Hi class, my prompts this week are a little more open-ended. Choose whichever questions are most interesting to you in the prompts.
Prompt option 1: Both Nagle and George spend a fair amount of time narrating how they came to their writing topics. Why do you suppose they do this? What are the advantages and drawbacks to this approach? What does it bring to the fore in their writings and what does it overlook or veil?
Prompt option 2: Nagle makes reference to several academic theorists in her writing, including Marcel Mauss and Wayne Brekhus. What does her use of these theorists add to her analysis? Does Nagle’s use of these theorists differ from how other writers we’ve read draw on academic theory?
Prompt option 3: Nagle argues that it is important to bring to light what is often invisible to us (the necessary labor of the sanitation worker). What is her justification for this? How is this argument compelling or uncompelling? Does it apply to the other readings we completed for this week? Can you think of a counter-argument?
Prompt option 4: Write two medium-length discussion questions for Trashed by Derf Backderf, tying it to some other reading we’ve done in the course.
## Prompt 3
For Nagle, the invisibility of sanitation workers offends on both theoretical and visceral levels. Drawing on the work of sociologist Wayne Brekhus, she presents sanitation work as “an ‘unmarked’ element of daily life” and argues that “recognizing only marked phenomena distorts our understanding of the world” (22). To ignore municipal waste management, in other words, would be to ignore that sanitation workers maintain the “basic rhythms of capitalism” and, what she calls, “our average necessary quotidian velocity” (24, 25). This theoretical defense then segues into a more visceral one: not only do we ignore sanitation workers in day-to-day interactions, we also deride them in our media and culture even as they face significant on-the-job dangers. As Nagle writes, “every sanitation worker of a certain age remembers the teacher yelling that if he didn’t get good grades, he’d end up a garbageman” (26). As Garbage Faeries demonstrates, this sentiment also remains pervasive in our advertisements, cartoons, and news stories.
The construction of this argument, I think, makes it compelling. Nagle starts with a dispassionate intellectual frame (Brekhus’s notion of the “unmarked”), marshalls empirical evidence (e.g. John Coleman’s writings on his sanitation work, the Bureau of Labor Statistics data on dangerous jobs), and ends with an evaluative judgment (it’s problematic for us, as consumers, to ignore and deride those who support our lifestyles). Rhetorically, this works, and, in some respects, it echoes Trashed. While Backderf focuses primarily on the annoyances and degradations faced by midwestern sanitation workers, he punctuates these scenes with more factual explorations. For instance, a few panels after JB is splashed with landfill refuse, Backderf presents us with a spread that details the anatomy of the typical landfill and its toxic shortcomings (109-112). This movement between the visceral and the empirical or theoretical strengthens both authors’ attempts to make waste management a little less invisible.
The garbage men of NYC are out everyday removing garbage from the streets and transporting it to landfills and waste disposal plants. Rose Nagel use of Marcus (pg7) “even when an object has been abandoned by the giver, it still possesses something of him, and Wayne Brekhu (p22) sanitation work is an e ample of an “unmarked” element of daily life. She uses these to humanize the garbageman, to make him visible(p23) he occupies in between physical spaces, the street “. Hopefully to change people’s minds and views of waste disposal and the unseen and unappreciative garbageman.
The draw on academic theory can be found in the introduction of Rose George (p2) Examining the unmentionables , Genetics Gary Ruvkin “believes the toilet is the single biggest variable in increasing human life span”, and Dr. John Snow “Remo al of a handle from a water pump in Soho London that killed over 50,000 people “. The focus on thes two statements are based on dates, numbers and facts that can be proven or disproven. All relating to the use of the toilet and waste removal.
In Mary Douglas Purity & Danger (p3) “Reflection on dirt involves reflection on the relation of order to disorder” and this is what Robin Nagle is relays in her passage.
