across the divide

The New York Times published a great interview with Justice Ginsburg in which she talks about the impact of having women (currently, a woman) on the Supreme Court.

The interviewer asks Ginsburg about a hypothetical Supreme Court that is majority female:

Q: Do you think that some of the discrimination cases might turn out differently?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I think for the most part, yes. I would suspect that, because the women will relate to their own experiences.

Q: That’s one area in which outcomes might actually differ?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes. I think the presence of women on the bench made it possible for the courts to appreciate earlier than they might otherwise that sexual harassment belongs under Title VII [as a violation of civil rights law].

Later in the interview, Justice Ginsburg talks about how Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote an opinion that discussed the problem of stereotyping women as responsible for the domestic sphere. If women, and not men, are in charge of the home, then employers will view them as less valuable:

Q: ... I wonder if one of the measures of your success on the court is that a male justice would write an opinion like this?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: That opinion was such a delightful surprise. When my husband read it, he asked, did I write that opinion? I was very fond of my old chief. I have a sense that it was in part his life experience. When his daughter Janet was divorced, I think the chief felt some kind of responsibility to be kind of a father figure to those girls. So he became more sensitive to things that he might not have noticed.

It is hard to imagine a world in which life experience didn't affect judgments, in both narrow and broad senses. The question is, what experiences expand our willingness and ability to imagine other ways of being-in-the-world? Or, better yet, how might we become more expansive people? We can always look back and say, let's not empathize, but there's wisdom in knowing what's beyond the comfort our own sedimented worlds.

on history and humility

A fun coincidence related to my previous post on history: the leading story on Salon is a review of a book, "Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History," by Oxford historian Margaret MacMillen.

The most important lesson to be gained from history, she writes, is simply "humility ... Knowing that classical Chinese civilization valued scholars above soldiers or that the Roman family was very different from the nuclear one of the modern West suggests other values and other ways of organizing society."

To recognizes this is not, she maintains, merely "relativism," but rather the awareness that the threats, incentives and tactics that work on us won't necessarily persuade people in other cultures and situations. Americans, who often have so little understanding of what it's like not to live in an affluent democratic superpower, are especially prone to mistakes in this department, as our experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan have amply shown.

Cultural and historical particularity is why the dreams of scientific planners and rational bureaucrats never come to pass. (As the eulogies note, Robert McNamara, the architect of the Vietnam War, was the "ultimate rationalist.") Persuasion is an art that requires empathy of the highest order. As MacMillen suggests, it is not fundamentally a humanist question (what if that were my mother, my child?), though we might very well want to ask that one too. It is a question of worldview (what if that were my people with that historical experience?).

Clearly, I'm preoccupied with empathy. My next post will be on Chief Justice Rehnquist's unplanned empathy workout.

Uyghurs in the news, Part 2

I was able to speak to a friend in Urumqi today. He says that his neighborhood is quiet. Children are playing outside. He is grateful that order has been restored, though some of his friends are still afraid to leave their apartments.

No one is very surprised that the government is back in control. Last year when I was in Sichuan after the earthquake, the other aid workers were stunned by its capacity. They had read about China's rise, but still couldn't believe their eyes. Cell phone towers up in no time (and free calls); seas of blue tents for shelter. When our logistics team tried to make an emergency purchase of tents near Beijing, the company said, "Sorry, the government has already claimed them."

Whether you're a fan or critic, or hopefully something in between, this is a fact of contemporary China. The Christian Science Monitor provides an apt quote from Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch, "The Chinese have time, power, resources – everything is on their side." Barring some major change in global political and economic structure, the government will continue to use its advantages.

In my previous post, I said that the most unfortunate blind spot is historical. The past is always in the present, but which past? To many Han Chinese, Xinjiang has been a part of China since the eponymous Han dynasty (202 BCE - 220 CE). Many Uyghurs point to periods of independence as recent as the second East Turkestan Republic (1949-9) and as far back as the 9th century Uyghur state. Though the myth of a fully objective history is exactly that, too often people on both sides see in the past only what they want to. (If you are interested in reading more, a good place to start is James Millward's history of the region.)

All individuals and groups struggle with the question of how to relate to difference - which kinds are threatening, which kinds are the basis for solidarity. A systematic and open-minded reading of history can tell us how those lines have been drawn and, more importantly, how they have shifted over time. It is the shifting that is the most instructive. When that which is solid melts, if only a little, you begin to see that there are other possibilites. Other ways of relating to your personal and communal past, and thus to your present and future. I know this doesn't constitute a policy platform, but it's an important message that bears repeating. Incidentally, it applies just as much to the East/West as to the Uyghur/Han divide.

