Where Un-Making Reigns__Adrienne Rich

.

My heart is moved by all I cannot save:
so much has been destroyed

I have to cast my lot with those
who age after age, perversely,

with no extraordinary power,
reconstitute the world.

A passion to make, and make again
where such un-making reigns. --Adrienne Rich


Recently, a friend sent me a letter in which she included the above excerpt from an Adrienne Rich poem. A beautiful sentiment on the face of it, but something struck me as problematic, or too pat in the well-wrought lines. Like a bumper sticker or a slogan, the reader is too quickly and too easily let off the hook. Rich is working in the broadest of strokes, embarking on nothing less than reconstituting the world. Big job. She mentions that others in history have taken on similar tasks, people common as herself. She makes it sound a little like doing a load of laundry, but a rather big and important load. The problem is, through all this reconstituting of the world, nothing has been resolved, nor changed. I for one am tired of empty phrases, even eloquent ones.

Zen master Dogen in the Mountains and River Sutra wrote that "the blue mountains are constantly walking... He who doubts their walking does not understand his own walking." Just why this quote placed itself in my mind as the successor to Adrienne Rich's profound lines (of which she has many), I don't know. Maybe I just like the idea that the blue mountains are constantly walking and will be doing so long after we're gone--individually and as a species. Sometimes I worry that a very negative arrogance accompanies all of us who believe it is our duty or within our ability to reconstitute the world; those of us who share this passion to make, and make again where such un-making reigns. Yes, it's important to make, to create, to will something alive, especially in a landscape of entropy, but only if it has value. Otherwise we merely manufacture more un-needed stuff, egocentric detritus--be it idealogical, artistic or consumerist. For my nickel, the world has had too much making, with not nearly enough gravitas behind such making. We may find that within our constructs we create our own tyranny of ideology, offering actions which are not fundamentally different than those we might oppose. In the rush to produce some testament of existence, we sorrowfully plant one more thoughtless flag. Sorry that this sounds so pompous on my part, but until one "understands his [sic] own walking," there's little constructive worth that's afforded to our actions, since we're trying to make decisions from a very limited or erroneous set of impersonal options. My interpretation sounds lifted from Socrates’ dictum, know thyself, and I suppose it is.

In the quotation above, Adrienne Rich seems a reluctant member whose desire to join is born solely out of frustration at what has been lost, or hope for some better solution, and isn't that call to action truly the same rationale we always use when entering the fray, any fray? I'm perhaps most impressed that Adrienne Rich is willing to cast her lot with a group whose aims are admirable (though certainly grandiose), but whose position is necessarily perverse in it's opposition to popular thinking, or opposition to the era's accepted ethos. Literature is filled with these stories, the righteous of small means fighting the seemingly impervious tyrant (even the metaphorical tyrant of inaction), and eventually, after much suffering, snatching victory. But, history is different than literature. David slew Goliath, but immediately dove into a miasma of monarchical extremes and abuses, so that his reconstituted world became almost identical to the world before his revolt, except the players had shifted. More recently we saw it in the Bolshevik Revolution's mission change from one of investing power in the people, to bestowing power to a small political core and eventually a single despot. During the interim since we human beings stopped being hunters and gatherers, not very long ago--10,000 years is a conservative number--it's been one power base overturning the next, be it military, economic, or philosophical. The common fact seems to be that human beings have no idea what it means to be human beings, leaving each of us open to manipulation and governance by any mad ideologue, or house painter, or oligarch with the focused will to power. We don't merely need to make, be it art or revolution; but to discover. We have more than enough already, and though Rich's poem may rue impoverishment by things lost, we have enormous resources left in both aesthetic and pragmatic worlds. No, instead of reloading more new themes to replace those jettisoned into history, I say we learn to integrate that which surrounds us, even now, raw concepts and paradigms that will work, will provide, will grow truthfully. Though it may require a more fearless way of looking at the world, my hunch lately is that it isn't the world which needs reconstituting, but our assessment of ourselves and our duty to this world and its possibilities. It is we who must change, we who must become accountable for ourselves and our relationship with other humans, as well as our intercourse with the natural order as a whole.

My fear, when hearing quotes concerning fighting the good fight, be it politically progressive or conversely conservative, is that we're falling into one of history's oft-mentioned traps. As soon as acknowledgment is won, or the message is promulgated, be it by poem, court decision or a Genghis Khan-styled pogram, the victorious are left with that most addictive drug we call influence. History shows us many instances of leaders wielding power, but rarely shows us leaders sharing power among all constituents in a form that these same constituents will be able to flourish within. I suppose it's so rare they could be called utopias: often merely literary devices, or small social experiments of dubious distinction. We seem ignorant, even with our much vaunted intellectual accumulations, of just what role human beings should play on our planet, or the universe. My personal belief is that we're monsters one and all, no matter the placard we carry or the army we command. Look at us, 7,000,000,000 monsters each desiring an unlimited sufficiency of those products we hold valuable above all others, be it simply a bowl of soup or a mansion in a gated community, our appetites seem to know only more. We're all idea junkies, dominated by genetically disposed addictions to our own brain functions. We humans pride ourselves on the size of our brains, the quotidian assessments of our brains, the shiny things cognition offers. The myth of Narcissus is merely the need to reflect upon ourselves endlessly, a Rube Goldberg machine of mental mirrors chugging endlessly and reflecting only more mirrors. We only view others as a reflection of ourselves; if they don't act the way we believe they should act (our way) they're pronounced inherently misguided and must be changed, since to leave them unchanged presents a threat to our own convictions about ourselves. By manipulating this simple premise, humans can be motivated to physically bully, enslave, imprison, torture, kill, enact genocides, always feeling logically correct (often legally correct) and morally responsible. We're certainly making, but I for one wish we weren't.

