Laura Westman
December 15, 2008
PSC190 Final Paper

In One-Dimensional Man, Marcuse identifies freedom when our society has been stripped of all measures of institutional oppression, when public opinion has been abolished, and individuals are free to think as agents of their own. However, this definition is inconsistent and incompatible with contemporary manifestations and ideas of freedom in American society. Because freedom today is largely based around how Americans perceive their own desires and freedoms relative to each other, we can utilize Althusser’s ideas of how ideologies shape our decisions and Foucault’s analysis of power and knowledge to transform the necessary components of Marcuse’s argument to become possible within contemporary American society.
Marcuse locates freedom under multiple levels of awareness. A person is free when he or she may “exert autonomy over a life that would be his own” (2). For Marcuse, obtaining this autonomy is a multistep process within our industrial and technological society: we must be “beyond necessity,” where we are free from want, understanding that society imposes “false needs” that constrain our true freedom, and we must make our technological system increasingly automated and mechanized to free ourselves of the physical and social restraints imposed by the division of labor within this technological system (4). Only in rejecting these false needs and freeing ourselves from economic, political, and intellectual constraints imposed by a repressive society can we be autonomous and consequently, truly free.
Marcuse argues that the rights and liberties that were once the foundation of American society are no longer the source of our freedom. Instead, our free market and developed industrial society have together created a “comfortable, smooth, reasonable democratic unfreedom” in which we unknowingly subject our own freedom to satisfying what we think are necessary goods and services (2). Our desire for these “needs” is purely historical; because of our technological industry, we are able to create them for what we understand to be the benefit of everyone within society. These “false needs” imposed by our ability to produce them for ourselves result in a sort of “repressive satisfaction,” a “euphoria in unhappiness” (5). The technological structure of society grants us a realm of choices, but the provision of choice in itself defines what we may choose, as well as requiring that we even choose from an array of given options. By imposing false needs and producing different ways to fulfill those needs, society preserves its own status quo and inhibits our own freedom of autonomy.
Our society not only preserves itself by controlling our desires, but also uses its expanding technology and power to control opposition. By constantly increasing the standard of living, our technological and industrial society imposes – purely by possibility – new needs and desires upon us that we cannot reject because we understand technological “controls” to be for the benefit of the entire society (4). Therefore, any form of opposition that repudiates these new needs and possibilities appears “neurotic and impotent” (9). In this way, our technological society inevitably suppresses any opposition through imposing new “false needs” that inhibit our real freedom (4). The process is simple; even “modes of protest or transcendence” are the “ceremonial part of our practical behavioralism,” comprising parts of our institutionalized society (14). Counterculture and subversive movements within this society are “digested by the status quo as part of its healthy diet” and usually impose no changes to the system (14).
Because of these weighty restrictions to free thought and inhibitions of autonomy, Marcuse locates our path to freedom in a negative sense, identifying freedom from the economic, political, and intellectual constraints of our society; these are both intangible and physical constraints. To be free from economic constraints is to be entirely free from want and from work; it requires a disconnection from the “work world’s imposing” of “alien wants and alien possibilities” that only force an individual to “prove himself on the market” in order to make a living (2). Political freedom lies in liberation from a political system over which we, as individuals, have no control and therefore have no freedom within. Intellectual freedom is obtained, Marcuse argues, by a complete abolition of “public opinion” and restoration of individual thought (). These locations of freedom are, however, only attainable by an increased “technological process of mechanization and standardization” of our society, and restructuring that “productive apparatus” of society to focus purely on “vital needs,” instead of the false needs it currently manufactures (2). Because the power of the machines in the productive apparatus is only the “stored-up and projected power of man,” humans can utilize the mechanized technology to increase their own freedom (3). Becoming free from the physical constraints of the productive machine processes of society allows us to begin the journey to freedom: becoming aware of our “servitude,” and distinguishing between vital needs and false needs (7). We find freedom in our acknowledgment and subsequent rejection of our servile position to the system in which we live; restructuring the system itself is then our path to freedom. By identifying freedom within liberation from the economy, major political systems, and intellectual constraints, Marcuse emphasizes the pervasive and powerful connections between each sector of society from which we must be liberated in order to be free. Freedom is found outside all of these impeding structures.
