"... Institutionalized desublimation thus appears to be an aspect of the 'conquest of transcendence' achieved by the one-dimensional society. Just as this society tends to reduce, and even absorb opposition (the qualitative difference!) in the realm of politics and higher culture, so it does in the instinctual sphere. The result is the atrophy of the mental organs for grasping the contradictions and the alternatives and, in the one remaining dimension of technological rationality, the Happy Consciousness comes to prevail.

It reflects the belief that the real is rational, and that the established system, in spite of everything, delivers the goods. The people are led to find in the productive apparatus the effective agent of thought and action to which their personal thought and action can and must be surrendered. And in this transfer, the apparatus also assumes the role of a moral agent. Conscience is absolved by reification, by the general necessity of things."

-Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (1964), p.79 (in the Beacon Press copy) 

amazingly, online here.

read this book

(a note to Self:)

read this book: 

The Suppression of Dissent: How the State and Mass Media Squelch USAmerican Social Movements 

by Jules Boykoff

it uses "squelch" in the title! (my descriptor of choice!)

-stephanie now

post-thought: also these books...

STUDENT DISSENT IN THE SCHOOLS (eds. Irving G. Hendrick and Reginald L. Jones)

COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN AMERICA (Thomas Bender)

my senior project presentation

THURSDAY, MAY 1, 2008

5:15 - 6:50 PM in Leonard Theatre on the Western College Campus

Stephanie Lee will be defending her undergraduate thesis entitled "Actualizing the Democratic Promise of American Public Education."

----

Come if you care. Don't come if you don't.

-stephanie

a beginner's guide to domination and suppression

how to kill activism, reassert the market's dominance of everyday life, and ruin democracy:

1) authority + passivity

(teach 'em not to think for themselves)

2) empty promises

(keep em running. employ 'carrot and stick')

3) divide & conquer

(kill their communities, take away their friends - better yet, have them do it to themselves)

4) the illusion of choice

(make them think they want/need these things and that they're being taken care of)

you'll have a totalitarian state in no time!

(disclaimer: i, of course, don't agree with any of these things. it was just that while i was writing my thesis today i made a list like this to clarify the points i was going to be making in this particular section of my paper and i thought it was interesting enough to share.)

p.s. it should be noted that all these were, and are, being practiced everyday, in the media industry, and especially the school.

at wit's end

an email sent to my Senior Project advisors this evening:

Hi Bill and Bill,

I am facing a huge dilemma. I am nearing 40 pages on my senior project now, and the pages I have are pretty well-researched and -written, in my opinion.

However, the project I had planned to write at the beginning of this year is far from done. I could easily write another 80 or 100 more pages, there is just so much I have in mind to discuss and examine in the project.

However, I also know that in the time I have available, this is impossible. But, I don't feel good about turning the project in. It doesn't feel complete, even though I've technically written all the pages I need to write.

What should I do? I can't afford to stay this summer and finish the project, and really, I don't think 2 or 3 more months will really allow me to finish the project I had in mind. The scope of the project demands a book, and I don't have time to write one, in a week or in a summer.

If I reduce the project to just the first two chapters, I feel that my individual voice and perspective on the topic will be left out. But, if I try to write the chapters I have left, they will likely be under-researched and poorly written.

Please advise me, I am at wit's end.
-Stephanie

oh yeaaaah...

making good on my promise to make 2008 the best year EVER, i finished writing chapter one of my thesis today, at 10:33 pm. and at 22 pages - plus notes for chapter two, an appendix, works cited page (containing no less than 24 sources) and a table of contents - i have to say, i'm actually quite happy with it.

what's more, i find that i really enjoy grappling with all the complex connections between democracy, education, and market ideology. especially fun was the section on democratic philosophy, in which i got to teach myself about classical and liberal republicanism, having never taken a poli sci class in my life!

anyway, it's done. and i'm half relieved, half scared, because now the brutal waiting begins. will Bill like it? only time will tell... i really hope he does, i slaved away at it, hunched over at my little ottoman desk, my books in piles around me. my back hasn't been the same in weeks!

now i'm stretching out for the first time in days, and taking a real deep breath. i'm cleaning up my space and trying to remember what it feels like to have a life again. weird, really.

let's hope all my effort wasn't in vain,
stephanie

p.s. and what's more, all those creative juices flowing and i finally got a title for my thesis!
"ACTUALIZING THE DEMOCRATIC PROMISE OF AMERICAN PUBLIC EDUCATION." bam, baby!

new year's tidings!

readers,

I'M JUMPING UP AND DOWN ON A POGO STICK AND SHOUTING THIS IN A SING-SONG VOICE!!

