[EDIT ADDED 1/22/08: After hearing from my mom, it turns out that my perception of my family’s wealth is a bit skewed. So take what I say in here about my grandfather’s and father’s families with a grain of salt, please.]
I’ve been thinking a bit about how classism has seeped into Quakerism since my November blog meme “22 Class Steps Forward”. I’ve also been thinking a lot about my own classism and about my upbringing. When I did that meme, I felt pretty adamant that it was misleading and that I wasn’t as privileged as the meme made me out to be. I’ve since rethought this position and would like to share my current thoughts with you.
What it boils down to is that the experience of my immediate family was a bit different than the experience of my family as a whole. Both my parents come from well-to-do families. My mother’s parents have been here since the Mayflower, on both sides. Until fairly recently, the family had two family homesteads; one in Connecticut on a road named after our family, and one in Byfield, Massachusetts, where our family were honorary members of the “First Settlers of Newbury” club. My father’s family emigrated to the United States from Lebanon in 1969 and does not have quite the level of classy prestige of my mother’s. Still, my father’s father was fluent enough in English to have his career find him a new job here in this country. The fact that my father’s family is multi-lingual (not bilingual, but multi) in and of itself speaks to their level of education in a country where French was considered the language of the middle and upper classes.
So, my background is one that has real class values. As different as my mother’s and father’s families are from one another, they do share some similar class-based values. One of these is education. The assumption is made that every member of this generation (and of the previous generation as well) would at least have a college degree. And that the job we get after graduation will be a career we’ve qualified into because of said degree. There’s a further assumption on my mother’s side in particular that this career will be intellectually challenging. When I realized I couldn’t work, someone from my mom’s family told me, essentially, that because I wasn’t working or studying, my “good mind” was being wasted.
My immediate family situation has been a bit different, though. Because my parents had a long and messy custody battle that lasted something like 10 years (I’m not going to go into details here), both of my parents suffered financially at various times. When my mother became legally disabled when I was 9 or so, we had some really tough times at home. That Christmas we had to return all our presents to pay for groceries the next week. We ate a lot of canned soup for awhile (to this day, the thought of eating Cream of Broccoli soup still turns my stomach) and just went through the food we had in our pantry for a period. My father, though he had a well-paying job as a banker, had to live with his mother for several years because of lawyer fees.
So, in a way, I got to experience both worlds growing up; but I’m writing this to acknowledge the privileges I had growing up. Both of my parents had advanced degrees. My mother’s parents also had advanced degrees; and the sense I’ve gotten about Lebanon in the 1960s is that my father’s parents were well-educated for that time. Though my immediate family struggled financially (and still struggles, actually), that struggle is against a backdrop of financial stability. My parents, both of them, know that their parents have a home they could go back to, if they needed to. There is a foundation there that many people don’t have. And I have that same foundation: I know that I have a house (not just a home, but a house) to return to, if I needed to.
On the entry with the meme, I received in the comments a link to this article about Unitarian Universalism and Classicism in that religion. It took Jeanne mentioning it in this blog entry and again in an email to get me to actually read it. (Sometimes, I’m a very lazy comment and blog reader.) This article is also pertinent to Quakerism; and I very much wish it had been written by a Quaker.
During my last Worship & Ministry committee meeting, the question of why more people weren’t Quakers was raised. One weighty Friend had a simple answer: “Because Quakerism is a religion of Seekers, and most people prefer having answers instead of more questions.” This had me thinking about the following possible theory:
The more uncertainty you feel you have in your life (whether financial, social, physical, mental, familial, etc.), the more certainty you want in your religion. The converse is the more certainty you feel you have in your life, the more uncertainty you are willing to accept in your religion.
The article fleshes this out a bit and states the following (I’m paraphrasing here): that we want our religion to mimic our life. If your life is harsh, your religion needs to be as well.
