In Memory of Iris

The Iris I knew, the Iris I know, is the Iris who is not physically here with us, the Iris who had and who still has the power to draw us together and keep us together. It is this power of drawing us together that I want to talk about, and it is the power that for me defines what she was and what she is. I will call this a bio-power for it enlivens those it comes into contact with. It is a power that is deeply pervaded by a sense of social justice. Here are words that are the site and the voice of this power:

One day the apolitical intellectuals of my country will be interrogated by the simplest of our people.

They will be asked what they did when their nation died out slowly, like a sweet fire small and alone.

No one will ask them about their dress, their long siestas after lunch, no one will want to know about their sterile combats with the “idea of the nothing.” No one will care about their higher financial earning, They won’t be questioned on Greek mythology or regarding their self disgust when someone within them begins to die the coward’s death

They will be asked nothing about their absurd justifications born in the shadow of the total lie

On that day the simple men will come, those who had no place in the books and poems of the apolitical intellectuals, but daily delivered their bread and milk, their tortillas and eggs, those who mended their clothes, those who drove their cars, who cared for their dogs and garden And worked for them and they’ll ask: “what did you do when the poor suffered, when tenderness and life burned out in them?”

These are words I encountered in the 1970s—words written by Otto Rene Castillo of Guatemala. I found them in a 1971 volume of Cross Currents. I have kept these words as a part of my superego, to warn me when the intellect seduces me into embracing a life that is oblivious of the suffering of fellow human beings. On that day, when apolitical intellectuals will be called upon to account for their crime against humanity, Iris will not be among them. She will be a member of the jury determining the fate of these intellectuals. Of this I am convinced, for even before her physical departure from us, Iris was already a member of this jury. She demonstrated this in her professional life, and in her struggle to better the lives of the oppressed and the exploited. The oxygen she breathed was thoroughly and unequivocally feminist, thoroughly and unequivocally antiracist, and thoroughly and unequivocally anti-elitist. Those who knew Iris know these were not empty labels or empty slogans. She deeply cared about the exploitation, repression, exploitation, and oppression of women. She deeply cared about racial exploitation, repression, and oppression. She deeply cared about class exploitation, repression, and oppression. Above all, she did more than simply care. In theory and in practice she sought ways in which these injustices could be clearly articulated and eliminated.

When she moved to the University of Chicago, I thought: there goes Iris. With all those Great Books people, with the conservative and neoconservative people at the university, with all the law and economics people, with all market-oriented people, and with the neo-Straussians, I thought we had lost her. If it were not for my congenital heathenism, I would have prayed for her. Fortunately, she proved my fear to be radically unfounded. Her resilience came through. She continued to be Iris. When I met her at professional meetings, she was the same Iris—the Iris whose crusade for social justice was as strong as ever. Those of us who are left behind—her brothers and sisters, our task is clear: for Iris’s sake, for our sake, and for the sake of humanity, we have to continue crusading for social justice, so that when that day comes we will not be asked, “What did you do when the poor suffered...