Marcuse may be correct in identifying the way in which political and industrial apparatuses of society inhibit what he defines to be our true freedom, but this criticism is incompatible with our own ideas and possibilities of freedom in America today. This limiting and repressive society of false needs is contradictory today: the system is necessary to ensure cooperation, sovereignty, and coexistence, but established rights and liberties, included in contemporary political rhetoric and social norms, protect people from encroachments from the government and from each other. The United States, as a society, is structured to allow the function and coexistence of many different people. When each person usually acts in his own rational self-interest, the idea of a cooperative society gets lost. We must find a way of operating and being “free” while still existing and thriving together in order to function. Marcuse’s theory of freedom cannot, however, fit the possibilities for freedom in contemporary America. Marcuse focuses on individual freedoms that are inconsistent with the composition we can find today.
American “freedoms” are always positive, relative freedoms that are related entirely to how we perceive our own realities. The freedoms we need, or think we need, which is arguably just as important, are largely related to what other Americans have. They began in the negative sense with the struggle for freedom from Britain and then, by necessity, are redefined as positive freedoms in the Bill of Rights and but have since evolved into a binary definition. This is the first sighting of the tension between individual freedom and its possibilities in the context of a society that must also sustain itself.
Because we have the power to demand freedom when we perceive its necessity, “freedom” in America is always relative and reactionary. We recognize it, acknowledge where we do not have it, and we demand more of it. Freedom is defined less by what specific liberties we claim, but more about who has any given freedom and who does not. Sometimes we demand freedom in response to an encroachment upon freedoms we may already have, like the current protest against Proposition 8 or civil rights and liberties cases. In other cases, we perceive that another person or group has a specific freedom that we do not, seen in American struggles for freedom from the American Revolution through the Civil Rights and Women’s Rights movements. Our ability to have reactive freedom comes from the nature of our democracy and theoretical ability to make our own demands of our government.
The different types of freedom that we see in the United States today are all in individual pursuit of happiness. Perhaps Marcuse is correct in identifying our desires as “false needs,” but American freedom is truly located in our perceived level of happiness relative to others and our ability to attain that level of happiness. Though we may be contained and our desires may be defined relative to others’, we still have the ability to work to achieve what we believe to be truly important. This is the cornerstone of American freedom.
There are two levels of American freedom: freedom in equality – the relative freedom described above – and freedom of pursuit. We can identify freedom within our own choices, within our ability to define what exactly will make us happy, and within our ability to become successful in that particular endeavor. Within a society built upon the idea of autonomy and sovereignty, freedom of choice, even a regulated freedom of choice, is absolutely necessary. His assertion that our society confines us by controlling our desires does not address the reason why our society can do this in the first place. In a way, we consent to the system, we need it; our operating within it, accepting the desires and working under the political and economic system, is a means of allowing us modes of choice and a system in which we can negotiate both types of freedom. There must, on some level, be a price for civility and stability.
Possibilities for freedom in contemporary America are paradoxical in this same way, but they can be harmonized through the institutions and mechanisms that theorists like Marcuse actually identify as repressive. Freedoms must, consistent with American values, tradition, and history, allow individuals to decide by which means they wish to pursue their own happiness, and grant each individual at least the same opportunities as his fellow citizens have to do the same. It is not clear from where we create our own ideas of what will make us happy. There is also a necessary aspect of negative freedom, a freedom from coercion or in which individuals must be kept free from others who will impede their own autonomy and liberty to make that choice.
Because of this aspect of negative freedom, Marcuse correctly states that we must be freed from economic constraints, but not exactly those he locates. While the obligation to work does seem to constrain our freedom, our society could not function without it. The solution to this problem is in tandem with the vague but valid notion of our society as a cooperative one. The structure of our government and economic systems must reflect this idea through more regulation, working to equalize our opportunities. Regardless of our own given resources, we each must work similarly to pursue our own happiness, and in this way, earn them in the context of the rest of our society. This type of economic equality will transform our relationships to each other and ultimately fix the problems Marcuse identifies within suppressing opposition, as we will choose our own ways of life in more ways than one.
