Starting From Stockton

During the recent nail-biting , sleep-depriving weeks when the fate of American democracy was in hanging-chad-like balance , no one had the luxury of time to think about policy .
But with Joe Biden now the declared winner , it ’ s timely to consider which items on his 100-day “ to-do ” agenda have a realistic chance of passage .
Although one might wish it otherwise , ambitious proposals like the Green New Deal may now be DOA .
Initiatives that can claim bipartisan support have the best shot , especially with the Great Compromiser in the White House @ @ @ @ @ @ @ last spring , Missouri Senator Josh Hawley—a Republican lawmaker with impeccable conservative credentials and presidential aspirations—proposed that the federal government pay 80 percent of workers ’ wages , up to the national median wage , for the duration of the economic meltdown .
With 31 million people not working or working less than they would like , the economy needs a booster shot .
A no-strings-attached cash transfer , while not a solution , is a smart start .
Meanwhile , big-city mayors are showing the way .
A guaranteed income is not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bruited it 500 years ago , and its advocates have run the ideological gamut from market-focused economist Milton Friedman to Martin Luther King Jr. Several pilot experiments were conducted in the United States and Canada during the 1970s .
Alaska has had its own form of guaranteed income for decades , cutting residents checks from oil industry profits , and the Cherokee Nation distributes gambling revenues to its members .
Critics believe that recipients of a minimum income will become loafers .
“ The best way out of poverty is something called a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ premier of Ontario , justifying his 2019 cancellation of a UBI experiment .
But a review of 16 trial programs worldwide shows just the opposite—the beneficiaries actually worked more .
The additional money makes them feel more economically secure .
It is a hand up , not a handout .
Now all eyes are on Stockton , Calif. , where a basic income experiment is showing promising results .
Stockton looks like an unlikely place to find answers to anything .
In 2011 , Forbes dubbed it America ’ s most miserable city—rightly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than Chicago ’ s .
The unemployment rate ranked among the nation ’ s 10 worst .
The city was the country ’ s foreclosure capital and it was the biggest US city , before Detroit , to declare bankruptcy .
But since Stockton emerged from bankruptcy in 2015 , fiscal prudence has become the new normal .
Truth in Accounting , a budgetary watchdog , ranks it the nation ’ s sixth most fiscally healthy municipality .
Homicide is down 40 percent .
The police department replaced zero-tolerance with a truth-and-reconciliation process @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
A new state university is on the drawing boards .
Before the coronavirus hit , unemployment had been halved—and housing prices were up more than 50 percent .
Meanwhile , the city has branded itself as an urban innovation laboratory .
“ Our will to try out bold ideas and our commitment to people-centered policies has positioned Stockton as ground zero on the equity front , ” Michael Tubbs , the whirlwind 30-year-old mayor who spearheaded these experiments , told me .
The city is testing a number of promising initiatives , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leave gun violence behind and a college scholarship scheme , Stockton Scholars , whose goal is to triple the number of high school graduates who enroll in college .
The jewel in the crown is the city ’ s guaranteed income experiment .
The Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration , or SEED , began in February 2019 , with 125 randomly selected residents from the city ’ s poorest neighborhood receiving $ 500 , no strings attached , every month for 18 months ( subsequently extended to February 2021 , to help the recipients @ @ @ @ @ @ @ number were assigned to a control group .
Funding for the $ 3 million demonstration project comes mainly from the Economic Security Fund , cofounded by Facebook cofounder Chris Hughes , which promotes guaranteed income as a linchpin of the economic justice agenda and sees the Stockton experiment as a way to draw national attention .
Difficulties in getting the program off the ground showed that the legacy of distrust runs high .
Some recipients had to be convinced , with hand-signed letters from the mayor and door-to-door conversations , that this wasn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ devised by ICE to round up undocumented immigrants .
For many of the beneficiaries , SEED has proven to be a game-changer .
Data on an online dashboard indicates that the program is accomplishing its purpose—it is keeping people afloat and changing lives .
“ Research showed us that many Americans were a $ 400 emergency away from financial ruin , ” Tubbs said , explaining how this amount was determined .
“ If that was enough to break someone , $ 500 was enough to keep them out of poverty.
” The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ participant ’ s income .
“ You couldn ’ t have anticipated the incredibly wide range of things that people are doing , ” said Sukhi Samra , SEED ’ s director .
“ People put extra food on the table .
People moved .
People worried a little less .
One woman used the money to buy dentures .
One mom bought her daughter a pair of shoes for her birthday , free from worry about whether she could afford it .
For her , that purchase was about feeling like a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Some participants have cut back on working second and third jobs , giving them the precious gift of time to spend with their families and friends .
Less than 1 percent has been spent on tobacco and alcohol .
The researchers , whose final report will be released next year , did not helicopter in , metrics in hand and publication in a peer-reviewed journal on their minds .
“ We believe in doing research with the people , not for the people , ” said University of Pennsylvania professor Amy Castro @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , we workshopped with Stockton Scholars and community groups that know poverty firsthand .
‘ What needs to be on here ?
—your voice counts.
’ ” Message received : “ The residents feel like their voices and opinions matter , ” noted Pandora Crowder , president of the Conway Homes Resident Council , a major player in Stockton politics .
“ We were able to help with the dashboard that the nation is looking at and using as a template to try and implement similar programs in cities across the United States.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ its time talking with the participants .
“ Human contact is a rarity for poor families , ” Samra said .
“ The opportunity to share stories , to feel heard is huge incentive.
” Researchers often have a hard time keeping control group members from dropping out , but that has not been the case in Stockton .
“ It ’ s not just the money—retention for the control group is very high because they ’ re receiving attention .
They feel they have a chance to be involved in something that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all my life , cleaning uniforms at the Oakland Coliseum , ” Laura , the matriarch of her family , told me .
( At their request , I am using only the first names of the people I interviewed . )
She had been laid off , “ fallen on hard times , ” but was embarrassed to ask her family for food .
“ Now I could feed my kids and grandkids—turkey at Thanksgiving , ham at Christmas—gumbo , that ’ s their favorite .
I could pay off bills , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me to survive.
” Tomas was working paycheck to paycheck at a part-time job in the Stockton Metropolitan Airport .
SEED provided the financial cushion he needed to search for a full-time position .
“ I had a real bad past .
When we had all those murders in 2011 , my brother and my closest friend were killed .
After that , I didn ’ t want to be around anyone .
SEED changed me—it has backed me up , given me the time to be a better parent .
It made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Covid time.
” Amid the pandemic , the basic income guarantee became their life raft .
“ I could stockpile essentials , so I was able to stay inside when shelter-in-place took effect , keeping myself and others safe , ” Laura said .
When Covid hit , Tomas lost his job .
“ The money has supported me while I looked for other employment .
I found a great new job—I ’ m a proud parent facilitator , running workshops to help parents learn how to parent kids with trauma.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ income recipients had developed more faith in politicians , the courts , and the police .
They were more confident in their futures—more likely to think that they could make a difference—and happier than their peers .
The implication is plain : people will trust government when government earns their trust .
If they do not have hope , they can ’ t envision an alternate future .
If people believe they don ’ t matter , they withdraw .
The SEED researchers are studying whether those who receive the money are convinced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of society and can count on officials to keep their word .
“ Those things are correlated with health and well-being , and preliminary results look promising , ” said University of Tennessee professor and co-researcher Stacia Martin-West .
“ The people are called to something .
They feel bigger than themselves , ” Tubbs told me .
“ SEED has boosted civic morale .
The programs we ’ ve implemented to address poverty have lowered violent crime rates , increased high school graduation rates and improved materially the lives of Stocktonians .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ solution , not a problem .
Now it ’ s ‘ we should do what Stockton is doing.
’ ” The idea of a guaranteed income is catching on nationwide .
Tubbs , who has become a nationally recognized figure ( a recently released HBO documentary recounts his personal story ) , has launched Mayors for a Guaranteed Income .
Los Angeles ’ s Eric Garcetti , Atlanta ’ s Keisha Lance Bottoms , and Newark , N.J. ’ s Ras Baraka are among the city leaders on board .
With Tubbs leading @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mayors adopted a resolution urging that “ cities , states , and the federal government to explore the feasibility of a guaranteed income ” in response to how “ COVID-19 has shed light on economic insecurity and exposed the vulnerability of our current welfare system.
” Popular support is also growing .
In online studies conducted by Stanford ’ s Gregory Walton and several colleagues last spring , as many as 75 percent of those polled favored a guaranteed income , compared to 55 percent before the coronavirus hit .
“ Covid-19 is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the recession , ” Amy Castro Baker told me .
“ This gives us a chance to rectify that .
Now we have bipartisan support for the idea that all Americans living paycheck to paycheck need cash transfer.
” “ Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change , ” Milton Friedman once observed .
“ When that crisis occurs , the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around .
The politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.
” Could this be the right moment and guaranteed income one of @ @ @

