525,600 Minutes (I)

Like many of us, I get reflective this time of year. But is it really reflective? I have a sense that there are limits I don't see and either a skepticism or resistance that keeps me from seeing it when another might point it out. We saw The Squid and the Whale. A nice, solid film. It will keep me thinking about how I talk to the kids.

I've wondered about a top 10 film list. I'd include A History of Violence, The Squid and the Whale, Broken Flowers, Good Night and Good Luck, maybe Siriana, but just because I think I should. On books? That's harder because I don't think about them so temporally. I've benefitted from Agamben recently. And I loved The Corrections and The Last Samurai and Market Forces--all pretty different. I'm glad I read Harvey's Neoliberalism.

But this isn't particularly reflective, is it? I think that blogs push more reflection. And more resistance. If I reflect more I wonder about the point of a so-called intellectual life. I can support my kids (health care, some tuitition assistance) as a college professor. It's a good job. I have a fair amount of control over my hours. It's hard to fire me. I can wear what I want. But none of these are reasons that anyone goes into academia. What's the point? A weird thing is that I know it's changed me (cf Discipline and Punish). I know that I think differently. But I don't know the person I was or wanted to be.

So, going through the academic process has made me a different person. I can reflect on matters that people live and die for. That I can take this distance seems to some to mean that I am callous, indifferent, or impractical, that these matters are only theory, as if only meant something here. I don't see it like this. Perhaps because I feel and think things intensely--rage is a more likely response than indifference or evaluation. And, what to do? What do any of us do? We keep on--we protest, contest, argue, write, bring the resources we can to bear on problems. It bothers me when academics are dismissed--particularly because the academia is a major site of cultural war these days and one of the few locations where non-religious and antagonistic thinking is still possible.

I think that academic life is important as a way of working and being that is not fully marketized--yet. At the same time, I recognize that a possible spirituality or faith has atrophied for me--at least right now. This makes me sad. I can get it back momentarily, with the kids. And this is the last part--even as the academic process--graduate school, tenure--has taken its toll, having kids (and being a single parent) adds so much that it more than compensates for the subtractions of academia. One colleague told me I became a better person after I had my first kid. I was more patient, more forgiving, less high-strung. And, I think that having kids makes me think differently about politics and political violence. There are things I wouldn 't do--and wouldn 't expect others to do--because of having children. Perhaps this is conservative. But it doesn't have to be.

My son asked me what I would do after he and his sister finished college: adopt more kids or become a terrorist?

One last bit: thanks to people who have taken the time to read I Cite over the past year. I've benefitted from your comments and criticisms. I miss those who have left. I wonder about your lives and hope you are happy and well. I apologize to those I've hurt or offended--although I cannot say that I wouldn't do it again. The positive comments have helped me, many have kept me going as I try to finish this book. The negative comments have made me think and kept me awake. They've also confused me because I really don't understand some of them. These fundamental misunderstandings have convinced me that an antagonistic understanding of politics is crucial. So, that's useful as well.

Comments

[Lynn]

It's always a pleasure reading I cite. It has pointed me in new directions. That's been valuable.

[Alain]

Jodi your reflections here really resonate with me. I am someone who tried academia and failed, I have children, I need to provide for them. I have made different choices with my life because of my children, I see the world differently (perhaps more conservatively) and being a parent definitely changes you (for the better I think).

And I really like your son's line: "adopt more kids or become a terrorist." That is exactly how I feel. And I think my oldest daughter sees it (she is 12).

Thanks again. I hope you keep blogging in 06. Cheers.

[Jodi]

Thanks Lynn. Thanks Alain. All best in the upcoming year.

[marcegoodman]

Jodi,

I appreciate these reflections just as I have appreciated so much of what you have written here and elsewhere this past year.

Kids really do change the picture in so many ways. If anything, childrearing has sharpened my political sensibilities; that is, through the experience of, in Michel Houellebecq's provocative phrase, "the last bastion of primitive communism in a liberal society."

[pickinjava]

Great blog (what I read of it). I am trying to get into academia, but have two wonderful children and a spouse that cares only about being a 'normal American consumer'. Buy Disney and Gap stuff for the kids, watch Entertainment Tonight on TV, and care really only about the material health and wealth of partially extended family. Therefore, I work for a telecom company and basically have one year left to finish my dissertation or I cannot become a doctor and therefore have the credential to open a few more doors to do what I want, which is to contribute to more just international structures and processes of development.

[chris robinson]

Hi Jodi -- Happy New Year to you and your family. Thanks so much for all the great writing and the crash course on Zizek. I probably spend too much time worrying about whether I'm an academic or an intellectual or just a plain old-fashioned theorist. But the more I work at it, I find the concerns give way to genuine enjoyment with the way I see the world and the interesting paths my thinking takes. I'm sure there is danger in becoming a self-contained entertainment unit, but there is something subversive about loving/ being passionate about what you do for a living.

[John S. Ransom]

Who told you you were a better person after having a kid? I deny it! You were always a nice person. By the way, do you still listen to the Talking Heads? I got an expanded "the name of this band is the talking heads" cd recently and am really enjoying it. But maybe you're bored of them. As for the 'point' of the intellectual life, I am reminded of the song by Jefferson Airplane in their album "Live Miracles" titled "The Light." There the singer says:

"The only answer I have
found
above the sky and over the
ground
is that there are no
answers,
there never were any
answers, and,
as Gertrude Stein once
said, that's the answer."

[John S. Ransom]

Whoops I did the quote wrong, missing a line. Here it is again:

"The only answer I have
found
above the sky and over the
ground
is that there are no
answers,
there never were any
answers,
and there will never be any answers, and,
as Gertrude Stein once
said, that's the answer."

[pebird]

Jodi:

Happy New Year!!

P.E. Bird

[Peter Paik]

Happy new year to you and your family. I've also found becoming a parent one of the most transformative of experiences. It has led me to a new understanding of Robertson Davies's point that "charity is often the last virtue that we learn."

Your blog has been quite stimulating and a great place to see ideas being worked out in a manner both serious and congenial.

Wishing you a great 2006,
Peter

[Nate]

hi Jodi,
Thanks very much for this. I don't agree with you on some things that are kind of important to me, but I really enjoy your blog (which, since I'm kind of closed minded and judgmental, attests to some strength in our writing I think). I particularly like this post a lot. I've just started graduate school after five years away from school, just before that I got married my partner of many years. We're currently trying to work out the whens and financial hows of having kids and it's tough. Your reflections are really resonant with me as I try to steer a course in (or maybe out of) the university.
Happy New Year,
Nate

[Nate]

Damn. Should be "your writing." "... some strengths in your writing," not "our writing." Typo, my bad. It's late. Sorry.

[Jodi]

Thanks, everyone, for your kind words and New Year's wishes. I really appreciate it.

John--I still like Talking Heads but don't listen to it much. My daughter and her friends prefer "All I want for Christmas is you" 30 or 40 times in a row. Thanks for the lyrics! (And for the reassurance!)