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Jessica Hoffmann,
"Unmooring to Connect: Holistic Feminisms"
(page 8 of 8)
Faith in self-interest is supported by a belief that thinking about
what might benefit others—that is, thinking beyond self-interest—is
presumptuous, controlling—the stuff of, to use the most consistently
offered example, totalitarian communist regimes. But being thoughtful,
caring, sharing—these are acts not of control or presumption but of
openness, generosity, flexibility. Again, here, feminisms have much to
offer. Feminisms, I mean, that would not support centralized or
hierarchical power of the type of a capital-"C" Communist Party or
government, but that are informed by circular, horizontal notions like
bell hooks's theories of moving from margins to center—another frame,
offered by another feminist writer who developed a piece of what is now
called "intersectionality": margins to center, not linear, not
progressive, not bottom to top, not hierarchical, but circular,
multidirectional.
Before it was layered with all kinds of damage by Milton
Friedman[9],
Adam Smith's notion of the "invisible hand" of the market referred
mostly to the idea that actions by an individual within an economy can
lead to consequences that that individual could not have anticipated or
intended.[10]
Not that I'm an Adam Smith fan, but I wonder about looking
at that idea as having more to do with relationship than
individualism—not only the relationships between individual humans
within an economy, but also relationships between human actors and the
natural resources they use or steward or leave alone, between various
species—relationships of all kinds. This fact of unintended consequence
could be used not to justify narrow self-interest, but to encourage
economic and other systems rooted in a sense of inescapable
interdependence.
What if our hands are all engaged in caregiving, in stewarding shared
resources? It's not that any one of us has an ultimate solution to
what's best for each and all of us, but that we get our hands dirty
together, collaborating, offering, receiving, connecting, experimenting
to see the impacts of various actions and choosing—together—the ones
that create the least harm and the most widespread benefit.
Holistic feminisms have a lot to offer in this moment, challenging
the very notion of subject/other, of splitting, that underlies all
violences; questioning the very possibility that a person or a culture
could ever separate self-interested desire from relationship or external
impact or a ubiquitous and inescapable, if commonly denied, commons of
experience and resources and all.
We build a structure—a dome, say—with the resources we have access
to. Those among us who know things about scaffolding and engineering
share that knowledge with those who have no clue where the supporting
pipes need to go. Something like wind, say, unmoors the dome from where
we've placed it, cracks its beams, tears its fabric, and now those who
are good at improvising with laughter in moments like this help those
who get stressed by things like wind whipping loose well-laid plans to
relax into collaboratively finding a way to rebuild or repair or build
something new if there are too many tears in that structure's fabric or
it turns out it's simply not the kind of structure best suited to this
land, or this group of people, or this moment. And meanwhile flowers of
incredible variety are just growing, wild.
Endnotes
1. The Women's Creative Collective for Change was
initially formed in 2006 by Tani Ikeda and Marissa Sellers, undergrads
at the University of Southern California who felt a lack of artistic and
political community for radical women and gender-variant people of color
on campus and decided to create the community they craved. WCC has since
expanded beyond the USC campus to become a vibrant and multifaceted part
of Los Angeles feminist community. They host regular art workshops; some
members cofounded imMEDIAte Justice,
a film-making and sex-ed program for local high schools; and WCC
annually organizes a skillshare retreat for L.A.-based feminist
collectives (this year's attending collectives included
make/shift,
INCITE! L.A.,
the L.A. Childcare Collective, Space Intruderz, and
Anarcha L.A.). Among the many core
organizers of this year's retreat were Ikeda, a 23-year-old filmmaker,
writer, and organizer; artist and educator Kellee Matsushita, 23;
community organizer and artist Simone Andrews, who focuses on
incorporating art and healing practices into radical social-change work;
and reproductive-justice activist and health educator Sylvia Raskin. [Return to text]
2. From the New Mythos Website, see
http://truthandhealingproject.wordpress.com/the-new-mythos-tour/.
Original from Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza.
San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1987. [Return to text]
3. See "Roots and Wings: The Combahee River Collective Statement" on
UBUNTU's website here. [Return to text]
4. Cherie Moraga, Loving in the War Years.
Cambridge: South End Press, 1983. [Return to text]
5. "Greenspan Admits 'Flaw' to Congress, Predicts More Economic Problems" on
PBS Newshour Website
(originally aired October 23, 2008).
[Return to text]
6. Ditto for LGBT issues, where recent coverage
bizarrely focuses on inclusion of gays and lesbians in the U.S.
military, an institution otherwise vehemently critiqued on the
show. [Return to text]
7. Angela Davis speaking at
"WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution."
Colburn School, Los Angeles, CA. June 10, 2007. [Return to text]
8. Rebecca Solnit, A Paradise Built in Hell. New York: Viking, 2009. [Return to text]
9. For a critique of Milton Friedman, see Naomi
Klein, The Shock Doctrine, New York: Henry Holt, 2007;
particularly chapter 2. [Return to text]
10. See Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments
(1759) and The Wealth of Nations (1776). [Return to text]
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