Foucault, Marcuse, and Althusser argue that our perception of autonomy, the way in which we live our lives, and the choices we make are entirely dictated by the society in which we live, rendering us the opposite of “free.” However, the materialization of freedom within the United States today is centered on relative freedoms, defining them in the context of our historical situation and allowing us to decide within our society what we wish to pursue, while still holding society together cohesively. Using this definition, Althusser’s theory of ideology and Foucault’s identification of the relationship between power and knowledge can transform Marcuse’s one-dimensional society to fit harmoniously with possibilities for freedom in American society today. Marcuse finds limits in the places where we find freedom, rendering his ideas useless, inappropriate, and impossible in contemporary American society. Though Marcuse’s theory cannot be directly transposed into American society, his “one-dimensional” thought becomes all-encompassing when paired with Althusser and Foucault’s own criticisms. The combination offers a remedy and explanation for the impossibilities of Marcuse’s arguments within contemporary American society.
Althusser’s ideology transforms Marcuse’s Althusser, however, finds limits to freedom deeper within our own decisions. He argues that our own decisions are influenced by pervasive ideologies, so even our ability to gauge what will make us happy is not our own. This seems like a very pervasive limit to freedom, however, but actually the concept of ideology begins to transpose Marcuse’s argument to fit with freedoms in contemporary American society.
These relative freedoms identified above may seem to be another manifestation of Marcuse’s “false needs,” however, Althusser’s ideas of ideology transform Marcuse’s argument so that it has a possibility and location in contemporary American society. Altusser argues that ideologies are not systems of real relationships, but rather that ideologies are how individuals imagine their own relationship to reality. Althusser identifies this as an augmentation of freedom, however, ideology and Marcuse’s “repressive satisfaction” actually help to construct our own ideas of what will create happiness for us, and how we may obtain it as individuals comprising one society. This transforms Marcuse to fit into American freedom today by explaining our use of the institutions he argues are repressive, explaining how we construct our perception of ourselves in relation to others and to society.
Marcuse also argues that freedom begins when we acknowledge our opposition of servitude to institutions; a subjection that is seemingly inevitable, a necessary evil within American freedom. However, it is what we do with this position of servitude in the context of our perception of reality that truly defines the freedom, or limits to freedom, within our realities. Foucault’s The Eye of Power actually gives us autonomy in this respect, granting us freedom within our perceived relationships to the institutions that govern our lives.
Foucault’s power-knowledge analysis also transforms Marcuse’s arguments by giving individuals a mode of becoming more autonomous within our ideological system. In The Eye of Power, Foucault helps us to understand how we become subjects of the specific society that holds us back, arguing that power within a society relies on freedom rather than destroying freedom to exist and maintain itself. Within our daily practices of power between individuals in society, we are in a constant state of self-awareness that causes us to censor ourselves and to behave. Though Foucault may argue that knowledge and power relationships limit possibilities of action – limiting freedom – it is in these relationships that we find our link to freedom. Foucault’s identification of the relationship between power and knowledge indicates that with an increase in knowledge, we gain power, either over ourselves or over others. Marcuse argues that we must acknowledge our servitude to our society; this in itself is a shift in power-knowledge relationships. When we acknowledge our relationship to society in this way, we gain more power in the form of autonomy, allowing us to operate in what we perceive to be a free way within that structure, in whichever way we would like to pursue our own happiness.
Foucault’s emphasis on visibility also transforms Marcuse’s argument to fit possibilities of freedom in contemporary America. Because the key to understanding American freedom is understanding that we locate freedom within our perception of our own reality, in relation to other individuals and institutions. Foucault emphasizes the importance of visibility within institutions; he argues that visibility and surveillance subject us to the opinions of others constantly. However, visibility, especially within political structures, gives us the idea of control. If we can see every level of society, especially within the people who comprise very large and pervasive institutions, we enjoy the idea of control over it. Consequently, ideas can be expressed and freedoms can be demanded as necessary.
Perhaps we locate these as our freedoms because the constraints on us by our political and economic institutions – as well as their intellectual and social implications - are far too great and powerful for us to reject, and we must find freedom somewhere. However, such definitions of freedom allow us all to operate together within a society. Marcuse’s argument that the “false needs” created by society inhibit our freedom would be true if his definition of freedom were compatible with its manifestations in contemporary American society. Because Americans find freedom in their perception of reality, as long as we can negotiate our own desires and demand freedoms from government and from society, this definition of relative and reactionary freedom stands. Within a combination of one-dimensional ideas, Althusser’s ideology, and Foucault’s The Eye of Power, we can transform the one-dimensional thinking into a compatible model of freedom in contemporary American society.

