There are two aspects to my life project: An activist part and a theory part. Let’s call it evidence-based activism. And the key concept for both is singlism – external and internalized. In order to fight singlism, we need to understand how it is lodged into our psyches. That is, we need to know how singlism and matrimania develop. This involves looking into our heads, so to speak, and identifying the mechanisms for the development of these prejudices. I suspect that there are some human tendencies/cognitive mechanisms that underpin the development of prejudice/stereotypes. And then there are some that entrench the whole thing (like the belief in a just world, resistance to change, etc). So, there are cognitive biases on which stereotypes build that turn into prejudice and system justification. The idea of “false consciousness” will be central on the theory building side as will be the idea of raising consciousness on the activism side. Essentially, the theory building involves largely integrating and synthesizing work done by others and applying it to singlism and matrimania (I have read that the development (etiology) of prejudice content is not that well understood yet but either way, I would like to develop an end-to-end theory of prejudice, which I don’t think exists yet.)

Here are some (potential) questions for the theory part:

• What are the forces that keep marriage in place?
• Maybe other ways of putting this:
• What systems are key to the development of singlism and matrimania?
• Why do people marry?
• What beliefs are used to justify the centrality of marriage in society and individual lives?
• What cognitive structures underpin stereotype and prejudice development and which ones solidify the status quo through system justification in the cases of matrimania and singlism?
• What is the difference between matrimania and singlism? Are they really two sides of the same coin?

I am not sure if this fits into philosophy as a discipline. There is a tad bit of philosophy there – the concept of “false consciousness” came originally from Karl Marx. But overall, this touches more on research in social psychology. Thus, I’ve been reading a lot in social psychology, especially work by John Jost. It is fascinating and very helpful for understanding how things might fit together. But there seems to be a lack of activism – the studies are not turned into ways of changing the world (or maybe I haven’t found those yet, which is entirely possible! Feel free to correct me in the comments!). And I want an activism part: I don’t just want to understand things, I want to change things!

Once we know how singlism & matrimania develop and how they embed themselves into our minds, it might be easier to fight them. Awareness is half the battle, as I am finding out in my celibacy self-study! I can use the theory to develop questions and things to watch for to counter-act our “natural” tendencies toward couplemania (where “natural” here means the whole developmental system that is in place to “create” singlism and matrimania). There are tools that can be used for the deconstruction of internalized singlism. The activism side also involves a constructive side: Community building, which can counteract external singlism, and tools for developing self-love, which also heal internalized singlism. Kay Trimberger identified community as one of the important aspects of a happy single life.

So, the questions I am pondering are along these lines:

• What field would allow me to incorporate both the theory and the activist side?
• Are the theory questions above philosophical questions? If not, what field would they fit into? Or how could I turn them into philosophical questions?
• Do I even need more education/training? If not, what path could I take?

Let’s see if we can do some collective brainstorming!

If we fall back on the book ethics, the case is pretty clear. Kant would say don’t take the money because you don’t want to have a rule “it’s okay to lie if….” Bentham and Mill would say don’t take the money because if everybody would take the money, there wouldn’t be enough left for everybody. But that’s just it. The thing is: There would be. There is enough money in the economy – if we were to spread it out more evenly – to pay every adult a basic, bare bones minimum income. You know, like, $450 per week. And that’s where the ethics really collide: If the system itself is unethical, if the few profit on the backs of the many, is it unethical to take advantage of it? Or to put it differently: Can I really change a system by refusing to participate in it? Or am I just ending up hurting myself?

It would be nice if someone where just willing to write me a check once a week. No strings attached… Like a private redistribution of wealth… In the meantime, I haven’t decided yet what to do. I have realized, though, that ethical decisions are not as clear cut as the books make them out to be.

Update on May 20: After reading this post on liars, I decided to cancel my claim. My integrity is priceless. I can live without the $450/week. Sure it would be nice to get it (and I am still open to the private wealth redistribution idea ! But I didn’t leave my corporate job just to start lying (again). I want to live with integrity! And saying x when I should be saying y is just not part of that kind of life! (Of course, right now I have the luxury of making that choice… But I’d venture to say that all the people who lie could survive without saying that lie.)

There are three primary longer-term reasons, which in a lot of ways pushed me further along the path of my self-commitment:

1. At the end of 2008, my good friend and co-worker, Jan, died of a massive heart attack while at her desk in the office. The picture of seeing her sitting at the desk that last time is ingrained in my memory. I still hear the words of the first responders and cringe when I have to take the elevator they took that day. It is a reminder that life is short. That sometimes, it’s best not to put off following our dreams until [fill in the blank]. Remembering my own mortality reminded me that I will not live forever, that I better stop putting off pursuing my dream until I have it all figured out.
2. The financial crisis made me look more closely under the hood of the capitalist system in the US. What I saw was not pretty. It is build on ruthless exploitation, pursuit of money, and is increasingly turning into an oligarchy dominated by people high up in the financial services industry. And my paycheck came from one of those companies where the CEO makes so much money several of us could retire on a fraction of it. I felt a clear dissonance between calling on people to move their money yet earning an income at one of the Big Four.
3. It took me several years to realize that I was in the wrong career, instead of just the wrong job. Though I enjoyed parts of it and received good reviews for the work I was doing, my heart wasn’t in it. It felt socially irrelevant. I wasn’t making anybody’s life any better (arguably, I was making people’s lives worse, see second point). I have ideas that I really would like to flesh out that might make the world a tad bit better. But to flesh those out, I need time and a different kind of training.

And then there are three timing-related reasons – they are answering the question of “why now and not x months from now?” Although longer-term reason #1 certainly also plays into that.

