I was once given a 30-minute lecture on how Americans don't understand what it means to be powerless - not really powerless.
Of course the person giving me the lecture was from a wealthy family in his country, and as a male from the dominant religion there, he had more power than most. But he needed me to know that as an American I didn't understand power dynamics. Not really.
Whenever I attempted to point out that his understanding of Americans seemed to be quite narrow - that there are many who remain without real power, he reassured me I was wrong. He explained that Americans had a great deal of power. I said that some Americans have a great deal of power; he said I was wrong. Now, he had never been to the US so his understanding of Americans came from Baywatch, Beverly Hills 90201, and the Big Bang Theory. But every time I attempted to point out a differing opinion, he said I didn't really understand what he meant.
It doesn't matter that power dynamics is kind of my field of study - not exactly, but I'd be absolute shit at my job if I didn't understand power dynamics, if I didn't delve into those issues, pay attention to them, and work to redress them.
My point wasn't that Americans are powerless, but that powerlessness is a relative thing - somewhat like poverty - there is absolute, or global, poverty and then there is relative poverty.
There are few Americans who would be globally poor - living on less than $2 / day, but there are also a lot of Americans who risk dying from exposure during bursts of cold, we have people who have to choose between food and medicine, people who choose between not working or working and leaving their young children at home unattended because they can't afford childcare.
If you go to the US - and leave the tourist traps - you can easily meet people who have little to no real power in any relative sense, and that relative powerlessness can be as powerful and constraining and absolute powerlessness.
And yet...
This week as I've thought about X's response to our stunted ... what do you call something like that? ... relationship... fling... thing? ... our whatever. That's what I'm calling it.... When I think about that whatever, I realize that perhaps even many of the relative powerless in the US have more power than even the powerful in other states.
X's response was about paying attention to the rules - the need to obey his parents, and his social constructs.
Christianity requires obeying one's parents as well, but in the US we're taught that that obligation ends at a point. It ends somewhere between entering your teenage years and becoming an adult. At that point, the relationship with one's parents becomes something else. It's about respect and honour - assuming a parent has earned it by not being abusive.
The difference is significant. Respect is about deference, about an obligation, or perhaps more appropriately the desire to listen to one's elders, to take on board their opinion, to understand their side of the story, and perhaps to defer to their opinion when one does not have cause to disagree.
There's a mutuality to a relationship built on respect. It is two adults looking to honour the inherent dignity of the other, working together, compromising where compromise can occur, and remaining committed to the underlying relationship even where disagreements make compromise impossible.
Obeying, on the other hand, is about listening without factoring in one's own opinion. Obeying is about force and control; respect is about choice, with the whole range of choices available from agreeing to one's opinion to disagreeing and walking away.
And in the emphasis on respect over obeying, Americans can find a clear power, even when they are otherwise powerless.
Our society does not expect obeyance (I'm linking that word because blogger doesn't recognize it and autocorrect tried to make it obeisance!). I mean, it does when it comes to the law, but not when it comes to another human's individual decision. We are taught instead to challenge unearned authority.
We may not have invented the story of the Emperor's New Clothes, but by golly, we're going to make sure we never end up like naked people on the side of the road cheering on another naked guy (though, um, of course, there are those times when that's the official plan for things, but that's different).
We're taught to trust our own judgment. That being an adult means breaking from our parents, not violently or permanently, but that we are supposed to come into our own, make our own mistakes, and ultimately become stronger with each new step away from authority that we take.
It would be a lie to suggest everyone in the US has this type of power. There are between 14,500-17,500 people trafficked into the US every year. 14,500 modern day slaves. They are the truly vulnerable in our society. There are also domestic abuse victims, those with mental health issues, and men from minority groups, any of whose questioning of authority may be used to justify their torture or death.
The demand for respect rather than orders is also not something exclusive to Americans, so my European friends can put down the pens they started furiously jotting notes with. I know that the US does not have a copyright on the idea of respect (or is it a trademark? patent? I think patent...).
The expectation of respect, though, is a form of power. It gives us an opportunity to grow, to learn, to evolve, to change our opinions, and to challenge authority. To challenge The Rules.
We celebrate those who challenge the rules. My great-great-great-great-some more greats-uncle was Swamp Fox Marion. The Swamp Fox Marion, who brought guerrilla warfare to the US during the Revolutionary War. What'd we do with that? We gave him a children's television show (no kidding) and then Mel Gibson made a movie about him (RIP Heath Ledger).
We dedicate a national holiday to Martin Luther King, Jr., who moved the country from the acceptance of segregation to its condemnation. Our children memorize the "I Have a Dream" speech, the ultimate call to challenging the "wisdom" of those who come before us in order to make a path that is more just and more righteous than the one we inherited.
We watch and read about the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, an all-black regiment who fought in the Civil War at a time when they couldn't even vote. They looked at an army unwilling to have them and said, "I can do that, even if you don't see it yet."
We learn the names of suffragettes, and read biographies of Harriet Tubman. Sojourner Truth gets pages dedicated to her willingness to challenge notions of femininity and racial superiority.
And we celebrate the more minor revolutionaries.
The women who played professional baseball during the war.
We praise Jack Kerouac and Steve Jobs. We elect a man whose name most couldn't pronounce 10 years ago but whose very presence challenges our often unspoken expectations regarding race and leadership.
We do this because we respect those who know how and when to bend or break rules that no longer make sense for us. Challenging the rules doesn't mean we always break them. Sometimes, we may find the rules comfortable and sometimes find them obsolete. We take the rules and bend them, sometimes until they break and sometimes until they simply form a circle that allows us to travel 180 degrees from where we started without ever leaving our heritage.
But sometimes, we are taught, we need to be willing to break the rules in order to honour our true selves.
