Unsheltered

by Barbara Kingsolver

When someone mattered like that, you didn’t lose her at death. You lost her as you kept living.

Profound

Willa found this non-nursery the most unbearable place, but only because she knew about normal motherhood. It’s nearly always women who lead men into babyland, urging them to get serious about names and nursery

The workings of love might be damaged, in a beginning overshadowed by despair.

She wouldn’t have plotted something like this. I mean yes, her death I guess, but not the fallout. She didn’t do it to wreck your life.”

Thatcher felt his soul touched by light.

Every education brings a point of reckoning, and this was his: seeing the world divided in two camps, the investigators and the sweeteners.

The glaze of daylight blinded him. How could a man tell the truth and be reviled for it? Old wounds of a father’s lickings made his ears roar with primordial dread. A wandering boy without shelter.

Most of the time she didn’t want him to solve or contradict her worries, she just needed him to listen and agree with her on the awfulness at hand.

A mother can be only as happy as her unhappiest child. Willa believed in the power of worry to keep another human from flying out of orbit.

“White is not an origin. It’s a mental construct of privilege.”

Here Kingsolver discusses whiteness as a social construct and its relationship to privilege and oppression. Whiteness is not a genetic fact, but rather a cultural and historical construct that has been used to establish and maintain power dynamics. This includes how policies, laws, (yes our constitution too), and institutions have been designed to perpetuate racial inequality and privilege whiteness. See also, W.E.B. Du Bois, David Walker, Frederick Douglass, and William Lloyd Garrison, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Jamelle Bouie, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Isabel Wilkerson.

“You’re saying there are no categories of relatedness among humans?” “Nope. I’m clueing you that the term ‘Caucasian’ was invented in the seventeen hundreds by German philosophers who said God put the colored folks on all their subpar continents and the beautiful whiteys in the mountains of eastern Europe.”

Kingsolver may be referring to the German philosopher Christoph Meiners (1747-1810) who expressed views that align with this quote by Tig in her novel, Unsheltered. Another, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, a German anthropologist, had similar views. Meiners argued that the different human "races" were created by God and placed on separate continents, with Europeans being the superior "race". He believed that the climate and geography of Africa were responsible for the supposedly inferior physical and moral characteristics of the people who lived there. Interested readers can review Meiners' "Outline of History of Humanity (1785) if a copy can be found; or more readily available, "The Rise and Fall of the Caucasian Race: A Political History of Racial Identity" (2008) by Bruce Baum. (pages 84-85). Furthermore, in Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, she supports this discussion when she writes that the word Caucasian is an arbitrary label and relatively new idea descended from Europe. It came from a German professor of medicine, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in 1795. He coined the term based on a skull he found in the Caucasus Mountains that he believed supported his conception of hierarchy. (See page 65-66 in chapter 6).

“Holding and synthesizing information in your brain creates your personality. You’re surrendering your personality to an electronic device in your pocket.”

The global move to divest from South Africa is what finally brought down the apartheid regime. You can’t dispute that.”

“That’s true,” Iano said. “You can’t really have civilization without growth. It would be a zero-sum economy: I have needs, everyone has needs, and the only way I could gain something is to take it away from you.” “Dope scenario, Dad,” Tig said, “only the world is zero sum. When you take stuff out of the land and ocean, that’s taking. You’re just pretending there’s always going to be more, which there isn’t.”

The world has limits. Perpetual growth is not sustainable under our current paradigm, which actually is a zero-sum economy. Our actions have consequences.

He would howl this minute, if the world still held one person with whom he could bare his soul.

But do you feel, if girls could have their eyes trained to nature from an early age, they would not be burdened with this exhausting vendetta, as you call it?”

This seems to be commentary on the world's self-serving male dominated social hierarchy, misogyny and the partiarchial order; for women to develop a healthier sense of self, intellectual confidence, independence from male dominance and a stronger connection to the natural world. The vendetta refers to (in this story) womens' unsubstantiated fear of spiders. Further that, with intellectual confidence they are likely to understand our universe better and be less afraid, and free from the confines of men who use these fears to subjugate them.

“It’s the solace of hearing a truth one has suspected a very long time. I’ve not had the luxury of buying many books, but those two volumes were my first purchases. This is what they have meant to me.”

And a good companion piece is Voltaire's "Candide."

“Well. People believe,” he began, though he hardly knew how to state an animosity as widespread as the air they breathed. “Most people believe life can only be worth having if the deliberate business we call life belongs to us only. To mankind.”

