Mary Harrington: reactionary feminism

This was a very interesting podcast, although a more abstract line of thought than I usually listen to.

Mary Harrington on Rebel Wisdom: reactionary feminism

I related to Mary and Raven’s discussion of creating “friction” within the information system that constantly motivates you to share, share, share yourself with networks. This same information system  analyzes your desires, repackages them, and then sells them back to you. I like the term “friction:” I have used the term “slowing down” with regards to being more mindful about life online, but friction describes what precedes the slowing down. Friction is questioning, stopping of automatic reactions and processes, thinking slow and imperfect thoughts that can nevertheless at least begin to be individual.

I definitely agree with Mary about keeping smartphones away from my daughters as long as possible (as I type this on my phone) but also about how you have to let go a little bit as a parent and trust yourself to model good relationships and thinking.

Mary also talks about a backlash coming against liberal feminism, from a variety of directions. I do not know how to analyze this, as I’m very pragmatic. I focus on what works for me and my family and I suppose I’m lucky enough to have been able to find a way to think about that throughout my life, even when I was young and naive. I would say as a young woman I was very ignorant but had good instincts. I paid more attention to my own experiences and sensations versus what people or media were telling me I should think and feel. Once I became aware of the difference between the two it was impossible to ignore that the differences were there. Is that reactionary, or did it take me in a reactionary direction? Perhaps.

I know that I turned against things like porn and promiscuity very young. The culture around me was saying I should act on every fantasy I had (or that others had) and this never seemed like a great idea to me. I did not want to have sex with a lot of silly or damaged men (or even a few, or one). I am sure that everyone in my friend group questioned their sexual orientation at one point or other, including me. But on second thought it didn’t seem like a great idea to spend a lot of time pursuing same sex relationships, when such things weren’t really compatible with what I wanted from life. It is inevitable that as a flawed human you will make mistakes and do stupid things. That is not at all the same as doing stupid things on purpose, or telling yourself there is nothing better out there to do in the world.

Anyway, I would like to continue to learn about Mary’s ideas though I will have to do so when I’m awake and fairly aware.

Mere mortals dancing

I found this recent post on Fr. Stephen Freeman’s blog quite gripping:

“Make it so!” vs “Let it be!”

The themes are ones I’ve discussed before, in my own mind and with others. What is truth; to what extent do we control reality; should we be fixated on who does  and who doesn’t have power. More importantly, what sort of power is really worth having and is that the right word for it.

“The truth” is that which is real, that which truly exists. It is the case that some things have more existence than others. Our own existence is tenuous and ephemeral. We seek that which truly exists that we might, through it, have true existence ourselves. We cannot grant existence to ourselves – it comes as a gift from the only truly Existing One.

Recognizing our existence as tenuous and ephemeral is one thing that might lead us to see the value of tradition. Tradition has, from one perspective, attracted me for a long time. The earliest I can remember being consciously aware of this was in my late teens/early 20s, when I participated on a listserv discussion about Cape Breton Celtic music. (Ah, the good old days of the frontier internet.)

Celtic music was enjoying a bit of a popular revival at the time, with appealing, youthful musicians blending traditional instruments, melodies and themes with contemporary ones. All of it was wholesome, truly: you’d have to stretch to find anything subversive or disturbing in it. Nevertheless, on this listserv I first encountered openly the tension between innovation and tradition. It was the first time I met people who unapologetically argued that traditional forms have more value in the long term than popular innovations. This was quite shocking to me, at first. Somehow, all my education, if not my own experience, had reinforced the message that tradition was something you break away from. It had not occurred to me that there was another side to the story, and that kind and intelligent people might believe in it.

The conversation on that listserv was mostly convivial however, and everyone that I recall was friendly and more than willing to talk with willing listeners. Starting with these discussions, I discovered a way to resolve the tension, at least in the realm of the arts. Tradition is a way of preserving something valuable through community. It allows creative people to encounter something meaningful, giving them a direction and a discipline. Truly innovative people should not be discouraged from experimenting (though it doesn’t hurt them to be challenged, either.). But neither is it possible for everyone, or even most, to be innovative geniuses. A healthy tradition will create a few, but they will never be the majority. However, anybody can participate in the tradition: learning it, supporting it,  passing it on to the best of their ability. This participation is just as meaningful in real life as innovation, most of the time. It’s much more meaningful than being part of nothing, that’s for sure.

Once I had articulated this insight, I found a lot of my anxiety about (not) being special, or noticed, or uniquely talented or (yikes!) famous melting away. I could actually enjoy my own creativity more because I wasn’t over-analyzing it. The realization that I could be part, even in a small way, of a tradition that embraced multiple generations, geographies, countries and cultures was amazing. I could be fully myself and more than myself at the same time.

An experience in Scotland when I was 26 catalyzed this idea for me. I was attending a week long music festival, learning step dancing. From my account of that time:

Toward the end of the week, our dance teacher, Frank, went over all the [dance] steps we had learned. Then he solemnly told us to "stop thinking." We aren't just dancing to the music. We aren't just responding to it. We must get right inside it. And to do that, he said, we can't be worrying about what we are doing. Otherwise we are focused on ourselves, and not on the music.

High on endorphins, I wished he would stop making pretty speeches and let us start dancing. But he continued:

"If you relax and let the dance into you, it will teach you. Because I believe music and dancing are much more powerful than mere mortals.

Frank was saying something very similar, if not the same, as Fr. Freeman above. Reality is not something you create. It is discovered, encountered, as a gift.