WHY? BECAAAUUUUUUSE... I HAVE 15 PAGES WRITTEN AND I HAVE THE NEXT FEW PAGES MAPPED OUT AND THEY ARE GONNA ROCK SO HARD THE BOAT IS GONNA SINK, MAN!!!!

IT'S 2008 NOW - YEAH!! - AND IT'S GONNA BE THE BEST YEAR EVAH!

also, i've been reading my thesis in a thick Texan accent, just on occasion to lighten the mood - something i suggest trying when you're bored.

WOO-HOO YEAH ALRIGHT!
-STEPHANIE

the present is a mystic trance...

it's 4:20 in the anti meridiem and i am still awake, typing furiously, obsessively, at my senior thesis. 

it seems i finally stumbled across a burst of inspiration, and despite my overwhelming sense of tire, i decided that if i went to sleep i'd waste this precious moment(um).

the problem now tho is i'm not sure how to actually begin the thesis. i have some strong points that need introduction, and i'm not sure how best to accomplish it. i want it to be urgent, but not too abrupt. i suppose i want to ease the reader into an energized discussion of the failings of our educational system and my scathing critique of capitalist society in large, but how...?

these things are delicate, first impressions make a big difference. and it really sets the pace and tone for the rest of my work...

but some of what i have written so far is somewhat exciting. such as:

America isn't at the polls; America is at the mall. A generation of pseudo-citizens, their brains doped up on reality TV, atrophied from instant access and instant gratification, tricked into thinking their children's happiness is a McDonald's Happy Meal and duped into believing democracy is texting a vote for their next American Idol. This isn't real life; this is reel life. 

and i find myself worrying about this crick in my neck that seems to be attendant with lack of sleep and long hours in front of my laptop in awkward sitting positions.

perhaps to bed?

-stef

senior project nuggets

hi all -

making a tiny bit of progress on the lofty project. since i've found myself incapacitated by the lit review and unable to generate anything new or original of my own (figures... when u waste time regurgitating other ppl's thots u soon forget yr own...), i began compiling useful fragments from some sources i'm reading, as i try to rediscover my ability for original thought.

so here they are, some inspiring nuggets:

from Jane Addams's Twenty Years at Hull House

...I had been sharply and painfully reminded of "The Vision of Sudden Death" which had confronted De Quincey one summer's night as he was being driven through rural England on a high mail coach. Two absorbed lovers suddenly appear between the narrow, blossoming hedgerows in the direct path of the huge vehicle which is sure to crush them to their death. De Quincey tries to send them a warning shout, but finds himself unable to make a sound because his mind is hopelessly entangled in an endeavor to recall the exact lines from the Iliad which describe the great cry with which Achilles alarmed all Asia militant. Only after his memory responds is his will released from its momentary paralysis, and he rides on through the fragrant night with the horror of the escaped calamity thick upon him, but he also bears with him the consciousness that he had given himself over so many years to classic learning--that when suddenly called upon for a quick decision in the world of life and death, he had been able to act only through a literary suggestion.

This is what we were all doing, lumbering our minds with literature that only served to cloud the really vital situation spread before our eyes.

---

from Ivan Illich's Deschooling Society

...the right to learn is curtailed by the obligation to attend school.

The current search for new educational funnels must be reversed into the search for their institutional inverse: educational webs which heighten the opportunity for each one to transform each moment of his living into one of learning, sharing, and caring.

---

from Situationist International's "On The Poverty of Student Life"

Modern capitalism and its spectacle allot everyone a specific role in a general passivity. The student is no exception to the rule. He has a provisional part to play, a rehearsal for his final role as an element in market society as conservative as the rest. Being a student is a form of initiation. An initiation which echoes the rites of more primitive societies with bizarre precision. It goes on outside of history, cut off from social reality. The student leads a double life, poised between his present status and his future role. The two are absolutely separate, and the journey from one to the other is a mechanical event "in the future." Meanwhile, he basks in a schizophrenic consciousness, withdrawing into his initiation group to hide from that future. Protected from history, the present is a mystic trance.