We truly are fraught with contradiction.

Locke argues that the duty to labor comes from a right to self-preservation, which we do by following the laws of nature that urge us to take advantage of what is granted to us by God.  Locke writes in Chapter 5, Section 31:

That same law of nature, that does by this means give us property, does also bound that property too.  God has given us all things richly (1 Timothy vi. 12) is the voice of reason confirmed by inspiration.  But how far has he given it us?  To enjoy.  As much as any one can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils, so much he may by his labor fix a property in:  whatever is beyond this, is more than his share, and belongs to others.  Nothing was made by God for man to spoil or destroy.  

 The laws of nature oblige us to labor in order to avoid "spoiling" God's gifts, while operating in self-preservation.  In its organization of people, societies inherently automate this process, and we learn that we must labor as part of preserving ourselves within that system. The mechanism through which we can preserve our individual selves within our society is by laboring, as Locke writes in Chapter 5, Section 35,  "The law man was under, was rather for appropriating.  God commanded, and his wants forced him into labor."  

 The obligation for the rich to provide some property to the poor arises from the second proviso of Exodus, "enough, and as much" condition to property acquisition.  The exchange of "enough" between the wealthy and the poor is contractual.  The wealthy are obliged to give; the rich man's ancestor may have been but a poor man who stumbled upon a plot of land and tilled it efficiently, building a substantial fortune over subsequent generations from this first act of labor.  The "Charity" given from the rich to the poor is equivalent to this first act of property acquisition by laboring, granting nothing but opportunity, over which the poor must labor, similarly.  This is where the poor person's end of the contract comes in, as the "Charity" is not a free ride for the poor, regardless of the particularity of the benefit.  Both parties give, one by charity and one by laboring over that charity; society is stronger for it.

 The "strong individualist" interpretation might warrant Locke to focus on the importance of the poor's willingness to labor, but he must, in turn, emphasize the obligation of the wealthy to provide the poor with the opportunity to labor for their own subsistence.  Each effort needs the other.  Both must make a living; the wealthy may continue to prosper by employing the poor.  In this mutually beneficial model, both are operating freely and pursuing self-preservation and prosperity.

  The "strong individualist" interpretation would still require state mechanisms to help each individual preserve her or himself.   The entire foundation of government is to help individual persons preserve their selves, and this happens through labor.  Government policies to help facilitate this process are not only necessary, but the absence of such supports would be entirely inconsistent with the purpose of government.  The government must provide work support systems - these are more consistent with Lockean philosophy than welfare benefits - that require beneficiaries to engage in work-related activities to preserve themselves. 

