Supporting Wisconsin's Democratic State Senators

If you, like me, enjoy making a decent wage, like having weekends off and sick days and a decent working day, work for a company that at least gives you access to health insurance, or if you are in a union and are concerned about the political bullying occurring right now in Wisconsin, there's frankly not much we can do from the outside but watch and hope.

But I've never been one to just sit back.

If, as Rachel Maddow reported, it's only going to take ONE Democratic state senator to fold and give in to the Republicans in that state to ruin unions nationwide (ultimately), I think sending a message of support to those 14 Democratic state senators might do some good. At the very least, it won't hurt. So that's what I did this morning.

I sent this simple message of support to all 14 Democratic state senators from Wisconsin:

Subject line: In solidarity for your stand from Pennsylvania

Message:
Good morning and thank you. Thank you for standing up to the political bullying in your state over union rights. Please don't give in. Many of us in other union states are watching very closely and are hoping and praying that you are strong enough to withstand this pressure.

Thank you for standing firm. Thank you for not giving in.

In solidarity.

- Amanda Morris


If you are of a similar mindset, I would encourage you to send a note of your own. If anything exemplifies the power of ONE person being able to make a NATIONAL difference, it is this one (if Maddow is correct). So that individual needs our emotional and psychological support. And you never know what difference our (collective) words could make.

Email addresses of the 14 Democratic state senators:

Sen.Carpenter@legis.wisconsin.gov, Sen.coggs@legis.wisconsin.gov, Sen.Cullen@legis.wisconsin.gov, Sen.erpenbach@legis.wisconsin.gov, Sen.hansen@legis.wisconsin.gov, Sen.Holperin@legis.wisconsin.gov, Sen.jauch@legis.wisconsin.gov, Sen.Larson@legis.wisconsin.gov, Sen.lassa@legis.wisconsin.gov, Sen.miller@legis.wisconsin.gov, Sen.risser@legis.wisconsin.gov, Sen.taylor@legis.wisconsin.gov, Sen.Vinehout@legis.wisconsin.gov, Sen.wirch@legis.wisconsin.gov

Punished for telling the truth

This story makes me very angry: Pa. teacher strikes nerve with 'lazy whiners' blog

I love my students - I wouldn't have put myself through six years of grueling graduate work, and put myself $60,000 in debt, and ended my marriage if I wasn't committed to teaching. But damn it, some of my students give me the lamest excuses for missing class, being late with work, missing deadlines - and while I haven't called out any particular student by name or even by group, I have certainly made public statements about how lame the excuses are in general - and have even mocked and made fun of the lameness! Sometimes I tell my students right to their faces that I don't buy their excuses. Does this mean I deserve to be fired because I speak the truth publicly about a general situation that exists in ALL colleges around this country and is UBIQUITOUS with this current generation of students?

Hell no. And neither does the teacher in the story. For two reasons.

One - If teachers can't speak out honestly about the serious problems in the education system - and yes, student attitudes are a big problem - then how can we EVER hope to CHANGE this system? The reaction of this particular school district makes me wonder if school administrators anywhere are TRULY interested in fundamentally changing the education system - revamping it a la Ken Robinson's suggestions, for instance - so that everyone (students and teachers) are more interested and engaged.

(School districts might have to stop cowering in fear from parents if real change is to occur.)

This travesty makes me think the answer is no - change cannot occur while the education system is held hostage by the attitude that we 1) can't hurt students' feelings by calling them out on their irresponsible behaviors because feelings are apparently more important than work ethic and 2) certainly can't speak out publicly about the student component of the problem for fear of being FIRED? WTF?!

I'm committed to challenging my students and work hard to get them past their own laziness and procrastination, which they readily admit to!! But I will not - NOT - stop speaking out publicly about some of the dumb things they say and do. And if that results in me having to change careers once again, then so be it. I've got lots of experience in many fields and I'm not afraid to use it.

