The Problem of Bullying

Many utopias purport not to need a police or other type of civil force. Citizens are described as complying with the society's blueprint. Something as basic as More's city-dwellers NOT agreeing to move to the countryside for 2 years is never addressed (or even contemplated). Goods NOT being automatically distributed as expected is also never addressed. 

The non-compliant behaviors aren't crimes, not by any credible moral standard. Suppose a city-dweller decides to leave the countryside before the 2 years of required labor are up? Suppose a city-dweller doesn't agree to give up a garden plot after the allotted time? Or an artisan doesn't want to leave one family to live with another as expected? 

The narrator claims that there are few private disputes in Utopia, which "observation" doesn't correspond to any human society that has ever existed in the course of history. 

Granted, More's Utopia is partly a thought experiment--but one imagines that a thought experiment would include some way to enforce the expected social customs/structure. Faced with how often human beings would fall short in More's Utopia, how could it possibly be kept going as described?

There are only two ways: totalitarianism or stigma/condemnation. 

More falls back on a combination. The ultimate punishment is in fact death--first, the malefactor (breaker of customs) is placed into slavery (from which the malefactor can be pardoned), but if the prisoner/slave continues to rebel, the slave is killed. (How slaves are monitored is bypassed: the necessary number of guards is never addressed.)

The section on Punishments and Rewards, however, focuses more on condemning bad behavior (what must not happen) than on establishing laws. The virtuous are rewarded with accolades while the threat of possible stigma lurks around every corner (social media, anyone?). Citizens, for instance, can eat at home rather than in communal cafeterias but "no one does it willingly because it is not thought proper...besides, it would be stupid." 

Guess all us homebodies will have to go live in one of the colonies (thank goodness!). 

Many utopias disguise this inherent bullying with assumptions of compliance. They then rave about harmony and beautiful vistas, rather like small-minded American idealists being ushered about by bored Soviet hospitality managers. Oh, my, everything looks so nice--how can Reagan be so critical of the USSR?! (See PJ O'Rourke's Holidays in Hell.)

In Chapter 3 of His in Herland, I have Terry make the following point: 

"To be held inside walls without consent is imprisonment, however beautiful the walls or pleasant the food." 

In Gilman's Herland, the three men are taken captive by a cohort of tough, athletic women, about forty in number. Terry is carrying a gun but shoots over the women's heads. Interestingly (and I think correctly), Gilman has Terry balk at shooting the women directly. He is a product of his nineteenth-century upper-class culture. "Women and children first" was not quite as common as popular culture likes to argue (on the Titanic, most of the crew simply wanted passengers, any passengers, to get in the lifeboats). But the concept existed. Terry, for all his faults, is a man's man. He won't shoot women. He won't shoot anyone in the back. 

I took the guns away since my Terry is somewhat more cool-headed and slightly more ruthless--and is perfectly aware that women can be soldiers.

However, I also have my Terry "pull his punches" in the confrontation with the women. The men have arrived on the island/in the country, imagining they are tourists who will be shown the nearest hostelry. The women see them as invaders and behave accordingly. Terry doesn't want to start an international incident.

Gilman gives the women a bland, remorseless demeanor, but she also tries to present them as non-violent. It isn't...force! Oh, no! It's a kind of...herding...

Gilman is a good writer--a point I will refer back to later--and I want to give her her dues. But Terry is my truthsayer and the truth is...Taking people captive is taking people captive. 

Bullying is bullying.

One of the worst aspects of modern-day bullying is when people argue that their "niceness" or "good intentions" or "high-mindedness" or "identity" or, for that matter, other people's bad behavior/thoughts somehow wipes out the fact that they are using underhanded and cruel techniques to accomplish actually nasty things: take away people's jobs, smear their reputations, steal their life's work, commit violence against them, and attempt through various venues to cow them into submission. 

It's jealousy and small-mindedness under a veneer of benevolent righteousness. 

Likewise, taking people captive--while it might be justified--doesn't transform into something else simply because it is labeled something else. Violent or not, justified or not, the women ignore the men's human rights and put them in the equivalent of prison. 

In Herland, Van, the social scientist, tries to to explain everything (away); Jeff, the chivalrous, well, boob, thinks the women are pure and noble simply for being women. Both try to excuse the women's behavior by labeling it something else. Only Terry sees it for what it is--and he respects it. 

Elizabeth Bathory

To her credit, while keeping Terry somewhat more obnoxious than even I can stomach (but appropriate to his time frame), Gilman allows that Jeff, at least, is off-base. 