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During the recent nail-biting, sleep-depriving weeks when the fate of American democracy was in hanging-chad-like balance, no one had the luxury of time to think about policy.
But with Joe Biden now the declared winner, it’s timely to consider which items on his 100-day “to-do” agenda have a realistic chance of passage. Although one might wish it otherwise, ambitious proposals like the Green New Deal may now be DOA. Initiatives that can claim bipartisan support have the best shot, especially with the Great Compromiser in the White House.
Guaranteed basic income belongs on this list.
In a Washington Post opinion piece last spring, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley—a Republican lawmaker with impeccable conservative credentials and presidential aspirations—proposed that the federal government pay 80 percent of workers’ wages, up to the national median wage, for the duration of the economic meltdown.
With 31 million people not working or working less than they would like, the economy needs a booster shot. A no-strings-attached cash transfer, while not a solution, is a smart start. Meanwhile, big-city mayors are showing the way.
A guaranteed income is not a new idea. Thomas More first bruited it 500 years ago, and its advocates have run the ideological gamut from market-focused economist Milton Friedman to Martin Luther King Jr. Several pilot experiments were conducted in the United States and Canada during the 1970s. Alaska has had its own form of guaranteed income for decades, cutting residents checks from oil industry profits, and the Cherokee Nation distributes gambling revenues to its members.
Critics believe that recipients of a minimum income will become loafers. “The best way out of poverty is something called a job,” insisted Doug Ford, premier of Ontario, justifying his 2019 cancellation of a UBI experiment. But a review of 16 trial programs worldwide shows just the opposite—the beneficiaries actually worked more. The additional money makes them feel more economically secure. It is a hand up, not a handout. Current Issue View our current issue
Now all eyes are on Stockton, Calif., where a basic income experiment is showing promising results. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
Stockton looks like an unlikely place to find answers to anything. In 2011, Forbes dubbed it America’s most miserable city—rightly so. The murder rate was higher than Chicago’s. The unemployment rate ranked among the nation’s 10 worst. The city was the country’s foreclosure capital and it was the biggest US city, before Detroit, to declare bankruptcy.
But since Stockton emerged from bankruptcy in 2015, fiscal prudence has become the new normal. Truth in Accounting, a budgetary watchdog, ranks it the nation’s sixth most fiscally healthy municipality. Homicide is down 40 percent. The police department replaced zero-tolerance with a truth-and-reconciliation process designed to restore confidence in law enforcement. A new state university is on the drawing boards. Before the coronavirus hit, unemployment had been halved—and housing prices were up more than 50 percent.
Meanwhile, the city has branded itself as an urban innovation laboratory. “Our will to try out bold ideas and our commitment to people-centered policies has positioned Stockton as ground zero on the equity front,” Michael Tubbs, the whirlwind 30-year-old mayor who spearheaded these experiments, told me. The city is testing a number of promising initiatives, including a program to help young men leave gun violence behind and a college scholarship scheme, Stockton Scholars, whose goal is to triple the number of high school graduates who enroll in college.
The jewel in the crown is the city’s guaranteed income experiment.
The Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration, or SEED, began in February 2019, with 125 randomly selected residents from the city’s poorest neighborhood receiving $500, no strings attached, every month for 18 months (subsequently extended to February 2021, to help the recipients weather the coronavirus). An equal number were assigned to a control group. Funding for the $3 million demonstration project comes mainly from the Economic Security Fund, cofounded by Facebook cofounder Chris Hughes, which promotes guaranteed income as a linchpin of the economic justice agenda and sees the Stockton experiment as a way to draw national attention.
Difficulties in getting the program off the ground showed that the legacy of distrust runs high. Some recipients had to be convinced, with hand-signed letters from the mayor and door-to-door conversations, that this wasn’t a scam or a ruse devised by ICE to round up undocumented immigrants.
For many of the beneficiaries, SEED has proven to be a game-changer. Data on an online dashboard indicates that the program is accomplishing its purpose—it is keeping people afloat and changing lives. “Research showed us that many Americans were a $400 emergency away from financial ruin,” Tubbs said, explaining how this amount was determined. “If that was enough to break someone, $500 was enough to keep them out of poverty.”
The money represents 30 percent of the typical participant’s income. “You couldn’t have anticipated the incredibly wide range of things that people are doing,” said Sukhi Samra, SEED’s director. “People put extra food on the table. People moved. People worried a little less. One woman used the money to buy dentures. One mom bought her daughter a pair of shoes for her birthday, free from worry about whether she could afford it. For her, that purchase was about feeling like a good parent who provides for her child.” Some participants have cut back on working second and third jobs, giving them the precious gift of time to spend with their families and friends. Less than 1 percent has been spent on tobacco and alcohol.
The researchers, whose final report will be released next year, did not helicopter in, metrics in hand and publication in a peer-reviewed journal on their minds. “We believe in doing research with the people, not for the people,” said University of Pennsylvania professor Amy Castro Baker. “In designing the dashboard, we workshopped with Stockton Scholars and community groups that know poverty firsthand. ‘What needs to be on here?—your voice counts.’”
Message received: “The residents feel like their voices and opinions matter,” noted Pandora Crowder, president of the Conway Homes Resident Council, a major player in Stockton politics. “We were able to help with the dashboard that the nation is looking at and using as a template to try and implement similar programs in cities across the United States.”
The SEED staff spends much of its time talking with the participants. “Human contact is a rarity for poor families,” Samra said. “The opportunity to share stories, to feel heard is huge incentive.” Researchers often have a hard time keeping control group members from dropping out, but that has not been the case in Stockton. “It’s not just the money—retention for the control group is very high because they’re receiving attention. They feel they have a chance to be involved in something that’s important.”
“I worked all my life, cleaning uniforms at the Oakland Coliseum,” Laura, the matriarch of her family, told me. (At their request, I am using only the first names of the people I interviewed.) She had been laid off, “fallen on hard times,” but was embarrassed to ask her family for food. “Now I could feed my kids and grandkids—turkey at Thanksgiving, ham at Christmas—gumbo, that’s their favorite. I could pay off bills, pay for my car. SEED helped me to survive.”
Tomas was working paycheck to paycheck at a part-time job in the Stockton Metropolitan Airport. SEED provided the financial cushion he needed to search for a full-time position. “I had a real bad past. When we had all those murders in 2011, my brother and my closest friend were killed. After that, I didn’t want to be around anyone. SEED changed me—it has backed me up, given me the time to be a better parent. It made me look at the positive, even in Covid time.”
Amid the pandemic, the basic income guarantee became their life raft. “I could stockpile essentials, so I was able to stay inside when shelter-in-place took effect, keeping myself and others safe,” Laura said. When Covid hit, Tomas lost his job. “The money has supported me while I looked for other employment. I found a great new job—I’m a proud parent facilitator, running workshops to help parents learn how to parent kids with trauma.”
An experiment in Finland concluded that guaranteed income recipients had developed more faith in politicians, the courts, and the police. They were more confident in their futures—more likely to think that they could make a difference—and happier than their peers. The implication is plain: people will trust government when government earns their trust. If they do not have hope, they can’t envision an alternate future. If people believe they don’t matter, they withdraw.
The SEED researchers are studying whether those who receive the money are convinced that they have become more valued members of society and can count on officials to keep their word. “Those things are correlated with health and well-being, and preliminary results look promising,” said University of Tennessee professor and co-researcher Stacia Martin-West.
“The people are called to something. They feel bigger than themselves,” Tubbs told me. “SEED has boosted civic morale. The programs we’ve implemented to address poverty have lowered violent crime rates, increased high school graduation rates and improved materially the lives of Stocktonians. People are looking at us as a solution, not a problem. Now it’s ‘we should do what Stockton is doing.’”
The idea of a guaranteed income is catching on nationwide. Tubbs, who has become a nationally recognized figure (a recently released HBO documentary recounts his personal story), has launched Mayors for a Guaranteed Income. Los Angeles’s Eric Garcetti, Atlanta’s Keisha Lance Bottoms, and Newark, N.J.’s Ras Baraka are among the city leaders on board. With Tubbs leading the charge, the US Conference of Mayors adopted a resolution urging that “cities, states, and the federal government to explore the feasibility of a guaranteed income” in response to how “COVID-19 has shed light on economic insecurity and exposed the vulnerability of our current welfare system.”
Popular support is also growing. In online studies conducted by Stanford’s Gregory Walton and several colleagues last spring, as many as 75 percent of those polled favored a guaranteed income, compared to 55 percent before the coronavirus hit.
“Covid-19 is exposing fractures that have been there since the recession,” Amy Castro Baker told me. “This gives us a chance to rectify that. Now we have bipartisan support for the idea that all Americans living paycheck to paycheck need cash transfer.”
“Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change,” Milton Friedman once observed. “When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. The politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.” Could this be the right moment and guaranteed income one of those ideas?