And the second reason this teacher shouldn't be fired - This is obviously a free speech issue. It doesn't sound like this teacher violated any FERPA law or said anything that wasn't true - even if it was merely her opinion. Last time I checked, we have free speech and free press and unless her contract specifically states (like some private corporations might) that she is not allowed to speak publicly about her work, then the district is waving smoke and mirrors and has NO case.

Why don't they use this opportunity to have an open discussion with their teachers about the problems that exist in their school? Perhaps if they put their minds productively together, they might come up with some solutions to student attitude problems instead of punishing the very people who have the power to help CHANGE the situation?!

What the hell is wrong with this country?!?!?!

In solidarity with teachers at every level who are unafraid to speak out.

I, (ex)posed

On page 120 of Kathryn Harrison's novel, Exposure, the narrator asks, "What words could have exposed her more than the photographs themselves?" The question disconnected itself from the plot of the story and in my mind started rotating as a compelling question in general, as I am both a writer and a photographer. As a writer, I write about ideas, situations, the world, and myself; as a photographer, I capture...shoot...compose...photograph the essence...the whisper...the suggestion of people, places, pets, objects.

To me, photography is infinitely more complex an art form than writing, possibly because I've been writing in general and writing more professionally longer and so have more comfort and experience with the craft, the art, the science, the skill of connecting words together to form meaning about ideas, situations, the world, and myself. Also, I find the art of photography to be a medium that requires a true partnership between the camera, the photographer, and the photographed. Whereas writing is a mechanical skill partnered with one's own imagination and depth of knowledge - a truly solitary pursuit. Composing an image requires numerous instantaneous decisions, each falling over the other as they combine to form the idea about what the image should and could look like, and then the photographer tries to (but doesn't always) achieve. But when I consider the question that the novel's narrator raises, whether words or photographs expose an individual more, I find myself caught between two dangerous loves, both seductive in their ability to expose, or pose, our "true" natures.

When you look at a photograph of yourself (probably taken by someone like me), what do you see? Do you see your true self, your soul, your spirit, your essence, the truth of who you are? Or do you see what I see? My truth about who you are. Compare a photograph of your face to something you've written about yourself. Which one is more posed? Which one exposes more of who you truly are? Do we EVER expose ourselves fully in either medium, despite our confessional yearnings?
 
Having exposed my fears, concerns, and escapades pretty thoroughly in writing (if sometimes anonymously) over the years, and having taken photographs of myself recently for various purposes (publicity shots, online dating site images, Facebook photos), I would have to say that my writings expose more of me than the captured images. However, I might be blind to what the camera sees with its unrelenting, unblinking shutter-vision...the man I'm currently dating says that he can see my soul through my photos. Now, this might have just been a line, which I initially took it to be, until he started talking about what else he sees based on the photos. And what he said took me aback. How could he possibly perceive those notions...through a photograph? And a digital one, to boot!

It is a powerful medium, to be sure, but even as I attempt to capture the truth of what I'm seeing, I'm still aware that it is ME seeing - my lens, my perception, my interpretation of whatever is in front of me. And because of that separation between the truth and my interpretation, the photograph can't possibly contain vital information that essentially exposes the captured person beyond the surface pose.

Or does it?

I have always thought that our own writings, particularly public writings, say more about us than any photograph could. But both mediums require us to both pose and expose to some degree, and whether we are entering the enterprise with the intention of exposing our truth or hiding it, is it possible that a photograph of our essence, captured in a moment, even manipulated by software and a soft touch, can reveal more about who we truly are than our own written expressions? By which medium do we truly know ourselves? By which medium can others truly know us?

What do you think? Which medium exposes you more - a photograph or your own writings? 

Delayed experimental beginnings

Snow days. Ice storms. Delayed starts. Full day cancellations. 

Welcome to spring semester 2011 in the Northeastern US corridor.

As a professor, I'm concerned with the effects that these snow and ice day cancellations have on my students' schedules. And at this point, there is zero consistency across my classes. Three sections of college composition are all at different places and my advanced students must discuss two days' worth of readings tomorrow, instead of a more focused and well-paced conversation.

