Monthly Archives: March 2020

Anxiety

Anxiety in the Time of COVID-19: Toilet Paper Edition

A few days ago, I noticed the back-up stack of toilet paper was low. I paused, thinking about the urgency to go buy more toilet paper. I have never been one to let anything run out, and I tend to buy double of things I use often anyway.

But these are not ordinary times, and in one of the oddest twists of irrational panicking, many people across the U.S. have begun hoarding toilet paper in response to the possible COVID-19 pandemic.

A toilet paper panic seems to have happened first in Japan, also fearing COVID-19, but in that case, the toilet paper mania was spurred by fake news that Japan depended on toilet paper from China.

As a life-long resident of the Upstate of South Carolina, I am well-versed in irrational grocery store panicking; if the weather forecast even hints at cold rain, much less snow, ice, and sleet, the bread and milk shelves are almost instantly barren. I am still not certain why the Southern brain is wired to hoard bread and milk in case we have frozen precipitation (which almost never disrupts travel for more than a day or two any way).

No one seems to understand the toilet paper panic over COVID-19 in the U.S. either, but this is quite a real thing.

So I have been more than once lately temporarily paralyzed over taking normal and even rational measures that balance my normal life with preparing for self- or imposed quarantine—or even, dare I say it?, the zombie apocalypse.

There is a motif running through the film Zombieland in which a main character, Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), meticulously explains to the audience that people who are anxious were those most well equipped for the zombie apocalypse. In an odd and ugly twist of fate, life-long practice with expecting impending doom prepares one well to survive that doom once impended.

Anxiety is mostly irrational hyper-focusing on the what ifs that virtually never happen. Like hypochondria.

However, tediously working through every worst-case scenario and being hyper-aware of everything (I mean every thing) can be extremely helpful when the worst-case comes to pass.

So I noticed a few more rolls of toilet paper in the bathroom cabinet, deciding not to further stress the system by going to the store. I have more recently bought just a few frozen dinners on the off-chance of quarantine, or COVID-19 mutating into a zombie superbug.

But the larger issue for me has been watching as my anxiety world has expanded into virtually everyone’s life. COVID-19 is something new, unknown, and unlike flu (itself very dangerous but something expected and thus known), it puts us all in an uncomfortable position between over-reacting and under-reacting.

Anxiety, the pervasive and mostly irrational kind, is about not knowing and having little or no power.

For women, there is the pervasive anxiety over physical vulnerability when walking through a dark and secluded parking lot. Being assaulted may be incredibly rare, but the possibility is there.

But clinical anxiety is far less rational or reasonable. I became sick several days ago just as my spring break began. I loathe being sick, but I also immediately thought “What if I have COVID-19?”

That was my clinical anxiety since there are almost no rational reasons for that question except some sort of proximity: I exist in a time when COVID-19 is spreading.

We anxious function in worst-case thinking. That is exhausting, mostly unproductive, and nearly always futile.

COVID-19 has thrust almost everyone into that world where not knowing and a lack of control overshadow functioning in rational and reasonable ways.

This is made even more complicated by the paradox of empirical evidence. If everyone is proactive and the COVID-19 pandemic is averted, then some will see the lack of a pandemic as evidence the proactive measures weren’t needed.

That is the perpetual life of the anxious; dozens of worst-case scenarios fretted over daily until the horrible thing hasn’t happened, or is replaced by a newer worst-case scenario.

Or some simply recycle—every minor illness or pain becomes the worst possible disease, until it isn’t.

I am also constantly policing myself to be reasonable, to give myself a break. The COVID-19 panicking makes me another level of anxious, about wanting to help and soothe those hoarding toilet paper as well as hand sanitizer and soap.

But just as it is very Southern (and ridiculous) to hoard bread and milk in winter weather, it is self-defeating to hoard those things that everyone needs to stem the possibility of COVID-19 becoming an unmanageable pandemic.

Everyone needs soap and cleaning items. Health care providers need the masks and rubber gloves.

Hoarding by a few puts all of us at greater risk.

Just as I think I am my worst self when I am in the throes of anxiety, I am watching COVID-19 spur the very worst of being an American—the got-mine urge of too many of us.

I also am seeing beyond me the very real and negative consequences of being irrational even as I understand the powerful tug of those irrational responses.

