This is perhaps a cryptic post. My implied audience is myself. I am still on strike, but the lecture I have just posted is very important. Lynn Hunt is a real intellectual. And people like Lynn Hunt, not people like Reeducation, are my actual background, and although Reeducation wanted me to apologize for this I am not willing to do it any more.
The lecture is on human rights. I have a few minor comments of my own on this topic. They have to do with the issuess discussed in the comments thread in the post before this one — a discussion which is important but which I have had before and which at this point only makes me tired.
I have said before, many times, that my life stopped when Reeducation started. It was as though life were taking place on the other side of a mirror I could not break. It was there to be reached out to and touched, but I could not break through. It took a long time to realize that the way to break the mirror was to drop Reeducation. I have things to do and although it might be polite to consider Reeducation once again, I do not have time.
It is the considered view of this weblog that Reeducation is an ideological state apparatus designed to help women adjust within patriarchy. We have discovered as well that its principles do not meet scientific criteria for status as a theory. While it may help some people get through the day, and while they are welcome to it if that is their case, it is not at all revolutionary.
And I am. And that is not because I decided to be because it was cool, or because of anything in my background, but because I was born that way. I am revolutionary although I do not look fierce. And the Reeducated often find me an attractive target for reduction because I seem mild. But that I am kind and open minded does not mean I am weak. It also does not mean I am a Bodhisattva.
I have considered the Reeducated paradigm very seriously. I find it to be a major burden. I find that casting it down, I have a great deal of time in the day and the ability to live life as I did before. I do not have time to consider taking that misogynistic, Christian burden up again. And I am tired of arguing about it. And there is so much to be done.
As I say, I was not born to be Reeducated but to be revolutionary. It is what I was given and it is what I must take on. And Reeducation would say it is arrogant and self aggrandizing to call oneself “revolutionary” but it is not, it is a responsibility. It means one cannot take time to serve random customers on a first come, first served basis, but must consider the whole. Reserving special consideration for Reeducation held me back.
This was irresponsible. And it is late now, and I have no time to waste. I must stand in my own nature, and not apologize for it, and not wonder why I am not like some people. I have to actually take on what I was given. To do so for my own sake is a good enough reason since I or anyone is as valid as Reeducation. But it is not only for my own sake, it is for more.
The ancestors spoke in enlightened words and were not Reeducated. I must emulate them and go back. Time is short and dawn is near.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
Ou bien, comme dit Jennifer:
http://praxeology.net/zara2.htm
Reeducation is an ideological state apparatus designed to help women adjust within patriarchy.
AAUUGH!!!! I thought I was the only one to believe this!!!
No, I also believe it — you just figured it out sooner and perhaps more easily than I did.
A big clue was that my father – a social worker in the mental health field – vociferously protected me from having to go into a mental hospital when I was diagnosed with depression and became suicidal. At the time I thought he was only considering money and not my best interests. Now I think that may have been part of it, but he also didn’t want me to be subject to certain things the mental health field has to offer.
My father was not much of an advocate for me in many things, but in that he did me a real service.
It sucks though. Because imagine if there was an apparatus to help women adjust within patriarchy that also had their best interests in mind. I’d sign up before you could offer twice! I mean, I guess in that case adjustment would include as much resistance as we could stomach, and self-protection otherwise, so it wouldn’t be “adjusting” in the sense you mean but — if only there were a medical field that specialized in that!
I know. I thought “feminist psychotherapy” — what I signed up for — would BE that. Hah.
But I think it was in the old women’s centers, those 70s type collectives that have a worse name than they deserve (IMO) these days. In political analysis. Jennifer’s blog has been good for me, too.
Earlier on graduate school had done me a world of good because it honed one’s critical skills and because, cutthroat though it was, it was still more benign than regular work and it had recreational facilities. I gained a lot of self respect there.
I am not sure at all what other spaces there are that work. But your father was surely right. Good clue.
Maybe another idea from this blog is that I should set up some kind of feminist pod-camp. Serious understanding of how patriarchy really works would help a lot. Academics have figured it out but this would have to be a popular education type pod-camp, not a theory fest. Hm.
When I google podcamp I get links to tech-related “unconferences” – are you talking about something like this, or something different?
Theory… theory is important, but it makes me tired. And it closes off access to everyone who doesn’t have the kind of mind that I do: I am drawn to the sort of orderliness one finds in academic thought. But most people don’t think that way, and they shouldn’t have to in order to (for example) combine forces against patriarchy. So theory that is not made accessible to non-theory-oriented people is useless; maybe worse than useless.
So yes. Popular education… well, then, when and where? 🙂
Pod-camp, I just made up the word… I mean maybe ashram or something except I don’t want to use a religious word or have people live together. Some sort of center that also had events.
Now I’ve googled “unconference” … it doesn’t sound bad at all. Participant driven. I think we should meet and discuss. It’s a big project but I think we should meet and discuss.
I think it is what the Michfest is about but that is a music festival with its own traditions. Perhaps one should go and check out the installations — there is apparently stuff that happens every year, booths with ongoing projects and so on. But I don’t want to join something pre existing, but network with the pre existing things. In terms of fairs, maybe the place to start is to have a booth and installation at the Oregon Country Fair?
http://www.oregoncountryfair.org/
I think we should meet and discuss.
Ah, I think I see what you meant, now. There is an organization I found out about at a local fair which is like a church without the religion. It’s meant to serve the community functions of a church, and support people in trying to be better people, but without all the god stuff, basically. http://www.ethicalsociety.org/
I think something kind of like that – maybe smaller. But a community that commits to care for its members. Like a large extended family. And which is committed to working on this project together. I really like it. But I do not have money for travel right now. 😦
But it can be worked on. I think it is not a bad idea at all. Even like a feminist men’s lodge? My grass cutter is a Knight of Peter Clavier and it means, among other things, that he goes to conferences in interesting places and will get a jazz funeral when he dies.
I will eventually get to MPLS and/or you will eventually get down here. My friend Momo, the blogger, lives in MPLS, too.
Like a feminist men’s lodge! Oh, that is my favorite analogy yet, as I don’t care for even contentless/deityless spiritual hoohah, but community bonds are so important.
We should definitely work on this. 🙂
I am also for it. The more I think about it the better it seems — and the more workable. It could really go on the lodge model, and have chapters everywhere. And it could be very explicitly for all women, including conservative women, etc. (But it would have to be pro choice.) We WILL work on this. It will definitely have to offer fun things like jazz funerals. No religion, though. 🙂
And/or it could be an institution like this, which apparently trained MLK:
http://www.highlandercenter.org/