Why Dr. Cowlishaw Wears a Sari

Now, I am well aware that walking around Tahlequah, Oklahoma in a sari makes me look like I might be insane. I won't argue my sanity. Instead, I would like to sing the praises of this amazing garment and offer the Gandhian reason I wear it. So, here's the weird image:

Now go take a look at the label inside any item of clothing you own. Seriously, go look. Swivel around what you have on right now and look at the label. Come on, do it--this will all make better sense if you look at your own clothes first because, if you don't, you can assume I'm a crack-pot crank. And, again, I won't argue my sanity but I want you to understand that what I'm telling you is the truth. Almost no clothing is made in the USA anymore. There's an obvious reason to dislike that: no jobs for US workers. And the US garment industry used to employ a lot of people. I grew up with these ads on the TV:



Yep, "Our wage is going to feed the kids and run the house...." But not anymore. Now the people who make the clothes for sale in American stores are third-world people who are poor. But, you may be thinking, these poor people now have jobs. That's good. Well, it would be good if those poor workers were making a living wage like the Americans in this ad were. And they work in conditions that are more like prisons than factories. Don't take my word for it--I'm a leftist and therefore not to trusted--maybe you could take Business Week's word for it--or the students of MIT. Want to see a video that explains it? Take a look:



Want to see a video that shows an actual sweatshop and the "workers" there? This should disturb you:



These deal with Bangladesh and India, but the situation is the same--or worse--in the country printed inside your clothings' label. As the gentleman in the first video said, these workers are powerless but we Americans can do something about this.


As I said in a previous post, I love beautiful clothes. But clothes that pass through the hands of desperately poor, maltreated women and children cannot be beautiful. What is for sale as clothing in our stores is an assault on human dignity. Our dollars for these items are participation in our own demise. It does not have to be this way. Here's an articulate explanation that I've altered slightly:


"It is my claim that as soon as we have completed the boycott of foreign cloth we shall have evolved so far that we shall necessarily give up the present absurdities and remodel national life in keeping with the ideal of simplicity and domesticity implanted in the bosom of the masses. We will not then be dragged into an imperialism which is built upon exploitation of the weaker races of the earth, and the acceptance of a giddy materialistic civilization protected by naval and air forces that have made peaceful living almost impossible....[The USA] can become fit for delivering such a message, when she has become proof against temptation and therefore attacks from outside, by becoming self-contained regarding two of her chief needs-food and clothing."


It reflects our situation right now in the USA but it was written in 1921 by M.K. Gandhi in reference to India. I think Gandhi's insights into India are exactly what America needs to hear right now. That's the subject of my book. (Gandhian insight into the USA's food system will be the next book.) And so, I am only buying clothing I do know for sure was not made in a sweatshop. In doing so, I am giving my business to the craftspeople of India. I buy only handloomed saris. These lengths of cloth have been made by craftspeople who pass this skill down through their families. I know my saris are not made in sweatshops. And the added pleasure of giving my money to these legitimate artisans allows me to atone for having given money to the people who enslave their countrymen in sweatshops. 


The fact that I look really out of place here in my sari is useful to me. I have a message I'm writing and it enhances my ethos as the writer to do this daring thing. It doesn't matter to me if people think I'm brave or crazy. I just want to make people think about their clothing and their values. As a professor, I was never afraid to make a fool of myself in order to teach a lesson. Making a fool of one's self is often a really excellent way to get students to pay attention. I hope it will work for me as a writer too.

The Power of Clothing

This attempt to simplify my life is taking on a life of its own already. Issues are coming to me and obliging me to think thorough them. My previous post considering religious objects and their relative value would have never occurred to me as something to work through but when a reader brings it up, it should be addressed. And comments about that post (on my Facebook wall) led me to think even further into the issue.

Now, I have had to work through my own personal relationship to the clothes I own. You'd think I'd have approached this first since the book I'm writing deals with the contemporary American clothing dilemma. And I had--in the abstract. First, let me say (if you don't know me well enough to know this already): I love beautiful clothes. I love coordinating an outfit. I derive much pleasure from clothes. I had decided years ago that I'd rather have a small, quality wardrobe than a mass of cheap things. And so, until this past weekend, I owned five good dresses, three good suits, three good skirts, and a handful of sweaters and blouses. When I say "good," I mean they were primarily from Banana Republic and Anne Taylor. I had two good purses and a half dozen good shoes--by which I mean I could wear them with the suits. I had made one serious decision about these items over the course of the last year: these "American" garments, produced in countries where labor is cheap, are products of a garment industry that creates poverty in the world.