Frank’s words have stuck with me, as I have continued to dance, write, play music and eventually to teach. I am lucky to sometimes have chances to perform for an audience. Of course this always causes some nervousness. It’s also easy (sadly) to become hyper critical of yourself. After many performances, dancers often start talking obsessively about all the mistakes we made, although these are rarely obvious to those watching and nobody will remember them anyway. It is all self consciousness. But I have found that I can ease the anxiety by remembering Frank’s words. I frame the performance in my mind as an opportunity to share something beautiful I have been given. Dancing with me are unseen generations of people who have transcended time, space and mortality to give me this gift and opportunity. The nerves are there, but I am filled with joy and excitement and I do not have to force a smile for the audience. And if I have practiced and I stay in the moment, I also make fewer mistakes (but regardless, I am part of a long line of people who have made mistakes and danced on).

So that is one side of the story: the attraction to tradition. There is another one too. But this entry has become longer than I expected, so I think I will engage that topic separately. (I do not necessarily know what direction these blog entries will take and often end up writing about something quite different than I originally intended.)

My City of Lights has gone dark

I listen to the Scottish band Runrig a lot lately. Their high energy music (I tend to skip the ballads) is good for morale or redirecting negative energy.  But sometimes their happiest music is also a touch depressing, especially the songs recorded live. They remind me of the concerts and other live events that have been cancelled in the name of slowing the spread of Covid-19.

Regardless, I have some favourite songs that I listen to regularly. One of these is “City of Lights.” 

City of Lights Live

“City of Lights” (to my ear anyway) is a celebration of the connection and creativity of life in a city.  Although I’ve visited rural areas, and wilderness and nature are important to me, I’ve never lived any length of time outside a city nor have I ever considered doing so. 

I arrived in the city of lights
Enchanted ballrooms where I lost my life
I've closed my eyes
On your fairground smile

From the time I was four years old,  I’ve gone to concerts and live events, and taken lessons in anything that struck my fancy. I feel as at home in our major concert venues as I do in my living room: as soon as I walk through the door and hear the buzz of conversation, I have a powerful feeling of peace, anticipation and belonging.  It’s always been part of my expectation of anywhere I live that I can have such experiences. It is especially meaningful to live in the city of my birth where theatres and concert venues are graced with memories of my childhood, youth and early adulthood. Family outings grew into outings with university friends and dates. Later I would give my parents symphony tickets for Christmas and birthdays. My husband and I also usually gave each other concert, theatre and comedy tickets as presents.

Many of my memories are associated with our downtown, which has a hub of theatres and a big concert hall, surrounded by a cluster of pubs and restaurants of course. I have never actually had a job in the downtown, so I almost completely associate it with dressing up and going out.

Old emotions still burn inside
On solid ground, round the mother tongue
A tower of hope, a joyful sound
You take your time
A hand of aces in a pack of lies
I found my song and I started to sing
Took me away on an olden wing
So far from home

So lonely but not alone

The last time we were supposed to go to a concert was March 14 2020: a band from Ireland. The tickets were my 40th birthday present.  It was cancelled the day before as that was the first weekend the city closed down. Those tickets were refunded though I’m still hanging on to a couple of other sets for events that keep getting rescheduled into the future. If we are lucky, the future really does arrive one day. But maybe not quite the one we imagined.

Last week I went downtown to get my Covid-19 vaccination, an experience I was neutral to negative on, but decided to go through with anyway. As the train pulled into the station, I realized I cannot actually remember the last time I was downtown. It might have been fall of 2019. Without any theatre or music to go to, there was simply no reason to go. If downtown showed up in the news, it was because of some demonstration or other (it’s also where City Hall is located.) That made me even less likely to want to go there, but I wouldn’t have in any case.

I got off the train and started walking toward the convention centre, where I have attended teachers’ conventions for years, but not the past two. It has been repurposed as a mass vaccination clinic. Now, while I wear a face mask indoors, I do not wear one outside. Usually the minute I’m out the door it’s off my face into my pocket. For the first time though, I had an urge to keep my mask on as I was walking outside. It wasn’t fear of Covid per se; there were no dense crowds. Rather I had the feeling that I was walking in a foreign territory, and I wanted to hide or protect myself.  If a suit of armour and a sword had been offered, I would have happily accepted those too.

I actually forced myself to take the mask off because I found these feelings inexplicable and disturbing, and I refused to let myself act on them. Nothing about the downtown area looked noticeably different than I remembered. I was not in a foreign or dangerous country. My behaviour should not change! But the mask went on again the minute I was in sight of my destination, and I felt a distinct relief at being concealed and armoured against the unfamiliar and for some reason, vaguely threatening environment of the city I’ve lived in all my life.

All things considered, I’ve had a happy and stable life the past year and a half. I love my neighbourhood; I love the parks and nature areas we can drive to; I have no quarrel with any person I know, though I see friends much less often. Work has taken the place of most of my social life, and luckily I like my work. But the strange feelings I experienced downtown do remind me of a loss. The loss is the communion with other people around an experience of mutual interest and transformation. They might be friends or family; they might be strangers with whom I only share the experience of being an audience. But it is a loss of connection, and it makes me much more likely to see strangers and even once familiar places in a defensive or hostile light.

In this empire of ache and rhyme

Lovers and best friends are running blind

I don’t run blind now, at least not outside my neighbourhood. I’m wary and I want to be gone, as quick as I can.  There is no city of lights for me in our downtown anymore.

But for all that, I am not going to stop listening to “City Of Lights” or other songs that remind me of happier times. When the real thing is not happening, the memory of it is even more important so that we don’t forget such realities are still possible.

I grasp your hand
Is this the only world I understand
There's a sadness
There's a joy
There's a place
There's a song that will never die
Forever