What I've Read This Week

Last Saturday I started reading Peter Singer’s newly published book The Life You Can Save.

Last Sunday the Indianapolis Star had this story on page B1:

Notre Dame hopeful starts site

The name of 17-year-old Rachel Harris’ Web site says it all. The Muskegon, Mich., high school senior recently launched iwanttogotonotredame.com to help her raise money to attend the South Bend school. The site includes copies of her application form, letters of recommendation and her high school transcript. Harris expects to be accepted—the problem is Notre Dame’s $46,000 annual cost of tuition, fees, room and board. She hopes the site will generate donations but also has applied for at least 10 scholarships. Harris plans to pursue a degree in biomolecular engineering and then attend medical school to become a pediatric endocrinologist. “The only thing that is keeping me from possibly going is the financial aspect to it, especially with these economic times,” she said.

If you know anything about The Life You Can Save, you know how the timing of the two writings struck me as perfect. If you aren’t familiar with the book, read on. Peter Singer is the Australian philosopher who wrote Animal Liberation back in 1975. That book was the first to really introduce millions of readers to the idea of speciesism and how an unwillingness to accept that animals feel pain and suffer has lead to factory farms and irresponsible product testing on animals. I think that omnipresent little gnawing sensation in my gut can be attributed to reading Animal Liberation in 1990. So when I heard he had a new book coming out, the gnawing sensation insisted that I get a copy. More guilt? You betcha. Thanks, gnawing sensation!

The book is small, fewer than 200 pages if you skip the acknowledgments and notes. And it’s timely—he’s either a very fast writer or he had time rewrite passages to reflect the economic uncertainty of 2008. Like that of a lot of philosophers, his writing sometimes requires multiple readings. What may seem understandable at first glance gets twisted around and examined from different angles, and if you’re feeling thoughtful or distracted, you just might want to read it again to make sure you’re catching it all. For that reason, I’ve only gotten about a quarter of the way through the book. I may need to revise this entire entry if the book surprises be by heading in a different direction, but for today, let’s assume I’m following and understanding its intended message. Mr. Singer builds this basic argument:

First premise: Suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care are bad.
Second premise: If it is in your power to prevent something bad from happening, without sacrificing anything nearly as important, it is wrong not to do so.
Third premise: By donating to aid agencies, you can prevent suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care, without sacrificing anything nearly as important.

Therefore, if you do not donate to aid agencies, you are doing something wrong.

It’s hard to argue against the correctness of this argument. Certainly all of us want to prevent suffering, especially if we can do it without negatively impacting our own well-being. But, how far would you go to prevent suffering? You may already be donating money to charities—good for you. But if you still have money left to spend on non-essentials, like bottled water (Mr. Singer seems to have a special hatred for bottled water), then are you really doing enough? That’s where the basic argument above gets tricky. Singer writes, “When we spend our surplus on concerts or fashionable shoes, on fine dining and good wines, or on holidays in faraway lands, we are doing something wrong.” He suggests, “you must keep cutting back on unnecessary spending, and donating what you save, until you have reduced yourself to the point where if you give any more, you will be sacrificing something nearly as important as a child’s life—like giving so much that you can no longer afford to give your children an adequate education.”

An adequate education. That brings us back to Miss Harris and her Web site. Mr. Singer certainly values education. He studied at the University of Melbourne and the University of Oxford and these days he’s a professor at Princeton University. I’m sure he’d encourage any student to get the best education they could afford. But $46,000 is a lot of money. Could she earn a comparable degree from a comparable school for less? Turns out she could attend her home state’s University of Michigan, which is ranked as one of the top ten biomedical engineering undergraduate universities, and pay less than half of what she plans to spend to attend Notre Dame. (The U of M Office of Financial Aid estimates that a freshman could expect to spend $22,765 for tuition, room and board, books and supplies, and miscellaneous personal expenses.) So in light of the little bit of The Life You Can Live that I’ve read and thought about, I’m having a hard time accepting that anyone should send anything to Miss Harris’s Web site. Maybe we should just write her and encourage her to read the book and reconsider her options. Maybe she could use her site to educate others about their financial choices and moral obligations.