---

!!!
-stef

the final draft

here is the finalized course description for WCP 333, "Education for Social Change", or, as i will explicitly call it now: The Activist Subversion of the Miami Plan.

----

Do you dream of changing the world? Do you want to meet other people who do? Do you want to get course credit (and have fun!) while pursuing your dreams?

As you prepare to register for Spring semester classes (priority registration begins Oct. 11 at 7 am!), I hope you will consider taking the student-initiated Interdisciplinary Advanced Seminar: "Education for Social Change" (WCP 333).

I am working with Dr. Nick Longo, of the American Studies/ Educational Leadership departments and director of the Wilks Leadership Institute, to develop an exciting new class that will challenge the conventions and expectations of the traditional classroom, as we examine democratic and popular education, their histories, theories, philosophies, practices, and applications. We will look at the role of education in society, examine and reflect on our own educational experiences (through multi-genre and multi-media creative projects), and use this as an entry point to engaging in social change.

I started this class out of my own passion for activism and desire to "change the world," and because I believe that significant social progress can take place in our lifetime, if we are empowered and encouraged to create it. I believe education provides this hope, and I believe the critical-democratic practices of popular education in particular will free students to pursue their dreams. Students in this class will thus "learn by doing," practicing democratic education in the study of it.

If you are interested, or have questions, feel free to contact me.

Hope to see you in the Spring!
-Stephanie Lee
WCP 2008

capitalism

storing this image for future use in my thesis, particularly for side-to-side comparison with a visual representation of the traditional educational system and its business.

poetic deference

so, despite last week's setback, i'm going ahead with my project. in fact, i've begun the tedious process of mapping (a la my efforts in the spring of 2006) the flow of arguments therein, in what i think will be quite the impressive finished document, a physically expansive display of the scope of my thesis.

and i've come to the decision that just because the gate-keepers demand i conform to a certain form and formula, doesn't mean i can't enjoy it. or that i can't successfully subvert the institution and its mechanic rituals by satirizing them. i can adopt the form as my weapon, like Monique Wittig's Trojan Horse. a bomb masked in stealth by which to explode the ramparts from within. my subversion and radicalism all the more effective for wearing the disguise supplied by the Academy.

and, i've been reading this beautiful book called On Learning and Social Change (sadly out of print), which i accidentally discovered at Highlander. it's full of some astute observations, including a chapter on the ecology of violence in the university (notes on the tao of education).

i plan to quote from it extensively. so, to put some fantastic poetic imagery in your face, some words from Michael Rossman:

"one mode of teaching is triumphant in the University. minds are to be filled with information. image of a hand closing on a piece of data, fist plunging into watermelon. image of a cock ejaculating. SOCK IT TO ME!" (p.160)

sound of a gun blasting!
-stef

project progress

i finally articulated my Senior Project focus in 50 words or less! it is, admittedly, a little obvious to me now, and i wonder why it took me so long, but i think the actual project itself will be a little more nuanced, particularly in its execution.

anyway, my thesis topic:
"Student Activism as Critical-Democratic Praxis" (working title)
how student groups and movements create democratic spaces that challenge and rewrite traditional power structures found in the (increasingly market-influenced) world of academia.

important note to self: explore "the academy" itself as a symbol of power, oppression (in its history of ignoring minority voices and communities, i.e. based on race, gender, class, and age/experience)

Highlander

readers,

i'm gone this weekend, leaving in a matter of minutes for a conference/ 75th anniversary celebration for Myles Horton's Highlander Folk School. i'll be taking workshops on community organizing in the mountains of Tennessee, re-reading Horton's autobiography, The Long Haul (one pivotal resource in my senior project), and trying not to get bitten up by mosquitoes like i did the last time i was in TN!

so while i enjoy the company of progressive educators and social change makers, pls enjoy the inspiring words of Myles Horton, and imagine you were there with me (oh, if only i could take all of you with me...)

