Oh, right: 'to DELIGHT and Instruct!' (Perhaps Sinclair read "Disgust"?)

Some raw thoughts here follow:

If Sinclair's efforts with The Jungle fell on deaf ears, maybe it was because the novel was so graphic and horrifying.  Maybe, as a collective, the American public simply resists casting itself as responsible in any way, for the exploitation of an entire class of working immigrants.  As a tangent, it's also possible that the didactic lessons on Socialism were too indirect for the mass public to see its own role, as consumers, in perpetuating the cycle of capital's exploitation of labor.  In other words, Joe the Plumber doesn't really see himself as having a role at all in The Jungle.

But, for now, I want to focus on the role of Sinclair's tone in the novel.  Which, of course, begs the question of whether or not a different tone might be more effective. A lighter tone, perhaps.  Maybe even a humorous one?  I'm imagining that to shed light on the issues of wage slavery in a humorous tone it might be necessary to be somewhat opaque as opposed to outright didacticism... Maybe not.

In line with this thinking, then, I'd like to look at Tom Robbins Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas through a Marxist lens.  Its falls under the rubric of popular culture--so it has the potential to reach a mass public.  It's certainly written in a playful tone, but not without complex theoretical discourse.  And the notion of work--cheating at work, lack of work, the need to work (or not,) compensation for work, and satisfaction with work, or lack thereof--plays a huge role in the theme of the narrative.

For such an analysis, I think I'll use Marx (duh,) Bahktin, Husserl, and Althusser.  Robbins, of course.  Also, I'll search the databases for other work about parody or irony, and/or humor, with regard to Marxism and any literature.  I don't think I'll find much scholarship about Robbins to work with, so I'll have to go with mostly theory for secondary resources.  And I'll find out whether or not I think the Marxist agenda is: 1) actually present in Frog Pajamas; and 2) more palatable given Robbins' tone.

Are We Essentially Performing, Then?

Judith Butler's theory of gender as a social construction constituted by performance of gendered characteristics has been challenged by theorists and activists working on behalf of intersexed individuals, particularly in opposition to the traditional OGR (optimum gender of rearing) model, which held that gender assignment should be surgically accomplished in infancy.  This model was founded on the assumption that children are born with a sort of tabula rasa with regard to gender, and that gender is (or can be) socially constructed, as long as indoctrination begins before the age of about 2. Adherents to the OGR cite the relative scarcity of documented gender switching or homosexuality in adult patients who were surgically assigned at birth as evidence of its success. However, this model is undermined by the testimony of actual intersexed adults, and has been challenged by recent oppositional medical protocol issued by the DSD (disorders of sex development) Coalition.

These thoughts are still incubating, but I think I want to say that even if there are certain biological differences between genders, and that those differences are both intrinsic to sex/sex development and significant in terms of medical prognosis for the treatment of disorders of sex development--even if those things hold true--this fact does not undermine the performative aspects of gender identity.  Science, particularly molecular biology, proves that there are innate biological differences between the sexes .  Yet even in the field of molecular biology, concessions are made for external and environmental contributors to the expression of genetic differences (Rosario).  I find it difficult to accept that there is no culturally constructed performance of characteristics that recursively inscribe and express gender (Butler).

Works Cited:

Butler, Judith. "Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions." The Judith Butler Reader. Ed. Judith Butler and Sara Salih. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2004. 90-118. Print.

Rosario, Vernon A. "Quantum Sex: Intersex and the Molecular Deconstruction of Sex." GLQ: of Lesbian and Gay Studies 15.2 (2009): 267-84. Project Muse. Web.

Pathologies of Sex and Gender

Photographed here is Del LaGrace Volcano, who identifies "hermself" as intersex--neither male, nor female.  Herm was born female, but upon puberty began to develop sexually ambiguous characteristics, including uneven breast development, masculine musculature, and male-patterned facial and body hair. Herm has not had gender reassignment.

Volcano is well known in the Queer community for herm's photojournalism.  Herm's work may be found online at: http://www.dellagracevolcano.com/

In the introductory volume of The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault explores the ways in which (so-called) “deviant” sexuality has been historically criminalized, pathologized, and demonized. This text is commonly considered as foundational to contemporary Queer Theory, and it is certainly groundbreaking and pivotal in terms of exploring alternative manifestations of sexuality and sensuality in the field of Queer studies.  However, Foucault’s text has implications beyond sexuality for people of clinically ambiguous gender—historically known as hermaphrodite, intersex, and most recently reclassified in the DSM-IV as “disorders of sex development”.

As Foucault himself relates, people of ambiguous gender signify deviance of sexuality in the common imaginary. And during the historical period when sexuality was becoming inscribed as representative of the order of society—and deviance regulated by legal policy—the treatment of ambiguous sexuality was telling.  “For a long time,” Foucault observes, “hermaphrodites were criminals, or crime’s offspring, since their anatomic disposition, their very being, confounded the law that distinguished the sexes and prescribed their union” (893).  This ostensibly “natural” law was interpreted and enforced in Christian terms via sexuality’s generative, or reproductive capacity.  In this way, the policing of sexuality can be seen as intersecting with a capitalist agenda, insofar is the control of sexuality both regulates and channels excessive public energies toward productive avenues and reproduces and increases labor power (Foucault 894).

