Re-Imagining American Identities Pragmatically

Evening for Educators: A Focus on Humanities
at UNM Art Museum

Hosted by: Sara Otto-Diniz, Curator of Academic Initiatives and Interim Director

Wednesday, October 26, 4P-6P

The Brochure:
The black-and-white event brochure (8 ½ inches by 11 inches) included the above information as well as information about parking, hours, admission, and contacting the museum. Half of the brochure featured one of the exhibit photographs, Ex-Slave with Long Memory, Alabama, taken by Dorothea Lange in 1937. The photograph is compelling, but the title of it is what sealed the deal for me. The woman isn’t just an ex-slave, but one with a long memory. I found myself curious about what this woman would have to say.

This paragraph was under the picture:

“Educators of Grades 4-16 are invited to preview the exhibition Re-Imagining American Identities and learn how historic…and contemporary…American photographs can support your social studies and language arts curricula. Gallery activities, vocabulary and lesson plans for the exhibition will be available.”

“Grades 4-16”…I never seriously thought of myself as an educator for 13th grade. It seemed odd word choice to me at first, but ultimately, I like that Sara chose this wording. It tied in nicely with the overall theme of the exhibit – human connection. This terminology creates community; it connects me to my cohorts doing their thing in elementary school, in middle school, and high school. I have a vested interest in what they are doing since I pick up where they leave off, but they have a vested interest in what I’m doing, too. Am I going to screw up what they worked so hard to achieve?

Sara created curiosity and connection before we ever crossed the museum threshold.

The Event:
A small group of us – 7 educators, Sara, and 2 of Sara’s interns (an art history graduate student and a student doing an independent study) – met in the entrance of the museum at 4P after museum hours.

Melissa, the art history student, walked us toward the Re-Imagining American Identities exhibit, pausing along the way to explain a large piece of sculpture and to indicate the direction of two other exhibits (one with famous printmakers and the other with paintings of sinners and saints) currently on display.

The Re-Imagining exhibit is located essentially in a dead-end hall. Photos are lined up on two opposing sides of this hall; no photos are displayed at the end of it.

As we stood at the opening of the hall, Sara gave us a little background information about the exhibit. She told us that the exhibit came into being from monies left over from a grant she had secured from NEH (thus a focus on humanities) to conduct a two-day workshop for elementary and secondary social studies and language arts teachers. In the workshop, Sara showed teachers how they could use NEH portfolio photographs in their classrooms. These portfolios are, as Sara said, “northeast centric.” There were very few representations of Hispanic or Native peoples. In fact, out of 44 photographs, there was one representation of the Hispanic culture and one of pueblo arts, pottery I believe.

When she realized she had enough money left over to do an exhibit, Sara wanted to take the idea of the portfolio, but expand it to include more images related to our region. She wanted to re-imagine American identity and really tried to pick a diverse group of Americans to exhibit.
She explained the layout of the exhibit. One wall has a seemingly random grouping of photos. They aren’t organized by regions, race, ethnicity, jobs, social class, gender – none of what we might consider typical groupings. Nor are they organized chronologically. Instead, they are organized in ways meant to provoke conversation.

The opposite wall is organized into five bays: Childhood; Crime & Punishment; The Civil War; Ritual; and Domesticity. Various bays represent, for Sara, various identities: family, national, community, etc. In each bay, Sara has selected a quote that is somehow related to the bay theme. She told us to imagine the conversations the photos in the bays could be having across time and various places with the photos on the opposite wall.

One bay has a quote from Louis Menand’s The Metaphysical Club. I commented that the way she chose to organize the exhibit reminded me of The Metaphysical Club. I kept thinking that the conversations the people in these photographs might have would be historically rich like Menand’s narratives. Sara said that The Metaphysical Club was an inspiration.

After introducing us to the exhibit, Melissa took over, leading us in an activity that could easily be mimicked with our students. Our activity focused around a photograph of Langston Hughes. This gave us the time “to see” because as Sara says, “It takes time to see.”