Instead, this stuttering start to the spring semester has a jarring inconsistency that the clock and calendar have no regard for. We began on Jan. 18. We are in our third week and it feels like I have not seen my students more than I have seen them.

While I realize that no one can control Nature and I also would rather not risk my car and life in treacherous commutes, these delays are not exactly blessings, given the ambitious projects I have my students tackling this semester.

To wit, my advanced composition students have selected a pressing social or cultural issue to explore all semester long in the form of two creative nonfiction essays and one newspaper opinion editorial - all of which they must submit to publications of their choosing. Almost none of them has experience writing in either of these genres and so benefit from my input and class discussion. Plus, they are also creating, writing, and maintaining a blog for the semester with a required 10 posts minimum of 500 words minimum each post.

My core classes, college composition, are tackling and attempting to solve local problems in a real way - outside the classroom. They are working in groups, so their first project is a problem/solution proposal where they will thoroughly pitch their problem and ideas for solutions. Unfortunately, all of these class cancellations have put the groups behind. In fact, some students who have missed even more days because of the weather (beyond the sanctioned university cancellations), aren't even in a group yet. And the groups are tasked with presenting their group's proposal tomorrow for the major project due dates for the semester.

I'm trying something new this semester. Students are deciding on major due dates and determining much of the daily activity schedule for each unit. I have veto power, of course, but my approach is one that fosters and encourages personal responsibility and a sense of ownership in the course. I truly believe that composition, as a class and as a field, can do more in the community outside of the classroom. My students will be writing traditional academic essays, blogs, business proposals, press releases, emails, public awareness materials, videos, and more. They will also get experience interviewing fellow students, administrators, town council representatives, public safety and health department officials (depending on the local problem).  But that's not all.

My students must DO something this semester, in addition to improving their writing skills. They are truly attempting to solve a local problem in the next 13 weeks. This pedagogical approach is often known as service-learning. But I'm not following any pre-determined plan and I'm breaking the mold a bit - I'm developing the idea as we go, allowing my students to contribute a line and verse as to how the projects and course itself will go. So far, they are doing wonderfully and I'm witnessing some pretty intense group discussions and debates.

Only time will tell if my experimental approach will work and will still achieve all that the composition curriculum requires, but I can say that my students are excited by the idea that they get to DO something in a broader context than just another university core class.

Perhaps this is the direction more university classes should go. Of course, it needs to stop snowing and icing if we are to start making actual progress. How about it, Nature? Ready to give us a respite?

The Enemy Inside

Who is the greatest enemy to a PhD candidate when it comes time to finish? (Hold that thought.)

Between the xtranormal video extrapolating on the ugly underbelly of pursuing a PhD in the Humanities, the numerous warning articles in American Scholar, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the New York Times explicating the steady downward spiral of English as a field that spends, but doesn’t make, money for universities, and the economic realities facing newly minted English PhDs (assuming they finish), it is no wonder that so many once-idealistic, wide-eyed, expectant believers that they will be the exception to the hard reality rules simply stop before crossing the finish line.

Truly, starting a PhD program is exciting, hopeful, intellectually stimulating, and full of potential future promise. But about halfway through, usually after comprehensive exams, once the student is ABD (All But Dissertation), those early, exciting, hopeful idealisms start to crumble and give way to the unpleasant reality of an eight percent job placement rate. 

That’s my unscientific analysis of Auburn University’s English PhD program’s success rate for placing newly minted PhDs into tenure-track university positions right out of the program (and honoring full disclosure, I received my PhD from Auburn and am counting myself as one of the eight percent).  The program matriculates approximately eight students per year. I began the program in 2006. Going back a few years and extending to the year I graduated (2010), let’s call that 50 students in the program. As of today, I can name four (with the help of a friend who started in the program as a Master’s student, so was there longer) who got tenure-track university jobs right out of the program. A couple more that we thought of have since gotten TT jobs (I think), but that’s still only one or two more. Going with the original four, that’s eight percent. 

