Overview
Studying the laws and theories of economics is all well and good, but it's important to appreciate the humanity of these systems. Not everything is dollars and cents, and capitalism has certainly caused some massive harm on a global scale. In order to keep myself grounded, I read some literature that looks at the dark side of the market, fiction and non-fiction.
The Grapes of Wrath
I spend most of the first semester reading The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. It's a beautifully written novel with a lot of insights into the Great Depression and the failure of the market and the state to provide for its people. Here's some documentation of that work.
Background ResearchBefore I jumped right in, I needed some background information about the Great Depression, an period of American history that I admittedly knew next to nothing about before this research. I wrote down some things that I wanted answered, and then drew notes from several sources, including Jill Lepore's comprehensive These Truths: A History of the United States.
Great Depression - Questions Great Depression - Notes |
Reading & NotesAs I read The Grapes of Wrath, I took the time to add sticky notes to every little cool quote, idea, and connection that I found. I had a lot of sticky notes by the end of the book, and only a few of these notes made it into my weekly reflections. But they were incredibly helpful for me to think through the narrative and its reflection on the real world.
One element of the book's structure l loved in particular was the format of The Grapes of Wrath's chapters. One chapter will be spent closely following the story of the Joad family, and then another will be spent on some other little story that reflects on them. Sometimes it's a description of something going on across the country, sometimes it's a turtle crossing a road. These provided lots of opportunities to learn about good indirect storytelling. |
Reflections
Every week, I would read up to a certain point in the book, and then write a summary of the key plot points, as well as some thoughts and reflections on 3-5 quotes that I found interesting. Each one is linked below. (The first one is a little longer and more formal, as it incorporated my historical research and my reflection, while I was also settling into this new style.)
Smaller Reading Projects
After having spent such a long period reading one very dense book, I wanted to take some time in the second semester to read some smaller books in a similar vein.
How to Do NothingArtist, activist, and nature enthusiast Jenny Odell writes about what we call "productivity" and the attention economy, arguing that in the Western contemporary lens, when we describe the "usefulness" of something, it is generally a measure of whether something will lead to a profit. She argues for more time spent in "useless" practices: conservation, mindfulness, and art. I wrote notes on this as I went through here.
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What Are People For?What Are People For? is a collection of essays by Wendell Berry recommended to my by my english advisor. It runs along a similar track to How to Do Nothing, with a lot of reflections on ecologically respectful, mindful, minimalist culture (which I like) -- but Berry adds a lot of technophobic, anti-intellectual, and socially conservative rants (which I dislike, although reading those helped me iron out my own views on these topics). I wrote about this dissonance in an unfinished piece here.
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Stamped From the BeginningI took a brief delve into Dr. Ibram X Kendi's comprehensive story of racism in America, to try and gain some understanding of the racist foundations of the American economy. I didn't find a lot of information here -- I'd already read the adaptation, and the original version doesn't add a lot of what I was looking for -- but I wrote a bit about the Biblical justifications for slavery and the willful misinterpretation taken to justify it.
Reflection |
Debt: The First 5,000 YearsDebt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber shows the anthropological perspective on the origins of money and trade. It spends a fair chunk of time blasting economists for perpetuating the myth of a natural, linear march forward - from trade and barter to money to markets. But Graeber has solid evidence that anthropologists have been gathering for years about the actual origins of money -- in debts. I never finished reading Debt, but here are my daily reflections while reading it and a summary of the first 6 chapters:
Reflections Summary |
Parable of the SowerParable of the Sower actually has a lot in common with the Grapes of Wrath. Sure, one is science fiction and the other is historical, but both are realistic. Both take place in times of ecological, economic, and social devastation. Both have fascinating insights into the nature of humanity and inhumanity. And both explore religion in the context of disaster. I wrote a short, incomplete essay on that last part here, and I loved reading Butler's stories. (I loved them so much that I also read Kindred and Parable of the Talents, but I didn't write about those.)
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Creative Writing
At the end of the year, I wanted to do some creative writing for a change. I'd also become really privacy-oriented by this point, and thought it tied in well to the issues of humanity ad freedom that I'd been reading about. Below are the works I produced in this period. I also have some recommendations for you to learn more about the right to privacy.
Tools to protect your personal privacy: privacyguides.org
Why?: Glenn Greenwald: Why Privacy Matters
Tools to protect your personal privacy: privacyguides.org
Why?: Glenn Greenwald: Why Privacy Matters
Socratic DialogueI often iron out my own thinking about a subject by talking to myself. I decided to put that in writing this time and get deeper into why I believe in privacy. Link |
GeorgeThis was the first thing I wrote about privacy, a short story about a man who is constantly being watched, just like everybody else -- except he seems to be the only one bothered by it. Link |
Miss Jones, they sayMy first ever independent work of poetry, this piece explores the dogma of "you've got nothing to fear if you've got nothing to hide" and the intrusion of national security agencies into the lives of civilians. Link |