thenation--2020-11-17--There Is a Name for Women Like My Mother

The ongoing struggle for racial justice .
The future for immigrant families .
The health and well-being of all Americans .
The very fate of our fragile planet .
The United States faces a crossroads in 2020 .
Seeking out the stories flying under the national radar , The Nation and Magnum Foundation are partnering on What ’ s At Stake , a series of photo essays from across the country through the lenses of independent imagemakers .
Follow the whole series here .
This installment was produced with support from the Economic Hardship Reporting Project .
My mother was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she walked , took very purposeful steps , and walked with power .
She took up space .
She was always dressed to the nines—as a Haitian woman , that was almost an obligation .
Smart dress , smart shoes , a hat if she felt like it , no matter where she went she looked good and smelled good .
Not that I always felt that way towards her when I was younger : As an immigrant to the United States , my mother had fought for her family , fronted the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and go through the immigration process ( she was the second oldest of 16 siblings ) , worked to raise her children , but as a child I still felt embarrassed at times of her accent and the way she could stumble over certain English words .
That comes with taking up space : If you stand out , it lets people see you , and some people won ’ t like what they see .
My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was in the fourth grade .
She went @ @ @ @ @ @ @ surgically removed .
The hospital gave her a wig and a pocketed , ivory-colored bra—the bra for her mastectomy , the wig for her hair loss .
The treatment was hard on her ; she seemed to always be struggling to breathe , and she had a hard time going up and down stairs .
But what I remember most about that summer was how confident my mother remained throughout the ordeal , how she insisted on living on her own terms .
I recall one day in particular , I was walking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t wear her new wig or the pocketed bra .
She was braless that day , wearing high-waisted shorts and a white , buttoned vest with a deep V-neck that made the surgical scars on her left breast easily visible—she looked great .
Confident in her gait , swaying and stepping one foot after the other , she was living on her own terms .
Even in death , she took up space : At her funeral , when I was 10 , the hearse carrying her body drove for what felt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that showed up to see my mother off made the rural Pennsylvania roads seem like an expressway during rush hour .
The cars stretched off into the distance .
I didn ’ t know that my mother knew so many people .
I wasn ’ t aware of how much of a community she had built around her in her adopted country .
There is a name in the Haitian Creole language for women like my mother : “ Gwo Fanm.
” Literally , “ Big Woman , ” a Gwo Fanm is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and stands up for the ones they love .
But a Gwo Fanm is also a woman who takes more than their fair share of the slings and arrows this world throws at them , absorbs hurt and pain that could crush less resilient or determined people .
A lot of the women in my family are Gwo Fanm , women who have shouldered burdens beyond most people ’ s imaginings .
In middle school , my aunt was a street vendor , and on my way home on the school bus , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ laugh at her for selling socks .
My grandmother followed her daughter to the United States , went through the tortuous immigration process for 20 years , but died before she was able to sponsor the rest of her family to come here .
These experiences left scars both physical and emotional that didn ’ t fade over time .
I recently found a photo album my mother kept .
I had never seen photos of her when she was young , I had never seen what she looked like when she was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I wondered what lessons she would have imparted to me about all the challenges I have faced since she passed away , what advice she would have given me to help me see that there is a way out of the confusion and disorientation I sometimes feel .
How did she navigate what I now face ?
This project is about these Gwo Fanm , and about my own role in my family ’ s story .
When I told my godmother that I wanted to become a photographer , she jokingly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ go to Haiti , be like all the other journalists and photograph just the bad stuff ?
” This is every Haitian immigrant ’ s story : We are here in America and all we see in the news is a grim representation of the home we know and love .
It ’ s no surprise that people like my godmother look down on photographers—they tend to only show what America wants to see .
Part of what drives me as a photographer is to show a fuller picture of the Haitian experience @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Haitian American .
So much of the immigrant experience is one of loss , loss of the community they leave behind , loss of the history in their home country .
By creating these photos of the women in my family , and reclaiming the images they made during their lifetimes , I hope to forestall this loss , to show the purpose and honor that defined their lives , and to actively create a new narrative for my generation .

