Royal Wedding

So, what's the truth of the royal wedding? One truth is that I am easily entertained by it. The allure of a beautiful clothing display makes me excited to get up at 4:00am and watch every minute. I was seventeen when I did this for the Charles & Diana wedding. That event still colored my taste seventeen years later when I had my own wedding. Even with an intentionally spare wedding and reception, I could not resist yards of cream-colored silk. I bought the dress for $90, so I surely have nothing to feel guilty for and yet.... I'm here blogging about truth and it's amazing how difficult it is to go there sometimes. The truth, I know is Gandhi's maxim, "Live simply so that others may simply live." And yet, in order to enjoy a royal wedding, I have to put that truth aside. I think the allure of this event is something worth examining. Doing so will, however, be a buzz kill.

I find I do not like being the buzz-kill in the room. Last week, while breakfasting with friends who are fellow academics, I accidentally launched a sullen round of mea culpas after I explained my paper's topic. My "Lies Our T-Shirts Tell Us: The Current Rhetorical Crisis in American Clothing" led everyone to feel the need to justify or apologise for the probable sweat-shop origins of what they were wearing. I found myself wishing I had a less ethics-driven thesis--and that's really troubling. But I should cut myself some slack on this. My discomfort at the breakfast table was the result of having made other people (who I really want to like me) uncomfortable. It's easier to write about things that make people uncomfortable than to talk to them face-to-face on such subjects. I just need to get used to being a buzz-kill and relax about popularity.


But in writing this post about the truth of the royal wedding allure, I will be killing my own buzz because I feel it. I feel the fashion-pig in me lusting for the spectacle. I feel the seven-year-old girl in me surging to the surface to see the pretty princess. And, although it's lots of fun, I think I'd rather see it rightly, truthfully. So, here I go off to slay one of the fiercest dragons my culture has created for me: the allure of the pretty princess. I will be told that this is not a dragon at all, that I do not need to deprive myself of the pleasure. This, I think is not true. Just two days ago, I (like all other Catholics at Easter mass) restated my baptismal vows. My favorite of these has always been "Do you reject the glamor of evil...?" because that's the problem with evil: it's glamorous. It is. It really is. And it is interesting to note that "glamor" is only a variant of "grammar." Grammar and glamor were used to refer to the casting of spells with words. (See the relationship between "spell" as a verb and as a noun.) So, let me examine the glamor and grammar of this royal wedding thing in an attempt to counter the spell it casts over us--particularly, we women.

First, I wonder if I'd be writing about this in terms of princesses, dragons, and spells if I were going to see it in person rather than on television. I think it would be easier for me to see the truth in person. Looking at all of these people with my own eyes would help me see them as people and not characters in a costume drama. I will be watching in the pre-dawn darkness of rural Oklahoma as they move around in the broad daylight of a huge city thousands of miles away. It will feel for all the world like watching a movie, not a real event. The camera that will direct my view will not take in the miscellany of the scene that my eyes would. If viewing it in person, I would be able to glance away from the elaborate ceremonial clothing and haute couture and take in the appearance of the spectators. 

I would be able to watch ordinary Brits watching the spectacle. I would see that it is a show for the consumption of far less privileged people, and I would be able to think about those people, and that would lead me to more truthful thinking. The only images of the people I will see Friday morning will be huge anonymous crowds. Any individuals the camera happens to focus on will be cheering and waving. The impression will be that a great mass of people are cheering and waving all the while. Crowds aren't like that when you're in them. Everyone isn't doing one thing. There are various levels of attention and mood when you're inside a crowd. I won't see the truth of the crowd which is always much less about the event itself when you're inside of it. Inside the crowd, it's more about the people you came with, what's on hand to eat or drink, petty annoyances of not being able to see or hear. For the people there, it won't be a smooth unbroken event that moves through the city. It will be a long while of waiting during which time a thousand real-life issues will be engaged. Then there will be the sound of a distant roar that will quickly grow to a deafening boom. There's not enough time to adjust to the sudden volume before the object of interest appears and disappears in a flash. The sound dies away and everyone is left to decide whether to stay or go. That experience keeps you well grounded in the reality of your relationship to the event and its players--no way to confuse yourself as to how important those people are to your life. 


Following the events of the day via television will be full of confusing illusions. The minutia of the day's unseen events will be narrated to me: what time Kate woke up, where she spent the night, who is with her as she dresses. The reporters' repeated exclamations of what an exciting day it is will be a waste of their time. All they have to do is feed me the frivolous details as if they mattered and I'll be hooked. I will have a sense of some insider knowledge. I will repeat these pointless tidbits of information to family members as the get up and find breakfast. Once the procession starts, I will be able to imagine, again, that I am inside this event. I see it all, every part, just like Kate--though maybe better because I know exactly how many crystals are sewn into the hemline of her dress and she probably doesn't. The crowd will become another character in the story instead of the place where I am. I will be able to imagine that I'm in a privileged position in comparison to them. I will be able to imagine that I am not one of  them. I will have absorbed so many pieces of trivia about Kate that I will imagine some connection to her--many women will. It will be disorienting.

