Creative Maladjustment V: A New Story

People talk a lot these days about "reframing the debate," changing the metaphors and stories that govern our political thinking. I'm a little leery of relying too heavily on this strategy (we've all seen what can happen when our leaders try to impose their narrative on the world without bothering to connect it to any kind of reality... at a certain point you just have to call it lying, right?). But I know that our stories do shape how we see things, what we think is possible. And telling a new one can open up all kinds of possibilities for changing the world. At its best, creative maladjustment does this too.

I recently sat in a meeting with two legislators listening to them talk about why schools in Washington State never seem to get half the money they need (something to which I just can’t seem to get myself adjusted, alas). One ticked off a few hard-won incremental improvements in education funding, tiny drops in a giant empty bucket. The other talked about how he’s managed to help a few individual schools find funding for specific projects.

They’re not wrong to be proud of these accomplishments, which really are significant victories in the context of budget-making in Olympia. As the incremental champion pointed out, the legislative process is designed to keep things from changing too fast. Still, this was not the visionary inspiration we had hoped for. “No, we’re not going to get there before your kids graduate from high school," she said. "But you have to keep trying.” (Now where have I heard that before?)

These smart, good-hearted, hardworking people presumably went to Olympia to make a difference, as they say. But they have been sucked into a helpless, hopeless, numbingly familiar story: We can’t get more money for schools because Tim Eyman’s initiatives have made it impossible to raise taxes, and limit our spending even when we do have the money. We can't fix this problem until we scrap the entire tax system in Washington State and start over with an income tax. And that’s never going to happen. The End.

Meanwhile, our state is 37th in the nation in per student funding, 46th in class size. Meanwhile Washington only funds half-day kindergarten and 5 periods a day for high school -- not enough class time to meet the State’s own standards. Meanwhile people find themselves arguing that we should not enforce our graduation requirements because they don’t want to face the fact that so many kids who go through our schools can’t meet them. Meanwhile... I too have been hypnotized by this tale of woe.

Clearly we need to bust out a zippy new narrative here -- perhaps an adventure story involving heroic teachers, innocent children in peril, legislators in shining armor, and treasure chests overflowing with gold, delivered to schoolhouse doors by cheering throngs of flower-throwing tax-payers. Or maybe (if you're feeling bitter about Mr. Eyman) that one where a vengeful superhero comes screaming out of the sky and takes the sneering villain down in a cathartic blast of fiery justice.

That sure would be satisfying, wouldn't it? But I wouldn't call it creative maladjustment, exactly. More like escapist fantasy. And while I have nothing against escapist fantasies per se, I think creative maladjustment calls for something different.

We need a story that draws us into concrete action, one suitable for an ongoing struggle, with room for something a little more complicated than Good v. Evil. As I may have implied earlier, I suspect the Trickster Tale may be a piece of the creative maladjustment puzzle, and have embarked upon a somewhat haphazard crash course in the genre. About which more soon.

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