However, in America, where the mythologies of freedom and tolerance hold sway, particularly in the late 20^th century and beyond, the legal censure of sexual practice has diminishing authority.  Accordingly, sexual deviance is pathologized as mental illness or even chromosomal abnormality.  In Foucault’s construction, the medicalization of sexuality is a form of power and, while it may be construed as sympathetic, medicalization (as opposed to criminalization) does NOT imply acceptance.  Furthermore, medical pathology has slippery slope implications that could turn toward things like selective termination (chromosomal eugenics.)

All of this history is particularly relevant to the recent reclassification of intersex individuals as patients suffering from “disorders of sex development”.  From a theoretical standpoint, this reclassification is disturbing—stigmatizing and perhaps a backward step in terms of sociological integration of “deviant” individuals.  However, from a more pragmatic (and experiential) standpoint, this reclassification portends an innovation in terms of the medical treatment of intersex people: specifically with regard to gender assignment, hormonal replacement therapy, and cosmetic surgical procedures.  This debate merits further investigation.

Works Cited:

Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, An Introduction. Vol. 1. New York: Vintage, 1990. Print.

Volcano, Del LaGrace. "Del LaGrace Volcano--Intersex Artist/Activist." Web. . 

Monopoly Capitalism, the American Dream, and Class Consciousness

Factory farming today isn’t the only way in which our current climate resembles the world Sinclair portrays in The Jungle. Today’s monopoly capitalism, dominated by transnational corporations, makes wage-slaves out of a vast population of workers, worldwide. This is complicated by the prevailing rhetoric that continues to convince the majority of Americans of the mythology of the American Dream. Moreover, rhetorics of tolerance and equality—regarding such issues as religion, gender, and race—complicate the discourse so that the actual conditions of labor are obscured.

In The Jungle, Sinclair uses Jurgis and Ona and their extended family as a kind of synecdoche for an entire population of wage-slaves—at the time, the majority of them were immigrants. The entire family, and particularly Jurgis, are necessarily drawn in a sympathetic light in order to elicit public sympathy for their plight.  Their faults, then, are perceived as inevitable response to their lives.  Jurgis's drinking and violence, for example, can be interpreted as an escapist reaction to Ona's rape by Phil Connor, and especially to Antanas death.  Marija's prostitution is perhaps even more forgivable, being as her value as a laborer in the factory couldn't possibly support the family with Jurgis absent.  Her drug addiction is a critique of management and its control over labor.  Moreover, it symbolizes the bound-ness of Marija's labor as a wage-slave.

Packingtown symbolizes the horrific working conditions; the idea of the jungle represents the sort of social Darwinism inherent in any capitalist system where “the mass of the people were always in a life-and-death struggle with poverty. That was ‘competition,’ so far as it concerned the wage earner, the man who had only his labor to sell; to those on top, the exploiters, it appeared very differently, of course—there were few of them, and they could combine and dominate, and their power would be unbreakable” (357).   The fact that Jurgis is sent to jail for his violence against Phil Connor, and also the system of "mortaging" slumhouses, are both symptomatic of a larger corruption that Sinclair sees in the capitalist economy.

Through the rhetoric of socialism, however, Sinclair means to make it clear that if workers were to combine that they, too, could dominate. As Ostrinski explains the socialist movement to Jurgis, Sinclair distributes socialist propaganda to the reader.  This objective provides the exigence for drawing Jurgis and his family is such a pathetic yet sympathetic light.  Sinclair's rhetoric suggests that the control of the means of production is undermined when there is no labor to accomplish that production.  Were this rhetoric to be successful in communicating to the masses, then they may realize the implicit necessity for a vast underclass to serve as labor in the capitalist system in order to generate the surplus value that enables profit. Were this rhetoric successful, the majority of American wage-slaves who read The Jungle might, as Jurgis does, recognize the value in labor coalition.

However, it seems that the opposite has occurred, as demonstrated by Barbara Ehrenreich’s 2001 expose Nickel and Dimed, an undercover journalistic exploration of the lives of the American working poor, arguing the idea that it is virtually impossible to survive in America by working for a minimum wage. Socialist rhetoric has been denigrated in the eyes of the typical American citizen—many of whom still live as laborers bound by the shackles of wage-slavery. Labor unions have been systematically stripped of negotiating power while popular opinion has turned against the notion of coalition. And the typical American citizen still lacks “class consciousness”.

Works Cited:

Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed: on (Not) Getting by in America. New York: Metropolitan, 2001. Print.

Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. Cambridge, Mass.: R. Bentley, 1971. Print.