Uyghurs in the news

Many thanks to those of you who emailed me to check in. I'm pretty distraught. Of course, our main thoughts should be with the people there, but I'm grateful that you sent notes.

Unfortunately, I don't have any inside information on what's happening. Right after the first protests, a close friend in Urumqi called me via Skype, knowing that access would be cut off any minute. He just had enough time to assure me that he's okay. Cell phone service is erratic. A foreign journalist told me that landlines are still working, but I haven't been able to get through. Just a whole lot of busy signals.

My friend Nicole suggested following melissakchan's twitter. Melissa, a correspondent for Al-Jazeera, tweets:

The city is now under martial law.

A Han Chinese man with a stick just tore open our car door to beat our producer. Averted just in time.

There is no right or wrong anymore. Just vigilantes, Han and Uighur. Mostly men but some women and even children.

As with any conflict, the situation is complex. I won't go through all of the aspects - cultural, linguistic, ethnic, religious, social, economic...You get the idea. And, as with any majority/minority issue, there are stereotypes and misunderstanding on both sides. (If you are interested in the fuller story, I am still looking for volunteers to read my dissertation draft.) In my view, the most unfortunate blind spot is historical. A mark of modernity seems to be that our gaze is so fixed on the future that we don't have time to look systematically at the past. More on how this distorts views after I get some sleep.

I am particularly worried about the people being detained. That can be a labyrinth of Kafkaesque proportions.

up and down, down and up

My nephew Jamieson and I were distressed by the news today: unemployment climbs to 9.5%, stocks fall. Despite the downturn, we're hoping he will still be able to attend college. You've got to plan ahead.

Seriously, sometimes I wonder if Jamieson gets it more than we do (though his laptop is not Internet-ready, its predictions are beating those of Goldman Sachs and leading economists). You can be fully absorbed in solving the pressing problems of today or fully anxious about your future retirement, but when push comes to shove, nothing compares to a hug from your mommy and a popsicle on a hot day.

Amen for that.

gmail knows best

I'm writing a chapter that is due in 24 hours, so I've been glued to my black box for an unhealthy period of time. My favorite distraction is, of course, gmail. Since I barely get any email (hint, hint), I've started to pay undue attention to the sponsored and suggested links at the top of my inbox. It's a little scary to think of complex algorithms parsing my email for words and phrases that reveal my consumption and other habits.

A review of the most recent links:

"Neuro-Leadership - http://www.raoleadership.com/ - Exceptional leaders tap into their amygdala and frontal lobe" Why me? The text is mysterious enough to make you want to click. Apparently, I can learn how to exercise the underdeveloped parts of my brain to become a better 'feeler' and herd leader.

"What's Wrong With a Messy Desk?" (a non-ad link to an article on about.com) would be more on target if I were working at a desk.

And, finally, a winner - "Journeys: Chicago's New Wave of Microbrews" - an article I read two days ago, since the New York Times is my #2 form of procrastination.

In sum, please come visit me so we can visit the hip breweries! I will introduce you to city and suburban delights. At the very least, email me with news or cute photos of your pet. Or your sister's pet. You get the idea.

MJ

Everyone has an MJ story. Mine begins on roller skates and ends with Islamic revivalists in northwestern China. As millions join in a fit of nostalgia, they remember that Michael (Mikaeel) Jackson knew no boundaries. I didn't know until I met MJ fans in Xinjiang. I'm afraid this is a persistent theme in my life: I travel far and wide to learn lessons easily grasped from the comforts of home. (Every week or so my mom points triumphantly at the latest segment on the Travel Channel, "See, I've been all around the world!")

Scene 1: It's another scorching summer day in the Chicago suburbs. My sister and I scurry to the basement to escape the heat. We put on our roller skates and pop Thriller into the cassette player. It's been played so many times that the ribbon has thinned in spots that we know by heart. As we skate around the washer/dryer, water heater and other household detritus, we belt out songs in our best Jackson falsettos. We decide to choreograph an MJ concert. We will recruit our friends and neighbors. The zombie moves will be all the more riveting - on skates! The crowning performance, skinned knees and all, is a favorite childhood memory.

Scene 2: I am chatting with my best friend in Urumchi, the captial of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China. It has the distinction of being the city farthest from any ocean (and, incidentally, the farthest from my home). My friend's neighbor, Ziwide, pops by to help roll little pasta ears. After telling me about the latest in Islamic cinema, Ziwide launches into a hagiographic account of Michael Jackson's life and conversion. The man, she gushes, is evidence that Truth reaches across racial, economic and cultural lines. Honestly, it is the first I hear of MJ's Islamic inclinations.