The truth of the event is that a young woman who is about to have an exceptionally trying marriage is the pretty centerpiece for a monarchy that desperately needs propping up. The economy is bad everywhere and we're all going to watch millions of dollars thrown into a PR effort. And it's a dodgy effort at that. I'm disturbed by the way the public is being set up for a new Diana. And right there--the point at which Kate becomes Diana in the popular imagination--is a troubling allusion as much as an illusion. I have been watching the re-televising of the Charles & Diana wedding. It's painful to look at now. At the time, Diana was a few years older than me, but when I watch my television screen, she is a twenty-year-old and I'm 46. She looks so very young and is obviously in love with her new husband who we now know was not so much in love with her. I'm seeing a bit of the truth of that wedding 30 years ago just with the assistance of time having passed. The repeated image of Kate in the sapphire blue dress wearing Diana's engagement ring feels like an omen. Somehow she seems to imagine she will have a happy future as a royal in spite of all the inauspicious signs. One piece of trivia that I've already collected is that Kate met the queen for the first time only recently, after having been engaged to William for months. That's just not a good thing. I can well imagine what the House of Winsor thinks of this daughter of merchants, granddaughter of miners. She will not be welcome by many. And any extent to which she reminds the people at the palace of Diana will not be good for her popularity there. This is not discussed on the television just as it was not discussed that Diana and Charles had only dated for six months when engaged. There are problems with these people and when outsiders join in, they are usually treated badly. 

And well there might be problems with these people. They are a family who live off their breeding (another reason Kate will not be taken seriously by her new family). They take public money to wave, cut ribbons, and have parties. They are professional celebrities paid with tax revenue. That's just wrong. Someone will say that they make money for the country--tourism and souvenirs--but there's no way they bring in as much as they cost. If Britain wants to make money off its heritage, I'd rather see them throw tax money at a revival of the Arts & Crafts movement. So, one sobering truth to hold in my mind while watching is the fact that this is a very expensive waste. The deeper facts of the matter are that the royal money is in land holdings. In essence, the monarch is one of the biggest real estate holders in the world. These land holdings cannot legally be divided or sold and belong to the monarch simply because she inherited them from feudal times. Royalists like to assert that the monarchy more than pays for itself because of the profits from these land holdings get distributed into the national budget in exchange for a comparatively small pension given to certain royals. And that would be a good argument for the monarchy if we can all agree that the distribution of land under the feudal system is just. I'm one of those wild-eyed Gandhians who doesn't see it as good system. It created poverty for the majority. It was the opposite of Gandhi's "Live simply so that others many simply live." So, essentially, I'm saying that a royal family of this kind is a cultural and economic evil. 


I have just typed the words above at the same time that CNN is having an anchorman in angry banter with a kook with a website. So, I'll have to say it: I'm asserting that the royal family is a cultural and economic evil but I do not endorse violence. Now, I wouldn't mind seeing a peaceful demonstration against the royals, but that's not going to be allowed.

Keeping the idea in mind that this is all a display of injustice should help me keep my wits about me while watching. It's a struggle when you've been brought up to worship prettiness. And let me admit that this wedding wouldn't have half the attraction it does if it weren't for the bride's prettiness. She's beautiful and looks beautiful in her beautiful clothes and I like it. There's pleasure in looking at pretty people even if they aren't wearing pretty clothes, but this pretty bride will most certainly be wearing very pretty clothes. Even the not-pretty people at the event will be wearing pretty clothes--excepting the queen, I'm afraid. She seems to prefer wearing a brightly colored kaftan at all times. And the hats will be delightful. I will covet many of the hats. I will look for ways to reconstruct the hats I have so that they mimic some of the really special ones at the wedding. I will be struggling with myself. Of course, there's always the option not to watch at all. I'll have to consider that. But, at this time, I'm thinking that watching it will be a very useful exercise in experimenting with truth. Can I watch through the illusion-inducing lens of a camera and still keep my bearings straight? An interesting experiment.

Losing My Religion

I became a university professor because I wanted, more than anything, to work in a field that did real, concrete good for ordinary working people. I wanted to work with people who were not honor students, not independently wealthy, not privileged in any way. I wanted to show people who thought they weren't good at reading and writing that they could do it. As an undiagnosed dyslexic who got a PhD in Composition/Rhetoric/Literacy, I have tricks and methods that have given me the thin end of the wedge into advanced literacy against all odds. In my graduate studies, I found that the little memory systems I had invented to get myself through the school system were very like ones the ancients used in a world before writing. I discovered theorists who explained logically how and why electronic literacy works differently from print literacy and I saw in this an advantage for people like myself.