After reading Gandhi's autobiography, in which he examines so meticulously the economic, social, and moral decisions of what to wear, I felt called to do the same. The details are the subject of my book, but the decision I made for the summer was to wear only handloomed saris from India. In this way, I could still revel in beautiful garments but without the cognitive dissonance of wearing sweatshop products. I'll have to post on all the reasons I embraced the sari soon. For now, I want to examine my relationship to those "American" garments that hung in my closet all summer unworn. In fact, the dresses, suits, etc. remained unworn into the fall semester as I began the semester wearing only saris to teach in. And, in the future, I'll have to write about the reactions I encountered doing that. But, this weekend, I was forced to consider what to do with my "American" wardrobe.

In the course of Facebook discussion about the inevitable garage sale to come, a former student sent me a private message asking if this garage sale would include any of my professional wardrobe. The answer to that would have just been "no." But her message also include an explanation of her situation. She was in sudden need of professional interview clothes and, at the same time, in sudden difficulty financially. I'm ashamed to say that my first reaction was to hang on to the clothes. But once I started thinking it through, I had to acknowledge that this was a test of my authenticity. I needed to let the clothes go, not just generally, but very specifically to this young woman. If I hadn't been confronted with a person who really needed the clothes, I would not have wanted to let go of them yet. I put so much energy into collecting those items. I loved the way I looked in them. They made me feel like the professor.

Parting with the clothes could have been wrenching. I could have justified putting them in a garage sale because they might fetch some now much-needed money. But most of those clothes are a size 4. The shoes are size 6 1/2. There aren't a lot of women in Cherokee County who could wear them. Even if they sold, they'd probably be carted off by the buyer to a resale shop where it would be a race between the few women who came in and could fit into them and the moths. I'd bet on the moths in that siutation. When I saw how well the clothes fit this young woman, it was a joyful experience giving them to her. These clothes solved a real problem for her. I got to witness her relief and it was genuinely priceless.

This clothing give-away experience has been a good lesson for me as I write about the difficulty of what to wear in America. Clothing only has any monetary value if it serves a rhetorical purpose. In this country, we are awash in cheap clothes. They are cheap in price but also cheaply made. No clothing for sale at the Walmart, K-Mart, Target, etc. is going to make the young people who shop there look ready for a serious job interview--not in the world of the middle class. All of that clothing is disposable--and a huge amount of it does, in fact, end up being disposed of without anyone having ever bought and worn it. But clothing that performs a rhetorical function retains a value. It is tragic that such clothing must be tied to the misery of what is politely called "developing nations," which is just a euphemism for the poor.

As the young woman in question obliged me to justify my not taking any money for the items, I found myself explaining the fresh realization that I really don't need them anymore. I quit my job as a professor to become a writer. Since my writing is on the subject of clothing's power, it made good sense for me to take a radical step toward sartorial authenticity. Wearing those "American" clothes would actually undermine my message. And, should I ever find myself in need of interview clothes myself, I have retained one suit. If I am able to write and sell the books I want to write, I will dispose of the remaining one. But, I can't help but think that any interview I have any time soon will be far less about my clothes than it would be for a young person just starting out. I have a Ph.D. and 19 years of college teaching experience. It's just not going to matter as much whether I'm dressed "professionally" or not. Showing up in a sari can enhance the quirky professor image that no one really holds against an established academic. I've got my middle-class respectability accounted for now. But since the clothes still have the power to speak of middle-lass respectability, it would have been irresponsible of me to throw them away. It would have been futile to sell them. Only giving them to someone who needs them right now, because she is trying to get herself established in the world, feels right. I am grateful to this young woman for giving me new insights into my project that I could have gotten in no better way.

Are Religious Objects Mere Stuff?

An interesting question from a reader:
"What about religious artifacts, relics, and icons? I am not sure precisely what religion you'd identify with, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on how this all pertains to, say, a few crosses you have in your house, or some menorahs in the attic. Do we make different stuff-rules for objects from religious value-systems?"


I would be interested to know if there are people with a unique attachment to religious objects. As a practicing Catholic, I've always had such items: crucifix, medals, rosary, etc. For me, these are the same as every other object in my life. I was never taught to treat them as anything other than tools. Most of the ones I own are mementos of people. For example, I have a crucifix on the wall by my bed that used to hang over my grandmother's bed. As a child, I fell asleep looking at it many happy nights. It's a cheap plastic thing I would never buy, but I will always sleep near it. I allow myself this because I think of it as a tool I use every day. I won't get rid of it for the same reason I won't get rid of my food-processor: using it makes it easier for me to practice a healthy lifestyle. That crucifix is something I use. If it were in the attic, it would be stuff.