We sat around the photo, and Melissa asked us to take a few moments to quietly “see” it, to notice whatever we could notice. We shared our thoughts afterwards. Of course, our perspectives varied. I know a little about Langston Hughes and had just re-read Alain Locke’s “The New Negro.” My thoughts were mostly rooted in what I already knew, but others didn’t have this background info. Their thoughts were strictly limited to what they were seeing through the lens of their personal experience. I thought this added a lot of dimension to the overall conversation. When we take the time to “see,” we do so through the lenses available to us.

After this initial discussion, Melissa gave us a handout with three boxes. In the first box, we wrote down 10 adjectives describing the photograph. Then, she gave us a copy of Hughes’ poem “Freedom’s Plow.” We took turns reading this aloud and discussed our impressions of the poem separately and in reflection of the photograph. This led to another dynamic discussion. We noted such things as his audience, his tone, his discussion of hands and manual labor, and we commented that the various subjects in his poem have different definitions of freedom.

But the conversation was also a springboard into how we handle real instructional issues in the classroom. One of the educators works in UNM’s College of Education, specifically secondary history education. She talked about the limits of history texts. Two of the teachers – gifted ed elementary teachers who work as a team, one teaching in English and the other teaching in Spanish – talked about using literature, in part, to teach history. They talked about teaching their students activism as well. A librarian from Belen told us that educators in her district can’t take students off campus. The two gifted elementary teachers face funding issues, but will be able to take some students to the exhibit…with a little creativity. Their school is in downtown Albuquerque. They’ve secured one-day city bus passes for a limited number of students.

We ended the activity by writing our own poems using adjectives and phrases we had generated from the photograph and the poem. Sara had us read them aloud simultaneously because she said that students have a hard time sharing aloud one at a time. Then, we were invited to read our poems aloud individually.

At the end of this event, Sara told us that the grant reviewers at NEH laughed at the title of her proposal – Making the Human Connection. They tried to get her to change the name, but she was committed to the essence of this project and refused. The exhibit doesn’t share the same name, but the idea of making human connections is still a significant theme. Certainly, we felt connected at the end of our two hours.

This entire evening was an exercise in pragmatism.

http://unmartmuseum.unm.edu/education.html
http://unmartmuseum.unm.edu/

Juxtaposition and the Unwritten

Nestled next to Santa Ana Casino Resort are the remains of the Kuana Pueblo. Once occupying the land of the Rio Grande Valley, Kuana’s ruins are back dropped by Santa Ana’s golf course. The juxtaposition of Coronado State Monument next to a Native American reservation casino resort is the most telling exhibit in all of the state attraction.

The walk through the ruins is littered with the sterile quotes of Spanish explorers like, Pedro de Castanedo. On one of the plaques lining the walk his impassive words describe his observations of the Tiquex Province:

Tiguex is a province of twelve pueblos on the banks of a large and mighty river. Some of the pueblos are on one bank some on the other. It is a spacious valley two leagues wide. To the east there is a snow-covered sierra, very high and rough.

However, they are followed with further explanation:

At first, the Tigua people welcomed the visitors and submitted to their demands for food, shelter, and clothing. However, demands of the army became unbearable. The Tiguas staged a desperate revolt against the Spanish invaders in the winter of 1540-41. The results were disastrous for the pueblo people. Two villages were destroyed and many of the people were killed.

What strikes me here is yet another juxtaposition, the juxtaposition of the sterile quote with the description of the demise of the people once inhabiting this land. The enthymeme left is the impression that these explorers approached interaction between the pueblo people without concern for their culture. They were a dispensable resource providing aid in their exploration of the new land.

So, as I look over the almost nonexistent ruins camouflaged by the dirt, plants, and brush that surround it, the Santa Ana Casino and golf course take full view. The juxtaposition a visual enthymeme speaking to the attempts to rape, plunder, and kill the Native American people and their culture.

Open Mic in Ashdown Forest

Allowing my assumptions to lead me, I walked in on the café side of Barnes & Noble looking for the poetry reading getting set to start. Therefore, when I could not find a gathering around a microphone my next assumption was to head towards a table of people reciting words from a books. Not my idea of or experience with poetry readings, but the only group of people that sounded and looked like poets. Yet, as I neared it was obvious that this group was reciting Shakespeare so I wondered round the bookstore making it to the corner of the kids section of books and under the mock up of Pooh’s forest was a gathering of poets.