As my Terry states in the next chapter:

"Hopefully, the women’s agenda wouldn’t entail screwing us before chopping off our entrails or sending us on suicidal missions against a prowling enemy or playing games with our disemboweled guts or mounting our decapitated heads on spikes." 

My Terry knows more history that Gilman's Terry. Everybody has the capacity to be nasty. Someone doesn't instantly stop being a bully because that someone is female or the upholder of a utopia or because the behavior is labeled something else.   

Chapter 3

His in Herland or Astyanax in Hiding

The Problem of Sameness, Part II, Culture

The problem of sameness occurs in other utopias. Thomas More's Utopia promotes cities that are all "exactly alike" in layout. Plato likewise argues that the elite members of his Republic will share "common houses and meet at common meals." (Gilman was not a fan of communal living and allows for more "me" time and space in her utopia.)

The similarity in architecture and habits extends to an acceptance of established norms (ironically, since utopias are often formed in protest of standing norms). James Hilton's Shangri-la, for instance, though somewhat more hands-off than Plato and More's utopias, is based around the entirely unbelievable assumption that two people in a dispute--over a woman, for instance--will settle it peacefully because one person will let the matter go out of sheer "que sera sera" whateverness (as if an entire culture was run by Bingleys rather than Darcys). 

Hilton has his main character, Conway (who is something of a que sera sera guy himself) question the ability to get people to let things go. As with More and Plato, stigma (or "shame") is the operating factor, the inculcation that certain things are simply "not done." 

Gilman plays with the idea of accepted norms but is less willing to explain precisely where so much harmony starts from. She promotes individuality and an unnerving degree of cultural sameness at the same time. That is, she wants the easygoing "that's just the way things are" attitude of Shangri-la (More and Plato are more willing to punish people). Unlike Hilton, however, she doesn't have an entire tradition of cultural mores to back her approach. 

Shangri-la is based within a Tibetan high-context culture that promotes profound cultural convergence. Gilman wants to force an American/European culture towards the same end while retaining the low-context aspects of that American/European culture. 

In sum--

Herland combines intense individuality where one gets to do one's own thing and talk back to superiors and strike out on one's own path  paired with cultural harmony in which one subordinates oneself, at least in public, to the common good and acquiesces to that public's customs. And every leader is perfect, so they are admired, but if they weren't, they wouldn't be.

Yeah, right. 

An inability to recognize the inherent tension between the above positions is one of the most annoying aspects of people who praise about utopias. Many countries with greater cultural convergence than America/Europe also have far stricter immigration laws. Many countries with greater cultural convergence include far more stigmas about behaviors, even placing those behavior into the category of mental illness. Many countries with greater cultural convergence exhibit far more deference to older people, so that in the BL that I watch/read, achieving the parents' consent or, at least, the parents' lack of disapprobation is considered a primary goal. (So is going to school, getting good grades, working hard, and not causing unnecessary furor in public settings.) Pluralism takes a back seat to not rocking the boat.

The response to these obvious observations is to hack up cultures and people to create imaginary results. Preachers of "it's so much better over there" ignore that most other cultures are as complicated and multi-faceted as their own. Instead, they (1) present those cultures as monolithic entities; (2) "translate" those cultures to fit their needs and views.

In Chapter 5 of His in Herland, Terry complains about his companions' willingness to define the new world they are in as an extension of their own assumptions:

One payoff of our failed escape was I found a kind of refuge, a place to go when the demands of propriety became too much. I went alone. Jeff and Van were convinced that another attempt to escape would—who knows? Our imprisonment hadn’t changed substantially after our first attempt except for an increase in guards. I think Jeff and Van were afraid that another attempt to flee would be “offensive,” like showing up to a house party without a gift.

Chapter 5

His in Herland: Astyanax in Hiding

The Problem of Work: Nobody Does the Yucky Jobs, Part I

At one point, idealistic Jeff praises the

women for cooperating like "bees." My Terry

points out that a queen bee kills other queens.

Pollyanna with attitude.

One of the major problems with utopias is that they are invented by people who don't understand grunt work or specialization. 

Like many utopia builders, Charlotte Perkins Gilman resided in the class that could be termed "white collar." 

She wasn't as wealthy as her relations, the Beechers. She wasn't as poor as the Alcotts. And she did her own share of grunt work to pay the bills. But she never entirely understood it. 

Many utopia builders don't. 

Grunt Work

Gilman did work hard as a writer and lecturer. She wrote constantly. She traveled constantly. And the work was exhausting. 