 In this way, being a strong individualist does not require writing off the social obligation, as the "strong individualist" and "social obligation" interpretations of Locke's arguments are not of mutually exclusive situations.  Locke would not oppose taxation to support a work-support system; in the same way that a vote in an election is consenting to the will of the majority (Chapter 11, Section 140), paying a tax to a government under which I own land is equivalent to giving up some natural liberty so that I can be preserved under that state.  My livelihood and my security would not be guaranteed without that system.  Both actions consent to and legitimate the government and society.  In this way both interpretations can be fused, for what is helpful in preserving each individual is also an act in preserving the common, societal good.  The price for this process is a tax: a social obligation that serves many different purposes.  Strong individualism and social obligation are tied together, creating a stable, functional society.

John Rawls doesn't care about your peanut butter sandwich, you jerk.

Just so I don't lose them when the semester ends, here's more of the posts I'm proud of in my freedom and equality class.  In this particular instance, I responded to a not-so-well-thought-out post by a colleague.

Author: Wesley Callahan
Date: Tuesday, March 3, 2009 8:59:46 PM EST
Subject: Rawls and Ketchup on PB&J 

As far as Rawls devaluing democracy I see a few problems. He would propose that a group of highly educated individual make the most important choices regarding equal liberty in our society. If that is true then we must look to decisions that were made by the Supreme Court. For example Plessey v Ferguson, is not want I would call the ideal of democracy. During the reconstruction period following the civil war, the Legislature was more likely to propose legislation with more equal liberties, than the Supreme Court taking an activist roll. Although that does change over time, as we look to Brown vs. Board, I think that it would be dangerous to allow either the legislature or people behind a veil of ignorance to answer questions alone. I believe that a society will not change overnight and in some cases it would be prudent for the veil of ignorance to win out, however at some point you must look to reality and realize that I don’t want ketchup on my PB and J.

Author: Laura Westman
Posted date: Thursday, March 5, 2009 11:28:39 AM EST
Last modified date: Thursday, March 5, 2009 11:39:06 AM EST

Then I would recommend either changing your mind and starting to like ketchup on PB&J - since there must be some reason why it's there - or adjust the process by which the ketchup seemed acceptable to give you on your sandwich.  Here we're kind of talking about Reflective Equilibrium.  If we extrapolate your ketchup situation onto a social or moral issue about which we make rules, and we don't like the results of the rules we made, we adjust whatever brought us to make that rule that had that effect.  We are "altering the conditions of the contractual circumstances" to "find a condition that both expresses reasonable conditions and yields principles that match with our considered judgments duly pruned and adjusted" (20).  

  Sometimes this incorporates the Original Position, so we ignore our own interpretation of ourselves relative to society and use both risk-aversion and the difference principle to come up with new ways of seeing the operation of ketchup.  Sometimes this results in a new social contract with a more desirable outcome.  Regardless, the idea of "justice as fairness" means we should honor the contracts (hypothetical agreements) we've built upon our intuition about what is right; our obligations are "self-imposed" (12).  So you've got your anti-ketchup work cut out for you if you want to change them.  

  Maybe the reason the ketchup showed up is that you elected someone into Congress who saw an incentive in increasing funding for ketchup in your district?  Perhaps this member of Congress assessed the outcomes of his decisions using the "maximin" rule and this decision had the least undesirable of outcomes from his standpoint (Section 26).  You might say the problem comes when this intersects with the institution of legislature, in which we "elect" people to make these decisions for us.  We like to think there is another social contract operating in the link between the representative and the voter, but we get into trouble when we try to figure out which means of increasing efficiency and social cooperation is the best.  Rawls addresses the danger and benefits in finding efficiency in representation, and offers a remedy for these institutional infringements within equality of opportunity (Section 12).  Since "careers open to talents" perpetuate the inequalities within those institutions, the veil of ignorance becomes important yet again (73).

 Reflective equilibrium is almost suggestive of legislatures.  There is an old question in political science, whether the electorate change their minds because of legislation or whether legislation occurs because of demands from the electorate.  If we interpret bills and laws as means to establishing a new outcome, the legislative process is almost a manifestation of reflective equilibrium, since we alter policies to reflect "ideal" outcomes, whatever they may be.  It gets complicated when we have to think about who is within these legislatures and how they get there.

