Justin Sterling, when asked what parents get from their children, responded with “a thousand precious memories”.  Sometimes, reflecting, I remember, popcorn-fashion, the big wow’s of the past few years, hoping I will hold onto the precious moments of my educational OMG’ds, that I swear in the moment I’ll never let myself forget.  I remember looking into a microscope and seeing a paramecium, seeing CELLS, seeing organelles inside a cell, while Prof Larson told us that we might have originated from colonial flagellated protists, realizing that the cell was profound, complicated, and inexplicable, far beyond my comprehension.  I had my god-moment in community college pond water; I found faith in Bio 1.

That was the semester we learned about genetics, and nutritional development.  Did you know that, on average, the children of third world immigrants grow 3-4 inches taller than their parents when they come to America, because of a lack of nutrition when they came from.  That a lack of proper nutrients warps the reproductive systems in girls, in the wombs of their embryonic daughters when they are pregnant, such that it affects her children’s children.  This includes mental as well as physical development.  The entire genetic potential of the world limited because of food?   Incomprehensible.

And who could forget the initial trauma of History 158C?  As a pro-military bleeding-heart liberal, reading about Europe and the great World Wars left me pierced to the core trying to imagine what those poor, poor soldiers endured, and inflicted upon one other.  Out of these tragedies came lessons, late in the taking, that changed the course of history.  Someone got the memo: the citizen had value, deserved a decent life, clean air, clean food and water, education and leisure time.  Communists revolutions and fascist demagogues don’t seem so great when you got a job and your kids are in school.

The welfare state….the Welfare State.  And then I got it, really really got it.  Despite 50 years of johnny superstructure demonizing “welfare”, discrediting the name, the word, the very idea of it –  it was the concept and implementation of social welfare that changed the world; that we, all of us, are ALL on welfare, all living the benefits of these social policies.  Health, literacy, education, retirement, medicine, rights, safety, freedom, peace, the Weekend- all this, is social welfare.  I had been mislead, told that the gun, in my hand (Iraq), in my uncles hand (Viet Nam), in my fathers hand (Korea), in my grandfathers hand (WWII), was all that kept us free.

This is not true.  I am free, I am educated, I have a doctor, my son goes to school, we have enough to eat, he can go to the dentist, I can be in school too, because smart caring people realized, and ensured, that we would have a quality of life befitting people deserving of dignity….i.e., all of us.  We are the children of peasants, of slaves, of nothing.  We are flowers in a garden made rich from the uncounted dead who’s sacrifice is honored by the quality of life we get to have and extend to others.  I pray to the God of Bio 1, who must be laughing through a veil of tears; let me always remember this. 

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Subjugated to Weber this week, I have taken to bouts of self-pity as he destroys all my hard-won appreciation of the past month’s reading of Marx

There is no justice in the life of a student.It may be the stubborn resistance of the pre-capitalistic roots of my blue-collar upbringing, my limiting Irish Catholic penchant to “sleep well” and for labor.I find myself, not asking how much I can absorb if I read all day, but how much must I read to take care of my traditional educational needs.

Is it fair to say that my calling lies elsewhere, that my post-modern Protean sensibility, with its’ frail connection to the Ideal and code of my ancestral past (100B!), lacks this essential feeling of obligation to reading this book?

Having eroded my inherent rational capitalistic organization of labor, Weber is now undermining my spirit of capitalism, suggesting a consilia evangelica that will forever doom my successes in the economic survival of the fittest.

And I’m only on Note 3 from the introduction- who writes a book with more notes than the book itself.  Is this a Teutonic Pride reaction against Marx; an apocryphal message of “never talk endless shit about Germans”, cause’ we’ll all pay for it?  “Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin.”   Deuteronomy 24:16

Yet still I read…

Several years ago I decided to transition back into the world of private employment, confidant in the value of my experience over the past 15 years.

I was very fortunate to have a loving support structure of educated and successful people who confirmed- with no hesitation- that it was time to re-enter school and establish myself in academia.