This group still not fitting my image of poets was most definitely there to share their work. Share being the operative word. The group laughed and applauded when appropriate to the poets request. The flow of words from each poet eager to be heard was accented by discussions of Barnes & Noble’s customers , laughing children and an occasional cough or sneeze. Yet, the poets I witnessed were unphased by what I considered distractions.

With the audience and participant‘s age being well over 50, the group didn’t fit my mold of open mic audiences and participants. Used to a younger crowd of poets I compared the leisured and generous nature of this reading to the more formal and insular nature of readings I have attended in the past. The act of this reading being that of sharing while others I have attended seemed to be the act of an intellectual pairing off. Not the coffee house peacocking of ideas this open mic poetry reading really held true to the concept of open mic. The atmosphere was open, welcoming, and unaffected by the distractions of the business surrounding it. The poets were eager to give you their words. And, under the trees of Ashdown forest were people willing to listen supportively.

Hollywood Walk of Name Game

Walking with my head down not in shame, but along with all the other tourists as I read the names we step on as we wonder down the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Adding to the “hey looks” and “who’s thats” heard around me as we get hassled to go on bus tours every few feet. Created as a lasting homage to the people who have notably made their mark in the entertainment business and Hollywood’s hegemony, the walk of fame has been a Hollywood attraction since 1958. The latter description obviously serving to be my criticism of the attraction.

Hollywood is more than a district of Los Angeles. A place supported by the movie and television studios that inhabited the district physically; it is the capital of fame and fortune. As a tribute to the men and women that embodied this fame a star with their name centered in the middle of it is added to the walk each month.

Simple in shape and design, the star is a metaphor for famous entertainers in American culture, a person shining out above all the rest. The “shining out” being the factor that has made Hollywood stardom such an interest, goal, or envy of all who desire success in the entertainment business or are enticed by the power stardom holds in American culture.

Since the golden age of film and television, legendary Hollywood studios through its representation of life have set our cultural status quos. The people notably contributing to production of entertainment fascinating all who have enjoyed their work. Even those not fascinated by fame most likely would be affected by a chance encounter with a celebrity. So, as the tourists step on each star I can’t help but wonder how many are daydreaming of meeting anyone of the stars lining Hollywood Boulevard or excited by the fact that the celebrity owning it once touched that star. Even in the desecration of certain now unpopular stars like David Hasslehoff shows the power of that celebrity’s notoriety.

Even though I would like to think that stardom , fame, and fortune doesn’t interest me I have to admit finding certain stars like Johnny Cash was fun and I joined in the act of walking over each star thinking about the celebrities contributions. However, the most thought provoking moment in this event was when we asked the city employ tasked to polish the stars with brass cleaner where a particular star was he grumbled an "I don’t know" and drug his one-legged body onto the next star putting fame and stardom in what I think is its rightful place in the end.

The Great Debate: Appletini vs. Scotch

Group: Richard, Heather, Rachel

Independent Project

The other day, I got coffee with a few friends and couldn’t stop thinking: what designates coffee as the universal “getting to know you” beverage? Why not tea? Or Hot cocoa? Or lemonade? How many times have you been asked out to grab a glass of milk or cup of cider?

Think of how many times you’ve gone out for coffee with someone. Be it a close friend, professor, colleague, classmate, or a date, coffee seems to be the social common thread.

So the I began to think about the classifications and thought that goes into arranging a date, or a get-together, or a conference and what each different beverage communicates.

Tea: Too European and potentially too feminine

Hot Cocoa: Too childish

Soda: Too adolescent

Lemonade: Too childish and too “southern”

Milk: Too childish

Cider: Too complicated

Fruit juice: Too childish and only appropriate for early morning functions

Energy drinks: Too adolescent

While going out for drinks seems a little more formal than going for coffee, there are similar associations we make with alcoholic beverages. Going out for drinks seems a little more serious because it’s at night (and maybe sexy if it’s a dat because apparently alcohol is directly correlated with getting lucky?). We’ve all watched Scrubs at some point and laughed at the image of JT daintily sipping his appletini. How do beverages become gendered? And why is it that most mixed drinks are especially associated with the feminine? Here’s a brief list of drinks and their generalized gender associations:

Martini-masculine

Gin and tonic-masculine

Scotch-masculine

Beer (especially darker beers)-masculine

Bloody Mary-masculine

Wine (especially sweeter wines)-feminine

Mimosas-feminine

Margaritas-feminine

Fruity-tinis-feminine

Cosmo-feminine

I’ve noticed that the non-alcoholic drinks become a concern with age while alcoholic beverages become a concern with gender. If you’re on a first date with a guy and he orders a milk at Satelitte, what is your reaction? If you decide to give him a second date and go out for drinks and he orders a fizzy apple cocktail…what would your reaction be?