And, if we accept my theory and the article’s theory as well, we have some questions we need to think about, as a whole Society. First, is this a problem? Is the fact that as a society of Seekers we can’t always speak to working-class people a problem? And if we think it is a problem, then what can we do about it?
11 comments
January 18th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Jeanne
Thanks so much for writing about and considering class in the RSoF.
I think, however, it’s dangerous and, in my experience, wrong (and perhaps classist) to say that Quakerism can’t speak to working class people. I was solidly working class when I first came to Quakerism and it spoke to me very clearly. I’m still culturally working class (though I have owning-class financial privilege), and the practice of waiting worship still speaks to me. That capital-t Truth can be heard in worship, that we all can be transformed by the Spirit, all spoke to me then and still speaks to me.
There are LOTS of working class folks who find their spiritual home in Quakerism. Okay, maybe not lots, but enough. George Lakey for one. Me, for another. And others.
So I honestly don’t think it’s a condition of Quakerism to speak to only middle and owning class people.
This wasn’t the case when Quakerism first started and shouldn’t be the case now.
We have a solidly middle and owning class culture (outside of Meeting) and that, I think, is what keeps people away. It’s what’s keeping me away.
Jeanne at QuakerClass Blog
January 18th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Ann
I think that it is arrogant to give the ’seekers’ excuse. It’s putting one’s own experiences and, well, class upon the faith. It’s not understanding how different people think and live and if they are just too ’simple’ (in the negative sense) to seek, too bad, they don’t get to share our religion. To me that is an elitist attitude and one that does bother me about the RSOF.
Of course Quakers want answers too, it is presumptious to think otherwise. Or is that saying bad Quakers want answers, or weak ones? Nothing wrong with wanting answers. And what is one seeking, anyways?
It just makes it sound like working class and people of a less ‘intellectual’ bent (who are rather SMART just not the way many Quakers classify smart) are to be patted on the head and handed a bible with answers.
I am sure if Quakers didn’t blow off the working class with excuses there would be many more there. They just won’t share, and have numerous excuses why not.
And I feel that it is shown in many circles, that they may welcome you as a guest but may never make you feel like a Friend.
January 19th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
thefriendlyfunnel
Jeanne: thanks for reminding me that Quakerism wasn’t started by intellectual elites by any stretch of the imagination. I have a tendency to forget that our history is quite different than our current. I feel I should have more to say in reply to your comment, but am not sure what it is at the moment… but thank you for commenting.
Ann: I’ve posted a new entry specifically about seeking, which was inspired by your comment (and copied most of your comment into that entry). I hope you’ll take as my reply… Thank you.
January 22nd, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Allison
Classism and racism is driving me nuts. I have so many thoughts on why Quakerism attracts the crowd it does that I don’t know where to start. I think everything can be boiled down to arrogance.
This statement reeks of arrogance to me:
“Because Quakerism is a religion of Seekers, and most people prefer having answers instead of more questions.”
MOST PEOPLE. Meaning, all those other people that aren’t attracted to Quakerism, which is why Quakers are generally white and middle class? I’m sorry, but where do people get off thinking their you-know-what stinks like roses?
Geezus. If Quakers turned outward for answers themselves, maybe they’d be surprised at what others had to say about them.
January 22nd, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Julie
Thanks for that excellent post, FF. I haven’t read the UU article to which you and Jeanne referred. I have little time for reading between kids, keeping house, and work. My brain is indeed rotting away!
Well I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again. The class issues were a piece of why I left Q to return to the Catholic faith. But obviously this wasn’t all of it. I left because I BELIEVED. My husband, Martin, and I have often lamented the fact that Qism has become a society of perpetual seekers, and that when one actually FINDS something, they find themselves up against a wall of opposition. Many leave. For example, I believed that “nontheism” made no sense in the context of Qism and workshops to that end had no place. I believed God (however generally one interprets that term) was essential. I was considered a weirdo. I had to leave because I knew God and Christ needed to be #1, and if my religious society couldn’t tolerate that view, I had to leave.
