Lamentations

For me, COVID began on March 13, 2020. That's the day we were all sent to work from home for two weeks. Looking back through my emails, it was clear that no one had any idea what was about to happen. 

I have little memory of what I thought, but I can't have been feeling too pessimistic about the fate of humanity — I got pregnant a couple weeks later. 

And here we are, five years on, and our collective ability to prognosticate has not improved. Every meeting I go to now involves some kind of lamentation about "these dark times." Someone casually asserted that we are "kneecapping the next generation" in a meeting today. The department I work for has a faculty slack channel which mirrors my LinkedIn feed — a litany lamentations about the collapse of modern science. Even before all the Trump bullshit, every meeting involved some version of "what if she doesn't win?!" handwringing. What if, indeed. 

On the other side, those living Trump's paradise feel basically as despondent as their vanquished foes. They are doing their best to stem the overwhelming tide of civilizational collapse. Children are being mutilated by doctors and poisoned by big pharma as we speak. Free speech is impossible, free thinking a crime. Liberalism is disintegrating as we scroll merrily on our phones. In a generation, there will be no more children. 

Honestly, it's all I can do not to roll my eyes so hard they fall out of my head. 

On November 8, 1989, no one foresaw that the Berlin Wall would fall the next day. (Soviet experts are still weeping for the unfinished dissertations.) I have no memory of portents issued on September 10, 2001. December 7, 1941 lives in infamy. In June 2015, no one except Trump thought Trump would be president. 

Maybe the world is ending. Maybe AI will infect my brain and steal my job. Maybe my children will be fighting in Taiwan in 2045. 

You know what's much more likely? A future we have not predicted and can't even begin to imagine. It's possible something is coming for us. If it is, my only guess is that it's something we haven't considered yet. That's generally how catastrophes happen. 

For most people this is probably too scary to contemplate, but I take great solace in the fact that while people have been forecasting the end of the world for millennia, we are somehow still here, living in unbelievable comfort at the pinnacle of technological progress. 

The world may be ending, but spring is here and I just took a walk around campus where the leadership has a stockpile of 34 billion dollars to use for the preservation of something resembling knowledge. Later I will retrieve my healthy children, load them into seats that have been rigorously tested to protect them, and go to our house, where everyone has their own bed, the air is automatically conditioned, and our water is cleaned by a UV filter. I will use my tiny computer to play us any piece of music we can think of while preparing food that is fresh and plentiful. 

I could lose all this tomorrow, yes. But that is always true. I could get hit by a bus. I could lose my job. My children could get sick. There could be a natural disaster or a nuclear holocaust. Should this make me more or less miserable today? Why is it so hard to imagine that things might work out in the end? 

Ideas, ideas, ideas

The main reason I left academia is that I didn't think I had enough interesting things to say about the 20ish books I was an expert on to sustain me through a 40 year career. Basically, I just couldn't imagine giving the same lecture on Nietzsche until I was 65 (or 80, or whenever faculty will retire in the 2050/2060s). 

I came to this conclusion fairly early on and it was reinforced constantly in graduate school. A professor I studied with, who was a wonderful teacher, told me he went back and reread the books for his introductory class every 5 years or so, "just to keep the subject fresh." After TA'ing his class (which was excellent) I had a feeling he hadn't refreshed his lectures in way more than a decade. He didn't need to — he knew what he thought about Marx and what he thought about Marx was interesting to freshmen. The idea of doing this myself, though, made me miserable. 

The problem, of course, is that I hate lecturing and love reading. I never found teaching Plato very gratifying, but I often wish I had time to reread The Republic. (I've only done it once since graduating, sadly.) I am grateful that I knew myself well enough at 25 to realize that a life as a professor would make me miserable.  

I rarely have any occasion to remember this, though, since I have been out of academia for so long. It's occurring to me now because I got an email that my dissertation adviser was speaking on a panel about the future of conservatism. (My dissertation adviser is, according to his new updated bio, a "leading public intellectual of the New Right." Insert puking emoji here.) 

I was quite intrigued! The man I knew was hardly so political. Would he actually talk about politics as a representative of the New Right?? Or would he give the same talk about Tocqueville that I have heard him give a hundred times to every type of audience (grad students, freshmen, faculty, the general public)? 

And it was the latter, of course. A talk remarkably similar to one I heard him give for the first time in a graduate seminar 15 years ago. He even opened with the same story about reading Democracy in America for the first time as an unemployed graduate student and realizing he would work on the book for the rest of his life. I have heard that story at least 20 times, and he is still telling it. 

I remain a big fan of my adviser, notwithstanding his insane politics. When Josh and I were first married we had him over to dinner and it is likely to remain the best dinner party of my life. (There was no small talk, he did not even ask about our recent wedding. We talked about ideas from the first minute to the last.) And his talk about Tocqueville is, believe it or not, still interesting! I watched the whole panel when I definitely should have been doing something else. 

I am not saying there is anything wrong with having a few good ideas and then refining and repeating them for 40 years. I'm just really happy that I don't have to.

Historical travels

For some unknown reason, I picked up a book about the Plantagenets at the library a few weeks ago. Not a scholarly book, a pop history book. (I don't know if any scholars write straight up histories that cover hundreds of years anymore? I haven't seen any lately.) 

