My Maslow is struggling

I imagine anyone who is somehow reading this blog knows what that title is alluding to (and I had something like 60 readers of my last post so "hi?"  I don't know if that clicking is mostly bots or friends who find me through social media or one person clicking reload 50 times or what. I am mostly just writing to figure out what I need to say, what needs to be posted, thinking about thinkin'. And right now, I'm thinking about bad stuff. 

Today, my Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is struggling. If you don't know, the basic details are that we need safety and food and friends and belonging before we can reach that top of the pyramid to self- actualization. The higher-order thinking things we need have to be grounded in the physical, the core of life that generations before us often had to fight to have. In the 1990s, in many of my English classes, we would talk about women writers not really being supported throughout history because they were the mad artists supporting the bottom of that pyramid for their families, and they didn't have time to do the tippy-top creative bits. It seemed, in that golden nostalgia for the past now kind of way, like a thing that was firmly in the past, and we were just headed into a great future where our rights to be actual human beings were guaranteed (you know. simply being a woman wasn't in question as to the rights. Don't even start thinking about intersectional issues yet cause those have been thrown even further out the window nowadays. Cue nervously hysterical laughter.) 

Last week, my students wrote an in-class essay detailing their favorite (or at least an important to them) song. It was a diagnostic essay to see where I needed to meet them and what they needed me to teach that they ought to already know. A pretty basic assignment for college students in their second writing and comp class and one that should be easy, and I can then move on to teaching them to write about literature.

I need to finish grading those today, and for the most part, they are quick grades, not a lot of comments needed. They will get the chance to make them better, revise and resubmit. I've gotten some pretty cool essays and am probably close to half done right now. I'll get them as done as I can. This is the English teacher's weekend battle, and I'm trying to be faster with it this semester. I always try. 

But I'm struggling. I'm struggling to see how to proceed with these discussions of literature, of writing essays, because right at this moment, the world that we live in doesn't promise those bottom levels of that triangle. In fact, there are people actively engaged in tearing every bit of those safeguards apart, and that poem that is supposed to be about a time firmly in the past is absolutely more relevant than I want it to be. 

I know all the arguments about art and critical thinking being important during hard times. I do. But empathy is absolutely NOT a sin, in spite of some people who try to argue that. And my empathy is all full up right now. So full it hurts. 

And so. What to do when you are a teacher who has to step into a classroom filled with young people who didn't get to have those 1990s classrooms where everything seemed to be moving into a better, more helpful, progressive world?  I will add that honestly, most of my bottom bases of the Maslow triangle are going to be okay as long as things don't go full apocalypse (which honestly, doesn't feel all that promising either at this moment.) But for a lot of people, already, that triangle is already smashed. And that hurts, too. 

And boy, for the people who are still saying, "you're overreacting." 

I think you're actually under-reacting. There's a story about how Emerson (19th century philosopher) went to visit Thoreau when he was put in jail for not paying his taxes as a protest against slavery. Emerson supposedly said "Henry, why are you in there?" And Thoreau said "why aren't you in here with me?" (Paraphrasing something that might not have really happened but is a good enough story anyway). 

We will all get to a point where we get it. And unfortunately, I think my own awakening was not nearly soon enough and some people were for sure there way before me even (like-- those 90s weren't as rosy as I like to think they were for a lot of people.)  But. 

Either some people out there are under-reacting to what's happening in the world right now, OR you like the way it's going, and if that's the case, then I'm not sure why you're reading my blog. 

Links: 

Elon Musk May Have Your Social Security Number  an article that explains what I'm making a fuss about.

An article about the unelected, young men that are making this coup happen is here. Honestly, they likely don't even realize what they're doing, and will be scapegoats regardless when this is all sorted. 

The Alt National Parks folks on BlueSky.  

Rebecca Hains, who writes about these issues.

Rebecca Solnit's new newsletter. 

Heather Cox Richardson on FB. A  historian who is reporting widely and with context about the government in the US. This might be a link that has to be updated but as of today, it's fine. 

How to prep a "go bag" so you can leave an unsafe location. This is for weather emergencies and this one is also for tr@ns people, but it applies to anyone who might feel singled out, so you might update it based on other kinds, but think about it now, before you need it. 

And how all of this ties right into the Project2025 plan that we warned people about before the election.