This article appears in the December 14/21, 2020 issue.
The ongoing struggle for racial justice. The future for immigrant families. The health and well-being of all Americans. The very fate of our fragile planet. The United States faces a crossroads in 2020. Seeking out the stories flying under the national radar, The Nation and Magnum Foundation are partnering on What’s At Stake, a series of photo essays from across the country through the lenses of independent imagemakers. Follow the whole series here. This installment was produced with support from the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.
My mother was a heavy-set woman. She swayed as she walked, took very purposeful steps, and walked with power. She took up space.
She was always dressed to the nines—as a Haitian woman, that was almost an obligation. Smart dress, smart shoes, a hat if she felt like it, no matter where she went she looked good and smelled good. Not that I always felt that way towards her when I was younger: As an immigrant to the United States, my mother had fought for her family, fronted the cost for countless relatives to come here and go through the immigration process (she was the second oldest of 16 siblings), worked hard to raise her children, but as a child I still felt embarrassed at times of her accent and the way she could stumble over certain English words. That comes with taking up space: If you stand out, it lets people see you, and some people won’t like what they see.
My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was in the fourth grade. She went through chemotherapy and had her left breast surgically removed. The hospital gave her a wig and a pocketed, ivory-colored bra—the bra for her mastectomy, the wig for her hair loss. The treatment was hard on her; she seemed to always be struggling to breathe, and she had a hard time going up and down stairs. But what I remember most about that summer was how confident my mother remained throughout the ordeal, how she insisted on living on her own terms. I recall one day in particular, I was walking behind her, wondering why she didn’t wear her new wig or the pocketed bra. She was braless that day, wearing high-waisted shorts and a white, buttoned vest with a deep V-neck that made the surgical scars on her left breast easily visible—she looked great. Confident in her gait, swaying and stepping one foot after the other, she was living on her own terms.
Even in death, she took up space: At her funeral, when I was 10, the hearse carrying her body drove for what felt like hours. The number of people that showed up to see my mother off made the rural Pennsylvania roads seem like an expressway during rush hour. The cars stretched off into the distance. I didn’t know that my mother knew so many people. I wasn’t aware of how much of a community she had built around her in her adopted country.
There is a name in the Haitian Creole language for women like my mother: “Gwo Fanm.” Literally, “Big Woman,” a Gwo Fanm is a woman who stands out in life and stands up for the ones they love. But a Gwo Fanm is also a woman who takes more than their fair share of the slings and arrows this world throws at them, absorbs hurt and pain that could crush less resilient or determined people. A lot of the women in my family are Gwo Fanm, women who have shouldered burdens beyond most people’s imaginings. In middle school, my aunt was a street vendor, and on my way home on the school bus, kids would point out the window and laugh at her for selling socks. My grandmother followed her daughter to the United States, went through the tortuous immigration process for 20 years, but died before she was able to sponsor the rest of her family to come here. These experiences left scars both physical and emotional that didn’t fade over time.
I recently found a photo album my mother kept. I had never seen photos of her when she was young, I had never seen what she looked like when she was my age. Looking at the photos, I wondered what lessons she would have imparted to me about all the challenges I have faced since she passed away, what advice she would have given me to help me see that there is a way out of the confusion and disorientation I sometimes feel. How did she navigate what I now face?
Found image of my mother when she was young. (Naomieh Jovin)
Manipulated image of my uncle and his wife. (Naomieh Jovin)
Not too long ago, I found this image of my aunt—on the back she had written a breakup letter to her lover: “Life is a flower and a blow. Very often right next to joy, pleasure, and laughter, there is always tears and sorrow that brings ugliness and darkness to our existence. Because life is made of separation, I must bend myself to the laws of nature.” (Naomieh Jovin)
This project is about these Gwo Fanm, and about my own role in my family’s story. When I told my godmother that I wanted to become a photographer, she jokingly asked me, “So you can go to Haiti, be like all the other journalists and photograph just the bad stuff?” This is every Haitian immigrant’s story: We are here in America and all we see in the news is a grim representation of the home we know and love. It’s no surprise that people like my godmother look down on photographers—they tend to only show what America wants to see. Part of what drives me as a photographer is to show a fuller picture of the Haitian experience, or at least my experience as a Haitian American.
So much of the immigrant experience is one of loss, loss of the community they leave behind, loss of the history in their home country. By creating these photos of the women in my family, and reclaiming the images they made during their lifetimes, I hope to forestall this loss, to show the purpose and honor that defined their lives, and to actively create a new narrative for my generation.


thenation--2020-11-17--Letters From the November 11/December 7, 2020, Issue

Re “ At Liberalism ’ s Crossroads ” [ October 19/26 ] , Jeet Heer ’ s review of Richard Hofstadter : Anti-Intellectualism in American Life , The Paranoid Style in American Politics , Uncollected Essays 1956–1965 , edited by Sean Wilentz for the Library of America series : Heer takes the collection to task for ignoring Hofstadter ’ s earlier and , in Heer ’ s view , more radical work , arguing that it offers a purposefully skewed account of Hofstadter ’ s thought and career .
Readers of The Nation should know that the volume is the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The next volume , also edited by Wilentz , will gather Social Darwinism in American Life and The American Political Tradition , which Heer singles out for praise , along with The Age of Reform and Hofstadter ’ s uncollected essays from 1938 through 1955 .
Max Rudin President and Publisher , Library of America new york city Jeet Heer ’ s essay on Richard Hofstadter offers an important and timely critique of the historian ’ s work from the 1950s and ’ 60s .
Equally impressive is his characterization of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and his suggestion that Hofstadter ’ s critique of the Progressive historians might have been enriched by an engagement with Gramsci ’ s theory of “ cultural hegemony.
” That said , I believe Heer is mistaken in arguing that in middle age , Hofstadter somehow betrayed a youthful faith in social movements .
The Hofstadter who wrote The American Political Tradition was a left pessimist—that is , he advanced a critique of modern capitalism and US political ideology shorn of any hope that the people would rise in some revolutionary movement for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remains suspect among those who believe politically engaged intellectual work should consist largely of cheerleading .
Of course , one can trace a through line from that position to the elite anti-populist liberalism of his later writings , but that ’ s a more complex—and to my mind , more interesting—story than one that contrasts a “ good ” Popular Frontist Hofstadter with a “ bad ” Cold War liberal Hofstadter .
Casey N. Blake Director , Center for American Studies , Columbia University new york city I thank Casey Blake for his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mean to suggest there was ever a Popular Frontist Hofstadter .
Even during his brief membership in the Communist Party , his position is aptly described as left pessimism .
Our disagreement is that I think the left pessimist Hofstadter was still open to the possibility of radical agitation as a force for positive change .
Hence the approving portrayal of the abolitionist and socialist Wendell Phillips in The American Political Tradition .
For this reason , I ’ d insist Hofstadter ’ s shift from left pessimism to anti-populism was marked by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a crucial way , a genuine break .
Jeet Heer regina , saskatchewan