Prompt 2:
Margaret Nagle’s use of academic theorists in her writing in “Garbage Faeries” supports her points by helping to dramatize or sensationalize (although those words might have too strong of a connotation) her journalistic thought. This is slightly different than what is seen in more academic readings where the philosophies or theories are used as more of an example to support a fact while in the case of op/ed journalism, Nagle uses it to support her personalized thoughts while also using factual information to strengthen her individualized observations. They also help to function as a transition or concluding point to what she is talking about. In the case of Marcel Mauss who proposed that when something “has been abandoned by the giver, it still possesses something of him” (7). Nagle uses this example when talking about how we as humans come into contact with items every day like a coffee cup, but are only in contact with them to throw these same items away from ourselves. Similar to how more academic writing might use this as an example to connect an older idea with a more modern idea, Nagle uses it to further dramatic effect by saying “We would go to a dump to get drunk on one another’s souls” (8). Nagle also uses Brekhus to a similar effect. As she is transitioning with narratives (of which there seem to be more in journalistic writing) she mentions how Brekhus viewed sanitation as “an example of an “unmarked” element of daily life” (22). This is to help us give context to the narratives of how sanitation workers are often ignored as they are just a part of daily city life. “Brekhus makes the case that important truths are lodged within the unmarked and the unseen” (22). Nagle invokes Brekhus because it will help make her point about how without sanitation workers, the city would be clean and thus render the jobs that are less stigmatized to be in danger from disease or filth.
In Picking Up, Robin Nagel describes and critiques the invisibility of sanitation work and workers, in marked contrast the tremendous importance of their work. Nagel goes to great lengths to demonstrate her admiration and enthusiasm for sanitation and sanworkers—both to the NYSD higher ups, and to the reader. She argues that “Sanitation is the most important uniformed force on the street” and “San workers are key players in maintaining the most basic rhythms of capitalism,” (24), and on a more personal note, describes her glee in reading NYSD archives, noting that “staff probably wished their cubicles had doors when I found it hard to resist reading various gems aloud” (39). Yet as an academic seeking to study the NYC sanitation system, she struggles to penetrate the defensive bureaucracy of a world that is more used to being criticized or ignored than the subject of genuine interest.
Like Picking Up, Derf Backderf’s Trashed is concerned not just with the sanitation system itself, but with the workers—the actual people—in the system. But unlike Nagel, Trashed portrays the humanity of garbage collectors with all of their flaws on display. They are often crass, petty, and unprofessional; yet the grueling, gruesome, thankless nature of their work makes this behavior comprehensible, even forgivable.
Which of these two portrayals—Nagle’s or Backderf’s—is ultimately more sympathetic? The academic’s perspective from the outside looking in, or the insider’s perspective from within the life of the job?
To the extent that Nagel and Backderf are both concerned with calling attention to the invisibility of the sanitation worker and thereby counteracting it, which account is more effective?
Prompt 4:
1. Both Joshua Reno and Derf Backderf worked in waste/garbage industry in the Midwest. Reno’s co-workers introduced in Your Trash is Someone’s Treasure: the Politics of Value at a Michigan Landfill and the characters in Trashed have something in common as well as some differences. As for the things in common, first, every worker who actually does dirty work is a male. Second, there are people who are into scavenging although there are probably more at the landfill since you can actually attach somebody’s face to whatever you pick directly as a sanitation worker. As for the differences, first, Reno’s co-workers do not directly deal with people who produce garbage as opposed to the characters in Trashed. Second, the characters in Trashed possess a strong defiant attitude. On the contrary, Reno’s co-workers seem somewhat compliant.
Does it make any difference in how workers perceive their job and waste which part of garbage industry you work, and also the geographic location of your work (for this purpose, we can also draw on how sanitation workers are portrayed in Robin Nagle’s work)?
It’s not necessary to watch this, but I am leaving a link here since I found the comments people left very interesting.
https://www.ted.com/talks/robin_nagle_what_i_discovered_in_new_york_city_trash?language=en#t-13219
2. In Wasted, Derk Backderf criticizes “throwaway culture” and “built-in obsolescence”. Obviously, capitalist economy is responsible for creating those and producing more waste. In Six Theses on Waste, Vinay Gidwani argues that capitalist value “continuously casts certain people, places, and conducts as wasteful, superfluous, or residual. In short, capitalist value constantly battles to assert its normative superiority over and autonomy from other forms of value production that interweaves with it. (773). We can see this notion in how J.B and his co-workers are treated by people in Wasted. Is it just because of capitalist values? Is there any other factor contributing to horrible treatment of sanitation workers in general?
