To anyone acquainted with the reality of the American way of life, the photos brought to mind the obscene underside of U.S. popular culture—say, the initiatory rituals of torture and humiliation one has to undergo to be accepted into a closed community. Similar photos appear at regular intervals in the U.S. press after some scandal explodes at an Army base or high school campus, when such rituals went overboard. Far too often we are treated to images of soldiers and students forced to assume humiliating poses, perform debasing gestures and suffer sadistic punishments.

The torture at Abu Ghraib was thus not simply a case of American arrogance toward a Third World people. In being submitted to the humiliating tortures, the Iraqi prisoners were effectively initiated into American culture: They got a taste of the culture’s obscene underside that forms the necessary supplement to the public values of personal dignity, democracy and freedom. No wonder, then, the ritualistic humiliation of Iraqi prisoners was not an isolated case but part of a widespread practice. On May 6, Donald Rumsfeld had to admit that the photos rendered public are just the “tip of the iceberg,” and that there were much stronger things to come, including videos of rape and murder.

We discussed during class “initiation,” because it seems that the prisoners at Abu Ghraib can never fully be initiated into America, because they can never be America. This brought us to alterity: it seems that one can only be fully initiated once one becomes fully American: that is, once one is fully white, male, straight, middle class, able bodied. The humiliation continues as long as one remains not fully American: a person of color, women, queer, poor, disabled, and so forth. I was immediately reminded of Sandra Lee Bartky’s “The Pedagogy of Shame,” in which she discusses this very act of shaming our culture engages in towards women (I discussed Bartky here).

When I took Creative Democracy last year, we discussed very early in the term what it meant to be American, and some of us came up with: white, male, straight, middle class, able bodied. Those outside the center, those disenfranchised by the system, are never quite fully American. And if you are not, you are attacked consistently with this cultural pedagogy of shame: a regimen of humiliation that continually tries to initiate you into the system until you are finally straight, man enough, middle class enough — or, for women, impossibly, male enough, and since, without undergoing transition, a woman is not a man, she is forever shamed. Indeed, all these folks are forever shamed, for shame and humiliation is something we carry with us. The poor person who becomes middle class carries with the self the shame of internalized classism. The queer person who “reforms” and “becomes” straight surely carries with hirself shame: I was once abhorrent and can only cast aside this abhorrence by casting it as sin and myself as a sinner.

But the prisoners of Abu Ghraib, stateless, homo sacer, can never become Americans: They are too brown, too Muslim, too militant…

Ringer, Jeffrey M. “Liberating ‘Liberatory’ Education, or What Do We mean by ‘Liberty’ Anyway?“ JAC 25.4 (2005): 761-782.

Orosco’s two questions:

1) Is democracy a good system of government? Why or why not?
2) “The US has squandered its democratic potential.“ Strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree? Why?

My response to question 1:

Yes, a real democracy is a good system of government. It is the only system that treats us as fully human — or, rather, where we treat ourselves as fully human. [a few reasons:]

Luke writes that he doesn’t think that democracy is inherently good, and I’ve been wondering about that. Orosco discussed a book that had recently come out (maybe in the 1990s) that argued that we have the “what type of government is best” question solved: democracy has won out (the Cold War had just ended) and no one disputes that democracy is the best form of governance. I don’t think that there is any consensus, though, because now we have the task of defining and enacting democracy. When I wrote my piece, I was thinking of the ideal democracy (whatever that may look like), and I am inclined to say that it is inherently good, though perhaps that’s very simplistic thinking. Then again, I don’t very often say anything in inherently good…

On to my response to question 2:

[I took this to mean the US Government, not the people.] Strongly agree: The government has shut down public spheres, promoted a two-party system that doesn’t leave much room open for deliberation by people, became (or has remained) an aristocracy/oligarchy of “experts” and rich people. The government has also ignored justice, continued injustice against marginalized folks…