This article appears in the November 30/December 7, 2020 issue.
Hofstadter’s Legacy
Re “At Liberalism’s Crossroads” [October 19/26], Jeet Heer’s review of Richard Hofstadter: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, The Paranoid Style in American Politics, Uncollected Essays 1956–1965, edited by Sean Wilentz for the Library of America series: Heer takes the collection to task for ignoring Hofstadter’s earlier and, in Heer’s view, more radical work, arguing that it offers a purposefully skewed account of Hofstadter’s thought and career. Readers of The Nation should know that the volume is the first in a long-planned multivolume Hofstadter series. The next volume, also edited by Wilentz, will gather Social Darwinism in American Life and The American Political Tradition, which Heer singles out for praise, along with The Age of Reform and Hofstadter’s uncollected essays from 1938 through 1955.
Max Rudin
President and Publisher, Library of America
new york city
Jeet Heer’s essay on Richard Hofstadter offers an important and timely critique of the historian’s work from the 1950s and ’60s. Equally impressive is his characterization of the author as an “American Gramsci” and his suggestion that Hofstadter’s critique of the Progressive historians might have been enriched by an engagement with Gramsci’s theory of “cultural hegemony.” That said, I believe Heer is mistaken in arguing that in middle age, Hofstadter somehow betrayed a youthful faith in social movements. The Hofstadter who wrote The American Political Tradition was a left pessimist—that is, he advanced a critique of modern capitalism and US political ideology shorn of any hope that the people would rise in some revolutionary movement for their emancipation. That perspective was and remains suspect among those who believe politically engaged intellectual work should consist largely of cheerleading. Of course, one can trace a through line from that position to the elite anti-populist liberalism of his later writings, but that’s a more complex—and to my mind, more interesting—story than one that contrasts a “good” Popular Frontist Hofstadter with a “bad” Cold War liberal Hofstadter.
Casey N. Blake
Director, Center for American Studies, Columbia University
new york city
Heer Responds
I thank Casey Blake for his generous words. I didn’t mean to suggest there was ever a Popular Frontist Hofstadter. Even during his brief membership in the Communist Party, his position is aptly described as left pessimism. Our disagreement is that I think the left pessimist Hofstadter was still open to the possibility of radical agitation as a force for positive change. Hence the approving portrayal of the abolitionist and socialist Wendell Phillips in The American Political Tradition. For this reason, I’d insist Hofstadter’s shift from left pessimism to anti-populism was marked by not just continuity but also, in a crucial way, a genuine break.
Jeet Heer
regina, saskatchewan