Now I’m wondering why the newspaper even covered her story and how the reporter came to find out about it. Did this creative forward-looking student send out press releases? Did the editor think this Web site creation idea was a good one and wanted to share it so other needy individuals would be inspired to create their own sites? Did the paper run the story because newspaper readers are typically old and old means cranky and there’s nothing that an old cranky person likes more than a reason to get worked up so they can rant all morning about today’s youth? I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s paper because there just might be a follow-up story.

Ann, God, and a watch that beeps

My sister-in-law has a blog. Here’s a link:

http://annkroeker.wordpress.com/

My confession: I rarely read it. Why? I have no good reason. I’ll weakly claim that I don’t have time to read other people’s blogs, but I know that isn’t the real reason. I suspect that I don’t read it because I don’t want to think I could learn anything from her. The same reason that I don’t take my mom’s advice on clothes or my father-in-law’s advice on cars. I’m reluctant to admit that a family member can actually have useful opinions. There. Confession complete.

But I did recently attend my church’s “Ladies Day of Reflection” and my sister-in-law was one of the speakers. I went to her session and I’m here to tell you, she was terrific. Charming. Well-spoken. I was jealous of her ease, but so happy for her. Another confession: I’m not so good at being genuinely happy for people. But there I was, basking in her success when I found that she was teaching me things. Yep, I opened my mind and some of her knowledge slipped on in. So tonight I’m going to share just one of the items I walked away with. And she’s going to read this and say to herself, “That? I spoke for an hour, I poured out my soul, and that’s what she walked away with?” And I’ll need to assure her that there was a lot more, but this is just what I feel like sharing with you. (Did you roll your eyes at my assumption that she’d read my blog even though I don’t read hers? I’m rolling my own eyes and making a little promise to the blogosphere that I’ll start checking in with her blog.)

The subject of Ann’s talk was advice to women, moms mostly, about how to find time to pursue a closer relationship with God. She wrote an entire book on the subject—The Contemplative Mom: Restoring Rich Relationship with God in the Midst of Motherhood (ISBN: 978-0877881223). It’s out of print now, but you can find copies on Amazon.com.

So here’s the suggestion that got me so excited: Wear a watch that can beep every hour. That way, when you hear the beep, you can be reminded to think about God. I suppose you could also do this with the goal of thinking about anything that’s important to you—your children, your grandma, your lover, yourself—but I’ve been wearing my watch every day since Ann’s talk and I’ve been trying to actually think about God when it beeps. I’m often struck by the juxtaposition of what I’m doing and what I’m hoping to think about. Friday night I was pinching the edge of the pizza crust, trying to make it just right to hold the toppings. Dough and God. Okay, that works. But then on Saturday morning I was scooping the cat litter. Weird, but maybe that’s the point. That even when we’re doing the most humble of things, we can and should be thinking about The Bigger Picture.

And like a cleansing breath, the tiny beep can quickly snap my focus away from what I’ve been stewing about and put it back where I want it. Beep! I’m resettled into a better frame of mind. Maybe I should figure out if my watch could beep every 30 minutes instead of just once an hour.

Mr. Knight: My Puzzling Life Coach

In a few weeks we can celebrate the 21st birthday of one of Bobby Knight’s more unfortunate comments. During an interview with NBC’s Connie Chung, he said, “I think that if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.” He seemed to immediately recognize his mistake and tried to explain that he wasn’t actually talking about the act of rape: “But what I’m talking about is, something happens to you, so you have to handle it—now.” But it was too late for explanations. His poor word choice took on a life of its own, and caused further damage to his image, and embarrassed his employer, Indiana University.

I remember trying to make the rape comment make sense when he said it. Surely, if raped, my impulse would be to fight back. Wouldn’t it? But what if some rational part of my mind took control of the situation and assured me that there was in fact enjoyment to be had during this attack? Would that be a good thing, a kind of self-preservation defense mechanism? Or would it be detrimental to my survival? Coming from a man who doesn’t seem to know about relaxing and enjoying much at all, this comment and explanation puzzled me.