Here Luke and I agreed, and class discussion was interesting. I heard quite a few people who either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement call themselves optimists. Then, Orosco called our group (there were five out of maybe 15 or so who strongly agreed with the statement) “pessimists.” I immediately chimed in “I didn’t self identify as a pessimist.” Because I don’t think it’s pessimistic to say the US government is squandering/has squandered democratic potential. Rather, it’s realistic. And this doesn’t mean I’m despairing; rather, I’m hopeful. Orosco told the class about the distinction made by Cornell West between optimism and hope. Here is what he said in an interview with The Progressive:

You have to draw a distinction between hope and optimism. Vaclav Havel put it well when he said “optimism” is the belief that things are going to turn out as you would like, as opposed to “hope,” which is when you are thoroughly convinced something is moral and right and just and therefore you fight regardless of the consequences. In that sense, I’m full of hope but in no way optimistic.

Bingo!

But I’m still wondering about inherently good…

I am really enjoying Royce’s book for it’s good, thorough logic and sound reasoning. I was resistant before reading, like others, I think, because we have a negative connotation with loyalty in this country, due to a fear of authority and blind obedience. But his arguments make a lot of sense, and I found myself pretty persuaded by this chapter. As I started this particular chapter, I was skeptical. I thought: well, how’s he going to do this one? How’s he going to explain what types of causes to be loyal to? But rather than answer the question with a rigid prescription, he expands his theory to include virtues (which, after reading Aristotle in classical moral theories, I’m partial to at the moment) by showing that all virtues are a form of loyalty to universal loyalty. This makes a lot of sense to me as an conceptual tool for understanding virtues. From Aristotle’s perspective, virtues were the mean between deficit and excess, which made sense, but at times felt like a matter of semantics. Royce’s theory, however, seems to make logical sense without wordplay (though I do love wordplay!). My only reservation about Royce’s theory is that it seems too simple, which leaves me a bit suspect that I am missing some critique or flaw.

NOTE: After discussion in class on Thursday, I figured out that Royce’s theory isn’t so simple. It might be on the surface, but when we tried to apply it to certain loyalties and causes in class, it becomes a confusing mess. I’m still a fan, though.

Royce, Josiah. The Philosophy of Loyalty. 1908. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt UP, 1995.

I surprisingly enjoyed this essay — It’s the seventh one I’ve read this quarter by Emerson (five of them for American Avant Garde Literature with Robinson), and it was much more clear than some of his other work. I like that he links morality and politics: that the goal of government is not a certain type of government, but rather morality. Emerson sounds surprisingly like Socrates at times, such as when he discusses the superiority of virtue over comfort (189) — I’m not sure why this is surprising to me, perhaps it is partially because I see so much other American virtue discussion surrounding comfort. I also like that Emerson writes that slavery “was harming the white nation more than it was harming the black“ (199), which ties into how harm to others is actually harm to the self — that oppression harms the oppressor (harms his/her/hir humanity) more so than the oppressed.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Fortune of the Republic.” The Political Emerson: Essential Writings on Politics and Reform. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ed. David M. Robinson. Boston: Beacon Press. 185-205.

But if there be a country which cannot stand any one of these tests, — a country where knowledge cannot be diffused without perils of mob-law and statue-law, — where speech is not free, — where the post-office is violated, mail-gabs opened, and letters tampered with, — where public debts ad private debts outside of the State are repudiated, — where liberty is attacked in the primary institution of their social life, — where the position of the white woman is injuriously affected by the outlawry of the black woman, — where the arts, such as they have, are all imported, having no indigenous life, — where the laborer is not secured in the earnings of his own hands, — where suffrage is not free or equal, — that country is, in all these respects, not civil, but barbarous, and no advantages of soil, climate, or coast can resist these suicidal mischiefs. (168)

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “American Civilization.” The Political Emerson: Essential Writings on Politics and Reform. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ed. David M. Robinson. Boston: Beacon Press. 158-176.