thenation--2020-11-17--The Radical Origins of Self-Help Literature

From the 1940s to the ’ 60s , the Onitsha Market in southeastern Nigeria was the center of a burgeoning movement in self-help literature .
Known as Onitsha Market literature , these cheap , locally published booklets were at once moralistic and titillating .
With titles like Why Harlots Hate Married Men and Love Bachelors , How to Avoid Corner Love and Win Good Love From Girls , Money Hard to Get but Easy to Spend , and Drunkards Believe Bar as Heaven , they were sold at market stalls and were intended to appeal to a class of newly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and culturally .
The Self-Help Compulsion : Searching for Advice in Modern Literature Reading for self-improvement was something the British had encouraged in their mission schools , but the advice and moral guidance of the Onitsha Market pamphlets had much in common with the tenets of local folklore traditions .
As Chinua Achebe noted , the pamphlets were in many ways extensions of Hausa folktales and could not be written off , as some critics argued , merely as vestiges of Western influence .
“ I am convinced , ” he wrote , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have begun in Onitsha…the original site of evangelical dialogue between proselytizing Christianity and Igbo religion.
” In her recent book The Self-Help Compulsion , Harvard professor Beth Blum discusses the Onitsha Market pamphlets , among many other examples of self-help literature from around the world , in her effort to offer a more culturally specific and layered reading of the genre .
Many people tend to write off self-help literature as little more than fodder for the worried well-off , and as Blum concedes , there is good reason to do so .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ for self-appointed life coaches , high-priced personal growth seminars , and corporate-sponsored self-care initiatives , the $ 10 billion a year industry can seem to be little more than , as she puts it , “ a force…that fosters privatized solutions to systemic problems.
” But as Blum shows , the genre actually originated in the literature of radical self-improvement societies and the collective do-it-yourself efforts of 19th century British anarchists and socialists .
Long before the publication of Dale Carnegie ’ s How to Win Friends and Influence People and Abigail Van @ @ @ @ @ @ @ columns , working people were reading manifestos like George Jacob Holyoake ’ s 1857 Self-Help by the People , which urged readers to acquire new skills so that they might be of better service to others .
As the genre moved away from these roots and embraced laissez-faire capitalism , Blum writes , it found an increasing number of detractors .
The modernists , in particular , took great pains to distinguish their work from the genre , even mocking its instrumentalism with titles like Ezra Pound ’ s How to Read ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ self-help ’ s faults , Blum wonders whether anything of value has been lost in the growing disdain for a practical literature that seeks to move us toward becoming better versions of ourselves .
The self-help genre , she explains , fosters “ a specific mode of reading ” that values books as tools “ for agency , use , well-being , and self-change ” and that operates well outside academia or the rarefied world of the literati ( in places like the Onitsha Market , for example ) .
While the literature @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has existed as long as the written word , from the Analects of Confucius to the writings of the Stoics , Blum dates the advent of modern self-help to mid-19th-century Britain .
Self-help , she writes , may have reinforced the notion of self-sufficiency , but its impulse toward self-reliance also grew out of radical working-class organizations like labor cooperatives and mutual aid societies .
In these settings , laborers held meetings to discuss ways of bettering themselves and looked to books like Self-Help by the People to learn skills that could benefit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Holyoake grew up in a working-class household in Birmingham , England ; his father was a metalworker and his mother a button-maker .
At an early age , Holyoake embraced the socialism of Robert Owen—who helped inspire Britain ’ s cooperative movement , which sought to establish small workers ’ communes founded on mutual improvement—and composed Self-Help by the People as an instruction manual for workers seeking to set up such cooperatives .
Holyoake was not the only one to formulate these radical visions of collective self-help and mutual aid .
Radical advice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ percolating ” across much of Europe at the time .
In Russia , Nikolai Chernyshevsky ’ s What Is to Be Done ?
( 1863 ) —a book that was read by generations of Russian radicals , including Vladimir Lenin—not only addressed questions of political strategy and tactics but also offered practical information to budding revolutionaries on everything from romantic relationships to how to start a sewing cooperative .
Despite these working-class roots , self-help quickly became associated with the “ aspirational middle classes , ” Blum notes , who were uneasy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Through self-help , they could remake themselves so that their manners , interests , and values reflected those of the aristocracy and helped them retain or advance their class position .
For Blum , the embourgeoisement of self-help books was sparked by a “ convergence of factors , ” from swift advances in mass literacy to the popularity of mail-order self-improvement schemes .
In the United States , in particular , it was furthered by the rise of New Thought , a quasi-religious movement that believed all problems originated in the mind and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
New Thought pitched itself as a mind-healing movement that stressed the power of positive thinking , the law of attraction , and the use of visualization as a means to self-actualization .
Self-help ’ s transformation from a radical genre into one serving the class hierarchy can be traced , Blum writes , to the publication of Samuel Smiles ’ s 1859 Self-Help—an early “ handbook of laissez-faire liberalism ” that she credits with crystallizing the genre as it exists today .
The Scottish-born Smiles spent much of his youthful career working @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chronicle and as an editor at the Leeds Times , where he championed various progressive reforms , from women ’ s suffrage to the implementation of a secret ballot .
In time , however , he came to believe that the most effective way to bring about true reform was at the level of the individual .
He argued that in many cases , poverty was the result of personal failures or weaknesses , such as laziness , profligate spending , and excessive drinking .
By overcoming these vices , Smiles maintained , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A man who devotes himself to [ moneymaking ] , body and soul , can scarcely fail to become rich , ” he wrote , instructing readers to simply “ spend less than you earn ; add guinea to guinea ; scrape and save , and the pile of gold will gradually rise.
” Self-Help became an international best seller and Smiles a veritable celebrity .
He followed its success with yet more tracts : Character ( 1871 ) , Thrift ( 1875 ) , and Duty ( 1880 ) .
Self-Help was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a remedy for the “ success-wary fiction ” of the era , books like Charles Dickens ’ s Great Expectations , which served as a cautionary tale about wealth and ambition .
Smiles encouraged his readers to aspire to those very things , and in the process , he became wealthy himself .
Self-Help sold 20,000 copies in its first year , compared with Great Expectations ’ 3,750 .
As self-help ’ s popularity grew in the late 19th and early 20th centuries , novelists and literary critics of the era took @ @ @ @ @ @ @ encroachment on their readers and seeking to differentiate their probing explorations of human weakness from the new books that promised to cure readers of those frailties .
The modernist mantra of art for art ’ s sake , Blum writes , was in part “ a reaction to the perceived instrumentalism of the increasingly popular self-improvement handbook.
” Modernist writers saw self-help and the related how-to craze as gimmicks that reduced the written word to mere raw material for get-rich-quick schemes .
The instructional titles popular among modernist writers were intended to mock @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Gertrude Stein ’ s How to Write , Pound ’ s ABC of Reading , and Virginia Woolf ’ s “ How Should One Read a Book ?
” all sought not only to defend the primacy of literature but also to expose the simplistic answers that self-help offered for life ’ s big questions .
“ The only advice , indeed , that one person need give another about reading is to take no advice , ” Woolf asserted in her essay .
Some novelists even incorporated the self-help guru—a figure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s early investment in celebrity culture—as a character in their books .
In her novel Twilight Sleep , Edith Wharton introduces us to an inspirational healer named Alvah Loft , the author of the books Spiritual Vacuum Cleaning and Beyond God , who has the novel ’ s protagonist , busy do-gooding socialite Pauline Manford , under his spell .
“ The ongoing joke of the narrative , ” Blum writes , “ is that Mrs. Manford needs a stress reliever to unwind from her numerous relaxation therapies.
” In France , Gustave @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his sardonic Dictionary of Cliché , he derided the very idea of prescription ( one entry reads , “ SELFISHNESS : Complain of other people ’ s ; overlook your own ” ) .
He also satirized self-help ’ s fetishization of simple , pared-down living in his novel Bouvard and Pécuchet , in which two Parisian copy clerks , thanks to a sudden inheritance , pack up their belongings and move to the countryside to devote themselves to self-improvement .
However , far from realizing their dreams , Bouvard and Pécuchet ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , from fruit preservation to craft liquor distillation , merely marks “ the elusive quest for the perfect , purest product , ” Blum writes—one that always ends in failure for the pair .
In this way , Flaubert reminds us that do-it-yourself does not represent a break from the market logic undergirding much of turn-of-the-century French life but rather the sad evidence of its inescapability .
While Bouvard and Pécuchet attempt to master ( without success ) many different fields , true autodidacticism , Blum argues , “ would only be possible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than self-interest , where people ’ s skills are freely developed rather than imposed by the economy as necessary respite from alienated labor.
” Far from reacting to a minor annoyance , authors like Flaubert and Wharton “ defined their styles partly in recoil against self-help ’ s instrumental materialism , ” Blum writes .
Failure , inscrutability , and fragmentation—the qualities that made literary modernism what it was—were in part reactions to self-help , a genre that defined itself as being every bit as simple to read as it was to get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ history of promoting itself as an antidote to intellectual bombast and aesthetic idealism , ” she writes , at the same time , “ serious literature has long defined itself against the instrumental pedantry of popular advice.
” In tracing these moments of friction , Blum stresses the importance of self-help in shaping modernist literature , even if it was as its antagonist .
In her book ’ s final chapters , Blum shifts her attention to the contemporary self-help scene .
The self-improvement business is still booming , she reminds us , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the creative , coworking , gig-based economy shaped and proselytized by Silicon Valley and glamorized by sites like Goop .
( Last year the South by Southwest festival hosted a Wellness Expo , where visitors were encouraged to “ fuel your mind , body , and soul , ” with swag from Lululemon . )
The industry and its acolytes have adopted “ the jargon of well-being , self-optimization , and self-actualization ” and have even taken to using the words of Marcel Proust and Samuel Beckett against them .
“ Fail better @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Beckett meant ironically , has been rebranded as the start-up culture ’ s go-to mantra .
Contemporary novelists and essayists , like their modernist predecessors , have responded in kind to this era of corporate-driven self-care and personal optimization rhetoric with books that borrow from the genre to expose its defects .
Blum points to a group of Asian American writers in particular who have used “ the self-help paradigm to document the traumas and disenchantments of the upward-mobility ethic.
” Alexander Chee ’ s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel , Anelise @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and Charles Yu ’ s How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe , among others , satirize and appropriate elements of the genre to reveal the cruel paradox of self-help in a society where social mobility is ever more elusive .
Blum also cites new works by African American authors like the poet Terrance Hayes ’ s How to Be Drawn and Baratunde Thurston ’ s satirical memoir How to Be Black as similarly incisive uses of the instructional mode to lay bare the “ bad faith of neoliberal choice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yet Blum never answers the question she says she is most often asked : “ But is self-help good or bad ?
” The genre began with a vision of reading as an activity that could lead to social change , and despite its commercial trajectory , it still serves this purpose for some .
Self-help has resonated particularly with women , for whom focusing on the self can be a defiant protest against the self-sacrificing expectations of motherhood , especially in societies without robustly subsidized child care .
Indeed , in its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many people feel they are in need of , well , help .
For Blum , however , the genre ’ s history also reminds us of a different mode of reading .
In trying to distinguish their work from the vulgar practicality of advice literature , many writers have come to see descriptors like “ didactic ” and “ prescriptive ” as markers of aesthetic poverty .
But self-help offers us insight into the real power of literature : that books can and even should help readers remake their world .
As @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no such qualms about its utility .
”

