What are your ‘isms?”

When I was in college, back in ancient times (the early 1960s), I was an economics major.  One of the most popular courses was called comparative economic systems—communism, socialism, capitalism. Despite the then-recent history of World War II, we did not discuss fascism, which is another form of economic governance, a governing structure based on an alliance of industry and authoritarian control.  Today capitalism seems to have triumphed, although triumph always reveals the greatest flaws of the victor. Socialism, communism, and fascism are thrown around indiscriminately in public dialogue as objects of scorn.

There are lot of other kinds of isms out there, some not as easily adopted or hurled as identifiers. Schools of art—-Cubism, impressionism, romanticism.  Prejudice also has isms—racism, sexism, ableism, and to borrow an “ism “from Spanish, machismo. But the ones that I am focused on here are those that reflect a positive world view, The way we  choose to experience, process, and participate in the world around us.  Those ”isms”  come from religion, philosophy, and personal experience.

Most but not all religions end in ism, from paganism to Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and animism.  (Look that one up if you need to.)  Exceptions are two of the world’s most popular religions, Islam and Christianity. Although some of their subsets are described is isms. (Sufism, Wahhabism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Methodism, etc.). This usage of “ism” is more what I have come to think of as a category, a set of shared beliefs or values as well as rituals, holidays, and practices. My own chosen faith tradition, Unitarian Universalism (at one time before merging, Unitarianism and Universalism) is grounded in shared values and rituals. I started down that path by embracing the heresy of Arianism, the early Christian doctrine denying the trinity.

After much soul searching, I have concluded that my values and my actions, my vocation and my worldview partake of three positive isms. (Meaning that they would always be used, at least by me, and an affirmation or compliment and never as an insult or criticism.)

The first one that entered my life, as It does for many of us, was mysticism—a sense of reverence, awe and wonder, of the presence of the holy in and around us. That experience can come through traditional religion, private spirituality, or the natural world. Of my three, this one is probably the most universal.

The second “ism” began to form in late adolescence as I rejected the standard options for careers for women–ideally, a homemaker and mother, but possibly a nurse, teacher, or secretary. My feminist self took shape and form as new options opened up with Sputnik, Betty Friedan, and Gloria Steinem. As I left my home town, intending never to return, I echoed the words of Miranda in The Tempest, “Oh, breve new world, that has such people in it!.” College was an invitation to rethink everything I believed, thought, or was taught.  I became a Democrat, an economist, and an academic. When my beloved husband (also a feminist) and I were blessed with three girls we had a good opportunity to pass on our feminist values, which they have lived with far more sense o discovery than I did. Also became deeply involved in the League of Women Voters, found feminist heroines to admire (including a great-grandmother who marched for women’s suffrage).  Over time, I built friendships and communities among women that have sustained me over my very long life as a feminist.  Feminism is not sexism, which would discriminate against men as a class. It is an affirmation of both quality and uniqueness, and a commitment to support future generations to preserve, protect and defend our equality and our specialness..

When I went off to college, having begun my long embrace of feminism, I intended to be an engineer.  There I discovered a third -ism, utilitarianism.  Utilitarianism is one several ethical schools in philosophy, one that is easily summed up as “the greatest good for the greatest number.” It is the foundation of economics as an academic and policy discipline, and it was there that I found my vocational home as a mystic feminist utilitarian. I caution that in my view and that of many of my fellow economists, utilitarianism is more suited to be a guide to how to govern a city, state country, or community than for individual and household/family behavior. In the family I tried to be a good Marxist– ’’from each according to her abilities, to each according to her needs.”

In my retirement years, I discovered that I had over the years adopted without realizing it a personal philosophy of stoicism, an ancient Greek philosophy that is often lightly summarized by the prayer associated with Alcoholics Anonymous—the courage to change the things you can change the serenity to accept the things you cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference. Stoicism requires daily practice and reflection on your interactions with others  It is well worth the effort.

I am ready to order my customized T-shirt, regretfully leaving off my beloved utilitarianism as a public and not a private ism. Here is what it says:

I believe in

Mysticism

Feminism

Stoicism

How about you?