I have it, that little sticker that proudly declares “I voted.” For the second time, I have fulfilled my civic duty, realized my American freedom in democratically voting. The first time was an absentee ballot while I was at school; this felt different, more hometown, more personal, more grown-up. Realistically, the people I voted with at that little church probably voted for the same people that I did, from the same party that I voted for—which could be good or bad, depending on your perspective. It was awesome that I saw such large numbers of people voting today, though. I hadn’t expected that. After my Politics in America class at school, I am fully aware of the slacking nature of many, many Americans when it comes to politics. Activism is tiring. Politicians are all untrustworthy, won’t live up to their campaign promises, just in it for the limelight, money, power trip, whatever. But it heartened me, nonetheless, to see the persistence of my neighbors, townspeople, fellow citizens: they voted because they wanted to, were inspired to, value their freedom enough to use it, respect their government enough to participate.
I love categorizing, evaluating, contemplating the American public. Here I belong, among the material, flighty, moody American population. Where a sense of entitlement seems ingrained in the American identity, along with national pride and ignorance of the rest of the world. I belong in a land that literally celebrates its history without knowing its history. I witness people blaming the figurehead president for every ill, forgetting the soldiers dying, lumping the Middle East together as one foreign, depressingly persistent evil.
The rest of the world seems to think of the American people as a simple entity: selfish, arrogant, materialistic, and close-minded. I have witnessed a national pride, yes. A pride in family. A pride in genuine work-ethic. A pride in sharing the values of one’s father, grandfather, great-grandfather. I have seen a desire for more, newer, better, faster, stronger. A call for ingenuity and originality. America possesses the disparity between classes, races, and regions; and yet, somehow all those differences dissipate, evaporate really, at the sight of an American flag or the sound of a foreign threat. Not for more than a few seconds or minutes or weeks or months, but that unity when unleashed, when realized, is awesome. Scary. Full of possibility.
I’ve been reading The Handmaid’s Tale, which is the antithesis of freedom, liberty, individuality. It helped me to realize the freedom in merely wearing what I want to wear. Walking where I want to walk. And most importantly, reading what I want to read.
The women in Atwood’s story are forbidden from reading. They are condemned to their sole task as women in a new, improved America, where the constitution has been frozen, put on hold: to procreate. Not to love, laugh, live, flirt, learn, grow, change, think, experience, feel, challenge, exercise, or speak. The idea of not being allowed to read literally caused me twinges of physical discomfort, a grimace, an achy sense of loss. What is a mind, if not the ability to improve oneself, push oneself beyond circumstances and misfortunes, inadequacies and ignorance? What would a life be like where one not only was forced to hand over one’s body to be used and directed as ordered but also to be starved of intellectual, stimulating conversation, meaningful relationships, written communication, shared knowledge?
I’ve read in several different books with these alternate communistic realities the terrifying idea that even the news on television could be faked, manipulated. The idea of watching a recording, some edited version of reality and taking it for the real deal is crazy really. More than that, true control of information includes religious information; the faith, morality, spiritual lives of Atwood’s characters became programmed, directed, nationalized, manipulated, worthless. Propaganda seems like one of the most sophisticated forms of torture to me. To control the flow of knowledge, news, information is to control the lifeblood of a country’s citizens.
The Handmaid’s Tale is supposed to be a warning to society; that much is clear. What scares me a little bit is how I responded to the book: “That could never happen here, in my country, in my era.” And yet, what scared me the most is the idea that the issues that sparked the creation of the strict society were ones that haven’t changed since 1985, when Atwood wrote this book: sexual dissatisfaction and perversion, failure to communicate, fear of the “other,” focus on the self or the nuclear family to the extent that everything’s fine if my family is alive, I don’t have time to think about Congress being massacred or the President being executed or the Constitution being suspended.
This book haunts me a bit. The way in which men were reduced to power- and sex-hungry animals while women's rights were sacrificed so that they could be reduced to reproducing machines is troubling. Seems too extreme to be real but…the fact that it’s possible is true. It seems so coincidental to me that today I both finished The Handmaid’s Tale and voted. That I celebrated America as she is while contemplating the gruesome possibility that she could be utterly perverted. It makes me thankful, profoundly grateful for the security I feel. It caused me to push down my isn’t-everyone-already-a-feminist-these-days attitude to acknowledge the alternative. I’m so glad to watch our heatedly debated “biased” news programs, because nonetheless the flow of news has a basis of truth which its citizens trust. It’s a simple thing, but I am proud to be an American voter today.
No comments:
Post a Comment