Recently, the American Philosophical Association (APA) Newsletter put out a call for papers (CFP). They are asking for reflections on the experiences of philosophers who come from a first-generation and/or low-income background (deadline is Sept 15 if you want to submit). One of the topics listed by the APA was “Code Switching across Academic and Non-Academic (Familial or Home) Life” and it got me thinking…
The world of home
I am not the first in my family to attend university. In fact, both my parents have undergraduate degrees and my dad even has a Master’s degree. But I am the first in my family to attend university in North America; my parents completed their education in South Korea before moving to Canada. So, when my parents and I talk about school, there is a cultural and language barrier that can make understanding the other person challenging.
Let me be clear. My parents are smart and capable people and on many occasions, we’ve discussed abstract philosophical concepts with heated intensity. But these conversations take a lot of time to develop. I have to, first, break down ideas and concepts in my projects to simple, everyday language, then brainstorm accessible metaphors and examples, and then finally ‘translate’ it into Konglish. In my last post, I talked about this process being an act of love and I still think it is. But it is tiring and, some days, I wish it were easier.
The world of academia
When I’m in the world of academia, engaged with English-speaking others about philosophy, there is a kind of effortlessness that I can’t experience at home. Years of being in school and thinking about philosophy have ingrained in me a certain mode of thinking, speaking, and acting. I don’t have to think about something and then translate it into ‘academic speak’. For the most part, if I get into the mindset, or more aptly, if I take myself to the academic world, I become an academic.
‘World’-travelling and code switching
When I chat with my mom or visit my family, that is, on my way to the world of home, I mostly abandon all the fancy words I know. I get into a Konglish mindset. And when I think about it, I am inclined to say that I lose something. Maturity? Expertise? I’m not sure, but I feel younger, like a child. My vocabulary is not limited per se, but it’s not as expansive as my English repertoire. So there are fewer things I can talk about.
Put simply, in my world of home, I stop being a philosopher and become a daughter. I become someone different from the person that my colleagues know. Maria Lugones puts it this way:
“Those of us who are ‘world’-travellers have the distinct experience of being different in different ‘worlds’ and of having the capacity to remember other ‘worlds’ and ourselves in them … the experience is of being a different person in different ‘worlds’ and yet of having memory of oneself as different without quite having the sense of there being any underlying ‘I’” (“Playfulness, ‘World’-Travelling, and Loving Perception,” pg 11).
Envy
When I’m having a good day, I feel grateful for my situation. My family is supportive and loving. We can talk about almost anything, albeit in a roundabout kind of way sometimes. But when I’m feeling frustrated by or bummed out about work (re: writing), I become envious of my friends who grew up in academic households.
They’re my friends and I know that they aren’t bragging, but it can feel like it sometimes. They might mention in passing how they got some advice for submitting papers from a parent, or how they discussed new university policies the other evening over Zoom. Sometimes, I wish I had that. Sometimes, I wish my parents had experiences of ‘the academy’, so that they could help me.
Some of this just comes down to luck. (I mean, the number of philosophers who have philosophers for parents can’t be that big!) And yet, I feel envious that some of my friends have family that they can ask questions about their dissertation, or brainstorm ideas about how to scrutinize a dense paper. I wish my parents were fluent in academic ‘speak’ and norms, but instead, I have to invest a lot of time to world-travelling, translating, and code switching – which isn’t all that appealing when I’m already feeling stressed out. So, I become a bit green-eyed.
Productive envy
Envy is a fairly common phenomenon, especially now with the pandemic, and it gets a pretty bad rap. Envy is one of the seven deadly sins and, besides that, it’s not a great feeling. But according to philosopher Sara Protasi, envy isn’t all bad. She writes,
“Envy [can be] appropriate and possibly beneficial in a loving relationship [if it] is emulative envy … The individual who feels emulative envy looks at the envied not as someone to deprive of desirable and valuable qualities or goods, but as a representation of what the agent herself could be or have, as a model for self-improvement … the pain [of emulative envy] is assuaged by a shared sense of identity with the beloved and thus permits rejoicing of the other person’s good fortune: it’s a pain mixed with pleasure.”
This is the kind of envy I feel. Even on my worst days, I wouldn’t wish for my friends to not have their parents or for them to not be amazing scholars. And, more often than not, reflecting on what they have inspires me to do something about my situation. Sure, my family might not be inclined to discuss some dense Foucault piece at the dinner table, but I have friends and colleagues who might. And my partner definitely likes to discuss what he calls “strange questions that philosophers seem to always come up with”. So, as Protasi puts it, envy can be “forward-looking, optimistic and hopeful, because it involves the belief that one is capable of doing better.” At the very least, it can get me off my chair to do something!
Solidarity
In the world of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), new members are encouraged to find someone “who has something that you want” and ask them to be your sponsor. A sponsor is like a mentor who agrees to guide you through the 12-steps and help you get sober. They can get you started with the Big Book, help you find a home group, and introduce you to a recovery community. Many recovered addicts and alcoholics often talk about how their sponsor saved their life. So, some people might find it surprising to realize the sponsor-sponsee relationship actually starts with (emulative) envy! But it’s true; a person only looks for new sponsor when they feel they have learned/gained what they wanted from their current sponsor and are, therefore, ‘ready’ fo a new one.
I think this is what Protasi means when she says that envy can actually be motivating and empowering and feeling. Envy can help us grow. In AA, it can help an individual reach out and get help. In other situations, I imagine it might be what motivates political action and social justice movements.
Hannah Arendt on emotions
Arendt wasn’t a big fan of emotions. For her, emotions have no place in the public realm. They are personal matters. As she put it,
“Whatever the passions and the emotions may be, and whatever their true connection with thought and reason, they certainly are located in the human heart. And not only is the human heart a place of darkness which, with certainty, no human eye can penetrate; the qualities of the heart need darkness and protection against the light of the public to grow and to remain what they are meant to be, innermost motives which are not for public display” (On Revolution, p. 96).
According to Johannes Lang, Arendt’s worry might have been that, since emotions are subjective and interpersonal, “they [may] work to impose their singular perspective on politics, holding plurality hostage to the particularities of subjective experience.” This would reduce the potential for action and increase the likelihood of totalitarianism. But thinking about envy has made me question whether Arendt was right on this.
Emotions and Solidarity
Emotions aren’t just something that spice up our personal lives. They can leave lasting impressions on us and give us reason and motivation to pursue political action in public, with others. As the well-known feminist slogan goes, “the personal is the political.” For example, many of my research interests have developed from an emotionally intense period in my life that changed how I saw the world. And many of the people that I act (in the Arendtian sense of the word) with are people with whom I’ve had a personal relationship first. I used to think that Jodi Dean was right: solidarity is borne of a common goal or an affective relationship. Now, I’m not so sure that the line that separates them is all that distinct or there at all.
Perhaps solidarity is not just about acting together to pursue some common goal or interest, as Arendt had in mind. Indeed, perhaps solidarity is also about cultivating and leveraging the very human affective responses we have towards or about others.
Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash