Stamp Politics

The US Postal Service used to require a person to be dead for at least five years before he or she could be honored on a stamp. Here’s Stephen Kearney, the Postal Service’s manager of stamp services, on the policy change:

“Having really nice, relevant, interesting, fun stamps might make a difference in people’s decisions to mail a letter. This is such a sea change.”

I agree with Kearney that “this is such a sea change” but for totally different reasons. Though it’s really assuming to think about the USPS running focus groups for stamps and asking marketing consultants how to make mailing cool, I see the policy change clinging to the coattail of a shift in our epistemology of how we judge others – from a dualistic (good vs. bad) framework to something else.

For the purpose of this argument, I’m asserting that the former stamp policy relied on the premise that putting a person on a stamp before they died ran the risk of them doing something really really bad, and the post office or customers regrettably being stuck with a really uncomfortable stack of stamps.

I think this new policy embraces a way of compartmentalizing people by their actions, ideas and bodies, liking and disliking them or parts of them over time – allowing this experience of feeling towards another to be fluid. I think of Steve Jobs. He treated a lot of his employees like shit, but he had really inspiring philosophies and cool inventions. With regards to the previous stamp policy, featuring his face on a stamp after he died would signify some political worth – the bad things that he did fall short of the “really, really bad exclusion.” Now, I think the new policy makes a different political statement – we put people we admire in some way on a stamp regardless of whether or not they may become a serial killer or already have skeletons in their closet.

I know that this makes a lot of assumptions about how we view those who are chosen to be on stamps, but I think it’s an interesting jumping off point for a discussion about how we feel towards others. I tend to find myself liking or disliking people for an inexplicable web of reasons, which then patterns my initial view of their actions and opinion as good or bad depending on my totalizing feelings towards them. I can’t think of a way to test how I come to like or dislike someone – what perceptions are present in my first impressions of someone or how I process several experiences with someone and generate a net positive or negative reaction. Regardless, I’m intrigued by the inconsistency of these feelings over time.

What I think the new stamp policy forces us to think about is that we’re not all suppressing our devilish imps until we die to be worthy of being on a stamp – for lack of a better measure. Rather, people do really bad things and really good things over the course of their lives and in actively in different aspects of their lives. And, we have to deal with how we navigate expressing admiration, esteem and contempt for another. Is everything someone does intrinsic and interconnected? I want to say yes, but I don’t know how significant the implications are.

By: Lexie Tourek

(Photo courtesy of sxc.hu)