There are many of us in the clutches of anxiety and OCD who look at the alarm clock or stove with the nearly irresistible urge to turn them off perpetually. We lock the car door with the remote 19 times, and then once more, and then fret about walking back to the car to check again 15 minutes later.

The possibilities, not knowing, and not having control. These are real monsters and they aren’t lurking under the bed.

I am not certain of the claims made by Columbus, that we anxious are somehow better equipped for apocalypse.

But I am well aware of how the COVID-19 question has sparked a large-scale reaction that I recognize, have a great deal of empathy for.

I have absolutely no idea how dangerous this health event is. I do know I worry about my safety and the safety of loved ones and friends—although those worries are pervasive with or without COVID-19.

As I watch the range from over-reacting to under-reacting, I do know that I do not wish my internal world on anyone.

If you are exhausted by this new COVID-19 anxiety, by not knowing, by not really having any control, you now know my world, one I have yet to find any vacation from.

Sorry.

Education, healthcare, politics, race, racism, social justice, socialism, Trumplandia

The Politics of Capitalism in Trumplandia

In the idealism of youth, I came to believe deeply in the power of education to transform not only individuals (as it had done for me) but also society. More than a decade before I discovered my intellectual home, critical pedagogy, I was compelled by John Dewey’s philosophy of education, democracy, and their relationship.

This idealism was tinted with a naive lack of awareness about my own privilege and the corrosive power of systemic inequities driving racism, sexism, classism, and many other social biases. I was raised in a home, community, and region of the country steeped in rugged individualism and bootstrap narratives among working-class (and racist) whites.

Over the course of my first decade-plus of teaching, I certainly could see that I was shaping individual lives, but I grew increasingly skeptical of the revolutionary power of education to transform society.

By the spring of 2005, then, after I had secured my doctorate and moved from K-12 to higher education, I sat in a hotel room in New Orleans watching George Carlin talk about being a non-voter. I recognized that day my skepticism had turned into full-blown cynicism, and I then joined the ranks of non-voters who argued there was little discernible difference between the two major political parties in the U.S.—and that the U.S. had no real organized Left with political power.

I had spent nearly all of my adult life as an impotent voter since I lived in South Carolina, a monolithically Republican state where many Republican candidates run unopposed. Very few people I voted for were ever elected, and almost all of those “for” were in fact more votes “against” Republicans and conservatives.

Soon after I became a non-voter, the U.S. elected Barack Obama. I conceded that Obama’s election had very important symbolic power since he stood as the country’s first Black president, but I spent a great deal of scholarship and public writing criticizing the failures of the Obama administration that were indistinguishable from the George W. Bush era.

The election of Trump, however, and the sudden and awful deaths of both my parents brought into full relief that voting has the most dire consequence, even when the two political parties are nearly identical.

In hindsight, I began to recognize that while Obama’s policies were often inadequate (the Affordable Care Act) and even regressive or harmful (most the of the education agenda), the Obama years did create the atmosphere in which the country became demonstrably more progressive—expanding marriage to gay Americans and allowing the decriminalization/legalizing of marijuana, for example.

But the most profound evidence I witnessed for recognizing the consequences of the democratic process was my parents, lifelong Republicans who voted repeatedly against their own self-interests as working-class and aging (chronically ill) people.

I am not sure if they were avid supporters of Trump, but I am certain they would easily be counted among those more than tolerating Trump, mostly to stick it to the liberals.

I also know that their political commitments brought them early and truly awful deaths in an uncaring system they refused to challenge.

While I am not and have never been a Democrat, I have been more partisan politically active during this primary season, advocating for voting for women as well as calling for anyone with moral grounding to abandon Trump and his Republican base. In the wake of the South Carolina Primary and Super Tuesday, however, I find myself creeping back to the cynicism I recognized in 2005.

I have watched as large groups of people have continued, like my parents, to vote against their self-interests and even against their stated policy commitments. For example, the exit polls from Super Tuesday show the following:

 

Yet, Joe Biden, distinctly not supporting Medicare for All or anything like universal health care, garnered similar support percentages to the contradictory level of support for abandoning private insurance (which Biden endorses).

Much of these contradictions lie in the South, which I have long described as self-defeating. And even as Biden’s record on race and racism are deeply scarred by his rhetoric and his support for harmful, racist policies (such as mass incarceration and the war on drugs), voters who are Black have significantly supported Biden and reveled on social media that Sanders got burned on Super Tuesday.

