay taxes because they felt that Rome was not entitled to collect them, for various religious and cultural reasons.

Jesus seems to have believed that paying taxes was a duty and it is very likely that his rationale for paying them was very likely for “the preservation of the common good” and not for the purpose of fighting Rome’s foreign wars (see this article on how America has lost touch with the morality of the common good).  “The common good” is an ancient morality that teaches that what is good for the majority of the people is the most just.  Pope Leo XIII brought this concept into the modern age in an encyclical entitled “Rerun Novarum” (of New Things) in the year 1891 in order “to combat the excesses of both laissez-faire capitalism on the one hand and communism on the other” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_good).

Of course there were many problems with how and when Rome provided for the common good, but Jesus seems to have believed in this role for secular government. This government role is also a component of the Apostle Paul’s instructions to the Romans: 13:1 “Let every soul be subject unto the higher (i.e. government) powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.”

Still, sometimes what Caesar demands as his part is contrary to the Law of God and thus can be seen as by definition not for the common good, as with the story Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego (Daniel 3).  Fair enough.

But I ask you, is the providing of health care for every person such a time?

http://www.americanprogress.org/kf/familyvaluesreport.pdf

God’s Part

He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8).

And finally I ask, how is opposition to healthcare reform providing for the common good and obeying Jesus’ law?  I mean, unless you are worshipping a different Jesus than the one of the Bible…?

Women of Reform: A Review of Four Articles

Out of an initial attempt to look at the history of the Settlement House movement of the early twentieth century, a volume of literature that addressed female reformers of this period presented itself, making the Settlement Houses per se’ almost secondary to the women leaders themselves.  Having defined the topic of interest in this way, four articles were chosen, from a multitude, for this review paper: one from the Journal of Social History, one from Daedalus, which is an interdisciplinary journal covering “arts, sciences, and the humanities, as well as the full range of professions and public life,” one from the Social Service Review, and finally one from American Quarterly. [1] [2] The selection of these four journals serves to illustrate how the study of the female reformers of this period requires an interdisciplinary approach in order to come near to having the most robust understanding of this history.  In other words, it is not enough to provide a verbatim of the life of Jane Addams short of accounting for the complex matrix of social and cultural upheaval that was taking place in the United States during her lifetime as Victorian sensibilities were stressed and gave way under the strain of the Industrial Revolution.  But the selection of these articles also reflects a deliberate attention to the early development of social work as a profession during this time frame coupled with a desire to somehow work in that definition of “social justice,” well known to the 21^st Century but that was in development in the early 20^th century—perhaps in development at Jane Addams’ Hull House, to be more precise.  Thus the inclusion of the article Mary Richmond an Jane Addams: From Moral Certainty to Rational Inquiry in Social Work Practice by Donna L. Franklin.

Both Mary Richmond and Jane Addams have some stake in being attributed with having started the profession of social work as we know it today (Franklin, 505). Both women were born into the Victorian era of the 19^th Century and both women were, as daughters of their age, deeply committed to the Christian tradition.  It would therefore be a mistake to not give some attention to how the Western theological tradition, i.e. Christianity, or rather more specifically Protestantism, shaped the views and behaviors of these early female social reformers— all four articles in this review do precisely that.

It was (and is) the Protestant work ethic that compounded the social problem of poverty that was being exasperated as the United States moved from a primarily rural society to one of urban centers and wage labor (Franklin, 505).   At the same time, the overwhelming Calvinist consensus that the condition of being in poverty suggested a person was “morally reprehensible” was being undermined by a pragmatic alternative which taught that “individuals who lived in poverty were not necessarily morally reprehensible but were influenced by a macrosystem [sic] that affected social functioning” (Franklin, 507).   These conflicting philosophical positions were the cultural soup from where the profession of social work began to emerge, and it was Jane Addams’ Settlement Houses and Mary Richmond Charity Societies (COS) where social work was first done in a scientific, rational way.   Nevertheless, it is well documented that Mary Richmond and Jane Addams did not agree on how work was to be done: the later felt that those who received aid were to blame for their plight and should be encouraged to work toward “self sufficiency” while the former provided aid and studied the social conditions that caused poverty– this debate continues in social work (Franklin, 510).