But it was work she liked, not work she loathed--namely, it wasn't the boring, niggling, not so interesting stuff that must get done at some point. When people "helpfully" suggest ways for me to care for my elderly parents, I usually roll my eyes. Like utopia builders, their ideas are full of sweetness and light. In truth, 60% of caring for my elderly parents isn't coming up with clever ideas. It's sitting on the phone, waiting to badger someone. And filling out paperwork. And cleaning up messes. 

When More argues that members of his Utopia only have to work 6 hours a day (aside from the two years when they go off to be farmers), he is ignoring that daily grind--the reality that nothing in an urban environment can be sustained without someone filling the potholes and shoveling up the horse droppings. In Lost Horizon, Shangri-la is presented as entirely beautiful and modern--the baths are from Ohio (seriously)--while the well-paid "porters" are credited for the items' arrival. Nobody explains how exactly heavy-duty construction materials, such as pipes, and other items could be carted in over the treacherous passes without (1) numerous porters dying; (2) a major commercial interest noticing. 

And who is putting in all the stuff when it arrives? Are those workers doing the grinding, dusty, dirty work for the good of the other residents? Because they (conveniently) enjoy grinding, dusty, dirty work? They actually might. But it's not the kind of work that can be started and then stopped (only 6 hours a day!) or performed at a leisurely pace (not without causing more problems--see issues in pouring cement). Which means, a group of somebodies is working quite hard behind the façade of delightful and restful beauty.

Roman roads are honored for a reason. Michelangelo's attempt to create decent access to a marble quarry was made for a reason. 

As Terry remarks about the roads in Herland:

“This is no sanctuary of females. There have to be men here,” I kept insisting because frankly, laying asphalt is back-breaking work that requires substantial physical endurance. 

Van argued later that the women used powered machines. A manufacturing site exists on the western edge of the country (we never got to see it). I doubt the possibility of hard work occurred to Jeff. He certainly didn’t seem troubled by the idea that any group of people, including women, spent arduous hours keeping the road he was praising smooth. In Jeff’s mind, hard labor will never be synonymous with the kind of people Jeff personally knows. 

So we walked along the road that Van saw as abstractly detrimental [for environmental reasons], and Jeff saw as wholly beautiful, and I saw as toil.

Someone, Terry points out again and again, is doing a lot of hard work to keep the country clean and functional: 

And there were the assumptions [the mentors] presented as givens, ideas to be accepted without skepticism. Such as, We have no aristocracy.

What does one call a group of people who teach and discuss “national matters” in a well-tended hotel with good food and constant service while others are shoveling tar, scrubbing fountains, cleaning up garbage and refuse, maintaining vehicles, cutting down trees, hunting for plant-threatening insects (Alim’s job) and larger predators, building walls, weeding gardens?

Merely because people aren’t being “paid,” doesn’t mean they aren’t accruing more privileges, more ease than others.

Van argues that the mentors also cleaned and scrubbed. But then Van has no real idea how long it takes to unclog a toilet. Someone else does it for him, just as a whole host of someone elses were maintaining the country’s day-to-day infrastructures while the mentors conversed with us in airy, hygienically clean rooms.

In fairness, Gilman saw grunt work as a specialty. If she had the money (she didn't), she would have willingly paid manual laborers large sums of cash.  

Unfortunately, she didn't understand specialization as a lifestyle. 

To be continued...

Chapter 6

His in Herland or Astyanax in Hiding

The Problem of Work: Yucky Jobs, Part II

Specialization

Gilman is an exception to many utopia builders because she did notice grunt work (she'd had to do it) and she did think it should be fairly compensated. 

In fairness to Gilman, at Fruitlands,

the women did much of the work.

In comparison, one of the more irritating aspects of Plato, More, and many nineteenth century transcendentalists is their conviction that agriculture isn't THAT hard. It is just, you know, work. But anyone can do it. 

More's Utopia sends people to the fields for 2 years after which they can come back (unless, of course, they--wink, wink--WANT to stay). The system utterly ignores the issue of specialization. All the education in the world can't replace hands-on experience. Every 2 years means that every 2 years, an entirely new group of farmers would have to be retrained on how to breed cattle and how/when to plant and how to get the best yields. How to butcher. How to harvest. How to help domesticated animals give birth... 

It's hard to believe that More was this stupid, and C.S. Lewis is likely correct that More was being extremely ironic in a very English "can't you tell I'm joking?" way. 

Bronson Alcott was a sweet man whom 

everyone loved--and he was daft. 

