Here's A Story That I Haven't Told Before

Hello, All.

Without a doubt, it has been quite some time. And in truth, the very idea of pressing the configuration of buttons necessary to post on this blog again drives terror to the core of my heart. But I will press on.

Speaking from the basic ignorance of the Midwestern University-town abyss (and I mean to say that I don't know what is going on elsewhere, not that the other denizens of this fine university don't), I hope that all is well for the rest of you out there. Has college proved to be the big, wonderful mess of life-affirming classes, professors who double (or triple?) as mentors/lovers/friends, brilliant friendships and ghost-filled architecture? Have your grown to scale all of the particular academic ladders that you built for yourself before the exodus, or have you climbed (or fallen?) somewhere else entirely?

Since it is useless for me to pontificate or predict, and since I tire of these vaguely aphoristic question sprees, I shall try to tell the very cut-and-dry story of my own collegiate experiences. Malhereusement, I cannot promise that it will be of interest, but I can promise that it will be true. And, as a result of the events enumerated, I can promise something that I was not able to promise before: it will be a very clear story.

So. My name is Jessi Holler, and I am a first-year student at the University of Michigan. I do these things: eat. Sometimes. Usually not with other people. Sleep. Often on some days. Very rarely on others. I am taking five courses, most of which deal with some form of cultural theory--my last and latent attempt to reclaim some sort of high and haughty future for myself in the open realm of post-post-modernist academic excess. It seems like those doors have all slammed shut. Regardless, I am studying 20th Century political thought; "American Visual & Material Culture" in a course dedicated to museums (and power relations), monuments (and power relations), documentaries (and power relations), and architecture (and power relations); Sub-Altern studies & other various post-structuralist/feminist/Foucauldian fare; Jewish Modernism in Eastern & Central Europe; and the Polish avant-garde. As the composition of this list conveys, I have become adept in the (incorrect) use of the semi-colon; and as this list does not convey, academic interests have been relegated to the farthest fields of my life.

This is a story of language and assimilation. Or of language and the refusal to assimilation. This is a question, then, of assimilation. The system casts out what it cannot register, what causes errors and does not appear across the screen. There is no right or wrong to this. This is what the system does. The only moral question is on my shoulders. With this in mind, I hope that you will brace yourself, and read on.

I am immensely frustrated with the University of Michigan, but have been told, and moreover, have accurately realized, that nobody really wants to be privy to such complaints. I could speak for hours about bureaucracy, about hierarchy, about impersonality--strange as it may sound, I feared these things in an "enlightened" sort of way, as a true anarchist sometimes engages in Sex Pistols-esque speech. I thought that they could be overcome by honest enthusiasm, or concerted brilliance ("competence," it seems, is the only form of brilliance that this university recognizes), and that these were simple determinants of admission and not real factors of daily life. These things are real, my friends. There are invisible walls erected in the places where I would least expect them, and although I may be doing moderately well at this place, it is because I have had to put my curiosity on hold, and because the muses have forsaken me.

It is cold here, and I attempt to focus on small victories--I have written but two qualifiably good papers since my arrival. Even then, the high produced does not sustain me--either the papers are silly, five-hundred word pieces intended as "exercises" and not as demonstrations of any kind of prowess or original insight, or the professor assigns a half-competent grader to the paper and eschews reading it entirely. After receiving my one and only comment on a work that engaged me considerably and took me a three-day extension and three sleepness nights to complete, "You are finding your voice! A!" irked me considerably.

So what does one do? One shifts, one changes forms. One finds that authenticity is a more malleable subject position than one had ever hoped. Or feared.

After my first failing grade on a paper, and after some eight-hundred remarks regarding my "pretensions" and "over-ambitiousness," I decided to become a student journalist. Half because I wanted to see if I could pass in a world with which I had previously had major ethical qualms. And half because I felt that such "passing" was the only way that I could survive in this place--survive, and god willing, get out.

And thus, I took to writing for the Opinion section of the Michigan Daily, the largest and most "vehemently" "liberal" "paper" on campus. You would be wise to note that I am neither a very political or very opinionated young lass. In fact, it would be more accurate to remember that I spent many an evening denouncing the Sophistry of politics or the necessary hyperbole and simplification of extremely problematic issues necessitated by the prose and structure of journalistic writing. You would be wise to remember that I rarely had opinions on any non-aesthetic, non-historical matter.

However, the transformation seems to be complete--you are now conversing with the new Associate Editor of the Daily's Editorial page. You may find my pieces online at www.michigandaily.com. I write about local lease-laws, student government elections, affirmative action, educational policy, rapid transit for Detroit, and a range of other palatably relevant affairs. Don't worry--only a small and slight flourish buried in some sentence or another will give my identity away. I am getting used to seeing phrases like "wasn't such a big deal" in print. The majority of my editorials are unsigned, and now, as a Resident Copyeditor, I will become a true bureaucrat--typing out changes to pieces that aren't mine made by two editors who may or may not be correct, and ducking blows from my overlord editors when I make quiet references to Eichmann. Really, though. It isn't so dire.