Additionally, this review might also help to further illuminate possible reasons why it is mainly middle class, or rather bourgeois women, who were the Progressive Era reformers and why, even today, the profession of social work is fielded by around 79% white, middle class women.[3]
Nevertheless, the commonality in wanting to address the problem of suffering among the poor can be understood in terms of how these women accepted the Victorian female role, almost whole cloth.

Jill Conway, in her article entitled Women Reformers and American Culture, 1870-1930 (1971-1972), noted that the stereotype of femininity, as it was expressed in thirties, forties and fifties, differs very little from the image and expectation placed upon Victorian Age women.   And so Jane Hunter’s Inscribing the Self in the Heart of the Family: Diaries and Girlhood in Late-Victorian America (1992) is illuminating on this point, which is crucial in understanding how and why female Progressive Era activists worked for social justice in the way that they did.  Hunter argues that the roots of early 20^th Century activism extends back to the Victorian family. She used diary entries from that era in order to better understand what was going on in the minds and hearts of the Victorian girl (Hunter, 51).    The result is a more robust understanding of what was going on in the internal life of girls, or rather their “…discourse of the self,” as Hunter puts it (Hunter, 52).

These diaries reflected the careful presentation of the self that Victorian girls created in the pages of their diaries, which would be read by their parents (Hunter, 54).  They also serve to illustrate well the complexities of how the fading moralism of Calvinism was giving way to Romantic secularism, and how that cultural transition experienced by Victorian girls, and subsequently the lives of Reformers like Jane Addams and Mary Richmond (Hunter, 54-55).  In an early article entitled Jane Addams: An American Heroine (1064), Jill Conway makes a similar observation about her heroine, namely that “they [women activists] had a total belief that a trained and well stocked mind would fit them for new roles in life” (Conway, 1964, 761).  And this was precisely what the diaries were about more than anything: systemizing priorities , even  as the diary writing evolved and some girls used their diaries as a kind of rebellion against the ideal of the “good girl,” passive and by her mother’s side (Hunter, 56).

But diary writing was just one aspect of the lives of bourgeois girls which was part of a number of activities intended to fill up the idle time that their family’s wealth created for them. Some other activities included piano lessons and a formal education (Hunter, 52).   Curious then it is that Mary Richmond was uneducated and Jane Addam’s family was not wealthy enough to send her to the best schools in the East.  Nevertheless, both Jane Addams and Mary Richmond shared what Conway argues as “total belief that a trained and well-stocked mind would fit them for new roles in life” (Conway, 1964, 761).   These new roles in life were part and parcel of their sense of mission, perhaps also of guilt, that because of the blessings of their lives of leisure, they should be giving something back to the world.  As women, the world of business and politics (as least as a direct path) was cut off to them, and so they chose “careers” that were both available to them and also in keeping with the fact that they believed that women were the “custodians of race morality, were exempt from humans passion, and, because of their maternal instincts, were less prone to violence than men” (Conway, 1964, 762).  Franklin echoes this point, adding that “women did not reject the Victorian notion that women should exude self-sacrifice, purity, and spiritual superiority; rather they moved these  qualities our of the home and into the public world of professional work” (Franklin, 511).

First and foremost, the women accepted the ideal that women were more pure and able to do good in greater measure than men.  As mentioned before in part, Franklin noted that the Victorian women was considered to be more pure than the Victorian man and thus more able to nurture and take care of the needs of the poor (Franklin,  510).  Additionally, Conway (1971-1972) pointed out that there was a “specialized feminine perception of social justice” that female reformers made their claim was worker under. This claim  represented a mix of Calvinism, Liberalism, and Pragmatism.