"education is meant to help you do something for others" (3)
"When you work toward equality, you have to devise some kind of structure in which there can be justice, but in the meantime you have to do the best you can in an unjust society. Sometimes that means that the laws you go by are moral laws instead of book laws." (7)
"you learn what you do, and not what you talk about." (16)
"i wanted action to be the main thrust, instead of just talking about future action that you don't practice." (16)
"in order to act on my beliefs i had to accept the idea of civil disobedience. i knew that i might have to violate those laws that were unjust, and i made up my mind never to do something wrong just because it was legal." (16)
"the violence of poverty destroys families, twists minds, hurts in many ways beyond the pain of hunger. there is another kind of violence that supports the violence of poverty, and that is institutionally sanctioned violence." (27)
"i couldn't be an absolute pacifist, because i thought that there might be times when it would be a lesser violence to have a revolution." (38)
"you can't use force to put ideas in people's heads. education must be nonviolent. i can't conceive of another type of education." (41)

dangerous familiars

hi to all you patient and adoring darlings!

thanks for your patience these past few days. i've been busy traveling all over West Virginia and Kentucky, and have just recently returned to being settled and having all my things in one small room again.

that is, i'm back at Miami University for one final year. and as i'm shopping around for the most interesting and compelling classes to take, while i'm stressing out about my undergraduate thesis and studying for the GRE's and planning student actions for all my various activisms, i've also found, in the blissful off-time, a surprising nostalgia and reminiscence creeping over me.

even as i look around the campus, at the frightening droves of willowy blondes and preppy jock boys, their polished exteriors enough to make me insecure, and despite the inexplicable phenomenon of cornhole that seems to proliferate here, i can sense that i'm really going to miss this place next fall, when i will surely/hopefully be somewhere far, far away.

i know it's merely because i've gotten familiar with the place, have become accustomed to moving back to the same dorm for the past 4 years, am grateful to see the same familiar faces, to have such a strong community in which to wallow, enjoy coming back each year geared up and ready to fight for a cause i've been devoted to for over 5 semesters.

but...

this familiarity has me kinda scared too. comfort is overrated, even dangerous. keeping on your toes becomes kinda like floating, when you get good at it. and who doesn't want to defy gravity?

i got to thinking about this in one of my classes today. i was sitting in a class full of Education majors, a class called "Cultural Studies, Power, and Education," a class filled with typical Miami-types, feeling a little on edge because everyone in there was so white bread [sic]. the professor had been trying all of class to ease us into a radical mindset (which i gratefully dived right into), while we examined ads from the 90's that proffered 40's gender politics to preschool aged consumers. i glanced around the room to see students rolling their eyes, grimacing at the mention of atheism and Marxism, the girl beside me scrawling the word SOCIALIST in big letters across the first blank page of her notebook, and underlining it.

i give the professor a lot of credit. to open with that kind of radical leap in student expectation is truly courageous. i'm counting on a smaller class next time around.

anyway, this moment turned into a huge realization for my research into the practice of critical pedagogy:
for me (and i consider myself fairly radical, surprise, surprise), this first class wasn't unusual or myth-busting at all. in fact, it was too easy to agree with the professor, too natural to nod along, to laugh at his leftist jokes, to feel grateful for and, yes, comfortable with a liberal bias in the classroom.
on the other hand, my peers were noticeably unnerved, even perturbed, by the professor and what they must have perceived to be Commie rantings. and so, they were reluctant to engage, hesitant to open their minds to the possibility that advertisers care less about the consumer than about selling products.

and then i realized, looking around, everyone in this class was wearing nice Polo Ralph Lauren polo shirts, J Crew khakis, their heads gelled and kempt, glistening examples of Miami's "squarely in the box" reputation. of course they couldn't open their minds to cultural studies and critical pedagogy! it made them uncomfortable!

when capitalism is working for you, when you're comfortable with it, you see no need, no reason, to challenge it. comfort and capitalism are closely related, in fact, they are co-conspirators. in a society used to instant gratification, it becomes hard to get people used to stepping out of their comfort zones. why would they ever have to, if they can find a KFC wherever they go? same goes for ideological comfort zones.

existential discomfort = the worst kind.

thots!
-stef

---
speaking of familiars, you should get familiar with the guys over at Said the Gramophone. they keep one of the most beautifully written music blogs out there. in fact, it's one of only 2 i actually read on a regular basis. this post was particularly striking and appropriate for the approaching end of summer. FUN TIMES FOREVER.

rhizomatic

sorry for the lack of posts, but lately i've been working on my thesis.

in fact, i'm making some impressive progress in gathering my resources. though no actual research has commenced yet (i haven't read a lot of the information i've found due to the sheer volume of it), i have some very interesting plans for the future, once the motivation strikes me.

allow yrself a small peek into my world, if you dare...

my recent research, as bookmarked on del.icio.us, includes some interesting theoretical discussion of Situationist, anarchist, and Marxist applications in daily life and practice.