Why is it that if a guy went out and ordered a Cosmo when I’m sipping an IPA, I’d be a little turned off? How is it that gender has become engrained in the most basic human activities?

And so, just as in my blog on creamed corn, I’m wondering, who establishes these distinctions? When things are foundational rather than relativistic, how do we, as unique individuals go about deciding what is foundational? What drinks are girly and which are manly? Which are age appropriate and which are not? And the even bigger question is, if things are relativistic rather than foundational, who is responsible? Where is the power? The authority? Relativism and foundationalism have the same general problem, neither effectively determine where the power comes from.

Off Center Art

Off Center Art Gallery

Off Center Art Gallery, located at 808 Park St. in Albuquerque, New Mexico might easily be called Outsider Art Gallery because most of the art and artists are certainly on the outside of artistic convention. The building is across the street from a park on the west end of downtown where the gentrification of the neighborhood, that has its origins in the early part of the twentieth century, begins to stall. Beyond the few square blocks of renovation are dilapidated buildings old motels and hotels in the last phase of efficacy. Off Center Art Gallery sits at the epicenter where tree lined, residential streets that feed into the area of Eighth and Central are filled with homes of the affluent. One block to the east is a downtown area bustling with the revival of the past ten years that has seen the old Albuquerque High School converted into condominiums, the area anchored by restaurants, bars, art galleries, haberdasheries, and jewelry stores preserved in a setting reminiscent of the heydays of route 66.

Off Center Art Gallery is nestled into a side street at the west end of downtown where affluence ends, but you can still see it from the front door. The art gallery provides free work space for the artists, and you can watch them work as you peruse the gallery. The founder of the gallery is Janis Timm-Bottes an art therapy counselor who saw a need for those who could not afford one-on-one art therapy; disabled veterans, homeless people, handicapped people, shut-ins with nowhere to go. The gallery was established ten years ago, and has been in this location for eight years. Ms. Timm-Bottes has moved on, but the gallery remains as one of the older tenants in the area. The work space is open to all, and the day I was there seven artists were working at tables and three staff members were serving artists in wheelchairs who have limited control of their extremities, children finger painting, and a few men, but mostly women sewing or making jewelry.

Ron, the man who runs the gallery, is a furniture builder by trade who now spends most of his creative time there. He is there because he feels hope for humanity within the walls. He regularly sees the kindness of patrons, along with the desperation, hope, and joy of those who come to create something. All artists need the money as most live at or below the poverty level, living on incomes of twelve to fourteen thousand dollars a year, all government stipends.

There is a story here that extends well beyond the few hundred words of this essay. It is a story of tragedy for some who have done nothing deserving of their affliction but be born. When I enter I cannot help but think about my job in a psychiatric hospital where I learned to care for people that many Americans care nothing for. I feel the vibration of wonder, the vibration of those trying to find meaning and purpose in their state of existence, just like all of us, but here it is more salient, beautiful. The art is interesting, simple, complex, whimsical, good, and bad, and when I leave I think about Janis Timm-Bottes, and Ron, and the others who have discovered their purpose in life.

Cody Davis

Indivisable

When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.

Jimmy Hendrix

Our group attended our first cultural event at the Indian Cultural Center on September 24, 2011. IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas was the exhibit’s title and, having grown up in Oklahoma, originally called Indian Territory, I went with some preconceived notions of what I might find. As the title of the exhibit alludes too I expected to see how these two marginalized cultures had come together, having been more or less thrown together especially after the Civil War.

The exhibit portrayed, through photographs and some first person narrative, specific examples of how the Native American and African American cultures began to come together. There was the story of Kitzy Cloud a child of Hispanic descent whose family was starving so traded her to the Ute tribe for food. At eighteen years old she married John Taylor, a Buffalo Soldier. Also Colonel Louis Cook, a man who fought for independence in the Revolutionary War, whose father was African American and mother was Abenaki Indian.