Protestantism, or more precisely Calvinism, dominated the religious life of the bourgeoisie in the United States in the mid to late nineteenth century.  Calvinism taught that hard work, an orderly life, and prosperity were signs that one was one of the elect and destined for an eternal reward; conversly, Calvinism taught lack of such things as money and property, revealed that a person was not of the elect and was destined for eternal punishment (Franklin, 506).   Liberalism is the political philosophy that teaches that individual freedom is the most important of all political goals while Pragmatism is that philosophical position teaches that practical experiences are a vital component of truth.[5] The “specialized feminine” mix of these elements into the female reformer of the turn of the century is perhaps personified best in the person of Jane Addams.  Her success at Hull House is a testament to how she was able to order her life along these philosophical lines without upsetting the social order with respect to the role of women.  But unlike Mary Richmond, Addams was able to look beyond the Calvinist answer about the cause of poverty a gave a first look at how macro systems, alongside individual problems, contribute.

Today women chose the profession of Social Work in the context of many other career choices and opportunities, not with respect so much to their gender but as a privilege of living in a Liberal society– the same privileged Mary Richmond and Jane Addams enjoyed within the context of “happily” owning the Victorian definition of “women.”

In terms of poverty, far more women of every ethic background find themselves in poverty (with their children) than do men.[6] So in a sense, women continue to work for the improvement of their own lives as a gender, just as they did at the turn of the century.

Works Cited
Conway, Jill (1971).Women Reformers adn American Culture, 1870-1930. Journal of Social History. 5, 164-177.

Conway, Jill (1964).Jane Addams: An American Heroine. Daedalus. 93, 761-780.

Frankin, Donna (1986).Mary Richmon and Jane Addams: From Moral Certainty to Rational Inquiry in Social Work Practice. The Social Service Review. 60, 504-525.

Hunter, Jane H. (1992).Inscribing the Self in the Heart of Family: Diaries and Girlhood in Late-   Victorian America. American Quarterly. 44, 51-81.

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[1] http://www.amacad.org/publications/daedalus.aspx

[2] Since two of the articles I used were written by the same author I chose to include a fourth for the review paper.

[3] http://www.socialworkers.org/naswprn/surveyTwo/Datagram2.pdf

[4] Working at Townbe Hall in London and her remarkable conversation with Tolstoy.  From the fotenotes in Franklin.

[5] Elizabeth Anderson. Dewey’s Moral Philosophy. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

[6] Starrels, M. E., & And Others. (1994). The Feminization of Poverty in the United States: Gender, Race, Ethnicity, and Family Factors. Journal of Family Issues, 15(4), 590-607.

Rosen, R. (2006). The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Movement Changed America, Revised Edition (Revised.). Penguin (Non-Classics).

“…one can’t build little white picket fences to keep the nightmares out.” ~Anne Sexton

Professor Emerita of University of California Davis, Ruth Rosen is a uniquely qualified historian to write a history of the American Feminist movement.  Her qualifications stem from the fact the she was something of a “revolutionary” herself, participating in many of the struggles that she writes about and adding her own anecdotes throughout the text, which is coupled with the fact that she is an historian and social commentator of some distinction. As a journalist for publications like The Nation, Rosen has brought her sense of social justice for women to the forefront, and as a historian she has focused on the experiences of poor and working class women– starting with her dissertation, which was about women and prostitution.[1]

Clearly The World Split Open was written with Dr. Rosen’s “historian hat” on, but it is written in a journalistic style that makes it at once entertaining and interesting. Scrupulously referenced, the book’s notes section is nearly one hundred pages and is followed by a robust glossary of important terms, making it also an excellent textbook for women’s history survey courses. Rosen’s references include books, interviews, newspaper articles, and her personal experiences as a comrade participating in the struggle of the women’s movement.