This article appears in the November 30/December 7, 2020 issue.
From the 1940s to the ’60s, the Onitsha Market in southeastern Nigeria was the center of a burgeoning movement in self-help literature. Known as Onitsha Market literature, these cheap, locally published booklets were at once moralistic and titillating. With titles like Why Harlots Hate Married Men and Love Bachelors, How to Avoid Corner Love and Win Good Love From Girls, Money Hard to Get but Easy to Spend, and Drunkards Believe Bar as Heaven, they were sold at market stalls and were intended to appeal to a class of newly literate Nigerians interested in advancing themselves professionally and culturally. Books in Review The Self-Help Compulsion: Searching for Advice in Modern Literature By Beth Blum Buy this book
Reading for self-improvement was something the British had encouraged in their mission schools, but the advice and moral guidance of the Onitsha Market pamphlets had much in common with the tenets of local folklore traditions. As Chinua Achebe noted, the pamphlets were in many ways extensions of Hausa folktales and could not be written off, as some critics argued, merely as vestiges of Western influence. “I am convinced,” he wrote, “that such a literature could only have begun in Onitsha…the original site of evangelical dialogue between proselytizing Christianity and Igbo religion.”
In her recent book The Self-Help Compulsion, Harvard professor Beth Blum discusses the Onitsha Market pamphlets, among many other examples of self-help literature from around the world, in her effort to offer a more culturally specific and layered reading of the genre. Many people tend to write off self-help literature as little more than fodder for the worried well-off, and as Blum concedes, there is good reason to do so. Between books on self-actualization, speaking circuits for self-appointed life coaches, high-priced personal growth seminars, and corporate-sponsored self-care initiatives, the $10 billion a year industry can seem to be little more than, as she puts it, “a force…that fosters privatized solutions to systemic problems.”
But as Blum shows, the genre actually originated in the literature of radical self-improvement societies and the collective do-it-yourself efforts of 19th century British anarchists and socialists. Long before the publication of Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People and Abigail Van Buren’s “Dear Abby” columns, working people were reading manifestos like George Jacob Holyoake’s 1857 Self-Help by the People, which urged readers to acquire new skills so that they might be of better service to others.
As the genre moved away from these roots and embraced laissez-faire capitalism, Blum writes, it found an increasing number of detractors. The modernists, in particular, took great pains to distinguish their work from the genre, even mocking its instrumentalism with titles like Ezra Pound’s How to Read (1929). But for all of self-help’s faults, Blum wonders whether anything of value has been lost in the growing disdain for a practical literature that seeks to move us toward becoming better versions of ourselves. The self-help genre, she explains, fosters “a specific mode of reading” that values books as tools “for agency, use, well-being, and self-change” and that operates well outside academia or the rarefied world of the literati (in places like the Onitsha Market, for example). Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
While the literature of advice and of cultivating personal fortitude has existed as long as the written word, from the Analects of Confucius to the writings of the Stoics, Blum dates the advent of modern self-help to mid-19th-century Britain.
Self-help, she writes, may have reinforced the notion of self-sufficiency, but its impulse toward self-reliance also grew out of radical working-class organizations like labor cooperatives and mutual aid societies. In these settings, laborers held meetings to discuss ways of bettering themselves and looked to books like Self-Help by the People to learn skills that could benefit the community. Current Issue View our current issue
Born in 1817, Holyoake grew up in a working-class household in Birmingham, England; his father was a metalworker and his mother a button-maker. At an early age, Holyoake embraced the socialism of Robert Owen—who helped inspire Britain’s cooperative movement, which sought to establish small workers’ communes founded on mutual improvement—and composed Self-Help by the People as an instruction manual for workers seeking to set up such cooperatives.
Holyoake was not the only one to formulate these radical visions of collective self-help and mutual aid. Radical advice literature was, as Blum says, “percolating” across much of Europe at the time. In Russia, Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s What Is to Be Done? (1863)—a book that was read by generations of Russian radicals, including Vladimir Lenin—not only addressed questions of political strategy and tactics but also offered practical information to budding revolutionaries on everything from romantic relationships to how to start a sewing cooperative.
Despite these working-class roots, self-help quickly became associated with the “aspirational middle classes,” Blum notes, who were uneasy about their status in industrial society. Through self-help, they could remake themselves so that their manners, interests, and values reflected those of the aristocracy and helped them retain or advance their class position.
For Blum, the embourgeoisement of self-help books was sparked by a “convergence of factors,” from swift advances in mass literacy to the popularity of mail-order self-improvement schemes. In the United States, in particular, it was furthered by the rise of New Thought, a quasi-religious movement that believed all problems originated in the mind and in one’s attitude toward life. New Thought pitched itself as a mind-healing movement that stressed the power of positive thinking, the law of attraction, and the use of visualization as a means to self-actualization. Related Article The Singular, Undeniably Unusual Life of Anna Kavan Audrey Wollen
Self-help’s transformation from a radical genre into one serving the class hierarchy can be traced, Blum writes, to the publication of Samuel Smiles’s 1859 Self-Help—an early “handbook of laissez-faire liberalism” that she credits with crystallizing the genre as it exists today. The Scottish-born Smiles spent much of his youthful career working as a journalist for the Edinburgh Weekly Chronicle and as an editor at the Leeds Times, where he championed various progressive reforms, from women’s suffrage to the implementation of a secret ballot. In time, however, he came to believe that the most effective way to bring about true reform was at the level of the individual. He argued that in many cases, poverty was the result of personal failures or weaknesses, such as laziness, profligate spending, and excessive drinking. By overcoming these vices, Smiles maintained, any individual could achieve prosperity. “A man who devotes himself to [moneymaking], body and soul, can scarcely fail to become rich,” he wrote, instructing readers to simply “spend less than you earn; add guinea to guinea; scrape and save, and the pile of gold will gradually rise.”
Self-Help became an international best seller and Smiles a veritable celebrity. He followed its success with yet more tracts: Character (1871), Thrift (1875), and Duty (1880). Self-Help was successful in part because it was seen as a remedy for the “success-wary fiction” of the era, books like Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, which served as a cautionary tale about wealth and ambition. Smiles encouraged his readers to aspire to those very things, and in the process, he became wealthy himself. Self-Help sold 20,000 copies in its first year, compared with Great Expectations’ 3,750.
As self-help’s popularity grew in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, novelists and literary critics of the era took notice, resenting the genre’s encroachment on their readers and seeking to differentiate their probing explorations of human weakness from the new books that promised to cure readers of those frailties. The modernist mantra of art for art’s sake, Blum writes, was in part “a reaction to the perceived instrumentalism of the increasingly popular self-improvement handbook.” Modernist writers saw self-help and the related how-to craze as gimmicks that reduced the written word to mere raw material for get-rich-quick schemes. The instructional titles popular among modernist writers were intended to mock the self-help books that were flooding bookshelves. Gertrude Stein’s How to Write, Pound’s ABC of Reading, and Virginia Woolf’s “How Should One Read a Book?” all sought not only to defend the primacy of literature but also to expose the simplistic answers that self-help offered for life’s big questions. “The only advice, indeed, that one person need give another about reading is to take no advice,” Woolf asserted in her essay.
Some novelists even incorporated the self-help guru—a figure that Blum says marked the genre’s early investment in celebrity culture—as a character in their books. In her novel Twilight Sleep, Edith Wharton introduces us to an inspirational healer named Alvah Loft, the author of the books Spiritual Vacuum Cleaning and Beyond God, who has the novel’s protagonist, busy do-gooding socialite Pauline Manford, under his spell. “The ongoing joke of the narrative,” Blum writes, “is that Mrs. Manford needs a stress reliever to unwind from her numerous relaxation therapies.”
In France, Gustave Flaubert also mocked the genre. In his sardonic Dictionary of Cliché, he derided the very idea of prescription (one entry reads, “SELFISHNESS: Complain of other people’s; overlook your own”). He also satirized self-help’s fetishization of simple, pared-down living in his novel Bouvard and Pécuchet, in which two Parisian copy clerks, thanks to a sudden inheritance, pack up their belongings and move to the countryside to devote themselves to self-improvement.
However, far from realizing their dreams, Bouvard and Pécuchet’s incessant pursuit of new do-it-yourself projects, from fruit preservation to craft liquor distillation, merely marks “the elusive quest for the perfect, purest product,” Blum writes—one that always ends in failure for the pair. In this way, Flaubert reminds us that do-it-yourself does not represent a break from the market logic undergirding much of turn-of-the-century French life but rather the sad evidence of its inescapability. While Bouvard and Pécuchet attempt to master (without success) many different fields, true autodidacticism, Blum argues, “would only be possible in a society driven by community rather than self-interest, where people’s skills are freely developed rather than imposed by the economy as necessary respite from alienated labor.”
Far from reacting to a minor annoyance, authors like Flaubert and Wharton “defined their styles partly in recoil against self-help’s instrumental materialism,” Blum writes. Failure, inscrutability, and fragmentation—the qualities that made literary modernism what it was—were in part reactions to self-help, a genre that defined itself as being every bit as simple to read as it was to get rich. While self-help “has a history of promoting itself as an antidote to intellectual bombast and aesthetic idealism,” she writes, at the same time, “serious literature has long defined itself against the instrumental pedantry of popular advice.” In tracing these moments of friction, Blum stresses the importance of self-help in shaping modernist literature, even if it was as its antagonist.
In her book’s final chapters, Blum shifts her attention to the contemporary self-help scene. The self-improvement business is still booming, she reminds us, having found new and fertile ground in the creative, coworking, gig-based economy shaped and proselytized by Silicon Valley and glamorized by sites like Goop. (Last year the South by Southwest festival hosted a Wellness Expo, where visitors were encouraged to “fuel your mind, body, and soul,” with swag from Lululemon.) The industry and its acolytes have adopted “the jargon of well-being, self-optimization, and self-actualization” and have even taken to using the words of Marcel Proust and Samuel Beckett against them. “Fail better,” which Blum suggests the socialist Beckett meant ironically, has been rebranded as the start-up culture’s go-to mantra.
Contemporary novelists and essayists, like their modernist predecessors, have responded in kind to this era of corporate-driven self-care and personal optimization rhetoric with books that borrow from the genre to expose its defects. Blum points to a group of Asian American writers in particular who have used “the self-help paradigm to document the traumas and disenchantments of the upward-mobility ethic.” Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, Anelise Chen’s So Many Olympic Exertions, and Charles Yu’s How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, among others, satirize and appropriate elements of the genre to reveal the cruel paradox of self-help in a society where social mobility is ever more elusive. Blum also cites new works by African American authors like the poet Terrance Hayes’s How to Be Drawn and Baratunde Thurston’s satirical memoir How to Be Black as similarly incisive uses of the instructional mode to lay bare the “bad faith of neoliberal choice in the context of racial inequities.”
Yet Blum never answers the question she says she is most often asked: “But is self-help good or bad?” The genre began with a vision of reading as an activity that could lead to social change, and despite its commercial trajectory, it still serves this purpose for some. Self-help has resonated particularly with women, for whom focusing on the self can be a defiant protest against the self-sacrificing expectations of motherhood, especially in societies without robustly subsidized child care. Indeed, in its stunning popularity, self-help reveals just how many people feel they are in need of, well, help.
For Blum, however, the genre’s history also reminds us of a different mode of reading. In trying to distinguish their work from the vulgar practicality of advice literature, many writers have come to see descriptors like “didactic” and “prescriptive” as markers of aesthetic poverty. But self-help offers us insight into the real power of literature: that books can and even should help readers remake their world. As Blum wryly notes, “Self-help has no such qualms about its utility.”