One thing became apparent to me while viewing the exhibit, and more so during our group’s discussion after we viewed the exhibit; that is, I had never deeply considered the origins of the blending of these two cultures. We all have puerile beliefs and thoughts, or perhaps more accurately non-thoughts, that have been stored away in our minds. They lie dormant some of them never to be considered again, while others are eventually prodded to the forefront. When we are children we are not capable of adult thought, and reasoning. The exhibit brought those still nebulously formed beliefs to my mind. Having grown up in Oklahoma, formerly and officially called Indian Territory in the nineteenth century, I am somewhat familiar with Oklahoma history. I had assumed that the coming together of these two cultures had taken place in mass over a short period of time after the Civil War, rather than over centuries, beginning in the fifteen hundreds when the Spanish began bringing Africans to North America.

But the most striking thing for is me the ostensibly contemporary shift of mindset within the Native American tribes to dis-enroll tribal members who cannot quantify the minimal amount of Native American blood in their veins. In 2007 the Cherokee Nation removed 2800 tribal members of African American descent who did not meet Cherokee protocol. It is happening among many Native tribes. While the exhibit did not explicitly say why these African Americans were removed from the rolls, the thoughts of some in our group were that it all came down to dollars in the form of federal funds. Because of that, in the end it seems to me that these two blended, marginalized cultures are not IndiVisible after all. My own newly formed puerile thoughts, thoughts based on very limited knowledge of these two cultures and the seeming new found parting, are that we, meaning all of us, look on each other as separate especially when the divisions are a result of limited resources. In a perfect world these divisions do not happen, but of course our world is not and never has been perfect. We are still dependent on manmade law to define our equality and separateness. Pragmatism cannot change that. Perhaps it is best to marvel at the wonders of humankind rather than become discouraged by our failings. There is a great and beautiful story within the history of these two “tribes”, and when I look at the world as I imagine it to be I see a progressive movement compared to how I imagine it to have been, and it gives me hope that one day we might all be IndiVisible.

Cody Davis

Hot Coffee

Nineteen years ago (1992), at a McDonalds drive through in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Stella Liebeck accidently spilled a cup of hot coffee on her lap, suffering scalding burns severe enough to require hospitalization and skin grafts. The refusal of the McDonalds Corporation to reimburse Stella Liebeck for the medical cost of her injuries led to a lawsuit that was not only played out in court but in the media as well. The case was, and still is touted by lawmakers and corporations as a reason for tort reform in this country.

While the movie explores many facets of this case such as the ability of the wealthy to sway legislation, help elect and or appointment legislators and members of the judiciary, the manipulation of public mindset through control of the press, it seems to focus on the corporate philosophy of caveat emptor, let the buyer beware. But there is a sense of fairness that runs through our culture that rejects that philosophy, and to me that is what Hot Coffee seems to be about; our individual and collective sense of responsibility and fairness to each other vs. the seeming corporate philosophy of caveat emptor.

At the root of this debate is, of course, money. While money, for the individual, is not as important as things; food, clothing, shelter, iPods, and shiny substances no matter one’s socioeconomic status, money is the common denominator in American culture. Money will get us what we need, and want. For corporations it is all they need. It is the bottom line. It is business, and business cares only for money. It is all they want.

In the documentary “Hot Coffee” the need for money and the need for fairness intersect, or collide. The documentary well makes the claim that for the plaintiff, the issue was more about fairness than money, and that for McDonalds it was all about money. And that seems to be the microcosm in which the world is currently caught.

If anyone reads my three essays on our field experiences they will easily see a common philosophical thread that runs through all three. I did not plan that, but it seems that in all three field experiences our group contemplated our responsibility to each other whether as individuals, corporations, nations, or other otherwise. It is what the class has been debating all semester; where have we (humans) been and where are we going? From the origins of early Pragmatist philosophy to modern pragmatists such as Cornel West, Richard Rorty, Joyce Appleby one easily sees that modern Pragmatist philosophy is concerned with what benefits all. It is the same debate that currently is running not only through our politic but the world politic as well; who is worthy of decent treatment in the form of access to healthcare, clean water, decent living conditions, and who is not. What is our responsibility to each other? Deconstructing Hot Coffee reveals this question. It is a compelling question, perhaps the ultimate question, and it seems odd that the world is asking the same question at the same time.