Why am I bringing this up? Frankly because the assertion cited above–that people with “harsh” lives seek out “harsh” religions, and the implication that simple people need answers to cling to and that smart (and financially comfortable) people are comfortable with uncertainty–is pretty patronizing. I hold fast to the Catholic faith not because it is easy, let me assure you. I went through years struggling with the faith of my ancestors and returned even without intellectually assenting to everything.
But there was a “tipping point.” A point when I realized the Church was right about much more than I thought it might be wrong about, and I was willing to entertain the possibility that maybe, just maybe, the Church was right and (GASP!) *I* was wrong. I didn’t want a watered-down, wishy-washy faith. If I was going to return to the Church I was going to trust Her, lock, stock, and barrel, and try to live what She taught. That was not an easy leap for me to make.
Christians who believe in “stricter” moral and religious ideologies–like Quakers of old–are not simpletons clinging to certainty in their lives because it is easier. No, in fact. Submitting to the cross is simultaneously difficult (a cross) because you have to give up on your own will, and easier because you are no longer relying on yourself alone to get you through life.
January 23rd, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Allison
The big F is my issue with Quakerism. My problem is this sense that people say there is a difference between a Friend and a friend. Something about that implied superiority doesn’t sit right for me. I’m pretty sure that the path of spirituality is a path of descent, not ascent.
January 24th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Jeanne
Julie, just so you know, Ann has WAY over-simplified the UU article to which I referred. It is a long article written by a man who grew up working class and laments the fact that his church has “unknowingly” closed its doors to people like his father. He’s wanting his faith community to change its ways. Ann seems to imply that he’s questioning whether his faith community should be open to working class folks, but he’s not at all.
And, ironically, Ann says the same things you’re saying over here on this post: http://thefriendlyfunnel.quakerism.net/?p=111.
:-) Jeanne
January 24th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
thefriendlyfunnel
Jeanne, I think you meant to say me instead of Ann in your last comment? *otherwise is very confused…*
January 25th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Julie
Thanks, Jeanne. I do want to read the article, it sounds interesting from the various descriptions. But the point I wanted to make is not necessarily even in reference to the article, though, since I’ve heard this argument from Qs before. A similar one is used to excuse Quaker whiteness. Tell me ya haven’t heard the “we don’t have many blacks interested in Qism because they like their energetic, boisterous, musical worship and we can’t offer them that” argument before. Sheesh. And people really believe that.
January 26th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Jeanne
FF: Yes, I meant you! Sorry, I don’t know your name other than FF…not sure why I called you Ann.
Julie: Oh yes. When I heard FF’s question, I also heard the answer some Quakers give to why we’re so racially homogeneous. I just didn’t want *you* to dismiss the article because of some oversimplifications.
February 5th, 2008 at 2:03 am
Tai Amri
I am a Black Quaker, and I do believe that there is truth to the fact that Quakerism is a very European style of worship, it came from England!!! You can’t deny the fact that part of the reason people of color (particularly Blacks and Latinos) are not attracted to Quakerism is because it’s completely silent. Or the fact that the majority of Quaker Meetings that are predominantly people of color are not silent. It’s one of the reasons that even I would go crazy if I had to go just to Meeting for the rest of my life, I love going to a church with a rocking worship service. But I think that the queries that are given are inherently classist and racist (because I’ve heard these same queries presented to people of color). It assumes both that working class people and people of color don’t go to college, which of course we do. The better question is why aren’t politically progressive, intellectual, college graduate working class people and people of color going to Quaker Meetings? I think that one of the main reason why I do is because I am culturally Quaker, it’s how I was raised, and just as I know I can never not be Black, I also know that I will always be Quaker. When I hang with Quakers I feel like I’m home. But when it comes to theology and when it comes to racial and class diversity, I think I’d be a catholic, and as soon as they ordain their first lesbian priest, I bet you’ll find a lot of Black and Latino intellectual spiritual activists joining me.