“Politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards.” - Max Weber
“Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them.
Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
― Arundhati Roy, War Talk
To me, one of the benefits of reading blogs by people I like to read is seeing some of the people that they read and cultivating a web of interests. In the last week or so, a lot of creators I frequently read, watch, and listen to have come out swinging on some of my favorite topics.
Liam Kofi Bright1 wrote on how he believes the fact/opinion dichotomy is attempting to divide things into two categories - those which we can reasonably disagree with and those things which we should be able to come to an agreement. In actuality, this dichotomy does a terrible job of dividing those two things.
Tony Ginocchio wrote a review of an in progress USCCB website on how to win arguments with facts and logic that ended up pointing out how bad the bishops’ own facts and logic are and how awful they can be with the power they wield. Once again, a topic I covered before - actually criticizing exactly the same document Tony covers in the piece. Tony’s post is, of course, a lot more entertaining than mine.
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg of the wonderfully named blog Life as a Sacred Text who frequently reads the bible with liberation in mind has a beautiful piece this past week on Numbers and living in the liminal space (The Desert) between an unjust society (Egypt) and true justice (the Promised Land). Her essay is much better than my essay that touched on but did not explore the topic, although mine has the advantage of also being about Star Trek.
Hamilton Nolan2, had not one, but two pieces for his blog How Things Work that had me nodding along and wanting to make notes for myself. The first of these pieces was a haunting portrayal of the on the ground stories of people living in countries at war and how disconnected our discussions of security in America are from the indiscriminate harm we do in calls for wrath against those considered threats to the world order. The second is a guide to what the average person in America can do to actively foster stronger labor protections in America.
In a collaboration of a lot of different policy institutions I follow, Joshua Mccabe and Leah Libresco3 came out with a white paper on options for expanding the CTC4 in the Niskanen Center5 using tools from PolicyEngineUSA6 to make taxes both simpler and more beneficial.
And John Green wrote an op-ed7 and debuted a Crash Course lecture arguing for more funding for the treatment of TB in low- and middle-income countries as well as urging those of us who live in high income countries to sign a petition calling for corporations to lower their prices for testing of TB. Given the very low portion of revenue that low- and middle- income countries represent for companies, this sort of public pressure has been broadly successful.
I’m glad to see so much great content in what is, for me, a climactic time of the year. World TB Day fell on March 24th. The Anniversary of the ACA falls on March 23rd8. This week is holy week which is the crescendo of the liturgical calendar. And, of course, this week marks what I believe to be a pretty significant turning point in the Animorphs storyline. The turning point for the Animorphs I’m hoping to also tie somewhat to the projects of the above authors as well, because what unites the above authors is a relentless pursuit of justice in creative and practical ways that are both profoundly narrow and profoundly broad in scope.
At first glance, Liam’s topic may not have much to say about justice or decision making, but he is concerned that the fact vs opinion dichotomy doesn’t grapple with either high level political disputes or very personal household decisions. If I want pizza and my spouse wants a stir-fry for dinner, we can’t just agree that this is a difference of opinion, someone has to make or buy dinner9. Conversely, examples of facts include data on the economy or elections supplied by the government which should not always be taken as fact. In fact10, the end supplies Liam’s strongest objection to the dichotomy.
What they [technocrats who want people to be taught facts vs opinions] most want is a clear realm wherein their expertise is recognized and deferred to and taken as the common basis of political action.
This leads directly into Tony’s piece on bishops, who very clearly see themselves as the arbiters of moral facts. These moral facts about who to have sex with and how to have sex so that you are serving the others then leads them to absurd conclusions about how the government should allow them, as the morally righteous that command budgets, to deny benefits to those they see as unfit.
The Rabbi’s piece adds another dimension to this story as well. See, Tony’s blog comes to the conclusion that the dumb website the bishops have set up to convince themselves and people who think like them that they are the morally superior ones who should be deciding fates of the less morally superior isn’t designed to convince anyone. He puts it a bit colorfully.
I think writing stuff like that is an exercise in self-soothing and is, ultimately, masturbatory. “But Tony you write a blog and that's masturbatory too” yeah buddy that's right, so it's a good thing I'm not a direct successor of the Apostles overseeing a school system and social service networks and carrying hiring and firing power over hundreds of employees. I'm not saying I should have the bishops' job, I'm saying all of the bishops should have my job, and also nobody should have theirs.