Half of me wants to strangle myself for being so bitterly and pointedly unhappy. I think, "harden up, kid. you chose to come here, and take the responsibility. you are getting an education. it isn't so bad." But that's just the thing--this education is all wrong. As critical as I am of the commonality of the speech, I feel that I have sold out in the worst possible way. I am in a true philosophical dilemma--in order to get out, to succeed, Michigan-style, I will have to sell out completely. I will have to learn to write in short, declarative sentences. To recapitulate accepted points. To educate myself in the annals of hideous libraries in the dead of night, or in the less-dramatic lighting of the afternoon. These things will be required of me if I want to get the grades required to transfer out.

However, I am working by the light of other standards. These standards have resulted in a host of situations too confusing and emotionally jarring to be enumerated here. I was accused, with no sympathy, of plagiarizing my first essay (Karl Marx's "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts") for a freshman philosophy class. I was deeply hurt, and tried to protest in the most inoffensive way possible. I tried to repent. I wrote an incredibly simplistic, clear essay on John Stuart Mill to follow up. I was kicked out of the course. I was told that I was "crazy, out of the ball-park," both in language and in ideas, and that my person was "beyond reform." The professor refused to hear any explanation from me, and informed me that there was nothing that he could do for me, and that we should "part ways--IMMEDIATELY" so that I could be with a professor more "receptive" to my person. "It's not going to work, Jessi," quoth he. In tears, I listened to his one word of "kindness": "you're a smart girl, and I don't want to flunk you, but I'll have to if you stay here." I then asked the only question that I thought should be asked. Would any other intelligent, good professor give me a good mark? Was this problem fundamentally my own, or was it an issue of conflict? His response: No. No intelligent professor would be able to handle me. Would like or understand my work. Too bad, then, that my constitution is utterly unreformable.

These stories have multiplied, and I have developed a sort of alarmingly thick skin. My life has become wholly surrealistic. I wake up in the morning, and fall asleep at night, and feel like half of a person. More accurately, like a ghost. And no, it's not that bad--on one level, I am getting on here, as much under the radar as I can. I am trying to avoid being crushed out, but I am of a weak constitution--weak in that I want to be liked, to be loved, to be academically recognized, to learn and to grow under the tutelage of caring mentors. Not to go down under the fire of anonymous guns with my hands spread wide open. If I were pretentious, preposterous, or mad, as has been repeatedly alleged, these things would be easier to accept. I would know the reasons for the nature of my reception. Does a self-made asshole, after all, weep when he is reproached as such? (I might be wrong on this--let me know!) My soul would not be crushed--it would rejoice, because it signals would be properly received. But these things are not true.

The difficulty is, that in trying so hard to make it here, I am having to forcibly cut off, silence and crush the parts of myself that would be crushed otherwise. I myself quash my poetry, crush my long sentences, censor my wild ideas, so that my short, declarative sentences and uninspired prose will not upset the professor.

I have read a bit of Foucault in my time here. The essence of the Foucauldian thesis on the history of discipline and surveillance is this--that while state institutions once had to publically and externally exert their power on the body of the individual, the locus of control has shifted to educational institutions, and individuals come to punish and censor themselves. Power works directly on the mind of each individual, and seeps in through the culture. Many praise the type of "lenient" penal systems that exist in the Scandanavian countries, but to Foucault, such processes were indicative of something far more frightening--the moving of the network of power below the surface of society and into its very blood.

Foucault, in some ways, has saved me, because I have seen the otherwise abstract observations that the good man makes about the nature of modern institutions in action. I have felt the pressure of channels of power against my own body. Foucault gives me strength. I don't know yet in what direction.

To be myself again, I will have to walk away from everything--even my academic future. I am not sure if compromise is possible. But I have learned that I am more away of my inner currents and needs than ever before, especially since that goddamned poetic voice that always used to haunt me has shut off. I hope to god not for good. I would not make these things up. The terrible pressures and anxieties that press upon me and tell me that this situation is all wrong, that I have been misunderstood, that I am powerless to represent myself accurately to those who control my fate, are very, very real. The function of those pressures is to convince me that they are not real. That way, I will not be consciously crushed--I will be "reformed" into a model University of Michigan student who will churn out the right prose with the right ideas with the right chipper attitude and hair that styles itself in the morning.

This is not what I intended when I set out to get an education.

I hope that these brief thoughts will provide some fodder for discussion. There is far, far more that I could say, but I have found that it is usually wise to hold my tongue while testing the waters.

I hope that your Thanksgiving Breaks prove wonderful, and do be in contact--I am going home tomorrow, and would love to hear from any of you on the drive home.

With Consternation,
Jessi