  The importance of legislature comes with the electorate's perception of (a) their influence on the institution through a vote, and (b) the idea that the person(s) they stick into office to make these decisions will be capable of doing so, from different moral standpoints or perhaps from the original position if we'd like to be idealistic.  The institution creates norms and expectations, fostering a sense of individual participation for individual gain instead of the societal cooperation and series of agreements that would emanate from structuring society the way Rawls explains.  The institutionalization of majorities through "democratic" voting and representation is what ultimately fails us.  The veil of ignorance is brilliant, but it is lost in the need to be reelected.  I don't see this as a question of whether democracy is good or bad for rights, but whether the mechanisms behind structuring our republic create an environment conducive to cooperation.  

Out of context rant for PSC-108 online discussion. but you get the gist.

The underlying problem in equal rights in our society, in terms of free speech, occurs when the population will glorify "our" "democratic" morals and rights.  Rhetorically, actively, Americans emphasize the these rights and liberties as important components of our democracy.  We're proud of these!  But another, even more dangerous glorification happens subversively within the civil religious practices of our daily lives, which helps "us" - more appropriately, helps "majorities" - justify the existence and justice of a particular status quo.

    Even acknowledging porn as having a valid status as speech or expression - giving it a fighting chance - reinforces (tacitly, of course, but it's still a symbolic action) the messages that 

(a) "speech" in any form is a right to which "we" are entitled and must be respected as such; and 

(b) women, in seeking ways to achieve equal citizenship - something that has been denied institutionally and socially for centuries - are obnoxious.

 (a) This sense of entitlement is validated everywhere.  We discussed in class the extent to which we commemorate the First Amendment.  No American can pretend that the consistent glorification of the US's dedication to freedom of speech and expression is not a symbolic action that reinforces what we're supposed to believe in, without questioning whether it is right to believe in these things or not.

   (b) Through the act of complaining, even if the Court does say to "Speak Up," women (or any opposing minority) are negatively stigmatized as anannoyance.  The association to complaint, campaigning against something that is so consistently reinforced as an important component of political life, as an ideal and right guaranteed to us democratically.  (The content of this speech or expression being defended is usually less important, or made irrelevant.)

    To be clear to anyone who has never been in any sort of disenfranchised minority before, "citizenship" does not just mean "the right to vote."  It entails everything within the tangible world.  Many of our theorists recognize that society is comprised of interactions.  This means that people must respond to each other.  I can't rely on my own perception of myself, my talents, or my abilities to determine my place in our society.  If I am working in an office and my colleagues believe on any level that I am less important or worthy than they, or that my ideas do not matter or aren't good enough, that not only stifles my own creativity unfairly, but will probably have detrimental effects on how I perceive myself.  This is what MacKinnon emphasizes and why her argument to ban certain types of porn - not even all types of porn! - is so striking.  

    At its core, this pornography issue is the same issue we tackle in free speech cases as well. This question of my right to say whatever I want to say, pitted against someone's right to enjoy equal citizenship, should not even exist.  For a second, I am grateful it does, because it brings dialogue and debate; but that is also this kind of thinking and affirming that reinforces the legitimacy of our political system at the expense of acknowledging its failures.  It is common and easy to pat ourselves on the back in order to ignore problems.

    There are many arguments for why weighing these two "rights" against each other is undemocratic.  

 In terms of theory we have studied this semester, this question defies the Harm Principle.  Mill's utilitarianism would - I hope - be offended by this question.  What truth-seeking occurs in lewd pornography, anyway?  I praise MacKinnon for using the language of pornography, since this issue is skirted around in the courtroom and in public discourse.  In the face of utilitarianism, an argument against MacKinnon's does not stand a chance.

