This blog entry is basically for the people who will be reading Margaret Atwood’s PAYBACK, Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth (a fun book) for the first session of the UNM Honors Alumni Book Club. On April 10, 2016. Ambrosia Ortiz y Prentice invited me to pick a book and lead the discussion. Choosing a book was difficult. I write fiction and, for pleasure at least, mainly read fiction. But I decided against a novel. The novels I like best are long and it did not seem like a good idea to start the book club with a long book. I almost chose THE CROSSING by Cormac McCarthy because it is in the top five books I’ve read in the past 15 or 20 years and it is partly set in New Mexico (the Deming/Lordsburg area) and partly in Mexico. But then I remembered that the end of the book was so emotionally wrenching that I was essentially incapacitated for days after reading it. It did not seem like a good choice for perky intellectual conversation. So I was in a jam. I wanted to choose something short, intellectually stimulating and sort of fun. I admit that the concept of debt did not jump immediately to mind. Wracking my brain, however, I recalled a really fascinating interview with Margaret Atwood. The interview had been about debt and she had written a book on the subject. I got the book and found it short, smart, thought-provoking, and witty. Kind of fun. If anybody wants to listen to Margaret Atwood lecture on the subject, Here's a link:
Margaret Atwood, one hour lecture on Payback
So I decided to go with it for the book club.
As I read the book I found memories coming unbidden to mind and I wonder what sort of
memories and reflections that other readers will encounter while reading and
thinking about the book. I am an
anthropologist and always bring the anthropological outlook to my reading.
The structure of the book is basically exploratory. Following MA’s lead
we approach a puzzling complex of
cultural beliefs, customs, and institutions that connect to the central notion
of debt as we now use it to organize relationships in our society (North
American). It is not an essay, lacking
that clean central thesis and march of evidence that we all find so comforting. Instead there is a sequence. We look at the origin and history of the
fundamentals that make modern debt possible.
Then we look at the way the moral dimension of debt makes it legally and
emotionally powerful. Next MA explores
the literary utility of debt as a plot engine in powerful stories. Consciously
or unconsciously, in titling the next chapter The Shadow Side, MA invokes the
sinister words of Dick Cheney to enumerate the many ways that the complex of
lending, borrowing, collecting, foreclosing, and recording can and is turned to
evil ends. She explores revenge as a way
of balancing accounts. Finally, in the
last chapter, she tests the utility of using debt as a metaphor for a pathway
out of the terrible destruction of the world ecology that human ingenuity,
greed, short-sightedness and ignorance has created.
Here are some questions and issues that arose for me in my various
readings of the book and reflections on it:
·
What is the utility and what are the drawbacks
of this structure compared to the essay, fiction, etc.?
·
What are your personal beliefs regarding debt
and how did you attain them? I refer to
both sides of the debt equation – borrowing and lending.
·
What did you enjoy most about the book? I really enjoyed MA's wit even though I often thought she was showing off.
·
What was most powerful about the book? What examples, images, points?
·
What do you believe is immoral as regards
borrowing, lending, repaying, collecting, etc?
·
How can a person maintain virtue as a
lender? As a debtor?
·
How can debt be best used in the interest of
good in our society?
·
To what extent are we in the grip of cultural
institutions and beliefs that we have learned and that are ambient in our society? Do we have any “wiggle room?”
·
In several instances MA refers to forgiveness,
forgiving debt, wiping the slate clean, etc.
She even quotes the Lord’s Prayer and speculates as to what would have
been the result if President Bush, after the attacks of 911, had reacted
differently, rejecting vengeance and embracing forgiveness. What sort of options does the various kinds
of debt forgiveness open up?
·
Can we change our beliefs about debt?
Musical Interlude:
Musical Interlude:
·
What is the utility of the different kinds of
debt to the society at large:
o
Home mortgage debt
o
Credit card debt
o
Student loan debt
o
Payday loan debt
o
Pledge debt (pawn)
·
If debt is a relationship mediated by a contract
known as a loan, then what constitutes a healthy relationship?
·
What is it that the FED does and how does it
affect the various kinds of debt?
·
What do you think of extending the utility of
the debt concept via metaphor as did Atwood in her last chapter? – Do we owe a
debt to nature in view of our utilization/decimation of the natural world?
·
Does “Scrooge Nouveau” remind you of anybody?
·
In my view, Atwood uses the Christmas Carole
story projected into the present/future to “get off some zingers” ie.
o
Nature is an expert in Cost-Benefit Analysis… as
for debts she collects in the long run.
o
Maybe a pandemic plague is part of Nature’s
cost-benefit analysis
o
People began substituting something called ‘market’ for God, attributing the same
characteristics to it, all knowingness, always-rightness, the ability to make
‘corrections.’
o
All wealth comes from nature, without nature
there wouldn’t be any economics
o
In a crisis or impending crisis: You can protect
yourself, give up and party, help others, blame others, bear witness, or go
about your life.
o
It’s folly to become dependent on just a few
crops
o
With futures, it’s all probability
o
Saving a species from extinction has a date
stamp on it just like debt and mortal life.
Most of these seem both true. They are also witty. Is this a good way for MA to get her points across? What are the advantages and disadvantages?