thenation--2020-11-17--In the Event of My Death

In the Event of My Death

What used to be a rope descending my vertebrae to the basement of my spine grows thin .
In solidarity @ @ @ @ @ cat leaves her whiskers on the hardwood floor , and I gather them , each @ @ @ @ @ in the throat of the earth .
In quarantine , I learned to trim your @ @ @ @ @ stands always on end : a salute to my superior barbary skills .
In the @ @ @ @ @ promise you will find my heavy braid and bury it— I will need a rope @ @ @ @ @ the earth .
I ’ ve hidden others strategically around the globe , a net @ @ @ @ @ its weaving .

This article appears in the November 30/December 7, 2020 issue.
What used to be
a rope descending
my vertebrae to the basement
of my spine
grows thin.
In solidarity with my chemotherapy,
our cat leaves her whiskers on
the hardwood floor,
and I gather them, each purewhite parenthesis
and plant them
in the throat of the earth.
In quarantine,
I learned to trim your barbarian
hair. Now it stands always on end:
a salute to my superior barbary skills. In the event
of my death, promise you will find my heavy braid
and bury it—
I will need a rope
to let me down into the earth.
I’ve hidden others
strategically around the globe, a net
to catch my body
in its weaving.


everybody dies

Almost every man I know talks too goddamn much .
All my favorite poets are women & gods .
What I really miss is the pavement at midnight , my elongated shadow .
There are mornings when the hunger pulses through me , when I just want to see a man die like an ox in a flooded field , where every witness is swallowed at once by a minute of silence , then continues the work of living .
It ’ s not that I ’ m thirsty for blood .
I just want to be alone & with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told me long ago she thinks I ’ m cold & I responded for years by writing on shreds of paper , my mind is on fire .
She slipped them into her mouth & waited for the wet grass of a man she could love .
On my sternum there is a thumbprint from where you pressed a seed into earth .
G told me , to be us is to die , before we kissed on the hood of my car .
I charged up & doubled down against my own @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the necessary tools to bleed my idols & I haven ’ t stopped drinking since that first cut .
They ’ re buried in my garden now , whispering into each other ’ s ears , fingers wet with blood & water , combing through your hair .
Two suns live behind my eyes & while one rises , the other sets .

This article appears in the November 30/December 7, 2020 issue.
Almost every man I know talks too goddamn much. All my
favorite poets are women & gods. What I really miss is the
pavement at midnight, my elongated shadow. There are
mornings when the hunger pulses through me, when I just
want to see a man die like an ox in a flooded field, where
every witness is swallowed at once by a minute of silence,
then continues the work of living. It’s not that I’m thirsty
for blood. I just want to be alone & with you at the same
time. G told me long ago she thinks I’m cold & I responded
for years by writing on shreds of paper, my mind is on fire.
She slipped them into her mouth & waited for the wet
grass of a man she could love. On my sternum there is a
thumbprint from where you pressed a seed into earth. G
told me, to be us is to die, before we kissed on the hood of my
car. I charged up & doubled down against my own death.
Years ago, I stole the necessary tools to bleed my idols & I
haven’t stopped drinking since that first cut. They’re buried
in my garden now, whispering into each other’s ears, fingers
wet with blood & water, combing through your hair. Two
suns live behind my eyes & while one rises, the other sets.