-> has inspired much fevered and passionate writing, the makings of the beginning of a chapter of my thesis! sample below:


"Students for Staff [has] created an educational grassroots movement from the ground up, cemented with bonds of friendship and respect. We learn by doing together. Students for Staff (re)writes its text every day, and preserves/sustains itself through the passing down of histories of experience through individual relationships. The content of these experiences are found in the web of interactions extant among the members of this community. Because of the lack of a hierarchical power structure (as in the capitalist model), every individual has responsibilities and potentialities, multiplied by their roles in the community, and their commitments to its individual members. The potential for growth within such a community is thus exponential; as each member interacts and forms relationships with every other member, the strength of the connecting fibers mushrooms. The power in grassroots organizing is its rhizomatic potential: lateral roots whose blossoms continually reappear, never able to be stomped out."

--> this inspired by the philosophy of the rhizomatic:

[from Wikipedia:] The term rhizome has been used by Carl Jung as a metaphor, and by Gilles Deleuze as a concept, and refers to the botanical rhizome.

Carl Jung used the word "rhizome", also calling it a "myzel", to emphasize the invisible and underground nature of life:

Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. Its true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears above the ground lasts only a single summer. Then it withers away—an ephemeral apparition. When we think of the unending growth and decay of life and civilizations, we cannot escape the impression of absolute nullity. Yet I have never lost the sense of something that lives and endures beneath the eternal flux. What we see is blossom, which passes. The rhizome remains. (Prologue from "Memories, Dreams, Reflections")

Furthermore:


Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari used the term "rhizome" to describe theory and research that allows for multiple, non-hierarchical entry and exit points in data representation and interpretation. In A Thousand Plateaus, they opposed it to an arborescent conception of knowledge, which worked with dualist categories and binary choices. A rhizome works with horizontal and trans-species connections, while an arborescent model works with vertical and linear connections.

so, as you can see, i'm keeping busy.

back to the grindstone,
stephan!e

early starts

hear here, here hear!

it's 9 am on an ice-tinged saturday, and i have begun official work on my thesis!

today, we shall flesh out the outline, determine which research will be necessary before i can begin writing the first chapters, and --i hope-- have a rough understanding of democratic educational history and philosophy.

the goals for this semester's research:
-history/philosophy of democratic ed
-timelines and maps and lists
-case studies (my educational autobio, Highlander School, Central Academy)
-field work (local school, local U, local community)

first nuggets of the day:
the language of education. education vs schooling. learners vs students. mentors vs teachers. finding ways to make language "work."
the pedagogy of the oppressed. schooling can be oppressive. teachers use grades as leverage against undesirable student behavior. grades and favoritism as ways to silence challengers. we become slaves to grades before we become wage slaves. (we're always slaves!)
"educational reform" = my death blow. i want to integrate theory and practice, toward a more empowering and effective (rather than efficient) system and method of education. but as long as i'm open about what i see as egregious flaws in the educational process, i will be met with heavy criticism and hostility. no one wants to admit they're doing things wrong, or concede to an undergraduate. no one can acknowledge that i have experience in the educational system enough to be a critic of it.
why split my experience in education into hierarchies, levels of understanding? why limit the study of higher education to the graduate level? this assumes an undergraduate cannot understand what they experience on a daily basis? must i really have all 4 yrs of undergrad under my belt before i can be a critical, conscious student of higher education?
why are we always looking back rather than simply looking? if i can examine it closely now, why wait until it's even further away?

and these thoughts from a classroom experience last thursday:
relationships of power - students become afraid to challenge/ to speak their mind
-they learn to love convention and obey rules. there's safety in rules. there's safety in passivity. to submit is to be safe and invisible in passivity. to speak one's mind is to challenge the teacher's authority, to make the banking method difficult, to interfere with the completion of the teacher's job. to be vocal is to be a terrorist.
-students sacrifice their intellectual freedom for safety, both in the classroom and in life