   This question does not involve the Sarah Haters per se, since the "Sarah" in this situation is half of the American population.  In his post, Matthew Heck criticizes MacKinnon for leaving men out of the equation in her ban, however, men are those with power in this situation.  Heck also brings in the Sarah-Haters example.  There are quite a few problems with this interpretation.  As the only category of Americans that are "non-women," men's viewpoints and subsequent treatment of women in society are what shapes how women will see themselves.  If anything, the Sarah Haters question could go either way - men hating the "Sarah" of not having porn, or women hating the "Sarah" of the democratic equality of which pornography robs them.  This reflexive relationship in the Sarah Haters example also categorizes the argument into an "either-or" "solution" to this problem, when perhaps there is a "solution" that frames the debate differently, in which men may not perceive they are being stifled or at a loss, and women can still regain democratic egalitarian ground.

    I do not even understand why majority groups think they should fight these battles.  Women's opportunity to say, "Pornography is degrading to women!" is silenced when it is institutionally connected with complaint status.  Men's reluctance to engage in this kind of debate sends the same message as a white majority's reluctance to acknowledge the power of racism in their demands for free speech.  This silences the opposition, deepens the extent to which they resent the minority for opposing them, and exposes that they clearly have no respect for achieving equality.  It denies inequality exists.  This says that they do not understand - and will deny the existence and importance of - others' humanity and their ongoing battle against a society that refuses to acknowledge its institutionally-reinforced, civic religious inequalities and subsequent unfreedoms.  To override democratic equality with a freedom of speech argument, against a disenfranchised person, is a detriment to democratic ideals, and deflects the real problems by denying their existence at all.

    And I certainly don't buy the argument that these types of pornography ARE NOT democratically degrading to women.  This is another tactic to refuse conversation on this topic, to refuse to acknowledge that these inequalities are so pervasive.  Even my female colleagues in class ask the question, "What if the women chose to make the films?"  This misses the point of MacKinnon's well-articulated argument on so many levels.  This demonstrates the extent to which we are trained to censor our questions, challenges, and subvert our needs.

    I think the US took a step in the right direction with Brown v. Board by citing sociological and psychological evidence to begin flattening out inequalities that had been socially and institutionally reinforced for too long.  This is not the time to turn back!  "Speak Up" is not good enough because nobody is listening.  If the courts don't validate these concerns, where do we even start?  

Grab hold of your bootstraps

Good gracious, there is a lot of weird stuff happening in my life.  Mom took me shopping - and paid for it all, resulting in NO GUILT COMPLEX FOR ME FOR THE FIRST TIME IN FOREVER - for the first time since I can really remember. It meant so much.

NEW CLOTHES FOR A 

NEW

LAURA.

On that note, this weekend I feel like I noticed my high school self coming out again.  I have been working so hard to suppress her.  I have been uncomfortable being at home because I haven't known how to harmonize New Laura and whatever came before that. Whether it was being upset over something, or not being skinny, or having a bad haircut, or wearing the wrong clothes, or being self-righteous.  This weekend I re-found the parts I forgot about.. the good parts, the ones that didn't have the chance to creep back in because I actively shut everything - EVERYTHING - out.  I reread some of my old journals. This time, instead of shamefully reading the entries in which I lamented heartbreak, I enjoyed my New Years' 2004 entry.  My fifteen-year-old assessments of my life, my friends, and my hopes for the near future was way less self-involved and more articulate than I ever would have thought.  

I looked through pictures.  The smile that embarrassed me before because it spread all over my face, just like Georgia describes hers in the Angus books, meant that I was having the greatest belly laugh just as the picture was being taken.  When Mom told me to get the nice linen shirt in the more exciting blue, rather than the more flattering brown, I remembered how I used to buy clothes because I liked them.  Because I wanted to wear them.  Not because I thought they looked particularly good or flattering.  

I miss that.  I never give myself credit for the Me I was before college, but I am recultivating her as of Right Now.  

Because she was a lot of fun.  And more mature in a lot of ways than I give her credit for anymore.

So maybe this should be:

NEW CLOTHES FOR A

RE-NEW-ED

LAU

RA.