Rancho Tarzanadu: "Miss Linda's Fourth Humanities MA Discussion Board Post"

 

 The article that stood out the most for me this week was “Good Uses of the Humanities in Bad Times” by R. Howard Bloch. I was drawn to this title because I was looking for some inspiration; the past week was a rough one with the ongoing (seemingly never-ending) pandemic, the fires raging all over California, our current political system (or lack thereof), and as one of our classmates predicted in our most recent Zoom meeting: an earthquake to top things off! It is specifically in times like this that we need the Humanities most, to comfort, uplift, and reassure people of brighter times ahead.

     The Humanities have been devalued in our society, which favors science and technology. Bloch writes about the gradual decline of the appreciation for the Humanities after World War II, which makes sense because people were attempting to put their lives back together economically and were more in survival mode than concerned with arts and culture. The Humanities are hit the hardest in a recession, because people are more concerned with feeding their families and paying their bills; there is no extraneous money to spend, and Humanities appear to be frivolous rather than essential. In our current situation, I think of our “essential workers”: doctors, nurses, firefighters, people supplying medical attention and food. These things are real and concrete needs, whereas poets, musicians, and artists might seem to be superfluous.

     This reminds me personally of all the emotional support I have received by listening to the songs being released now; songs of anger and frustration, songs expressing deep sadness, songs of hope, and how they have affected me on a deep and profound level. They have made me cry, they have made me dance alone in my bedroom, they have channeled my anger in a productive way, as I sing-shout-scream along with the lyrics, releasing my own fear, anger, and sadness with the melodies. Yes, I have needed food and shelter to survive during this time, but these songs have also helped me, if not to survive, then to thrive a little bit more than I would have otherwise. They lead me to believe there is a light at the end of this tunnel.

     Bloch says that Humanities reveal what is most important to us. In this time of crisis, I’ve realized that what’s most important to me is not money or status, or a new car or fancy dress. In fact, material objects have lost their allure for me much more than I would have previously thought. What means most is my family and friends, my sweet cats, and my connections to all of them. What has helped me get through these times the most is writing my own songs and stories, getting in touch with my feelings, and exploring what it is I really want from my one and only (that I know of) life; more love, connection, and creative expression, less buying, spending, and mindlessly consuming.

     Our focus in the recent past has been all about speed and spending. This pandemic has forced all of us to slow down. It has given us time (unless we are “essential workers”, in which case we’ve probably had less time than before) to think and revalue what is important to us. The Humanities have risen and fallen throughout history like waves…hopefully this crashing wave will lead us to clearer, cleaner, and calmer waters where it is easier to think and ponder and explore how we actually feel without having the advertising industry trying to tell us how we feel, or should feel, or are “supposed” to feel. In times like this, Humanities help us to think critically and express our ideas more effectively, which leads to action in the world, hopefully making it a better place so we can turn this ship around before it sinks.

     Certain works of art, literature, and music have helped to change the world, and have held up throughout time because they reflect our humanity back to us as we continually learn from them. These works actually have changed the course of history. Bloch says that literature can shape people, who then shape events in the world. He also says that our world functions on action and reaction, on a psychological level, not a technical one; on a human level.

     Humanities also give us insights into other cultures and their ways of doing things and being in the world. It also informs us of what worked or didn’t work in the past, so we can (hopefully) learn from our previous mistakes. Humanities teaches us about the consistency of our humanity that transcends time and place. It unites us as a human race, and enables us to interpret meaning in our lives. Humanities helps us express our ideas across all disciplines of study (not just within the Humanities).

     Humanities is not just “information” but, as Bloch says, “useful knowledge and wisdom” that brings interpretation to all subjects, which leads to meaning, which shapes our actions in the world and ultimately transforms it.

     The Humanities are not extraneous at all, but definitely essential.

Rancho Tarzanadu: "Heartbroken"

     

     Miss Linda felt completely and utterly heartbroken by the world and by her own human frailty and flaws. She was avoiding her Humanities homework to write this, and realized what a gigantic procrastinator she actually was, and most likely still is.

     The world was on fire…literally. What seemed like the entire state of California, most of Oregon, and parts of Washington were completely ablaze without hesitation or redemption. Miss Linda’s half-brother would say it was the “End of Times”, which drove Miss Linda bananas, and was completely not helpful at all during this particular moment in time. Everything smelled like smoke, and ashes were raining down from the broken sky. Pictures from San Francisco revealed an orange sky at 11:00 AM that looked like the middle of the night, if the middle of the night was bright orange…it did resemble Hell, Miss Linda had to admit with furrowed brow.

     Overlord L’Orange was caught on tape this week telling Bob Woodward that he knew the Covid-19 virus was deadly back in early February, but wanted to “play it down” to the public so the stock market wouldn’t crash (the real reason) and it would make him look better in the public’s collective unconscious eye. Later that day or the next (they’re all one big blur), he said that he was just trying to keep the public “calm”, which is completely ironic, because he loves to rile people up – that’s his schtick…he lives for it. He loves to tell the White Supremacists that “Antifa” is coming for their fancy houses in the suburbs to destroy them and eat them alive like cannibals. He loves to play up all the crime in the streets, caused by “wild-eyed Leftist Marxist Radicals” for example. Miss Linda could go on and on about all the ways the Overlord liked to stir up frenzy and chaos (kind of like the Antichrist would, if there was such a thing), but she was just too exhausted.

     She had witnessed her dear, sweet 95-year-old mother trip over a step (a small front porch step) and fall to her knees the day before, crying out like a wounded animal who just stepped into a sharp mawing trap, while Miss Linda scrambled to stop the fall and only partially succeeded. This broke her heart more than anything else that was happening in the world. It was her small, tiny world, and she was an animal, too. All of us wounded animals, isolated in our own cages, crying out, Miss Linda thought.