That god created the world for our sole benefit and that humans have dominion over the natural world is convienent for some to justify exploiting natural resources, disregarding environmental consequences like climate change, and treating animals as commodities and ignores interconnectedness. It's also arrogant to disregard how the Universe actually is in favor of a belief of supremacy.

And like every animal, our losses and gains have shaped our bodies and made us the creatures we are. I believe it completely.”

Believing the universe as it is, not the way he wishes it to be.

“To have been made the creatures we are is a marvel. If the process required millennia rather than seven days, how can it be any less sublime?”

The immense timescale of evolution, emphasizing the complexity of the process that has shaped the diversity of life on Earth. Unless, one denies the age of Earth and limits the power of nature for self-serving beliefs.

“Exactly. Mr. Darwin’s argument does not malign divinity. I never thought so.”

It was never Darwin's intent to malign divinity, but believers saw him as the enemy challenging their indefensible beliefs rather than embrace intellectual skepticsm and honesty. They still attack him and atrempt to require teaching creationism or intelligent design in public schools.

“We perceive infinite nature as a fascination, not a threat to our sovereignty. But if that sense of unity in all life is not already lodged in a person’s psyche, I’m not certain it can ever be taught.”

Resist indoctrination.

“Mr. Greenwood, those are qualities personal to you. They have no bearing on truth.”

“We are given to live in a remarkable time. When the nuisance of old mythologies falls away from us, we may see with new eyes.”

“But we are creatures like any other. Mr. Darwin’s truth is inarguable.” “And because it is true, we will argue against it as creatures do. Our eyes are not new, nor are our teeth and claws. I’m afraid I foresee a great burrowing back toward our old supremacies, Mrs. Treat. No creature is easily coerced to live without its shelter.” “Without shelter, we stand in daylight.”

They were offended to distraction by the idea of a nonwhite man at the helm of their great nation. Probably they weren’t completely sold on female suffrage. These callers were clinging to a century-old vision of America, and Willa preferred to forget such people existed.

Surely it would be simpler to have some unifying theory of hatred that covered everything at once.

“Sure you don’t have time for me to eat up your mouní on my big industrial desk?”

Haha!!!!! Perfect .

The public events barely outlasted the Reverend Pittinger’s opening prayer, in which he blessed all things in Vineland, then on the earth, and was moving to the outer planets when a rain shower blew out of the elms and scattered the attendees from the lawn. The interruption was gratefully received.

A wide ribbon outlined the low, square cut of her bodice and the rise of her breasts, and if men were not meant to stare at such, he wondered why women trimmed themselves out like advertising circulars.

“Vineland does not need a second newspaper! Can you see any reason for it, Thatcher? It causes confusion about everything, and encourages shadows of doubt.”

If trained to nature from an early age, could a mind be freed from its vendetta against the world’s creatures?

Cutler was going on about God and molecules, making them his own. “Thus we find when we follow the pure scientific path, we arrive at that elysian pasture where science must stop and devotion begin.

Ahhh, the hypocrisy! Science deniers in action! Forced indoctrination with creationism/intelligent design. In this passage, however, Cutler is Biblically inaccurate and disingenuous as he refers to Elysian pasture of Greek mythology, a paradise for heroes and virtuous individuals. Is Cutler now a heretic? Does his Bible mention these pastures? Doesn't he contradict Biblical truth? The Elysian Fields were, according to Homer, located on the western edge of the Earth by the stream of Oceanus: In Homer's Odyssey, Elysium is described as a paradise: ...to the Elysian plain...where life is easiest for men. No snow is there, nor heavy storm, nor ever rain, but ever does Ocean send up blasts of the shrill-blowing West Wind that they may give cooling to men. — Homer, Odyssey (4.560–565)

“Do you agree there can be no natural cause for a molecule, only a holy one?” “What we know of natural causes, we learn from observation.”

That a molecule can only have a 'holy' cause is an arrogant argument from ignorance! Just because we don't completely understand the natural processes that give rise to complex molecules, it doesn't mean we are required to use god-of-the-gaps explanations. If this were an acceptable method of resolving difficult inquiry, then we would still be living in a geo-centric solar system where Earth is at the center of the universe. I have known people who have taken this view.

Discovery comes from the small increments of weight and measurement we call data, providing answers to questions we have carefully framed.”