To put eight percent into perspective, think of it as 46 students who matriculated as PhD students and then either didn’t finish or did finish and did not get a tenure-track university professor position. Where are they? Many are instructors, the well-documented , underpaid, overworked temporary faculty in hundreds of universities and colleges across the land. Some go to the private sector, some to the non-profit, some to the government, some to Japan or Dubai to teach English for two years, some go to law school or medical school, and some go to Starbucks, Gap, and McDonald’s. With four, five, six, seven or more years of stress, self-doubt, $50,000 or more of debt, and an ever-diminishing chance of landing that plum job, the longer they remain outside academia. 

It is a BRUTAL system. And the brutality is never revealed to you from the moment you set foot on campus until the day you become ABD, when the stakes increase because now you’re in deep.

To put eight percent into an even finer light, let’s look at some other percentages in life.

Women have a 12% chance of developing breast cancer.

You have a 10% chance of finding a job on a megajob board online.

You have a 65% chance of developing hemorrhoids by the time you’re 50 years old.

You have a 47% chance of winning at American roulette in a casino.

Let’s review. You have a better chance at developing breast cancer, hemorrhoids, finding a job online, and winning roulette than landing a tenure-track job as a professor at a university. And roulette is called gambling. I would argue that getting a PhD is also gambling with your money, your future, your relationships, your happiness, and your life. 

So, amidst all of this noise, how exactly DOES one finish a dissertation and then graduate, regardless of what the next step plan might be? Back to my original question at the top of this post:

Who is the greatest enemy to a PhD candidate when it comes time to finish?

My snarky response might include blaming the student’s committee for either being too absent, or too harsh, or too laissez-faire. Or perhaps the graduate coordinator and advisor, whose job it should be to inform incoming students about the harsh realities of their true potential as marketable professionals in academe. Or how about those students’ undergraduate professors, who often encourage young people to go ahead and pursue the degree without even hinting at the dark river of sludge floating beneath the shiny, happy surface.

However, I don’t believe in blaming others, although all of these people can be held at least partially responsible for withholding evidence about the ultimate reality shock that stuns most PhD candidates right around ABD time. Instead, I suggest that a PhD candidate’s worst enemy is herself. And we are really good at sabotaging ourselves.

Our minds are not like yours. We enjoy reading, sometimes obscure texts that confuse most people and other times texts that aren’t written, causing our non-English colleagues to scratch their heads in confusion (at which we scoff mightily at their evident lack of understanding of our nouveau conception of what a “text” really is). Not only do we love reading, we love writing about those texts and our own ideas and the world around us. We are idealists and believe we truly are exceptional. But that’s the bubble. That’s coursework and warm, fuzzy grad student meetings in the lounge over coffee where everyone is snuggled up with their favorite theorist and fantasies of teaching those obscure texts to graduate students for the next 30 years.

Once we become ABD, the bubble bursts. All of the potential warning signs about the impending harsh reality about to smack us in our elevated consciousness have been ignored (that lone undergrad prof who did suggest it was not for everyone; the department head who warned that your recommendation letters must be BEYOND GLOWING and SPECIFIC; the advisor who hinted at potential success outside academia). The warnings may be far and few between and not delivered with anything close to consistency, but they exist, like mini-mushroom clouds of doom to rain on our PhD parades – and we gleefully ignore reality until the bubble bursts, we become ABD, and suddenly, we are on our own and terribly alone.

Once you pass your comprehensive exams and become ABD, you are solely responsible for writing your ticket to the degree – the dissertation. Generally a book-length tome (200-300 pages) that showcases the breadth and depth of your understanding of your field; it’s a start, not a finish. The dissertation rarely becomes a book in its current form; rather, it must go through several transformation stages after you land that tenure-track job so that you can use it to be promoted to Associate Professor, the holy grail of academic job statuses (because becoming a full Professor requires sacrifice of your first-born last I heard). 

