Sunday, November 27, 2011

Frances Kellor, Activism, and Me

I just finished writing my newest book, Founding Mother: Frances Kellor and the Quest for Progressive Democracy.  And the end of this book has occasioned some personal philosophical reflecting. You see, Frances Kellor argued that citizenship required political participation.  Personally, she dedicated her life to designing and implementing social reform.  And, I have lived by these precepts too. But my friends just want to have fun.  Is that okay?

In some ways circumstances call me to action.  If your neighbor’s house were on fire, would you not feel compelled to act?  Well, I believe the nation is going up in flames.  Therefore, I am compelled to act.  Kellor’s impoverished upbringing likely led to her making her first two books about defending exploited women.  My sense of emergency and her despair over injustice provide legitimate motives to social action.

Kellor implicitly denigrated domestic life.  She did not overtly say that women should leave their homes.  But she did descry domestic values that focused more on rumors of fidelity than those of tainted milk and immigrant exploitation.  She sought to shake women out of their private worlds via engaging them in basketball.  Women particularly needed to switch from the private to a public orientations to reach their potential and help America reach its.  

Kellor’s private life is partially obscured.  She lived with her girlfriend Mary Dreier for 47 years.  And they took vacations together.  But her private letters rarely mention activism and her activism only implicitly addressed her lesbian romance. Kellor founded the National Urban League and international arbitration, ran the Americanization program, two Presidential campaigns and more. She had no children as she dedicated her life to public service. And for that she deserves our respect.

But people in my life watch T.V. and never mention politics.  And, without engagement I personally feel useless and unimportant.  Perhaps my constant striving for a cause has a touch of insecurity attached to it; I want to matter.  Writing Founding Mother, and so sharing Frances Kellor, gave me a sense of doing something important for the public. With its completion questions about public life and identity come to the fore.

At what point do we, Kellor and I, let people rest and live as private citizens?  Television is passive. But do I consider all who watch it worthless? How much public activism must one mix with their meaningless private consumerism and family raising to be considered a good citizen? 

John Kenneth Press, Ph.D. is the author of Founding Mother: Frances Kellor and the Quest for Participatory Democracy.  www.franceskellor.com has more information.

8 comments:

midnight rider said...

meaningless family raising?

Unknown said...

MR, Glad you caught that. As I was walking today pondering this question, I wondered if having children was a political act. Kids don't do activism.

I am wondering if a solely personal - private life has meaning or is enough to qualify you as a good citizen.

Nice eye for detail, John

midnight rider said...

"At what point do we, Kellor and I, let people rest and live as private citizens?"

Immediately and from the start.

It is not for you nor The Pres nor a pedophilic priest nor a long dead lesbian to tell me I'm no good because I don't participate politically and raise a family privately. It doesn't make me a bad ciitzen or my life meaningless because I choose not to engage.

Meaningless to who? Define meaningful? To whom? And is meaningful the same to everyone. And who decides who qualifies as a "good" citizen and what criteria need be met? Not watching tevee? Not watching the news? Only watching Fox? Engaging politically but as a Socialist? By this definition you're saying that Barack Obama qualifies as a "good" citizen simply because he is a political animal but my very cnservative neighor who works keeps to himself and raisies his family is not.

Kids don't do activism? Really? How about Alex's lemonade stand or the Dance marathon my daughter helped arrange for a friend with cancer?

Having children a political act? No, not really. Not unless you live in someplace like China or North Korea.

Knowing very little about Kellor but knowing she was a progressive and a number of them favored eugenics, where did she stand on that issue?

Meaning is in the mind and soul of the individual, not a detached person church or state who defines that meaning for them.

Unknown said...

MR,

Thank you for the lengthy reply. Kellor only mentioned Eugenics once and then obliquely and negatively. But you are certainly right about the progressives generally.

"Meaning is in the mind and soul of the individual." I struggle with this. I find little meaning in life outside of political combat. And if my meaning comes from taking care of myself, I don't see it as worthwhile.

Your point about President Obama is a good one.

And, I do love the music. Keep it coming!

Thanks again, JP

Epaminondas said...

Silly me...I thought the abnegation of activism as life might just fall under that thing I once read some very cynical guys called

PURSUIT
OF
HAPPINESS

There may be some 'engaged' people who are fulfilled, though I suspect they are few, but I have yet to meet one who is HAPPY.

Target never achieved.

How can you blame those immensely intelligent people who take one look and say, 'I think I'll go fishing'?

As valid a choice as the idiots whose stomachs grind away when Colin Powell blames the Tea Party for partisanship in DC.

Pastorius said...

Speaking as a guy who recently quit blogging so I can write fiction, I say, it seems to me a life completely dedicated to activism is a life wasted.

Bob Geldof is an inspiration to me. He is a man who took up the mantle of activism, when he felt called to do so. And then, when he felt he had completed HIS PORTION of the work, he set it down and went back to his "regular life", which in his case meant being a rock star with a hot chick for a wife.

He has since gone back to activism, but I suspect that is merely because the rock star gig is not working for him anymore.

I may never return to IBA, or to any activist work at all.

I've done more than my share.

Fuck all of ya's.

;-)

Pastorius said...

That was meant as a joke, you know.

midnight rider said...

Right back at ya

:)