My critical pedagogy calls for me to resist fatalism, but the hope expressed in Paulo Freire and others is often very hard to hold onto. As an academic, then, I am left with trying to understand and not simply, once again, to abandon our democratic process.

What are our choices? Here is my analysis as best as I can offer now:

  • Elizabeth Warren is a Capitalism Idealist (Active). Her position is that we must repair the damage we have done to capitalism. This idealistic view of capitalism holds that when it works properly, capitalism works for all people in a free society, and her belief in capitalism requires an academic (and legal) approach to repair and maintain the best capitalism has to offer (a rising tide lifts all boats).
  • Joe Biden is a Capitalism Idealist (laissez-faire). His stance is that capitalism will correct itself if leaders are decent people (“decent” as code for idealized paternalism). He and his supporters are arguing not really for policy, but for replacing Trump (not a decent leader) with Biden (because he is, they claim, decent). This position concedes that capitalism needs some sort of moral rudder, but Biden’s “nothing will change” claim reflects his laissez-faire approach to leadership in a capitalist society.
  • Mike Bloomberg is a Capitalism Individualist (authoritarian like Trump). Billionaires by virtue of their enormous wealth are uniquely qualified to manage capitalism (like a rodeo cowboy who can ride a bull the longest). This perspective also concedes a “bull in the china shop” possibility for capitalism when it isn’t well managed by those with expertise in strong-handed management.
  • Bernie Sanders is a Social Democrat (but not a socialist). His skepticism of capitalism holds that it is inherently amoral/flawed. Citizens in a democracy must protect themselves against capitalism, and protect capitalism from itself, with robust public institutions. This is a public before private stance.
  • Barack Obama is a Capitalism Pragmatist. In many ways, his approach to capitalism and leadership is a blend of Warren and Biden’s idealism, but Obama is uniquely likable. Capitalism and government can, it seems, be judiciously guided by charism and personality—as long as the biggest boats enjoying the rising tide are not rocked too much (see Biden).

Smarter people than me in terms of political science have noted that a great deal of voting is driven by fear, both fear cultivated by politicians (see Trump) and existential fear experienced by voters who are more comfortable with the known bad than the unknown that may be better (this includes the worst aspects of racist voters embracing the known of their racial hierarchies).

Sanders and his policies are not as likable as Obama nor as known as Biden’s. Warren has proven in the wake of Hillary Clinton that women have a tremendous hurdle to jump in presidential politics; Kamala Harris and Cory Booker highlighted that race and gender are enormous hurdles as well.

Among these candidates we can see the corrosive impact of fear grounded both in ideology (the unknown and misunderstood specter of “socialism”) and bigotry (sexism and racism).

But there is more as well, I think, in terms of the cult of personality in politics. Too often we become trapped in supporting and voting for candidates while not focusing on policy.

I am weary of participating in the partisan politics of personalities, but I am trying to resolve myself to remain committed to the politics of policy, advocating and using my privilege in the service of the following policies:

  • Universal single-payer health care
  • Student loan forgiveness and universal publicly funded K-16 education
  • Protecting and expanding women’s reproductive rights
  • Marijuana legalization/decriminalization (reparations to those incarcerated and released)
  • Ending mass incarceration
  • Reversing Trumpism 
  • Expanding workers’ rights

I am certain that re-electing Trump works against these commitments, but I am hard pressed to imagine how electing Biden serves them much better.

Education, memoir, Teaching

Misreading Academia, and Why Education?

While I was teaching high school English in rural South Carolina, I became close friends with a colleague; I was English Department chair and also taught Advanced Placement, and he was the chair of history and also taught A.P.

But the strongest bond we shared was our similar life experiences of having been born, raised, and educated in the Deep South. We came to be ideologically quite different (radical, progressive) than how we were raised (traditional, conservative) in redneck and racist homes. And we both quickly attributed this transformation to our educations, although in slightly different ways.

My colleague often noted that when he and his father fought as they grew older and farther apart intellectually (as I did with my father), his father would often end those fights by declaring that the biggest mistake he ever made was sending my colleague to college.