The bolded emphasis is mine, because there is a problem here. If we are to live in a just world, someone has to make the decisions. Now, you could say that Tony means this seriously in the sense that no one should have the same level of power that the bishops have over often hundreds of employees11. But even if you take that to be true in some sense, there needs to be some mechanism, like a democratically elected governing force, to enforce breaking up power than that which just kicks the problem into another level of abstraction. There is no way out of needing to make decisions.
This is where the Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg’s essay comes in. Because now we have moved from a broken system, a broken world, into a desert where sustaining yourself isn’t easy. As she says.
But the Israelites weren’t remembering slavery. But rather, they were romanticizing how easy it was to just sit back and let toxic systems do their thing.
Because yeah, this work is hard. Really really hard.
If you commit to addressing harm and abuse, what does that put you on the hook for, exactly?
What do you have to take responsibility for, and to whom?
The questions go on and on and on. But Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg gives an answer. We aren’t alone. And the victims of abuse should be the first brought in, there material well-being should be our north star, our guiding principle.
This is where Nolan’s first piece comes in, where we are faced with the reality that we can’t simply direct airstrikes at our enemies and become more secure. Our enemies and the huddled masses yearning to be free cannot be cleanly divided from afar, they are the us that should be brought along to our power. But my heart aches at the thought of the deeply personal disasters and catastrophes told in this first piece. It is far too big with nothing I can do, no way I can help. This too can lead to despair.
But then comes in Nolan’s second piece. Nolan gives specific, actionable advice for building power of a labor movement. This is a direct answer to the bishops who are bosses. American labor is often affluent, often near power, sometimes just a quick climb of a ladder up to step on the neck of the laborers below. But a powerful labor force bound together in common cause pulls some of the facade that bosses have any real power. The only power they have comes from the workers themselves.
Policies advocated by the Niskanen center only supports this effort. Living in a rich country with a social safety net that secures housing, healthcare, and a certain level of dignity and security removes the boot from worker necks that threatens them to stay in a dead-end job for fear of hunger or destitution. Social safety net policies and pro-labor organizing provide a one two punch within high income countries. But we should not stop there.
The project John Green is involved in is the project of imagining a new world. The radical inequality within the US, though recently improving, is staggering and unjust. The radical inequality beyond, is unimaginable. A lot of that difference is that people live with, are disabled by, or die of diseases like Tuberculosis, HIV, and cancers that people in high income countries just do not die of or are not harmed by. In a strange way, giving the mundane time, attention, and basic care to people just like us in an unjust situation does allow some of our power to flow to them.
This book is an odd one in a lot of different ways. The title alone of this book already gives a sort of spoiler. Then when we dive into the book the vignette ends up being directly relevant to the rest of the story. Marco and Jake morph dogs to attend a concert. While morphed as dogs they discover that one of their classmates, Erek King, has no smell. The team then starts to trail this student and Tobias and Marco witness Erek disappearing right before being hit by a bus, but then reappearing and getting up as if nothing has happened.
We all know where this is going. We know we’re about to find out Erek is The Android12. We have to do some song and dance of Marco nearly getting swallowed to death, but we get there in the end. Marco comes face to face with Erek having just morphed out of a bird. Erek quotes Shakespeare to him, saying he saw the first play. He tells Marco to come with friends to his house, and when they arrive and are brought down to the basement, they discover many Androids shaped like dogs with many “normal, everyday Earth dogs, every breed and half-breed you could imagine”.
The Animorphs learn the story of the Pemalites. The race that created the androids were non-violent, playful, but very advanced creators. The Pemalites were an advanced civilization long before the Andalites were, and created android dogs as companions called The Chee. The Pemalites were nearly wiped out by a warlike civilization called the Howlers, but escaped to earth. The Chee couldn’t save the Pemalites but put their souls into wolves to create dogs.
Thus, we are introduced to a new ally. The Animorphs are no longer alone in their fight against the Yeerks. The Chee have infiltrated the Yeerks, they are far more technologically powerful. And because The Chee are deeply intertwined with dogs who have a fate linked with that of humans Erek believes they have a responsibility to fight with the Andalites. There is just one problem, of course. The Chee are non-violent. They are hard-wired not to fight or kill.