     The money was running out, too. Congress and the Senate could not agree on an appropriate amount of money to give the hungry masses, so they just gave them nothing instead. So many people could not go back to work (either because businesses were closed, or they were justifiably terrified of dying), but also could not find  new jobs, magically, in new fields…jobs of any kind were scarce! So…how do people buy food for example? Miss Linda wondered about this, too, and the horrible, very obvious (to most) tangible inequality in our “great” nation.

     Miss Linda had sushi waiting for her downstairs, which was a gift from one of her housemates. There was also cake (“Let them eat cake!”), because it was the German dog-trainer’s birthday today, September 11^th.

     September 11, 2020, and the world was literally on fire.

     All of this patchworked together, equaled heartbreak.

     But oddly, Miss Linda was so emotionally numb that she could not shed a tear over any of it.

     Then the tears would come out of the blue (or grey, or orange) sky while she was brushing her teeth, or watching a stupid comedy on Netflix attempting to distract herself from the misery of the world. The tears would come in a wild gushing burst, from the depths of her soul like an unclogged torrential geyser.

     She overheard her housemate downstairs talking about dog euthanasia (she also worked at an oncology pet hospital).

     Ugn.

     Too much.

     Miss Linda slumped downstairs to grab her sushi and a vodka cocktail…what else could she do?

Rancho Tarzanadu: "Miss Linda's Second Humanities MA Discussion Board Post"

     As a creative writer, I was drawn to Ken Plummer’s “Stories and Storied Lives: A Manifesto” for my focus this week. When I first started reading it, I thought: how much is there to say about stories? Ken Plummer has a lot to say about stories! They’re merely the fabric that holds all of humanity and the world at large together, after all.

     Starting at the very beginning of humankind, we have been telling stories; they seem to be an intrinsic part of who we are as human beings. We’ve expressed them through oral traditions, through symbols, and paintings, and later through the written word. Not only do stories reveal our past and create our future, they give our lives meaning, and help us make sense of everything around us and inside of us.

     I found the concept of the “inner life” and “outer life” of stories fascinating; we all have personal and subjective stories, in addition to social and collective stories that we share. Our personal stories affect the collective, and our collective stories affect our personal stories; they are interwoven together through the fabric of humanity. Our stories help us see the inner and outer worlds more clearly, and our place in them; they also help us envision our future place in the physical world, as our stories are ever-changing and shifting – they have a life of their own, much the same way an author can be surprised at what his or her characters end up doing in a particular story. As we are all unique, our stories are also different, and take many shapes and forms, but we all share the same humanity, as we have since the beginning.

     There is never just one and only one story; there are as many perceptions and perspectives of stories as there are humans (which is pretty mind-blowing to me). Each story is unique to the person telling it, and also to the person hearing it, even if it is a collective story; it can be interpreted many different ways by a myriad of people.

     Plummer tells us that stories help keep us alive, ground us, and give our lives meaning. Our stories help turn chaos into order; the chaos inside our own minds, and the chaos of the world around us.

     Our stories are also clues to unravelling culture, they inspire social movements and our educational systems; our stories can literally change the world, and have changed our past into our futures.

     Our stories give shape to our lives, the same way an author gives shape to his or her fictional characters on the page, only our stories are living and breathing, alive. Our stories are our living autobiographies.

     Plummer says that we have good and bad stories “piling up” to form memories (this reminds me of the replicants in Blade Runner, who were made more “human” by their implanted memories). Stories tell us what it means to be living human beings; they help guide us in our search for meaning in our world.

     Our stories change the human-made social world. The conditions we live in shape our stories, and in turn our stories shape and re-shape our conditions. This goes on and on in a perpetual rhythm, a drumbeat of life.

     Plummer brings up the concept of stories “dying”; he urges us to question the sources of our stories, as some stories are not worth reliving, or outlive their usefulness to us. This reminds me of our current political dilemma, and all the declarations of “Fake News” by the same people who are creating it (such as “alternate facts”). Some stories deserve to die, because they do more harm than good in the world, on a personal and collective basis.

     Stories are unveiled gradually through time (just like our own lives unfold, our stores unfold too). Just as human lives have a beginning, middle, and end, stories do also, and cannot be forced to reveal themselves before their time, the same way a flower cannot be forced to bloom before it’s ready.

     Stories are always representations of reality. Plummer asks: “Where does reality start and story end? Where does story start and reality end?” (As I am working on a magical realism novel in which I am the main character, this has several layers for me to unpeel.)

     Plummer speaks of “monologic terrorism”, where there is only one voice in a story. He says that by nature, stories are “dialogic”; there is no story if there is no reader. There is no story without the personal telling of it, and the personal interpretation of it.

     He also speaks of the “Great Unheard”, the lost voices of people who are unable to get their stories heard because of inequalities among us, power dynamics and censorship. The people with the most privilege and power are the most likely to have their stories told and heard; the people with the least privilege and power are the least likely to have their stories told and heard.

     The internet has globalized our stories, bringing us closer to each other, even as we are physically distanced, generating more empathy and understanding of other people’s stories, cultures, and lived experiences.

     Plummer also warns of placing statistics over humanity, and interpreting people’s stories as numbers, charts, and graphs. He says that stories are the “royal road to our humanity”; critical humanism may see the bad, but encourages the good in us.

     Humanism includes animals and the environment, creating a better world for all, so that all of our stories will be better stories, filled with hope and promise and equality…all of our stories will be told and heard in a more inclusive humanistic world.