I do, however, hang on to two rosaries. One is a pretty one I bought because it was beautiful and I wanted to be able to appreciate its beauty when I pray. The other is almost always just sitting in my jewelry box. That one is do treat as a special thing--though still a tool. It is attached, of course, to a story about a loved one who is gone. My uncle was a Jesuit priest who died unexpectedly on a trip that was originally supposed to be a trip to visit me and Brian. Perhaps because I was such an inconsolable wreck at his funeral, I was given his rosary. I have a tendency now to think of it as a special, powerful tool. My whole family and I are natives of New Orleans and so, on the night Hurricane Katrina was bearing down, I prayed for the city using my uncle's rosary. My own rosary is in my purse. I would not carry around my uncle's rosary like that. It could get lost or broken. In that sense, this rosary is connected to fear, what I have said in previous posts I want to free myself from. 


I know perfectly well that my uncle's rosary is just another set of beads. I don't really believe it has any power. But I like to treat it as though it does. And I can only really get away with treating a rosary like this. Because it is a tool for prayer, it is actually useful in connecting with my uncle as he exists now. To explain that, I'll need to explain how Catholics are taught to think about the dead. Our tradition holds that God's people are stretched out across space and time but are always in unbroken connection with each other. This is a reason we sometimes pray to saints--not to worship them, but to ask them to pray for us in the same way I might ask my next-door neighbor to pray for me. Those who are fully in God's presence will have a clarity of mind to pray the proper prayer for me that we on earth may not. So, my faith gives me the opportunity to understand myself to be praying with my uncle when I say the rosary. Using his rosary emphasizes the communal aspect of prayer for me.


Of course, it wouldn't be helpful to me to have a drawer full of rosaries so I can feel myself praying in community with every person I ever lose. It's special for me to have this particular rosary because I believe I have a continuing relationship with my uncle. He lived with a vow of poverty and I am just beginning to understand the wisdom in that. And, at the risk of sounding crazy, I must say I have had my uncle's help in my grieving for the loss of him. He has visited me in dreams that have been sources of enormous comfort and enlightenment. There's another traditional Catholic idea (though a Hindu friend of mine recently expressed a similar belief): visits with the dead in dreams. Certainly, it is entirely reasonable to understand these dreams as simply the workings of my own mind--the stuff and clutter of imagination. But when I treat these dreams as special, I feel peace and love, not fear and anxiety. That is my evidence that this understanding of these dreams is true. On the other hand, when I treat objects as special, I engage with fear. If I grow spiritually, I will eventually want to let go of my uncle's rosary, no doubt. In my examination of it here, I have had to concede that I treat it as special and that connects me to a fear of losing or breaking it. I need to ask myself honestly if knowing it is in my jewelry box brings more peace than fear. I'm not sure it does. Perhaps I'm waiting for the dream in which my uncle shows me how to let go of it in the same way he showed me how to let go of him.

I love, therefore I own stuff

Here's a response from a reader of my first post on this blog. The context is her suggestion that there must be different levels of value to personal possessions. I'm delighted that she argues not for objects with monetary value, but sentimental value as the most worthy of holding on to:


"Yes, it's still an object, but the emotion that makes it valuable to you is not the sort of thing you can mass-produce. It's unique to you and your mind, and every time the object facilitates the release of memories and feelings, it ceases to be yet another disposable object and instead becomes a relic, a holy vessel of ancestry. No, it's not your grandmother herself, but neither is it wrong or disordered to want to hang onto things that facilitate such deep, personal significance."


What strikes me so much here is the love the writer has. I don't know what objects or loved-ones she's thinking of when she writes this, but each object about which she feels this strongly is tied to a person who she has loved very much. It's been said that the origination of all emotion is love. Even hatred is the human response to rejection, and rejection hurts so much precisely because we want to love and be loved. The writer of the quoted lines above is longing to extend and receive love to people who are no longer near her. What she wrote captures my own feelings as I go about wrestling with things that own me.


But I have to argue with the part of me that identifies with these sentiments. In a way, this is the very heart of what I'm blogging about. And before I examine what I assume Socrates, or Gandhi, or Christ would say to this impulse I share with everyone else, I want to be clear that I'm not saying it's "wrong" to hold on to objects. However, I think I will say that it is "disordered." And my reason for saying so is because the deep valuing of the object is getting in the way of the love of the person. The person who wrote the lines, "every time the object facilitates the release of memories and feelings, it ceases to be yet another disposable object and instead becomes a relic, a holy vessel of ancestry." wants to connect with the person she loved and lost. But notice that the beloved person isn't even the reason she wants to have the object. Her reason for holding on to the object is to "facilitate the release of memories and feelings." The object is providing her with an experience she feels she needs to have. She wants to have the memories and feelings, and she assumes that the object preserves those memories and feelings as if it has the power to generate those memories and feelings. But it doesn't, does it? Would she forget her grandmother if she did not have the object that once belonged to that grandmother? I can't imagine her memories disappearing when she still feels so passionately about that person. Certainly she would never forget her grandmother--but she fears that she will.