My plan was simple; with the trimmings of complete naiveté.  I would achieve cherished fantasy-fulfillment, forever changed and delighted.  My educational pursuit had taken its’ appropriate form- I was going to get, in short, a pony.  That this was my plan, and of the level of sophistication it represented, I was happily unaware.  Where the pony was to eat, or live, or how it would get fed, housed, or cared for, were questions for the jaded world of adults, represented in this case by the aforementioned support structure who, as in the case of all pony-dreamers, understood nothing.

Having done some PhD door knocking back at Cal, I was unaware of the almost complete lack of product-knowledge of that which I so strongly desired.  I liked the title, the idea of it, but had little understanding of higher education beyond the status and prestige of title.  All I saw was my want, my need, to be recognized.

The people I have met at U.C. Berkeley who have/are working towards their PhD’s do so because there are questions that need answering, questions they, as people, need to answer, need to be in the answering of, as a matter of purpose and life-choice.  Who they are is what they want to know, and their choice to pursue the goal of “PhD” is the choice of pursuing a body of knowledge with the understanding that they, in some capacity, will improve it, deepen it, mine it, and leave a contribution.  In a public setting such as Berkeley, which represents in real capacity a portion of the work and life-energy of millions of people, publicly-funded research is a gift to Society, a legacy for all to benefit.  Questions began to form as my understanding deepened.

Do I have the capability to participate in a capacity that will benefit the Department, the School, Society, and myself.

Do I see a body of work, and an engaged group of thinkers, who would benefit from my interests, to whom my presence would make a key contribution, while I was pursuing my own research.

How can I participate in the existing mission and research of a given Department, and what makes my focus a unique and valuable contribution, a legacy worth pursuing for all involved.

I don’t need a PhD.  I don’t need to be at ________ University.  What I do need, and of this I am clear, is to put the fullness of my time and attention on my particular set of questions, to be in an environment that will support and mentor me while I grow.  I do respect the underpinnings of my initial return to school, and in that regard, yes, I do require degrees, certifications, credential, and opportunities to teach, work, and sustain myself for the future of my life.

I feel solid about this growing version of “I want a PhD”.  It is grounded in knowledge and self-evaluation, with a growing understanding of purpose, and the beginnings of long-term academic goals. Can I make a definitive contribution, however small it may be? Can I play my part and make an offering? Can I be of use to education and to others?

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We must not limit our focus to any particular group, organization, or time period, when observing social injustice.  We must not be enrolled into the idea that any particular embodiment (in time/place) is any more than a symptom.  We must not confuse cause with example of.  “The problem”, is not the slavery of blacks in America, the oppression of minority cultures in East Africa, the misogyny of women in last years Super Bowl commercials, but that oppression, misuse, or exploitation exists, at all.  We witness the continued re-occurrence of these “social ills”, always in some form of justified backlash, or attempt to rebalance.  The end-game of positive social engineering must be the cessation of abuse, not the repackaging of it.  What I see, and what I feet to be the case, is the mistaken believe that pain can end pain, that payback and entitlement can lead to equality and harmony.  As in war, no amount of killing really works.  The questions remains: Can we institutionalize change?  What are the goals of social engineering?  Is there a common denominator that will have all parties choose (i.e. free will/choice vs force and punishment) to put aside being right for the sake of peace and integration?

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“Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower.”  Carl Marx

So far, Freud is my favorite, I can grasp him, understand him…but Marx had hope, and Freud had none.  So Marx get the quote, and Freud will get the essay.  What I don’t understand, amid the endless criticisms, censorship, and hate, that seem to surround these two men, is how anyone could miss the point.  Who of us, in the face of poverty, sickness, discrimination, alienation and rejection, has dedicated the bulk of our lives to understanding and trying to fix the root of suffering.  I don’t think Freud and Marx are turning over in darkness, pierced in spirit that their message has been so reviled or tragically misunderstood.  No, I think these two guys are in bitter limbo (damn atheists), wounded to the core, that no-one got how much they cared.

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