Rosen tells the story, her story, by starting with an annotated chronology that begins in 1848 and ends with the beginning of the story of the modern women’s movement in the 1950s. It is in this first chapter, that Rosen entitled Dawn of Discontent, where one will see the first striking resemblance to Betty Friedan’s The Feminist Mystique. Clearly, Rosen was heavily influenced by the late Friedan and admits that Friedan’s book “had broken the silence and and begun unmasking the reality of women’s lives”  (8). The motif of The Feminist Mystique permeates her history in The World Split Open.

Nevertheless, Rosen does not end with Friedan’s critique.  Instead, she moves the reader past the early days of gender enlightenment to what she terms the Rebirth of Feminism in section two of the book. This reference to “rebirth” emphasizes the fact that women’s movement issues lay somewhat dormant through the fifties and early sixties.  In this section, Rosen begins by laying out the reasons that Liberal Feminism gave way to the Radical Feminist movement.  She argues that, even though women had not yet put a name to many of their concerns (56), the children of the fifties rejected the “patriotic role” of Cold War mother and to take a more strident stance on issues of patriarchy and systems of power through “bohemian adventures, love affairs, marriage, the civil rights movement, antiwar activities, and the New Left Movement with unarticulated fears of replicating the world of their mothers” (58).

The middle part of the book addresses, in part, how women experienced the “conversion” from the trap of The Feminist Mystique into a new female consciousness.  As an example of this, Rosen uses the experiences of Gloria Steinem and others, who were already older and working when they experienced “conversion” (208).   Younger women, Rosen argues, were experiencing the shift in female consciousness in colleges and in small groups, while women of Steinem’s age were experiencing the conversion in “the struggles,” such as the anti-Vietnam War movement, “La Causa” of Cesar Chazev” and press coverage of feminist events, as in the case of Gloria Steinem (209).

Rosen also describes how the conservative Right in the United States responded to the new female activism.  In her retelling of the story of Sagaris, a feminist institute created at Goddard College in the summer of 1974, Rosen points out the fear that was rampant among traditionalists and the Right, i.e.  that ever-present fear of women rejecting their historic roles and finding new political and economic voices (254).  This fear is also illustrated well in Rosen’s discussion of how the FBI infiltrated women’s groups along side such New Left organizations such as the Students for  a Demoncratic Society (SDS), “the Black Panther Party, the Native American Movement, the Yippies and many other protest groups” (240).

The weakness of the book is that it seems at time one sided toward the experiences of the middle class, white woman.  It doesn’t pay nearly enough attention to the history of female minorities caught up in or on the periphery of the movement, although this might be inevitable since work is just starting to be done in this area.  Another weakness of the book as a history is its ideological leaning.  While no person, historian not, can be 100% non-biased; Rosen seems to not even recognize hers.

The strength of the book is its telling of the story of the modern women’s movement in a journalistic style that is at once educational and entertaining.  Her own experiences as an activist in the movement give it the kind of persuasive power that cannot be learned from books– that is, as hearing the story told by person who was there.   Therefore, Rosen’s book is strongly recommended for all students of women’s history who desire to have a deeper understanding of the modern struggle for women’s rights from the perspective of those who struggled.

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[1] http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people/Rosen/rosen-con0.html

Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. W. W. Norton & Company, 1963.

Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. W. W. Norton & Company, 1963

In this now classic book, author and founder of the National Organization of Women (NOW), the late Betty Friedan, argued that that there was a problem afflicting post-World War II women which had no name. Friedan dubbed this problem The Feminine Mystique and argued that it was a distinctively American philosophy that women started to embrace following the end of the war 1945 and that by 1949, women were reduced to only one definition: “the housewife- mother” (44). Friedan further argued that this philosophy convinced women that their only value was in the fulfillment of “femininity” found in “sexual passivity, male domination and nurturing maternal love.” (43).[1] It was a philosophy that, as Friedan put it, caused “her limitless world to… [shrink]… to the cozy walls of home” (44).