The transcendentalists who started farms and then were shocked--shocked!--when they didn't have time to philosophize in the evenings were, in fact, that stupid. 

As mentioned, Gilman understood the theoretical idea of specialization--especially with people who would care for children--but she never grasped it as a reality. Her main female characters in Herland are supposedly specialists--nature girls who roam about checking trees for bugs and so on (forest rangers, basically)--yet they never seem to be in the woods since they are always sitting around with their boyfriends and attending lectures on the meaning of life. 

That is, Gilman utterly fails to grasp what it means to be devoted to a specialty, especially by someone who is not a "meaning of life"  philosopher. If the young women truly love what they do (which Gilman claims), they would either...

(1) Roam all over the country, examining trees and noting issues with bugs and growth; they would compile reports; they would give lectures on THEIR specialty; they would get all nerdy with other forest rangers. 

(2) Pull a Gerald Durrell and spend hours examining a particular patch of earth. 

The remarkable aspect of the young Gerald Durrell is that he did both of the above. When his family arrived on Corfu, he roamed all over the island, learning the language and collecting animals. He also had the capacity to sit for hours noting the behavior of the insects on the wall near one of the family's homes. 

Watch a prepubescent child who is engrossed in a valued (by the child) activity. That combination of energy and obsession is very normal. One minute acting like a dinosaur. The next, learning every single name of every single dinosaur. 

Alim reports a conversation with Terry about his childhood. The child Alim behaved very much like a creature who combines roaming/wildness with obsession:

  One day early on, I decided to drop eggs from a rooftop. After the third egg, a mentor rushed up the side stairs, several youngsters at her heels.
  The mentor, Novine, watched me set an egg rolling until it tipped over the edge. It turned and turned and turned before splattering on the road below. The youngsters giggled. Novine sat beside me. She watched another egg tip and turn and splat.
  “What are you doing, Alima?” she said finally. “Is this an experiment?”
  “No.”
  “You’re learning a great deal about eggs and air and the way things move.”
  Juste would have told me I was wasting eggs. Maddy would have told me to clean it all up. And she would have swatted me. Maddy was the kind of mother the mentors had decided shouldn’t be a mother, which was probably why she moved to the mountains and why she took over my care when I showed up. I adored Maddy. I still miss her.
  “No,” I told Novine, which was the truth.
  I was aiming for the tip and the tilt and the oh-so-satisfying SPLAT at the end. I’d begun to wonder if something bigger might make a more satisfying splat. Two eggs together maybe. Or—
  “But you are discovering something,” Novine prodded. “You are uncovering your potential, your interests—”
  I suppose I was discovering that I liked to drop things. I wondered what might happen if I filled a container with water and dropped it. The sound would be more crash than splat. The water would push outward in the satisfying way it did when I hit the surface of a pool. I could hurl the egg, not merely drop it, and it would disintegrate faster, make a louder noise—

Creative-for-the-hell-of-it experiments.

[Terry asks,] "When did you stop throwing things off rooftops?”
  “About the same time I got in trouble for trying to light things on fire, sunlight through glass, you know.”
  He snorted. “Boy’s antics.”
  I stretched at that, practically purred like the silliest cat. Terry’s tone was proud, fond, impressed.
  “Were you punished?” he said.
  “When I caught twigs on fire, Tyra suggested I tend braziers in the temple. I—”
  Panicked, but I didn’t want to admit that to Terry.
  “I didn’t want to work in a temple,” I said with the same sullen tone I used when I responded to Tyra.
  “You wanted to be outside,” Terry said sympathetically. “Moving. Your hands on something. I know the feeling. Lots of rules you have here.”
  “The mentors encourage experiments.”
  “Sure. But the outcome is always the same, isn’t it? Improvement. Advancement. There are conventions to maintain.”
  “That isn’t true where you live?”
  “Yeah.” He sighed. “You’d think not. We have so many opportunities, you’d think people could just leave each other be. But every society produces its humorless dictators. Creative-for-the-hell-of-it action gets short shrift.”

"[Happens] more often than you'd think," Howard

says about Sheldon and Leonard's science fight.

Gilman does not seem to comprehend that any true specialist--educated or not--will behave in similar fashion to Alim, male or female. The behavior is not dictated by theory. In fact, it often overrides its so-called "purpose." Specialists don't stop being specialists when their specialty gets in the way of propriety. Or the State's objectives.

Like many utopia builders, Gilman didn't observe the world. She explained it.

To be continued...

Chapter 7

His in Herland or Astyanax in Hiding