The reason dissertations rarely leap into book form is because they are inherently imperfect, scattered, disjointed ramblings that are barely coherent to anyone who knows anything about that field. The audacity, the arrogance, the sheer moxie that it takes for us, as new scholars, to proclaim that we have an important contribution to make, to lay out an argument built on the more experienced minds in the field and then to explain how those folks got it wrong, to present a perspective that is somewhat new and challenging to the status quo, is almost mind-boggling in its egocentric glory. But that’s where I think a lot of really smart people get stuck…because they aren’t arrogant, audacious, or egotistical…they are scared, they are worried about pissing off a committee member or senior scholar in the field…they are afraid of being wrong and imperfect and disjointed and scattered and looking a damn fool.

If I may offer a bit of advice, having been through the grind of academic hazing that is writing a dissertation… you must accept your own imperfection of thought, you must know that your committee will give you some good and some terrible advice and make demands that are ridiculous and infuriating, you must understand that no one is going to read this dissertation in its entirety except you, your committee chair, and possibly your mom (if the introduction doesn’t confuse her beyond recognition).

Here’s the big, bad secret: The dissertation is a means to an end. That’s it. So if you are on the fence about finishing, concerned about your committee members being mean or stupid, worried about sounding dumb…don’t. As my chair always told me (and she was one of the reasons I was able to grunt through and finish), just bang out the pages. Get it written. Sloppy, ugly, and disjointed are the best you can hope for. Hobble across the finish line with an imperfectly written document, sit in the auditorium and enjoy being hooded at graduation for your effort. And if you don’t have an academic job lined up, don’t sweat it. Good writers who can research and analyze problems are needed everywhere.

You’ll find a job because the skills you have obtained in grad school are eminently transferable. But finish. 

You’ve made it this far. Don’t be your own worst enemy.

(I lovingly dedicate this post to my friends who are ABD and struggling to finish – you are not alone, you are in good company, and you CAN do this! I have faith in you!)

Why College Students Cheat

"To me, the idea of trying to track down custom papers and identify cheaters, that's not as productive as understanding why 200 people, one third of an entire lecture hall," he said, "would choose to cheat."

This quote comes from a recent article on ABCNews.com, "Confessions of a Ghostwriter: Man's Career Thrives Helping Students Cheat," which was prompted by that same man's anonymous "confession" in the Chronicle of Higher Education on November 12. (And really, how can something be a confession when the individual does not acknowledge any wrongdoing and won't even reveal his true identity? Sounds like he's running scared, regardless of his bravado and clammy rhetoric.)

Being in the throes of grading final papers and fielding emails from confused students who don't "understand" why they got something lower than expected on a particular project, I read and watched this ABC News report and was particularly interested in this man's final comment. (Why are we listening to someone who spouts anonymously again? Oh yes. We live in the world of zero accountability - neither required nor expected, so even our "experts" can hide behind the wizard's curtain.)

This ghostwriter of thousands of students' "original" works for hundreds of different types of classes at hundreds of different universities and colleges around America thinks that we, as faculty members and academics, should be less concerned with catching the cheaters and more concerned with why students cheat in the first place. This is actually a point upon which I must begrudgingly agree. Why DO students cheat?

Take a famous student athlete, for instance, who is accused, nay convicted, of cheating in an academic context. What is the consequence of this cheating? Well, the ostensible consequence to that student athlete is an F on his or her transcript, perhaps with a notation that the F was due to cheating (or very often, there is no such notation). Does he lose his scholarship, thus providing a tangible, concrete consequence? No. Is she benched for the season? No. Do all of the other students on campus who find out about said cheating lose faith in said student's athletic abilities? No. In other words, does ANYBODY care, in the end, that a particular student cheated and got caught on an assignment? No. Save for the individual professor who caught said student. And maybe the honesty committee members who slap the student's hand.