The first chapters of the book are organized to show evidence for The Feminist Mystique in the media, psychology and counseling, education, and in virtually all American institutions of the early sixties. Following the evidence, Friedan included her estimation of how this problem was affecting the individual women living the philosophy. And finally, Friedan laid out for her female readers a bold strategy for emancipation entitled “A New Life Plan for Women” (338).

Looking at this book through the lens of history, one should note that this was a very influential book to the minds of very many women and was acclaimed as an “excellent sociological study.” [2] Nevertheless, it is easy to disagree on this later point because the book is a far cry from what is typically considered an academically rigorous attempt to establish evidence for a unified sociological theory. Instead, Friedan seems to have used a pre-determined Marxist motif of “power and oppression,” which she layered on top of her evidence.

Furthermore, the evidence that was used to support Friedan’s hypotheses is at best qualitative/appeals to authority and at worst anecdotal evidence drawn from her interviews with middle class housewives. These selective interviews, while poignantly describing the pain felt by some women of the era, are hardly evidence that all American women were/are harmed by the philosophy of The Feminist Mystique.

Another major weakness of this book is that is completely ignores the plight of women who are not in the stable, middle class status of the stereotypical housewife. Nowhere is this omission more palatable (or perhaps offensive to the modern reader) than in Chapter 12 where Friedan analogizes The Feminist Mystique to a “comfortable” concentration camp (283). For Friedan, “the problem” for “women” is not food, clothing, shelter and safety—problems faced by poor women—but only an existential problem: self-fulfillment or “sleep walking” in a “comfortable concentration camp,” and obviously a modern, middle class family home is far removed from a concentration camp (282-283).

The strength of the book is its persuasive appeal to majority class women of the early 1960s. Even now, it gives the reader a glimpse of the passion that the progressive, middle class leaders of the 20^th century women’s movement felt coupled with and the pain that many of American’s upper-middle class women experienced as they lived out the role that was assigned to them after 1949. Another strength of the book is the fact Friedan took the time to give a solution to the “problem with no name,”—a solution that she admitted in the Epilogue was difficult, but might be the best part of the book.

The Feminist Mystique should, of course, be read by any student of gender, women’s history or related academic disciplines, and will still be useful as a therapeutic study for some women in our culture. It would seem that remnants of the 1963 social order still remain in the middle class today and for those women who are still afflicted by the “problem that has no name,” reading The Feminist Mystique might have the power to emancipate, or even save.[3] It might also be appropriate to recommend this book to Hispanic and/or African American women whose families are transitioning from the poor or working class but at still are hanging onto the traditional roles of their culture. And finally, as with all classics, The Feminist Mystique speaks to different readers in different ways. It raises relentless human questions about one half of the species—the half that happens to have had no voice for most of recorded history. In this light, one might further suggest that this book should be read by every living person.

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[1] Freeman, Lucy. “’The Feminine Mystique’.” The New York Times 7 Apr 1963.

[2]Reed, Evelyn. International Socialist Review, Vol. 25, No. 1, No. 166, Winter 1964, pp. 24-27; Review of “The Feminine Mystique,” by Betty Friedan, W. W. Norton & Co., New York, 1963. 410 pp

[3] In my own work with women as a therapist I have recommended The Feminist Mystique to several women who seemed to me to be an anachronism with regard to how their relationships worked at home. But for the most part, the women that I work with are seeking self-fulfillment in their education and would likely see The Feminine Mystique as anarchistic in many ways.

The Other Women’s Movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in Modern America

Dr. Dorothy Sue Cobble brings an important aspect of women’s history to the forefront in The Other Women’s Movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in Modern America. Her expertise in both labor and women’s studies converge in this history of the women of organized labor from about 1930s until about 1960, which she argues is a movement in between the first wave (suffrage)and second wave (modern women’s movement) of American “feminist” activism (7). It was during this period that women entered wage-labor and unions in large numbers. Using source materials found in union newspapers, conference minutes, etc., along with well-documented secondary sources such as monographs on labor and women’s history, Cobble tells the story of this largely forgotten movement of women who worked for social justice for women within the context of the American Labor movement.

