“I can’t help letting my mind wander to the implications of Alzheimer’s disease for the theory of an immortal soul. Who wants an afterlife if the immediate pre-afterlife is spent clutching the arms of a wheelchair, head bent back at forty-five degrees, eyes and mouth wide open and equally mute? Is the “soul” that lives forever the one we possess at the moment of death… or is it our personally best soul-say, the one that indwells in us at the height of our cognitive powers and moral aspirations?” (68)
This passage that Ehrenreich writes is intriguing in the context of her personal views. Previously she is known to have called herself, a “fourth generation atheist” which then leads the reader to wonder why she bothers with this consideration of the immortal soul at all if she doesn’t hold that faith. In fact she even criticizes the entire demonstration on page 69, “I got up to leave… and walk out to search for my car, half expecting to find Jesus out there in the dark, gagged and tethered to a tent pole.” To accept her claims with more veracity, I would like Ehrenreich to also address the reasons behind the poor’s reliance on religion as opposed to mocking their religious declarations.
I think you bring up a good point in how religion for different classes serves very different purposes. Does the idea of a higher power motivate people in the working class to keep going? Does her own lack of faith say something about her class or is it a simple byproduct of her family having similar values? I think it’s obviously more complex but agree she does not cover a lot of ground on this important subject.
Ehrenreich then comes to a conclusion that if our “personally best soul” is how we are preserved in heaven, then nothing in life really matters after “the height of our cognitive power and moral aspirations” because after that point we are “already dead” (68). This connects to your point about the “reliance” of the lower classes on religion, and ties back to our discussion in class about smoking and the autonomy it gives smokers in an otherwise controlled environment. Many of the characters we have been introduced to in the book so far are certainly not at their cognitive and moral height, and as Ehrenreich portrays it, it has a lot to do with their current status as minimum wage workers and the toll that kind of labor takes on the mind and body. At this time in their lives when they may have days where they feel “already dead”, little things that bring a sense of security and independence become very important.
I think this is an example of where Barbara inserts herself as the focus of this book. As you said, she doesn’t take the time address the poor’s reliance on religion but instead says her opinion on the matter. For a book that is supposed to explore the lives of low-age workers, I wish there was more time spent trying to understand them rather than Barbara.