And therein lies our real power.
Of course the person giving me the lecture was from a wealthy family in his country, and as a male from the dominant religion there, he had more power than most. But he needed me to know that as an American I didn't understand power dynamics. Not really.
Whenever I attempted to point out that his understanding of Americans seemed to be quite narrow - that there are many who remain without real power, he reassured me I was wrong. He explained that Americans had a great deal of power. I said that some Americans have a great deal of power; he said I was wrong. Now, he had never been to the US so his understanding of Americans came from Baywatch, Beverly Hills 90201, and the Big Bang Theory. But every time I attempted to point out a differing opinion, he said I didn't really understand what he meant.
It doesn't matter that power dynamics is kind of my field of study - not exactly, but I'd be absolute shit at my job if I didn't understand power dynamics, if I didn't delve into those issues, pay attention to them, and work to redress them.
My point wasn't that Americans are powerless, but that powerlessness is a relative thing - somewhat like poverty - there is absolute, or global, poverty and then there is relative poverty.
There are few Americans who would be globally poor - living on less than $2 / day, but there are also a lot of Americans who risk dying from exposure during bursts of cold, we have people who have to choose between food and medicine, people who choose between not working or working and leaving their young children at home unattended because they can't afford childcare.
If you go to the US - and leave the tourist traps - you can easily meet people who have little to no real power in any relative sense, and that relative powerlessness can be as powerful and constraining and absolute powerlessness.
And yet...
This week as I've thought about X's response to our stunted ... what do you call something like that? ... relationship... fling... thing? ... our whatever. That's what I'm calling it.... When I think about that whatever, I realize that perhaps even many of the relative powerless in the US have more power than even the powerful in other states.
X's response was about paying attention to the rules - the need to obey his parents, and his social constructs.
Christianity requires obeying one's parents as well, but in the US we're taught that that obligation ends at a point. It ends somewhere between entering your teenage years and becoming an adult. At that point, the relationship with one's parents becomes something else. It's about respect and honour - assuming a parent has earned it by not being abusive.
The difference is significant. Respect is about deference, about an obligation, or perhaps more appropriately the desire to listen to one's elders, to take on board their opinion, to understand their side of the story, and perhaps to defer to their opinion when one does not have cause to disagree.
There's a mutuality to a relationship built on respect. It is two adults looking to honour the inherent dignity of the other, working together, compromising where compromise can occur, and remaining committed to the underlying relationship even where disagreements make compromise impossible.
Obeying, on the other hand, is about listening without factoring in one's own opinion. Obeying is about force and control; respect is about choice, with the whole range of choices available from agreeing to one's opinion to disagreeing and walking away.
And in the emphasis on respect over obeying, Americans can find a clear power, even when they are otherwise powerless.
Our society does not expect obeyance (I'm linking that word because blogger doesn't recognize it and autocorrect tried to make it obeisance!). I mean, it does when it comes to the law, but not when it comes to another human's individual decision. We are taught instead to challenge unearned authority.
We may not have invented the story of the Emperor's New Clothes, but by golly, we're going to make sure we never end up like naked people on the side of the road cheering on another naked guy (though, um, of course, there are those times when that's the official plan for things, but that's different).
We're taught to trust our own judgment. That being an adult means breaking from our parents, not violently or permanently, but that we are supposed to come into our own, make our own mistakes, and ultimately become stronger with each new step away from authority that we take.
It would be a lie to suggest everyone in the US has this type of power. There are between 14,500-17,500 people trafficked into the US every year. 14,500 modern day slaves. They are the truly vulnerable in our society. There are also domestic abuse victims, those with mental health issues, and men from minority groups, any of whose questioning of authority may be used to justify their torture or death.
The demand for respect rather than orders is also not something exclusive to Americans, so my European friends can put down the pens they started furiously jotting notes with. I know that the US does not have a copyright on the idea of respect (or is it a trademark? patent? I think patent...).
The expectation of respect, though, is a form of power. It gives us an opportunity to grow, to learn, to evolve, to change our opinions, and to challenge authority. To challenge The Rules.
We celebrate those who challenge the rules. My great-great-great-great-some more greats-uncle was Swamp Fox Marion. The Swamp Fox Marion, who brought guerrilla warfare to the US during the Revolutionary War. What'd we do with that? We gave him a children's television show (no kidding) and then Mel Gibson made a movie about him (RIP Heath Ledger).
We dedicate a national holiday to Martin Luther King, Jr., who moved the country from the acceptance of segregation to its condemnation. Our children memorize the "I Have a Dream" speech, the ultimate call to challenging the "wisdom" of those who come before us in order to make a path that is more just and more righteous than the one we inherited.
We watch and read about the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, an all-black regiment who fought in the Civil War at a time when they couldn't even vote. They looked at an army unwilling to have them and said, "I can do that, even if you don't see it yet."
We learn the names of suffragettes, and read biographies of Harriet Tubman. Sojourner Truth gets pages dedicated to her willingness to challenge notions of femininity and racial superiority.
And we celebrate the more minor revolutionaries.
The women who played professional baseball during the war.
We praise Jack Kerouac and Steve Jobs. We elect a man whose name most couldn't pronounce 10 years ago but whose very presence challenges our often unspoken expectations regarding race and leadership.
We do this because we respect those who know how and when to bend or break rules that no longer make sense for us. Challenging the rules doesn't mean we always break them. Sometimes, we may find the rules comfortable and sometimes find them obsolete. We take the rules and bend them, sometimes until they break and sometimes until they simply form a circle that allows us to travel 180 degrees from where we started without ever leaving our heritage.
But sometimes, we are taught, we need to be willing to break the rules in order to honour our true selves.
And therein lies our real power.
No comments:
Post a Comment