Cobble tells this story in eight chapters. Each chapter deals with one aspect of the struggle for women’s rights as wage laborers. The distinction between women’s rights and women’s equality is made, in varying degrees, in each of these chapters, which deal with subjects like wage justice, the concept of the “double day” (i.e. the fact that most wage laboring women work a second job taking care of children in the home), rights, and the whole idea of “equal rights” in the pursuit of social justice for women.

Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)
But the “social justice” that Cobble suggests the women of organized labor were working for was fundamentally different than the “social justice” that the women of the modern feminist movement are well-known for promoting. Social justice for the modern feminist movement mean fulls equality with men while it meant, among other things, gender-based labor protection for working-class, unionized woman. Nowhere is this distinction between the two movements illustrated better than the in section that discusses the debate over the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in chapter two of the book (60-66). On the one hand labor leaders like Pauline Newman bitterly opposed the ERA because they felt that the ERA would undermine hard-won gender based state labor laws, while feminists like Alice Paul, who had worked tirelessly for women’s suffrage, believed that the ERA was a natural next step in the emancipation of women and “firmly believed that women should enjoy the same freedoms as men, including ‘freedom of contract’ (62). The debate between the two groups essentially boiled down to this controversy over what “freedom of contract” would mean for working class women. Opponents of the ERA in labor felt that the amendment would shift all of the power towards the side of owners of labor and create even greater inequality for women, especially working-class women. Cobble argues that this debate was essentially a struggle between the working class and the elite, quoting and agreeing with historian Carl Brauer who noted that “the debate over the ERA had distinctly class, interest group and ideological overtones, pitting affluent, business-oriented, and politically conservative women against poor, union-oriented and politically liberal women” (61) .

“Double Day”

Another interesting, and distinctively working class aspect of this struggle, is described by Cobble in chapter five, entitled The Politics of the “Double Day” where she argued that women of the labor movement understood that there had to be a fundamental restructuring of the work world in order for there to be “equality” for women in the workplace. “Double day” is a euphemism for the reality that women who work must also care for children and household and part of their traditional role. “Women of leisure,” as leaders within the labor movement described them, didn’t realize that their reduction of the women’s movement to simply full equality with men in the workplace neglected this fact, which still held true in the homes of working-class women . Therefore, a fundamental restructuring of the workplace, as opposed to full equality, was fought for in order to allow for this gender difference: for instance, a 6 hour work day and on-site company day care facilities– the idea being to “combine wage and family life”(122). In other words, the women of labor struggled for a pragmatic politics of reform that advanced women in workplace without questioning her traditional role in the household.

A major strength of Cobble’s book is a focus on the social justice aspects of the labor movement, or rather, how the woman of labor and the mass unionization movements in general, promoted social justice in the workplace for both women and men. She points out that this other women’s movement was about class struggle as (sometimes literally) opposed individualistic goal of full equality championed by “elite” women on the political Right. Another strength is the thorough among of research and documentation used throughout the book coupled with the pictures from the period. Cobble masterfully integrates the story of the struggle of the women of labor with direct quotes from their leaders and anecdotes that make the story entertaining and educational. If the book has a weakness, it is that Cobble at times seems too critical of the feminism that followed the women’s labor movement, or was in political opposition to it as a contemporary.

But despite this minor concern, the book is an interesting and welcomed addition to the historiography of women’s studies. It gives the student of women’s history an insight into segment of gender studies that has been neglected and pigeoned holed as a period when “nothing much was happening worth writing about,” even though nothing further from the truth can be said. On the contrary, it was a period of expansive migration into labor and social movement for women because of the political power which follows organizing.