1. Actually, this reason was already at play last year when I plunged into going back to school. My son decided to pursue his dreams post-high school a year earlier. So, I felt that this would be my opportunity to make the changes that I’ve been longing to make for quite some time now but didn’t want to make since it felt irresponsible to do so with a child. (It still feels that way but I think I’ve realized that I cannot let that guilt feeling stop me. Otherwise, I’ll never start walking down a different path…)
2. Some things at work have changed. The merger has brought a different climate. It’s very subtle but it reminds me more of a good-old-boys network than a diverse place to work. So, on top of the cognitive dissonance that I was already feeling, I started to sense a clear discomfort about the office climate change.
3. I am taking two graduate seminars this semester in addition to a logic class (my last prereq!). That is keeping me very busy – spending 3 hours to read a 9-page paper was rather eye-opening. This stuff is dense! But I don’t feel like I am doing time. I am very much enjoying myself. Yet, there is so much other stuff I’d like to read (and write) to be able to pursue my ideas. But I am putting in 25 hours per week to earn money at a job I loath. I decided that I could use those 25 hours much better for things I feel passionate about!

I am still oscillating between being ecstatic about giving myself the freedom to pursue my dream (after all, I do have the financial safety net to do this) and sheer panic (after all, that safety net will not last forever, nor is my dream crystal clear). What if I am not really good at philosophy? I fell into it – it wasn’t a conscious choice, something I’ve always wanted to pursue. What will I do when the money runs out? I don’t have a plan! I shouldn’t do this without a plan! My hypothyroidism might still be out of whack (I got the test results back on Monday and the TSH is rising again). Thanks to the lack of backbones in Washington, we still don’t have universal health care. What if I can’t afford good health care? And then I push back the panic and remind myself that sometimes, we just have to try something to find out if it’s worth pursuing. By quitting my job, I am giving myself the chance to fully pursue this, to give it all I’ve got. If it turns out that I am not good enough at it, well, the nice thing about my first career is that it’s very marketable… I will have learned to live on much less, so I won’t need a high-paying job. And who knows. Like one of my friends put it: In order for new doors to open, we need to close some old ones first. So, here I am plunging ahead, knowing that the bruises will heal and looking forward to creating my own life!

This post was prompted by my reading of an article that talks about the nature of man and man’s body. You know, as in human being. That sexist language makes me wonder: Maybe there’s a meme at work here that links philosophy with men. And this also suggests why it is so important to be careful about our language and avoid sexist usage (I suppose in 1981 when the article first appeared consciousness about this was fairly low still…).

What’s a meme? According to the Oxford English Dictionary (as cited by Richard Dawkins): A meme is

an element of a culture that may be considered to be passed on by non-genetic means, esp. imitation.

“Nature of man” reinforces the meme that all humans are men, that men are the standard, that women don’t count. It might be subtle but it’s there. This makes it very important for us to translate this into the nature of human beings. Of course, I am also wondering what human does in this context. Even that word seems to reinforce the meme that men are the standard humans and women are just copies, not really independent beings, just men with a few changes (making them defective, lesser somehow…). If philosophical reading includes a lot of text that reference the “nature of man” – and other sexist language – this meme is strengthened unless counteracted (here’s how!). And so that we can counteract this meme, we have to notice them and raise awareness that this is an issue. I intend to do that whenever I can – and since the seminar is on the philosophy of mind, I figure it’s important to reprogram some minds (to utilize some functionalist ideas).

All that, or some less articulated version of it, went through my head as I was putting on my exercise clothes. I headed out the door. And then I saw the writing on the sidewalk: Jesus loves you! “Well, at least someone loves me,” went through my head, almost immediately followed by a realization. In our hypercompetitive world where a person is only good enough if she achieves by the social standards set by who knows whom, self-love is a rarity. The only way we can get unconditional love is through an imaginary being (God) or through a dead and decomposed guy (Jesus). And this acceptable form of self-love – for if God and Jesus cannot really love you because they don’t exist, this is a form of self-love – has subverted a possibly healthier way of taking care of the self practiced in ancient philosophy. Michel Foucault put the shift this way (284):

In the Greco-Roman world, the care of the self was the mode in which individual freedom – or civic liberty, up to a point – was reflected as an ethics. [...] the theme of the care of the self thoroughly permeated moral reflection. [...] in our societies on the other hand, at a time that is very difficult to pinpoint, the care of the self became somewhat suspect. Starting at a certain point, being concerned with oneself was readily denounced as a form of self-love, a form of selfishness or self-interest in contradiction with the interest to be shown in others or the self-sacrifice required.

Jesus loves you instead of know thyself. Self-sacrifice instead of self-love. And we’re not talking about the narcissistic self-love here, we are talking about a healthy amount of self-love that counteracts the doubts of inadequacy I was struggling with and suspect many others who are venturing off the beaten path are struggling with (heck, even people who are on the beaten path). Rather than loving ourselves, we’re supposed to love God or Jesus or both and then sacrifice ourselves in their name. Only that way do we get back a self-love substitute, God’s or Jesus’ love. No wonder that so many people flock to religions! Existential angst is part of our world – we no longer learn to counter-act it by becoming a virtuous person grounded in a deep love for and knowledge of ourselves.

Maybe if we listen to the ancients some more, we can relearn how to find our way to happiness. Maybe if we cultivate healthy self-love again, we’ll see less of the unhealthy kind, which leads to destruction both of the economy and the environment. Maybe if we reconnect with ourselves, our dreams and start knowing ourselves again, we might have to buy less stuff to fill the existential hole. The planet could sure use that kind of a value-shift. So could we.