Cody Davis

What Becomes Memorialized in a Memorial Service?

This past week I flew home to Florida to attend the memorial services held for my grandfather, William Mansfield Hendrickson. I felt very privileged to be there with family as we all struggled together to make something from a shared sense of loss. We shared stories of Poppy Bill, which is what his grandkids called him. The rest of the family called him Slim. It’s incredible the role a single individual plays in the unfolding of history, and to do him justice I’d have to write a memoir or book of poems. Instead, I’ll focus for the time being on the services themselves: the viewing and memorial service.

The viewing wasn’t just a viewing, although I did spend a lot of time staring at my grandfather as he lay in his casket. I hadn’t intended to look. The whole idea of a viewing was morbid, I thought. But when I saw my grandfather lying there in the tuxedo he’s worn to his children’s weddings—black jacket with intricate gold embroidery, ruffled peach shirt and black bow tie—I couldn’t help but smile. No one would ever guess that you’d find a man so unassuming and modest wearing a tuxedo as flamboyant as that. It was as if my grandfather was wearing his soul on the outside. Only weeks before Poppy passed away, he’d mentioned that suit, saying he had lost so much weight he might be able to fit into it again. He was right. He looked damn handsome in it.

But like I said, the viewing wasn’t just a viewing but a Freemason memorial service. Poppy was an active Freemason up to his death, and members turned up from all across the state for the service, replete with all the Freemason jargon about “the Great Architect” of all things good. The speaker harped again and again on the Freemason belief in eternal life, which really gets under my skin. But it all ended beautifully when each member in turn laid an evergreen sprig on my grandfather’s chest, and said, “Alas, brother.”

I don’t know how religious Poppy was, but I do remember him correcting my dad and me for arguing over dinner by reminding us that there are two things you don’t talk about at the dinner table: politics and religion. That was his way. He kept his opinions mostly to himself, except for the slight glimmer of a wry grin. My dad said he had wanted a Viking funeral. Instead, the night after the viewing and Freemason memorial, he received a traditional Christian service followed by a military salute. The latter was beautiful in its solemnity. Again, the dogma of the former really pissed me off.

In a way, I welcomed the anger. After listening to my father, aunt, family friend and uncle speak from their hearts about my grandfather, I was a mess. My uncle’s really got me. He talked about how he and his father never said, I love you. It was a problem in my dad’s family. My brother and I say it. My mom and I say it. My wife and I say it. My dad tells me, Take care, and I say, Take care. I know he loves me, and he knows I love him. But I don’t want to be in my uncle’s place, wishing we had actually said it more often.

Then the preacher, who did not know my grandfather and had only spoken to the family a half hour before the service, got up to do his stock piece. He was a pro. He knew how to plug in jokes in just the right places, had his stock list of virtues that would fit any family member a family didn’t hate, and had stored up enough anecdotes to be able to reference my grandfather’s more touching idiosyncrasies in a way that made them seem rather trite. All this I could bear and even appreciate, as the man was just doing his job. Besides, it was all rather impressive. He’d only had a few minutes to prepare. From a completely detached perspective, it was quite the rhetorical feat.

Then he moved into proselytizing, and the tears dried up as my face began to burn. I could barely sit still. How dare this stranger monopolize the occasion of my grandfather’s death to sling his wears! I could have slugged the sonofabitch. Maybe Poppy did believe in God. Maybe he was a devout Christian. Maybe, as he waded through the waves and onto the shores of Japan during the US invasion, he did turn heavenward and ask for guidance and blessing. But he didn’t proselytize. He didn’t even go to church. On the Hendrickson side of my family, religion was a private business between a man and his god. Period.

I leaned over to my mom and told her that if anything ever happened to me, don’t dare let a preacher anywhere near my dead body.

After the service, I needed to get some air. Walking by the director of the funeral home and the preacher, I heard the former say to the latter with a smirk on his face, “This one died a couple of weeks ago,” I assume bragging about his embalming job. If I had been drunk, I’d have knocked his teeth out.