“Survival of the fittest,” Thatcher consoled. “Nature red in tooth and claw.” “I’m sure you know you are quoting Tennyson, a sentimental poet. There is nothing of nature in these felines. They’re kept by cosseting human masters, pampered to perfect health and then turned loose on the neighborhood to terrorize poor wildlings who worked so hard to make a nest and brood their young.” Her dark eyes drilled into Thatcher, who contained no adequate response. “And then they go home at night to lap up their milk and sleep in soft cushions. It isn’t a fair fight.”

A funny response by scientist Mary Treat on the value of domesticated cats. Here, in this little story, indicating that they are considered an invasive species damaging to the environment because indigenous species cannot compete with them as they wreak havoc on native wildlife.

“I submit my lesson plans and he overrules all but the most mundane exercises in rote memory. Experimentation alarms him. Modern scientific theory enrages him, discussion of Darwin particularly but not only this. The suggestion of taking pupils outdoors to study nature, he treats as blasphemy.”

Rely not on your own understanding, the bible says...

“Discipline, and moral education. These are matters personal to the scholar. Discipline is a habit one brings to a study, and not the study itself. Is that not so?” “Madam, I wish I knew. I can only tell you Cutler feels direct observation is undisciplined behavior. Discipline is found in turning the eyes inward to the soul, finding truth through God and intuition rather than reason.”

These men think we need only declare ourselves Adam and Eve to recover all the fruits of Eden.

Rejecting scientific evidence for literal and inerrant interpretation of the Bible.

“What poems does your employer recommend to promote the study of science?” “He concedes a shortage of these, but he is forcefully opposed to rationalists. All the worse if they are rational and foreign.”

The school principal, Cutler, is opposed to individuals (his teachers) who rely on reason and logic (rationalists), especially if they are foreigners. It's commentary on the dangers of nationalism, isolationism, and the rejection of global cooperation and expertise. It highlights the tension between those who value reason and evidence, over religious beliefs only.

What is science without rational observation? Where is truth?” “He says it is not the place of someone in my subordinate position to decide what is true. Let alone encourage my pupils to look for it among the beetles and acorns.”

Here, Thatcher's superior at the school challenges the professor's desire for rational thought, critical thought and scientific skepticism, in favor of religious faith and mere belief.

‘In the death-like stillness a mysterious awe steals over my senses,’ that sort of business. ‘I am transported back through the ages to a time when nymphs presided over the wood, punishing those who shortened the lives of the trees.’”

“I never seem to know anything about myself at all. Except that I am curious, and put more faith in what I witness than what I am told.”

Mary seemed about to get up, but remained in her spot. Thatcher tried to imagine his pretty wife so comfortably seated on the ground, but could not. Beauty had its price. On days other than this one, he’d felt lucky to pay it.

What did Thatcher sacrifice to have a beautiful wife, now that he found Mary Treat, who he apparently truly loves? But on this particular day, he seems to be questioning or regretting that decision-- sacrificing compatibility for mere beauty when his soulmate (Mary) is seated before him.

How can we have creatures here that are not found in Europe and Asia, given that all began their progress from the Mountains of Ararat?

Well, now...

“He reads next to nothing. It might interfere with his knowledge of the universe.”

Rely only on faith and belief, not on knowledge. Keeping people stupid.

He says these difficult times in our shattered country call for a return to fundamentals.

Current times to be sure.

It was not long ago people blamed Darwin’s Origin for encouraging the abolitionists and the war. But now even abolitionists and transcendentalists have turned against him.”

Having a common ancestry challenged the pro-slavery position of racial supremacy.

“People may be persuaded of small things,” Mary said, looking away from Thatcher, speaking in the direction of the forest. “But most refuse to be moved on larger ones. An earth millions of years old appalls them, when they always have seen it otherwise. A humanity derived from the plain stuff of earth frightens them even more. Rather than look at evidence they would shut themselves up in a pumpkin shell like Peter Piper’s wife.” Her head nodded very slightly as she spoke, continuously and almost imperceptibly, like a grass touched by breeze. “Presumptions of a lifetime are perilous things to overturn. Presumptions of many lifetimes, in this case.”

Insisting on an unsubstantiated view of the world rather than how it really is.

Of all lifetimes ever lived, in this case. Every person in history must have placed himself at the head of a Creator’s table. To see that table overturned, cutlery and china dashed to the floor, one’s very place lost, was to witness the sky falling.