And continues to puzzle me.

Like all good puzzles, this one has taken up residence in my mind and occasionally my mind will take it down and toy with it for awhile. During a recent drama at work I thought about it quite a bit. I’m not going to thoroughly describe the work drama yet, even though it’s a story that will undoubtedly interest you. For now, you can picture your own unpleasant workplace scenario.

Mine involved a variety of challenging characters and their sometimes disturbing behaviors. Did he just take off his shirt a second time? Why was that child given two slices of bread and some peanut butter for lunch when those adults just helped themselves to complete meals? Did she just growl “titties” in my ear? Is that really an affair or technically just a “special bond”? If someone aggressively breaks the please-be-quiet chimes, can peace truly be achieved? Did that one use the N-word during the inauguration? Am I the only one who cares about this stuff? Bleh.

Many days when I’d be near-tears over something I was seeing, Bobby Knight’s relax-and-enjoy-it comment would come to mind. Clearly, I couldn’t change my co-workers or how they behaved. All I could do was find a way to cope with them. So for months I did that. I’d squash down my concerns and focus on the clock, waiting for the end of my shift. Or I’d distract myself by focusing all my attention on an enjoyable part of my job.

While these tactics worked for the duration of my workday, they didn’t help me away from work. Away from work I had all sorts of things to think about, yet I was fixated on the work drama. Nothing my husband said was as interesting as my co-workers’ misdeeds, so I only wanted to talk about them. For awhile, everyone I spoke to heard snippets of the big story. Like a new crush that dominates all your thoughts, these buffoons dominated mine. And like a bad smell on your hand that you keep sniffing just to confirm that it’s still there and it still stinks, I kept replaying events and conversations in my head even though I knew they’d make me mad.

So, deciding that just maybe Mr. Knight was wrong and that if you’re raped you need to fight back with everything you have, I set about to change the situation. I spoke to my supervisor. Nothing happened. I spoke to her supervisor, nothing happened. I spoke to another supervisor and was assured that everything that needed to be addressed had been addressed, but I couldn’t see that anything had changed. I resigned, but in frustration, I went yet one step higher up the ladder of command. This time I found a sympathetic manager who listened to my whole story. He led me to believe that things would finally change. I felt encouraged. But in the meantime, in my last two weeks at work, things got worse. (Yes, it was possible to make them worse.) I was getting the silent treatment. No one was helping me. It was grim and tense, but I survived.

So, which technique was more effective?

I want to say that addressing the problem was the right thing to do. I saw problems, I reported problems, and now I’m waiting for the system to appropriately deal with the problems. I want to say that having fought back, I am content.

But so far, I still can’t tell that anything’s changed. You see, I wasn’t able to make a clean break. I’ve still got reasons to go back once a week, twice a week, sometimes three times. And every visit makes me sad and angry. It appears my employer has not addressed any of my concerns. My ex-coworkers are still there acting the same. And I’m not working.

I guess I can’t answer the question yet. I hope that the answer eventually will become clear and I’ll be able to put the matter to rest.

Starting with a Bang

Rape. I’m going to make my first blog entry about rape. Maybe it’ll create lots of buzz and lots of people will discover AcmeBanana. Or more likely it’ll just let me work through some thoughts I’ve had on my mind. Thoughts that can’t be flushed out and worked through in the conversations I typically have. Conversations that are either unsatisfying because they’re about someone else (not me!) or because the person I’m talking to would really prefer to stay in the here and now, not venture into awkward territory. I’m also guilty of structuring most of my person-to-person conversations so that they eventually deliver a punch line of some sort. I don’t want to entertain today.