Somewhere beneath all of this is a question about the purpose of a memorial service. Who is it for? What exigence does it address? After the dinner following the service, the family floated over to the hotel bar and raised a glass to my grandfather, William Mansfield Hendrickson, Poppy Bill, Slim. After a while, there was only a few of us Hendricksons in a small circle, cracking jokes, telling stories. I missed our family reunions. It had been too long. I had forgotten how interesting all of my relatives are, such fantastic story tellers every one, and I resolved not to take my family for granted.

On the drive home, I complained to my dad about the preacher. He didn’t share my indignation, but that was okay. Mostly, we talked about visiting the old Hendrickson home in Cutchogue, Long Island, NY. We talked about carrying on the tradition of the family reunion. When I got out of the car, he got out too. We hugged. “I love you, Dad,” I said. And my dad replied, “I love you too, Son.”

Who's Kicking Whom in the Analogy, "Signified : Signifier :: Exigence : Occupy"?

As the media frames it, the Occupy movement suffers from a lack of rhetorical definitiveness. The talking heads continue to call for a platform, an agenda, an exigence. But the movement denies any one exigence more specific than systemic ineptitude, in that the more specific the exigence, the more limiting the constraints on whom and what and how the movement represents. This nebulous identity affords Occupy a capaciousness and alacrity that a more rigid ideological stance might preclude. But the movement’s strength is its weakness, and the powers that be are testing the cohesiveness of a movement that depends upon the occupation of physical space as its sole symbol of solidarity by removing from it this one rhetorical possibility that the movement’s constraints have heretofore embraced, as we saw earlier this week at Albuquerque’s Yale Park.

So the question becomes, can a rhetorical act lacking a well-defined exigence still possess rhetorical impact?

There have been attempts to define that exigence from within the movement, as I saw on Friday, October 21, during the (un)Occupy Albuquerque teach-in in the UNM Student Union atrium. I had been asked to emcee that Friday afternoon, but when I arrived another volunteer appeared to have the duty locked down, and I was more than happy to relinquish my one responsibility to her (which now means I now have to find some other way to do my part). The final speaker that afternoon was a young political science major attending to electoral reform through the abolition of the single-member plurality district system—not as sexy as corporate greed, but probably a more pragmatic exigence.

What’s interesting about the Occupy movement is it claims as its ambiguous exigence the same indignation that the Tea Party claimed in the beginning, but whereas the Tea Party determined that the fault lies with big government, the Occupy movement appears to demand corporate accountability, which requires greater government accountability to voters. I have a number of rather libertarian friends whom I tend to butt heads with over exactly why Obama has disappointed us, but after hours of agonistic debate we are always able to rally around an exigence that government is not accountable to the people, that our electoral system has been corrupted by unfair campaign finance legislation, and that before we can address any other issue, we need to address electoral reform.

It might follow, then, for the Occupy movement that they might identify such a specific exigence as their rallying point that even the Tea Party won’t be able to argue with. And as much as I and my libertarian friends would be happy to carry that flag, something tells me that looking for a foundational issue isn’t the way this movement works.

There’s something very sophistic about the Occupy movement that I’d like to see sustained. No leaders. No manifestoes. No specific exigences. Occupy is an ecotone: a conflagration of ideo-diversity. Humanity is mutating into a social animal that values deliberation, and when generative deliberation is restrained in one area, it sprouts up elsewhere. If it can’t happen in Congress, it’ll press up through the concrete of Manhattan.

I appreciate the sentiment behind the political science student’s search for a common, foundational exigence, but the problem is chicken-egg, and the solution must be grassroots. Particular exigences with their own submovements will sprout from Occupy to confront these various issues, or submovements that already exist will graft onto the larger trunk. But for now Occupy is just a seedling. We need to be careful not to strap ideological stints to the tiny sprout, or we risk stunting its growth. At the same time, in such a hostile environment, we need to be careful how we nurture that growth. Certainly electoral reform is one component of that fertilizer.

But when it comes down to it, this movement is all about bodies on the ground. The tables are turning. The signifier is producing the signified. The act of solidarity through the physical occupation of a public space is producing the exigences that compel it. At events like the teach-in, we are creating a reality, albeit over the hum of vacuum cleaners and the passing conversations of a less than engaged student body.