Binaries

As a writing teacher, one of the options available to me is something we call the "classification essay." If you're unaware of what this is,it is exactly what it sounds like: an essay in which a thing, or set of things, is classified according to what it is or is not. It's like sorting, for writers.

I never assign classification essays. It is much too easy to write them as binaries--a thing is/is not--and lose the nuance of what a thing truly is. Kind of like people really--we're liberals or conservatives, rich or poor, educated or foolish, rednecks or snobs. Kind of difficult to be a red-necked snob, really. They just don't go together according to our classification system.

Well, actually, they kind of do. It's just that we're so focused on classification that we don't recognize the gray zones of "moderate" or "plain old middle class." We've lost sight of this thing that we used to call "normal." Do we even remember what "normal" means? Isn't it that space between extremes? Of course, we now consider that person to be not normal so much as invisible.

A couple of things set me off recently. One was an ad for a show by a vegan feminist at Michigan State University--sponsored in part by the Womyn's Council. In truth, the term "womyn" lost it's charm for me somewhere around my sophomore year in college when I realized that it was just another, self-made way of fracturing the identities of half the population. Anyhow, the poster featured a model wearing a gown made of meat, and as near as I could tell from the rhetoric, the show is about some (perhaps imaginary) place where feminism, veganism, speciesism and T-Bone steaks converge. And what it made me wonder was this: at what point do we cease to be thinking individuals and become ideology shills? Do we know where our lines are anymore, or are we simply reacting, in knee-jerk fashion, to every affront, real or perceived, that comes along? I don't know about you, but I'm offense-exhausted to the point where I believe we need a word for it. Offenzausted? Overoffensensitive? Whatever it may be, what I'm really wondering is this: does hyper-reactionism ever take a night off to kick back and order a pizza(non-dairy and with a gluten-free crust, of course), have a beer and read a trashy novel just for fun?

I'm not taking potshots. I know and love various individuals who are feminists, who are vegans, who are unabashed rednecks, and who embody elements of all of these in one confused but lovable package. I do, truly. And one of the things I love most about them is that they defy the binary while remaining wholly true to themselves.

The other thing, in this binary nation, that set my teeth to grinding was the article in last week's Newsweek about food and class in America. I've been trying to tackle my own love/hate (there's that binary again) with food and foodie cultures here in this space, and the Newsweek piece (available here: http://www.newsweek.com/2010/11/22/what-food-says-about-class-in-america.html) cut to the heart of my thinking. Our relationship(s) with food have, especially for women, always existed on a scale of good-or-bad. Now, however, we are redefining what it means for food to be good or bad, and we are, in many ways, defining ourselves by our food choices. And of course, because we--or at least our media--find the rampant classist nature of humans so fascinating and prevalent, what we buy in the market has become the new symbol of class. I find this troubling.

And yet, even as I find it troubling, I recognize the truth in it and the ways that I am complicit in maintaining this binary. I tend, for example, to cringe at other people's box-laden grocery carts while feeling virtuous about my fresh asparagus. Surely this means I love my child more, or that I care more for his well-being than does the parent who serves Meaty Helper regularly. I've created this binary in my own image, with the largely subconscious motive of assuaging my own guilt about the choices I've made. Oh sure, I tore my family in half and dragged my poor child to New York--but look at how much I love him! I make him eat vegetables! (Vegetables covered in this nasty processed cheese sauce called "Wholly Queso", but no mind.)

And so I have to wonder if this is the real reason for our binaries--if we divide and classify so that we can find the ways in which we are "better than." And if this is true, it might give me just the faintest glimmer of hope that eventually, someday, our need for "better than" will soften and mellow into something just a little closer to "it's okay, just the way it is." Even better, what if, just what if, we stop judging ourselves by what goes into our grocery carts and onto our tables, or stop peremptorily labeling those with whom we share this tiny planet according to current trends? What if we make our choices based on personal belief and preference, rather than a desire to identify with the ideology of the day? What if, and I know this may be pushing the boundary a little too far, but what if Meaty Helper and organic eggs can coexist in the same kitchen, without shame?

What if.