Just using this simple example, an example that I guarantee plays out every single semester at every single university and college in this nation, one can see that one potential reason that students cheat (or are sorely tempted to do so) is because there are no tangible, lasting consequences and nobody in authority over their educations and futures really cares (beyond endlessly bitching about it, which I've also been known to do.)

Consider another circumstance, one that is touched upon in the ABC News report. When a professor receives a paper that is clearly NOT in the student's voice or written with the student's actual proficiency level with language, that professor KNOWS it is not that student's work. But she uses Turnitin.com and Google to check for plagiarism and finds nothing. This merely leads to frustration, as she must then grade the paper on its merits and GIVE the student whatever grade that paper earned. Students who cheat know this. And that's also why they do it - they know that the chances of getting caught are incredibly slim (if they pay enough) and their prof will HAVE to grade the work because there is no evidence of plagiarism. This could be why some schools require all major essays be written IN class by hand. No cheating possible there, but hell to grade handwritten, scrabbly texts.


So far, the reasons I've been able to come up with for why students cheat include nobody in authority actually caring enough to punish cheating in a real, tangible way (throw Jimmy out of school? Heresy! Who would pay the bills, then?) and simply being able to get away with it. Those seem pretty reasonable to me. But how about that moral code that half the nation keeps bandying about as though it were so important? Ah yes, morality. That great divider of peoples between the right and wrong, the sinners and the saints. Where are these students' moral compasses, if at least half of them believe that they possess one?

Far from laying blame beyond the student, I would like to suggest that this much-touted moral code is nonexistent in our current mindset and social world. Morality or a sense of right and wrong no longer guides us in our decisions on a daily basis. What is easiest has replaced what is right. What is most convenient has replaced what is most satisfying. And what is fastest has replaced what will have the longest term benefit. We, the people, as a collective, are the reason students cheat with abandon.

Other thoughts and opinions are most welcome because I'm not sure what the answer is, but the problem is incredibly frustrating.

The Rhetoric of Ownership

How much do you actually own? If you have an active mortgage that you are paying, you do not yet own your house, the bank owns it. If you are actively paying a car loan, then you don’t own your car (it isn’t yours, you commit inaccuracy when you say “mine”) it belongs to the finance company or bank that holds your loan. If, like me, you have student loan debt, then you technically don’t yet own your education even though you may be reaping the rewards already. 

Bottom line, we don’t OWN anything until it is paid off in full. Only then is it MINE. But that logical perception is not the idea that we embrace. In America, we say “my car,” “my house,” “I bought furniture,” “I own a dishwasher,” which is all indicative of possession, instead of the more accurate “the bank’s car,” “the mortgage company’s house,” “Raymour & Flanigan’s furniture,” “Sears’ dishwasher.” We all do it. We tell ourselves and each other in ownership terms what we (technically don’t yet) possess. 

In fact, this concept of ownership is built into our national rhetoric – if you do not “own” a home, you are somehow deficient as a citizen, as though taking on hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt somehow makes you a more responsible adult. Very few people actually understand what “equity” means and how it is a self-perpetuating system designed to keep us in hawk, buying and spending more and more until we are so beholden to the system that our grandchildren may need to sell off our “hard-won” possessions in order to pay off all that we will ultimately owe (not own).

The allure of “ownership”

 When we own property, we are considered trustworthy, responsible, stake holding citizens capable of voting for the right politicians and making the right decisions to move the country forward. Therefore, the millions of people who do not have the cash position (or desire) to participate in this illusion are left out of the equation as untrustworthy, irresponsible, non-stakeholders whose perspectives are wrong for the future of our nation.

This single word damages and skews our view of reality, resulting in quick dismissal of views, opinions, and
perspectives of renters. In the summer 2008 issue of the Journal of Social History, a study of early 20^th century home ownership campaigns in Atlanta appeared by scholar LeeAnn Lands: “Be a patriot, buy a home: Re-imagining home owners and home ownership in early 20^th century Atlanta.” Specifically, the article examines “how Atlanta's land dealers were encouraged towards the national home-ownership trajectory, focusing on how the terms ‘home owner’ and ‘home ownership’ were charged with particular meanings that were, in the 1930s and 1940s, solidified in public policies and patriotic rhetoric.” 

With the government’s tacit approval, we easily dismiss renters’ perspectives on socioeconomic and political issues, voting for community standard-bearers who own a home (or three) and demonstrate the illusion of happy family and fulfilling career. When is the last time you voted for someone who rents in your community? Our political system, our national mythology, and our very sense of patriotism are inextricably shackled to the concept of ownership instead of communality, sacrifice, love, and tolerance. American history is replete with ravages made permissible by this powerful word; the sins committed in the name of ownership are many, including land theft, broken treaties, and global delusions of grandeur.  Our market economy is built on the concept of ownership, which in this country is basically a lie because we misuse the term so vociferously.

Clouded visions

Our rhetorical inaccuracies may help us sleep better at night, but cloud our reality and blind us to the truth. “Our nation” is built, physically, on a lie. This land upon which we all currently sit and work once “belonged” to hundreds of indigenous tribes whose members numbered in the millions. As Europeans invaded the space, spied the fertility of the land and the potential of its resources, hundreds of rhetorical moves were made, like a deadly game of chess where the outcome was pre-determined. We, of any European descent, still benefit from the results of that calculated rhetorical game that changed reality for millions of tribal peoples. It was brilliant, really, and effective enough that we still speak in terms of owning this land today. Remember learning this Woodie Guthrie 1940 folk song in grade school?

        This land is your land,

        This land is my land,

        From California

        To the New York island...

        ...This land was made for you and me.

“This land was made for you and me” is historically inaccurate and factually wrong, but rhetorically powerful as a reinforcement of Euramerican depredations of Native territories as our ancestors sought to enact the idea of ownership on the grandest and most destructive scale possible. It is this reality that we celebrate with songs like Guthrie’s. As if we earned it. As if we should be proud of possessing it. But pride in ownership of anything where the price paid was much too high is suspect and reflects poorly on the character and morality of those who speak in such terms. Take the housing crisis.

How many people who couldn’t actually afford to pay a mortgage got a mortgage? And of those people, who put zero down and walked into a house three times the size of necessity and affordability, who are now in foreclosure, fought the bank by saying, “You have it wrong, we CAN afford this mortgage payment”? But the lure of “ownership” attracted them as surely as it compelled the mortgage company or bank to look the other way or ignore facts as those people filled out mortgage applications. 

“Ownership” validates one’s existence in America. If you don’t “own,” you haven’t succeeded. Just listen to one of our former presidents: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVdTzPEYvH4

“If you own something, you have a vital stake in the future of America.” Wow. Thanks for making my case, W. In other words, if you don’t own anything, you don’t have a vital stake in the future of this nation and are, therefore, less worthy and less valuable as a citizen. 

In 1998, Dr. Jack Goodman wrote the following for the National Multi Housing Council: “The pro-ownership rhetoric from government officials and business interests typically goes way beyond the facts. The benefits of homeownership often are overstated, and important drawbacks usually are ignored.” Specifically, these drawbacks include overrated investment value, imaginary financial benefits (such as tax breaks), and loss of “labor market mobility” when a better job in a different region comes along. Imagine if those people who are now losing their homes had heeded this advice.

The rhetoric of ownership only serves to divide us and set the stage for unrealistic ambitions and unhealthy desires that will ultimately go unfulfilled, which can lead to stress, frustration, and isolation when things don’t work out. Even worse is the stigma attached to those who don’t “own.” Who don’t even try to “own,” or (worse) have no desire to “own.” Instead of promoting ownership, our political, corporate, and financial leaders should be promoting community development, affordable and safe housing for renters, and the more abstract concept that our society collectively owns, but has turned its back on: the pursuit of happiness (not possessions).