Yes, I would use my knowledge of Rhetoric to analyze Literacy problems so I could effectively teach Composition to pretty much anyone. That's work I could spring out of bed every morning to do. It was honorable. It used my particular gifts. It was obviously a calling. Yes, I actually mean a calling from God. Catholic education taught me that I was responsible for using my talents to benefit my community and I felt enormously blessed to have a clear view of how I could do that. I even told friends and family that my time as a graduate student was like being in the seminary for the priesthood (usually to explain why I wasn't playing and partying like I did as an undergraduate). Until last year, my life had purpose and direction. I had passion for my work and was rewarded with tenure at a rural regional university that exactly fit my abilities. But, last September, I resigned from that job. I resigned from my calling. It has been very much like losing my religion. It's a painful shock to my worldview and my identity. I'm still struggling with this.

I had to quit because I was the target of my dean's petty corruption. Of course, deans are often victims of the Peter Principle. Every academic has had at least one. However, the petty corruption that led me to walk away from that particular job made me question the mission of the university--first, this one university, and then the entire enterprise. Of course, I've walked away from bad working conditions before--I imagine anyone with self-esteem has had to do that at least once in a career--but I did not leave my job in order to take another one in academe. When I looked at the reasons for the petty corruption, I found that my profession was not what I had thought. I was not viewed by my employer as an educator. I was employed to be a veil of legitimacy for an industry that needed to compete in the marketplace. The administration did not want me there to empower students. In fact, empowered students were the administration's worst fear. No, my employer wanted a PhD to sign off on grades because that's what accreditation demanded. My tenure was granted because they couldn't legally deny me. Law suits are administrators' only other fear. Petty corruption aside, an entirely new perspective on American academe has occurred to me and I can't shake it off. The profession I chose no longer exists. In its place is a corporate-model machine that will render higher education unrecognizable within ten years. In some places, the transformation will occur much more quickly because of the dreaded funding cliff that loomed even before the financial crisis. Now, that cliff is even steeper as stimulus money is about to run out.

Federal investigations into the practices of for-profit universities has revealed them to be nothing more than sponges for tax money. But the champions of deregulation are winning and they will change the way the university system works. The pro-corporate legislators will fight for the right of for-profit universities to make money. Academics have all already seen the ground-work being laid for the victory of corporate profits: mountains of new paperwork flooding the desks of every teaching professional. Syllabi now need to have "expected student outcomes" statements. We have found this a strange new task, a seemingly superfluous bit of nonsense. But it's not nonsense. It's a very important framework that must be in place for the dismantling of higher education to proceed. Even the last week's midnight madness budget fight included the issue of for-profit sleaze. The for-profits one that one and they will keep on winning.

For-profit universities are currently needing to demonstrate that the terrible job they do in preparing their students for career success is no worse than that of the traditional universities. Their investors, who are pulling down enormous profits amid shady business practices, have literally bought the standards for higher education. (Mind you, in most of the world, government offices oversee the accreditation of schools. The United States, however, has private accreditation entities.) The reason new "accountability" procedures are being forced on not-for-profit schools has nothing to do with educating students (any educator can tell you that this is, in fact, a great impediment to classroom learning), it's all about preparing not-for-profits to convert themselves into for-profit institutions.

Yes, that's where this is headed. The current economic crisis is being used to bust unions now. Tenure elimination is next, followed by states unloading the expense of their public universities in the name of fiscal responsibility. "After all," they will say, "there are successful profit-making models out there. Let the state schools be accountable for paying for themselves. If DeVry and Phoenix can do it...." The decades ahead will be spent on public debate about whether the universities are properly "accountable" for student learning, thereby leading higher education into the nightmare of standardized testing that primary and secondary education currently endure. Make no mistake, pushing higher education into that nightmare is an actual goal here. Standardized testing is big business--a big, shady business.

And that's the vision of higher education in the USA that I can't shake off. I can't make myself apply for another teaching job. It feels wrong. I've seen the little man behind the curtain. I've taken the red pill instead of the blue one. I've lost my religion. "But," I can hear my former students say, "even if the business is going to Hell, you can still help students, change their lives, make their worlds better places." Well, no, not really. I can make a difference in the lives of anyone I encounter by being truthful. I don't need a classroom to do that. And it compromises my ability to be truthful if I make a living in a profession I suspect may be on its way to becoming a scam. That sounds harsh and I am already receiving some scorn from former colleagues because I'm saying this--but, I really do believe it's true.