While I did in fact attribute my liberation from all sorts of negative -isms to wonderful and thoughtful professors and classes in my undergraduate education, my colleague actually graduated college mostly unfulfilled, but motivated to self-educate by reading widely and deeply. Yes, college helped his transition, but he did a great deal of his own intellectual soul-searching after he graduated.

Both of us also eventually sought doctoral degrees later in life and then moved on to higher education. As a result of our backgrounds and experiences in K-12 and higher education, I think, I have noticed two important conversations on social media that at first may not to seem related, but they highlight how often the media and the public misread higher education and the larger question of why we have formal education.

One debate is about political alliances in higher education:

Embedded in this question (an interesting and valid one in many ways) is a couple assumption: (1) the monolithic progressive (liberal) professorate, and (2) a hidden class division within academia that avoids the institutional hierarchy of academia (tenure and promotion structures).

Here is an often ignored fun fact about higher education: Professors and contingent faculty are not monolithically progressive, liberal, and/or leftists.

In fact, some disciplines highly influential beyond the academy are the most moderate and conservative—economics, psychology, political science.

But professors are disproportionately among a privileged class due to their academic status in the academy (although how we arrived here does create some tensions, speaking as a working-class academic). That intellectual privilege skews academia toward a very moderate progressive-leaning middle.

Those of us who embrace and practice a genuine leftist or radical approach to academics and life are outliers, often marginalized in ways that publicly marginalized groups are not overtly treated in academia. For example, higher education is quick to give lip service to inclusion for LGBTQ+ individuals and communities but not to openly Marxist professors (and for the record, stating inclusion doesn’t magically create inclusion even in higher education).

The key distinction between academia and the so-called real world, then, is about the norms of discourse in each setting. Yes, higher education is more aggressively complex and progressive in how many topics are discussed and examined. To people outside academia, this discourse norm seems left of mainstream society (I imagine that is a fair assessment) and likely seems more permissive and less traditional.

It is at this tension where misreading academia can be more directly examined. That tension is captured well in this exchange on social media:

Jason Myers is making a case for a utilitarian, or essentially conservative, view of formal education—to prepare anyone for the world as it exists (in the U.S., that is to create workers). Erin Bartram, however, is speaking for a much broader purpose of education, essentially progressive, one that contributed heavily to my colleague’s and my transformation—to foster critical consciousness and autonomous citizens.

The tension in these Tweets is reflected in the difference between Democrats and Republicans on college:

Increase in the share of Americans saying colleges have a negative effect on the U.S. is driven by Republicans' changing views

There is a similar partisan contrast in terms of perceptions about professors as well:

Most Democrats have confidence in college professors to act in the public interest; Republicans are divided

Misreading academia as uniformly progressive or leftist is grounded in how anyone views the purpose of formal education. Many in the U.S. are ideologically conservative and traditional so anything that seems to challenge that tradition or call for change is viewed skeptically if not cynically.

The current fear-mongering around single-payer health care is an excellent example of how a relatively moderate idea (universal health care) is framed as radical or “socialism” by a conservative culture (media and the public see the status quo as predictable and safe; therefore, change is to be feared).

As a Southerner raised in a conservative home and community, I can attest that formal education has the potential to be transformative—it worked for me—but as someone who is a leftist, I can also attest to the fact that academia is no progressive playground of fair-minded and ideological leftists.

Structures of higher education and the disciplines are too often inequitable and conservative, protective of the status quo even when that reality reflects and perpetuates the worse aspects of society.

Is there more space for equity and inclusion, diversity of radical thought, in higher education? Yes, and when formal education is about interrogating the world, then we are experiencing a more progressive environment. But that is not the norm of higher education because all institutions are prone to self-preservation.

The possibility of education in the pursuit of interrogating the world will always feed the tension between formal education and the so-called real world, leading some to misread higher education for its outlier qualities.

But the greatest tension of all may be at the root of the skepticism among conservatives about higher education (and all formal schooling); education is a debate about who decides what knowledge matters.

For children and young adults, universal public education and public higher education may provide some of the few safe spaces for a young person to discover a rich knowledge base that allows them to rise above indoctrination, bigotry, and uninformed lives.

This is, I admit, as ideal I aspire to as a teacher/professor, something I work hard to nudge my school toward. And simply by hoping a formal education can be a doorway into the life any person wants and deserves, I am that liberal professor people who misread higher education warn you about.