Prompt #4
In Trashed, Derf Backderf refers to the dump as “Hell on Earth,” his protagonist noting that “it’s designed so you can’t see it from outside…so the full horror of [the] place isn’t known” (105). In the pages that follow (106-107), Backderf renders the dump as a large and unmissable wasteland, the two-page spread forcing readers to pause and look. Toward the end of the narrative, Backderf creates a similarly large drawing that allows readers to “visual[ize] a 400-foot-deep landfill” (232). What is the effect of these two spreads?
In Nagle’s “Picking Up: On the Streets and Behind the Trucks with the Sanitation Workers of New York City,” she describes a garbage transfer station in a similar way, comparing the smelly, chaotic “gloom” to Dante’s Inferno, claiming that “even a poet as gifted as Dante couldn’t make it worse than this” (6). In what ways can Nagle’s narratives be compared to Backderf’s illustrated spreads? Which approach do you feel is more effective? Why?
Throughout Trashed, Backderf makes repeated references to class. For example, the protagonist frequently refers to he and his fellow servicemen as “serfs” and Magee wears a tee shirt that reads, “They only call it class war when we fight back” (173). What might Backderf be saying about class and waste? In what ways can Trashed be read as a critique of capitalism?
Prompt 3
Nagle argues that life in New York would be impossible “if people responsible for managing the waste of contemporary society were not on the streets every day” (Nagel 12). However, people in New York do not pay much attention on the problem of waste. Nobody cares for human costs and labour requirements of waste. She blames New Yorkers for having a narrow view on the world of garbage and people who work for that industry. She wants thorough the description of their life to let us know how much sacrifice they put daily into this job and how we constantly forget that garbage will not go away by itself, unless they come and pick it up. Nagel wants the reader to feel a guilty conscience for the waste they depose and for those who sacrifice their life. “Regardless of their time on the job, the families who depend on them, the specific assignment they take, the physical hurts they endure, or their crucial role in the city’s well-being, when the Garbage Faeries put on that uniform, it’s as if they cease to exist.” (Nagel 27) Therefore, her argument is compelling because the reader feels bad for the people who invest so much for our city to look nicer and for us to stay in a clean and healthy environment.
When comparing Nagle and George, both are capturing reader’s attention by giving data/facts about the waste and people who work in sanitation. While Nagle is focused on street garbage, George covers the problematics of sewerage system and “toiletless” societies around the world. “Rich toileted people; poor toiletless masses. Life, luxury, and health for privileged. Disease and death and business as usual for the poor.” (George 3) Further, George explains that the most of the people from the toiletless societies did not even feel the urge to build the sewers system or pit latrines; they would invest money for something they would see as more important. However, after they experienced benefits of toilets, majority of Indians invested in building one of them. Builders of toilets in India were respected and praised by their own people, as those who cleaned their environment and save their life. Why are New Yorkers not sentimental when it comes to garbage cleaners? Why is our society that is regarded as more advanced so regressive when it comes to environment? Why is the word “garbage-man” used as an insult?
3. Nagle uses Wayne Brekhus’ work to argue that the unnoticed aspects of life “stand in contrast to things, relationships, identities, or behaviors that are marked,” and that “important truths are lodged within the unmarked and unseen” (22). To apply this view, she turns to the relationship between garbage and our “lushly consumptive economy and culture” (23). The work of garbage workers is classified as preventive (vs. reactive) – meaning that we only notice it when it is not done.
For me, this is compelling because it is clear that we are all deeply connected to our consumption habits and the waste removal that enables those habits. However, if we forget that connection, we also forget that some enormous extension of ourselves is lying somewhere, scattered throughout landfills.
In addition to this blindspot, we also forget how much of ourselves we are revealing through our consumption habits. Throughout Trashed, we get to see how the garbage workers begin to know about their patrons through the garbage they put out. At one point the protagonist finds the pornography collection of a former math teacher and shows it to a co-worker. When his co-worker wonders why someone would volunteer something so personal to the public sphere, the protagonist answers saying that the people who are throwing things out don’t think about the waste workers at all. The trash just magically disappears for them; and because – from their standpoint – it just disappears, they feel not cause to be embarrassed. And so, a new facet of their public persona develops without their understanding what they have done to attach that label to themselves. In this respect, Nagle’s attentiveness about the unnoticed parts of life is not just a way of learning about the world outside of us, but it is also a way of knowing about ourselves – about the way we appear within the world that surrounds us.