What I think is really going on in our minds when we presume that objects have the power of memory is related to a sort of post traumatic stress disorder. Someone we love is gone and it was a great loss over which we had no control. It was a shock, even if we knew it was going to happen well in advance. Every morning for weeks, months, we wake up and feel the shock freshly as if getting the news for the first time. We cannot fight it, we cannot flee it. Settling into a life in which that person is no longer an element is yet another reality over which we have no control. We fear a future without that person. We fear losing our memories of the person.


These fears aren't "wrong." But the fear of loss doesn't get better by having objects. in fact, I would argue, it sets us up for the very thing we fear the most. When we attach the significance of a holy relic to an object, we become responsible for treating the object with proper reverence. Wouldn't the time and effort of doing that be better spent interacting with someone we love now? And wouldn't caring for someone else be a better way of honoring those we've lost? Because, after all, we didn't love the one we lost because of this object. We loved that person because of the interactions we had with him/her. Meaningful interaction with other people is what we want. We want love, not things. Caring for things is misdirected love. Holding on to things is a concession to fear. Isn't love supposed to cast out fear?

Things Stored in Mom's Basement

Inspired by Mary Ellen, Casey, and Patrick, I shot a video (that I can't get Blogspot to upload) in my mother's basement--a space in which  I'm trying to make room for all my worldly possessions. I will either get that video uploaded by tomorrow or I'll simply post a narration of what it contains with still photos. It is one amazing experience to sort through items from your childhood and even your grandparents' lives while asking yourself if these things are needed.

 So the problem of possessions is needing to be explored. The question is what does one hold on to and what should be let go? I agree with Mary Ellen's position that all objects are not equal. There are two kinds of value we're discussing: monetary and sentimental. In the end, however, my thesis is that this only amounts to different reasons for divesting one's self of the things--not a differentiation in how to treat the objects. 

I brought up the question of hoarders and how they seem to suffer from a malady that we all have to some extent. It is a sickness that our economic system forces on us. The problem with our stuff is that it owns us. That is the truth. The things themselves are meaningless. That is also true, I very firmly believe.  And by allowing meaningless things to own us we are slaves to falsehood. That is a fairly romantic flourish, I admit: "slave to falsehood." This is what my husband has called "getting all Mother Theresa." I apologise for the poetics. But I sincerely mean what I'm saying and I truly believe this is a matter of deep morality. 

I have said that our culture's attachment to objects is a sickness and immoral. I had better clarify my purpose in saying that. I am not suggesting that we people who suffer from this are, ourselves, immoral. In our minds, these objects are attached to our most profound humanity: our love for others. This instinct is good and beautiful. I am not advocating a Buddist detachment from the world. In fact, I'm advocating a complete and thorough connection to the world -- or, more specifically, the people who occupy it. And the great irony I would like to examine is the way our attachment to things prevents us from being able to  do that very thing we all desire most: connecting with others, experiencing love.

The Delusion of Stuff

I am enormously grateful to everyone leaving comments on this blog. You have no idea how much you are helping me. And while the congratulations on being "brave" are appreciated, it's the comments that resist my central thesis that are most helpful.

I have put a good deal of thought into the problem of stuff. I think I need to call it that: the problem of stuff. Stuff is a great word. It diminishes the value of what it denotes. I like that. That helps my purpose here. Two issues have been raised: stuff as bulwark against loneliness and the possibility that all stuff is not equally valueless. But I would argue that they are, in the end, the same problem. Casey agrees with Mary Ellen who wants me to find the line between useless stuff and that which she describes as "unique to you and your mind, and every time the object facilitates the release of memories and feelings, it ceases to be yet another disposable object and instead becomes a relic, a holy vessel." I completely understand this sentiment and I know that it comes from love. However, I do not believe this is true. And, again, I thank Mary Ellen, Casey, and Patrick for helping me be true to my blog's purpose: experiments in truth. I am now off to my mother's basement where I will make a little video illustrating my perspective on memories, feelings, and stuff. 


[An aside to my concerned students: At this moment, I feel I am putting in the best day's work I have ever done. Forgive me for leaving you but I think I am where I am supposed to be right now. I love you.]