Friday I heard a story on BBC about an under-reported, but seemingly ever-more-common crime in South Africa: lesbians are being subjected to “corrective rape” by men trying to “cure” them of their sexual orientation. Here’s a link to the story:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/southafrica/4982520/Lesbians-subjected-to-corrective-rape-in-South-Africa.html

First, let’s all imagine a plain old everyday sort of rape. It’s not a crime of passion. It isn’t a case of “No… no…well, when you put it like that…wow…thanks baby…that was terrific.” It’s all about power and a need to dominate. There are all varieties of pain and they last long after the attack. There are tastes and smells that linger for days, despite vigorous washing. Flashbacks occur without warning. Nagging thoughts of what you could have done differently. Or worst of all, thoughts that maybe you’re responsible in some way.

Now, let’s imagine the corrective rape. In addition to all the “normal” rape issues, you’re dealing with a rapist who thinks he’s doing you a favor. Somehow this pain is going to help you. This humiliation is for your own good. Knowing that this attacker is full of shit would not lessen the horror. It must be as awful as anything I can imagine. No, wait, there’s another element to the crime—sometimes the men also rape the daughters of these women just to let them know they have options other than what their moms are teaching them. Your daughter’s raped because of you? That would be the worst thing I can imagine.

Now, what if your mother supported such an attack?

The radio report didn’t mention any moms who’d enlisted rapists to cure their daughters. Yet. I hope this story grows and gets the widespread coverage it deserves. And as it grows, we’ll learn more specifics and I’m sure there will be some mother implicated. I’m that sure because I know a mother who has had her own rosy dreams of corrective rape for years.

“Corrective rape” isn’t wording she’d ever choose. She prefers a quaint “bonk on the head” scenario: Like a caveman, a lumberjack from Alaska swaggers into our town wearing a Pendleton wool mackinaw hunting coat. He takes one look at my friend and knows he has to have her, whether she feels the same or not. Then he “bonks her on the head and drags her back to Alaska.” That is this mother’s wish for her first-born daughter. Somehow the bonking would make my friend realize that she wants to be with the lumberjack. And the Alaska part? My friend prefers rugged outdoor clothing to anything you normally find at a department store and her mother figures Alaska is a state that would accept such practical-yet-unfashionable taste. Maybe that state’s just so remote that none of this mother’s friends and relatives would ever hear that her daughter was gay, should the bonking not take. Or perhaps this mother views it as a state where her daughter could find happiness. Never mind that this friend of mine is doing just fine where she is.

Mothers. They say they want their children to be happy, but happy only really counts when the child’s definition matches the mother’s.

So a daughter being gay, or choosing to be gay, or not trying to not be gay, would definitely be seen as an issue in many households. A certain kind of mother would never accept that her daughter wasn’t just choosing to be difficult. Or she’d blame anyone or anything for her daughter’s “condition”. Maybe the father treated the girl as a son. Maybe the family moved too often. Maybe the problem started because girls back then were starting to dress like boys. This mother would probably feel bad about her feelings, but would stubbornly argue that she was just interested in her daughter’s happiness. “I don’t care about me, but I’m worried about her,” she might weep. And if she could do anything to change the situation, she would.

Which brings us back to those men in South Africa.

They claim they’re only interested in helping the women. Could this possibly be true?

Of course not.

The raped women were not asking for help from these men and they certainly weren’t crying out to be healed through rape. And the notion that these men have a better understanding of what’s good for society than the women is outrageous.

The attacks on the lesbians are another example of the wide and varied spectrum of sexual violence against women and girls. A few years ago I heard about “virgin cures” for HIV/AIDS. Apparently some men believe that having sex with a virgin would cure them of their disease—not a new idea. A long time ago people thought it would cure them of syphilis and gonorrhea. I’ve also heard about African men raping babies and toddlers, no doubt using the same virgin cure excuse.

Or maybe the attacks are not, as some speculate, simply homophobia. Maybe they show one effect of the economic marginalization that’s occurring in countries like South Africa. The perpetrators are addressing their wounded masculinities under the guise of doing something useful; by dominating a lesbian, they feel more like men.

As promised, I have no punch line today. I’m happy to be living where I do, when I do. For now we’re safe from virgin cures and corrective rapes, but as my friend’s mom demonstrates, no idea is completely original or completely foreign.