There is also, of course, a solution. The Yeerks have gotten ahold of a piece of Pemalite technology called a Pemalite crystal. With that crystal, the Yeerks are planning on gaining control of every computer on earth13. If the Animorphs are able to bring it to The Chee they may be able to rewrite their own software to be able to fight alongside the Animorphs. Marco sees a way out if they join with the Chee.
“Of course we want to,” I said. “With these guys on our side, we actually have a chance of winning. Of course we want to. Animorphs and Chee together? Our morphing ability, their strength and holographic tricks? We’d kick Yeerk butt.”
“No,” Maria cried [one of the Chee] “You don’t understand. Chee do not hurt. Chee do not kill. No Chee has ever taken a life.” She grabbed my arm and looked right in my eyes. “While humans and Yeerks and Andalites and Hork-Bajir and a million other species on a million worlds warred and slaughtered and conquered, we remained at peace. Would you end all that? Would you make us killers, too?”
“Yes, ma’am, I guess I would,” I said, a little coldly. “We’re in a fight for our lives here.
Look, I agree with Marco here. I’m willing to be convinced otherwise here, I’m actually not confident I’m correct. But it feels like Maria is suggesting the Pemalite ideal of non-violence is more important than the risk of annihilation for the entire human race and all life on earth.
And once again, I am guessing it is clear where the book is going with this. Erek does use the Pemalite crystal by the end of the book14. It ends badly for the Yeerks. But it also ends badly for Erek, because he has now killed other creatures and as The Android he is, he cannot forget that violent action for as long as he lives. And perhaps it does not matter whether the Chee can be reasoned with that violence is necessary and worth it for them, it does not look like they will be able to act as aggressors in the war. This book could have been the final nail in the coffin for the Yeerk invasion. I think it’s possible to imagine an Animorph story where this book starts a climax to a second act, with the first act concluding with Jake’s release from his capture. We can imagine the tide turning with the Chee alongside our heroes and perhaps the Andalite forces even come in for the coup de grace to cut off the Yeerk escape. The Animorphs have seen some horrors but remain largely virtuous heroes in the eyes of the readers. These books would then be a coming of age of children learning to lead and follow.
This is, of course, not the end. Just as in the book of Numbers, The Animorphs must try and find a way out of the world of oppression by Yeerk slavery to a more just order. But they have to travel through the desert first. There problems won’t be solved by a sudden shock and awe show of force that destroys every one of their enemies. Instead, they’ll have to build bit-by-bit. In this book they get a small win, they have some new allies that can feed them information. At each new avenue and turn in the books to come they’ll have to make the best decisions they can asking themselves hard questions at every turn as they try and hold themselves accountable.
Admittedly this was more than a week ago. Liam is a Black professor of philosophy and occasional online troll. He doesn’t frequently publish on his blog but when he does, I often find his reflections useful.
A journalist who covers labor and politics and has a book out that I haven’t had a chance to pick up yet.
A fellow Effective Altruist Catholic who is also interested in family policy.
A think tank that seeks to optimize free markets and social policy for human flourishing, which places it pretty firmly on the center-left but in sometimes surprisingly radical ways.
The labyrinthine network of state and federal taxes and transfers available and not available to working families make it nearly impossible to figure out what is the effective marginal tax rate at any given point on the income ladder and as far as I can tell PolicyEngine is the only place that has illustrated how interacting policies actually work for a few states. People often think “Oh if I go into the next tax bracket that is going to hurt me right” but that isn’t actually how taxes work, taxes are actually way more intelligently designed than that (the only income tax at the next bracket is the amount made more than that) and also much dumber (sometimes you instantly lose a benefit if you cross a dollar amount).
Paywalled, apologies
We’ve celebrated with cake every year for the last 7 years now in my household. It’s actually the primary mechanism of how I’ve gotten healthcare for most of my adult life.
This may be a real example - vegan pizza is good! Unfortunately, stir-fries are generally cheaper and healthier so there is a “right” answer here most of the time.
heh, see what I did there?
As a matter of fact, he probably has made that argument. I believe I made a kenosis argument about spreading material power in the past as well. I’m far too lazy to go find either of these.
Hey, that’s the name of the book!
Seems far-fetched, but I guess Stuxnet was a thing.
I’m continuing my trend of not really elaborating much on climaxes of the books when I can. Hopefully this provides some incentive to read them.