Scene 3: I am now in a remote village in southern Xinjiang. A brother of a friend is taking me on a motorbike ride to see the local mud-brick factory and water mill. He used to be a trader in the city but prefers life in the country. As we take in the bucolic scene, complete with donkey carts and cotton fields, he asks me about the great Michael Jackson. Can I confirm the reports of his conversion that have caused so much excitement here?

My citizenship was the source of more than a few awkward social interactions in Muslim China. Unlike many Americans, Uyghurs were not confused about the lack of relationship between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Like it or not, I fielded accusations about George W's fact-starved foreign policy. But, more often than I would have ever imagined, the questions would wane and the questioner's face would soften. Whether awe-struck or quizzical, he or she would utter his name with a sense of the magical that, lucky for me and I think for all of us, transcends borders.

pre-nostalgia

Ever since I decided to leave San Francisco, everything has been tinged with pre-nostalgia. On Saturdays I go the Noe Valley Farmers Market with my sister, brother-in-law and nephew. When we started going, Baby Jamieson was but a wrinkled peapod in a soft brown sling. Now, sporting checkered Vans and an orange vest, he walks a good chunk of the way there.

How does one mark time? There is T.S. Eliot's classic line, "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons." (As I write, I am listening to the Prufrock-inspired song by the Crash Test Dummies.)

Yesterday, I taught my last class of the semester, which was also my last class at Berkeley. As you can imagine, floods of pre-nostalgia. I've been rereading Eliot for sentimental reasons, but Eliot himself was far from sentimental. His meditations on time, language, beginnings and ends are lyrical yet unflinching, "precise but not pedantic." My favorite bit of late, which I read to my class, is from Four Quartets:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now always -
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

I hope I didn't depress my bright-eyed students with all the talk of remembrance and return. They are at the wave's peak, whereas I am betwixt and between - preparing to leave the comforting rhythms of the university semester and the delights of my nephew's magical growth, but poignantly pre-nostalgic too.

and yet the spirit

As I was in the final yards of yesterday's arm-wrenching (and joyful) stint as a dog walker, a woman stopped me with a shriek, "Nikki McClure!" Both the pit bull and I jumped. She pointed at my chest.

Yes, I was wearing a shirt made from one of Nikki McClure's papercut designs! Was I just fantasizing about a move to New York? This was a to-live-for San Francisco moment: a stranger gushes about a shared affection for a socially-conscious graphic designer. It would be pure science-fiction in the City.

She said that her son had on the same t-shirt the night before and, lo and behold, she had on a Nikki pin. Do you have her calendar? Yes, ma'am. Right then, she nudged the back of the pin and a hand brushed my palm and 'here's a gift' rolled off her tongue. Gushing and gifting in a thirty second encounter.

Earlier in the day I was in a long line at the post office and the woman next to me grumbled, "I was just in Florida visiting my mom and the New Yorker in me is acting up." All of this following on my glorious run across the Golden Gate Bridge that would make even a New Yorker's heart sing.

Yet, yet, I'm still craving more than perfect sunshine and perfect strangers (!). More than an adventure, I'm looking for a challenge.

for the love of silence

Have we lost the skill of being in silence? In The End of Solitude, William Deresiewicz argues that the fear of being alone defines our mode of self:

The great contemporary terror is anonymity. If Lionel Trilling was right, if the property that grounded the self, in Romanticism, was sincerity, and in modernism it was authenticity, then in postmodernism it is visibility.

We strive to be known - not even for a particular virtue, but for the sake of being known (see, for example, Nicole Kidman's icy character in To Die For, directed by Gus Van Sant).

What happens when you're in a place, fully, invisible except to oneself? Over the past months, I've gone to three silent meditation retreats to taste the stillness. It has been easier than expected. Ironically enough, without all the distractions, you are more connected. Not only in the Whitmanesque sense, but in the postmodern spirit: the solidity of ego and self softens. You feel the possibilities of calm connectedness. In psychology speak, you start to know the difference between codependence and interdependence.

After my last retreat, I went straight from bucolic bliss to Grand Central Station. I sipped a cup of soup and soaked in the frenetic New York vibe. I have a newfound love of silence, but it is still the extremes of experience that draw me. A less-than-fine balance, perhaps, but I'll keep seeking.

Next stop, New York?