I'm getting far afield here, but my basic thrust is this: we're using the wrong tools to effect change. Humans will not change using traditional definitions of intelligence as the sole arbiter of actions, either in preconception or antecedent judgments. The tool is flawed, our short history proves as much. Of course it sounds heretical and preposterous, but then again those are mental constructs themselves. The Vedas of ancient India divide life into three temporal possibilities: Dreaming sleep; Dreamless sleep; and Waking. Our brains are active in each, but to different degrees. Intuition, artistic inspiration, and thoughts unfettered by logic (or its weird moral assignments) are each equally as old as human history. They were once more revered, and in some cultures continue as an influence, though certainly modified by a modernism of thought. Gandhi meditated as well as marched. Gandhi also refused the mantle of power once the political struggle against the British had ended. He invented a new script of political action based on non-violence and reliant upon a healthy cynicism toward traditional power. He was actually able to effect personal and social change, real change (at least for a time). Gandhi was not perfect, but then again he was no monster. He integrated physical work (i.e. weaving), non-logical brain processing (meditation), logical brain processing (reading, writing, conversation), exercise (walking or yoga) and a desire to understand himself, what it means to be a human being on planet earth. Not merely content to populate his ideas within the world so as to reflect an undisciplined image of himself, Gandhi chose a vigorous regimen of personal inquiry and balance. The world being what it is, it seems fitting that he was murdered. But, what we seem to forget was that he was murdered by someone exactly like ourselves, a monster.

To return to Adrienne Rich's quote, which is extraordinary in its insight and its dedication, I can only wish I were as selfless and filled with conviction. However, I also believe that her mission is pointless unless it can evince actual change, not illusory change. The battle isn’t fought with beauty, nor in protesters filling the streets, nor in gender caucus groups, nor in well-meaning articles published in periodicals or internet blogs, not even in revolutionaries armed and prepared to fight violence with violence. Instead, the actual battleground is within each individual. The battle is fought where there are no leaders, no antagonists to rail against, no comrades, no enemies. The battle is an interior revolution wherein we can disarm logic and useless intellectual arguments in favor of some greater and more humane discipline, and I certainly don’t mean any religious interpretation. Until we’ve changed ourselves, it’s mere idiocy to believe that we will alter any larger scheme or popular endeavor, except in name only. I’m afraid that the sentiment Adrienne Rich offers, heartfelt as it appears will never benefit the course of justice, equality, and peace, just as it has historically failed to do for the last 10,000 years. Until we wage insurrection against the monsters inhabiting ourselves, there’s no hope for metamorphosis of any social order, or civilization. Sure, we can lop off a few heads from our most egregiously diabolical leaders, or transform a few laws, or build a few monuments upon which to carve aphorisms in granite, but we’ll basically be in the same place. The human race will be destroying one another, maiming the planet’s ecosystems, using our protean resources to place power and privilege in the hands of a few at the dire consequence of the 7 Billion and growing. I encourage anyone who would be moved by Ms Rich’s quotation to refuse payment on that percentage of federal income tax which is currently used to conduct policies you believe are counter to humane practices: military budgets; federal protection of private financial interests; the prison industry; economic aid packages to foreign countries who conduct inhuman practices. Imagine if each of us actually acted with responsibility, facing legal punishment, financial backlash, estrangement by friends and colleagues, instead of merely talking like know-it-alls at the water cooler. Perhaps Adrienne Rich had such commitments in mind when she wrote of a passion to make, and make again where such an un-making reigns, I can't say. The slippery interpretations of metaphor and vague poetics are intentionally difficult to nail down, just look at how some interpret what they call holy scripture. Sadly, we Americans cower in our own leisure and point the finger at politicians for our problems. Most of us are never even uncomfortable, much less about to go hungry. We confuse anxiety with reality. No, I’m afraid readers of Adrienne Rich are not going to reconstitute the world in any valuable sense. We’ll all still vote either Democrat or Republican and feel that we’ve made a difference, pat ourselves on the back, flip on the television set and watch our favorite global media conglomerate’s comedy program.

About now, I'm sure you might like to yank away my soap box. But hey, I’m one of you too, a fellow coward. Let’s not pretend we’re anything else, nor crow about our ability to change things, to make things. We in the United States are a selfish lot, rather stupid, and embarrassing to the world at large--but above all we're dangerous. Perhaps we should practice restraint on our reconstituting of the world, perhaps we should learn to breathe deeply, reflect, and grow quiet; but even more importantly we should allow everyone else the same opportunity to breathe, even in Iraq, even Afghanistan, even, even, even. I'm reminded of lines from Eliot's Ash Wednesday: Teach us to care and not to care, teach us to sit still. And though I'm tempted to suggest that we begin a journey of discovery into ourselves, it would smack of hubris. I have no ideas which can help you, and I doubt that you have any which will aid me. In that we're equal, and we can call that a beginning.


(The above image is a mixed media painting by Greg Gossel. The excerpted poem at the start of my installment above is from Natural Resources, a poem included in Adreinne Rich's book The Dream of a Common Language--Norton, 1978).

.