Down-sizing and the Problem of Stuff

Walking through some of my stuff leaves me feeling a bit confused. I resolutely asserted yesterday that I want to simplify my life and live authentically but putting that into practice is disorienting. Which of these things are to keep, which to let go?

There's an increasingly popular program on TLC: Hoarders Buried Alive. It's compelling viewing and I've been thinking about this particular psychological problem's relationship to our consumer culture. I'm found of saying that it isn't a wonder hoarding happens, it's a wonder everyone doesn't do it. Everything on the television assures us that a shopping trip can solve everything--everything, including loneliness. So our things stand in for what we can't control in our lives: people we love, good times we miss. Watching this TV show is most fascinating when the person doing the hoarding talks about why s/he wants to keep each individual object. It's a soliloquy of madness: this broken plastic hanger might be repairable, someone may have a use for it, it could be recycled, etc. The piles of junk aren't these people's problem, it's the individual pieces of junk that they can't get past. So, when I watch the video of myself above, I realize I'm sounding a lot like the people on that TV show. The things in my living room aren't technically junk, but they are largely useless. When I combine my household with my mother's in a smaller house, I cannot cling to things like books I like because they are pretty or because I enjoyed reading them once upon a time. This isn't medieval Ireland. I don't need to keep a library of books to protect the content from being lost to civilization. What's in those books that's not on the internet or available through a public library?

But I have been relatively good about keeping needless clutter out of my house. The real test will be when I'm at my mother's house this evening and must make space there. A corner of that basement is occupied by my old things. My friend gave me this object, so it stands in for her. How can I get rid of it? It would be like throwing my friend away. This belonged to my grandmother. She held it in her hand. Now when I hold it in my hand it's like I'm touching her again. And as I write that line about my grandmother, my eyes well up. It's emotional. But this is disordered thinking. It's not right. The objects are not the people. Clinging to the things won't bring back the love of the people. It's time to cut loose from things and stuff. It is a strange experience.

Yesterday, I quit my job.

I have committed what is surely an act of utter madness in our culture: I walked away from a job that paid reasonably well and that had a remarkable level of security. Until today, I was a tenured Associate Professor at a university. I had wonderful students and a beautiful office, benefits, retirement--everything I'm supposed to value. When my work situation was no longer bearable to me, I negotiated my resignation over the course of several days and now find myself on day one of an entirely new life. This is, frankly, terrifying. It is possibly insane. It is certainly risky.

My book project has languished while I busied myself with making enough money to pay for a three-bedroom house on 3/4 acre of land. Of course, the house must be furnished, power bills paid, cable payments for the television and internet. Electronics must be bought that are up to date so that we can make use of that high-speed cable connection we're paying for. My husband and I must buy and maintain professional wardrobes. The car and lawnmower need gas. To make more time for the book project, we hired a cleaning woman to come in every other week. Still the book project languished--the book about how contemporary American culture is toxically inauthentic.

And now I realize why those whose minds I admire lived their lives in profound simplicity, why members of my church join orders that demand vows of poverty. I've read the philosophy, taught the classes, but that's not enough. It's not enough to know about Socrates, Christ, and Gandhi. It's not enough to believe in their wisdom. I have always known that I consume more resources than are my due in a world where hunger and poverty are the experience of most people. I have always believed this is wrong. Still, I live in a time and place that allows me to consider this acceptable. Why flout a system that's working for me? One reason nags at me: inauthenticity is the price for a life of privilege. Authenticity is only possible when our relationship to the material world is properly aligned with our values. If I put a picture of Christ or Gandhi on my wall but do not ask myself if my relationship to that wall is in keeping with the values that made me hang that picture, my life is not authentic. If how I spend my time and money is not in keeping with what I believe is important in life, my life is meaningless.

A life without meaning is terrifying. I have watched my students for 19 years struggle with this terror as they complete their studies. Increasingly, they graduate with a student loan debt that makes contemplation of meaningful work feel like selfishness to them. They begin their adult lives already enslaved to a system about which many have grave doubts. It's a good generation coming up now. They care about sustainability, even if their parents don't quite know what that is. They value human relationships more than technological advancement. They have ernest souls--more so than my own generation. I am writing this blog for them, as I am writing my book for them. They want to live authentic lives. I want to use my life to encourage them in this.

All of that high-minded talk is easy. Actually doing this will be difficult. I will have to down-size my life just to survive now. My mother and I will consolidate our households. My husband will be the bread-winner for our household. This is a burden on both of them. They claim they take it on willingly because they believe in what I feel I must write.

I am doing what I have always dreamed of doing and it will involve flouting my culture's economic values. The only reward for this will be my peace of mind.