Why did I pick up this book? I don't know, exactly. Sometimes I just want to read something totally foreign to my present experience and I find that there is nothing better for this than history. Most people would probably choose SciFi or something, but to me history is even more amazing because it's (nominally) true. I know humans have never colonized Mars, but Richard III really did lock both of his nephews in a tower and (possibly) murder them.

Life back then was so mysterious. Healthy young people would drop dead for no apparent reason. A king would suddenly go mad. One royal couple failing to produce a boy could change the future of a whole country. And another having too many boys could do the same. Imagine living in a world where anything could happen — death, plague, famine, war — and you'd have no explanation other than God! Now I get mad if the weather report is off by a couple hours. 

I love modernity, but I so enjoyed my time with the Plantagenets that I also read books on the War of the Roses and the Tudors. I am now fully caught up on medieval English history! Though they do make things exceptionally difficult by naming every single king Edward, Henry or Richard for 400+ years. I never thought twice about the name Edward, and now I hate it. 

My new theory is that Elizabeth made such a mark because everyone could remember which one she was! The thesis of my next dissertation. 

all the little babies

As all three of my readers (hello, friends!) are already aware, someone in my family (we'll call her Hannah) has been trying to get pregnant for a couple years without success. She has done IUIs, she has done multiple egg retrievals for IVF. The only time she actually got pregnant was the old fashioned way, with her now ex-boyfriend. She lost that baby. She is still trying, now single. 

This situation is complicated for me and I have a lot of feelings about it, none of which are helpful since my feelings make no difference to Hannah. But the saga has given me a lot of opportunities to think about what it means to create a human being. Making a person (twice!) will forever be the coolest thing I've done. The fact that people create other people all the time doesn't make it any less amazing to me.

And for being the coolest thing I have ever done it was astonishingly simple. I had sex, and then nine-ish months and some physical discomfort later, I had a baby. I didn't track anything or eat anything or prepare myself in any way for the important business of conception. 

And I did absolutely nothing to make the baby. The feet and the eyes and the brain were created without my knowledge or input! To this day I look at my children and I am amazed. Where did they come from? It can't possibly be me. I didn't even try. 

My experience, which is how most people in the world are made, seems to be the antithesis of fertility treatments. People try and try and try for years. This is obviously deeply unfair. Why should it be so easy for me and so difficult for Hannah? 

Freddie DeBoer recently wrote about his own experience with fertility treatments and I was struck by his description of how it changed his views on abortion: 

"Before [IVF] I saw abortion rights as merely a matter of individual autonomy, which of course is still the core issue; the only question one must answer, to know where they stand on abortion, is “Who owns the human body?” But now I also think that abortion is, ultimately, a reflection of nature, of the nature God made. It’s a reminder that there is something fickle at the heart of our most basic animal reality, and the chaos of human desires is not some unfortunate mistake but rather a reflection of the fact that we are nature and are in nature."

I disagree with this — while abortion may mimic miscarriages in nature, it is not the same or morally equivalent. But do agree that there is something deeply fickle at the heart of our most basic animal reality. We don't like to think about this too much because it means we are less in control that we think. Most of the reason I hated being pregnant was that it made me feel like an animal, and I was right — pregnancy is an essential animal experience. No reason is required. 

Of course, until recently, there was little remedy for nature. If you had sex and didn't make a baby, there was no baby. If you had sex and did make a baby, there was a baby. Now we can get rid of babies we don't want and create those we do. I don't know what to think about this. I don't think it's simply good or bad. But I do think it will get easier. Perhaps Aldous Huxley was right and our grandchildren will be created and gestated in a lab. 

I think Hannah will be able to get what she wants eventually, even if she ends up pregnant with a baby who is entirely unrelated to her. I wonder if that reflection of nature will satisfy her human desires? 

the tyranny of niceness

My department is the only one on campus that has a DEI staff person. Most departments can't afford them, so they typically work in school-level offices and central administrative units. Alas, my department is the biggest on campus so we have our very own assistant director of DEI. 

There have been DEI staff at every job I've had since I left grad school, and they've mostly been very nice — good ambassadors for their mandate of belonging. One has a Ph.D. in psychology and was previously a therapist, which fits well since DEI on campus is a deeply therapeutic exercise. They want people to feel included, they want people to feel they belong. Kumbaya.

Personally, I think DEI practices are antithetical to the actual business of a university, where we exclude people by design based on the quality of their academic work. Should we give everyone who does excellent work an equal shot? Yes! Does that mean we can discriminate based on race or gender? No! Discrimination is distasteful and, you know, illegal.

But I try and get along with my colleagues and I know most people here don't agree me about DEI. In all my previous jobs, I have worked very well with the DEI staff. They are nice people who need to pay their mortgages and I don't get any say in what they do so we all muddle along. 

The exception is my current job, where the DEI person — let's call her Tina — is, frankly, scary. 

Tina has a doctorate in education, and she will tell you she has a doctorate in education during every interaction she has with you. It's also in her email signature. (As far as I know, she's not aware that I have a Ph.D.) 

She is belligerent in emails but will be very sweet to your face. Every compliment is somehow also a backhanded criticism. ("The website looks good. Wasn't it supposed to be ready a year ago?"). I had a virtual meeting with her and the chair of the department in which some minor issue was decided in my favor and she exited the meeting immediately without saying goodbye. 

Were she given the power to do so, I'm certain she would fire me. 

I just had to sit through an hour-long DEI session led by her, where she first told us about her Ed.D. and then told us the department needs to admit more Black and Latinx students. Then she went through all the DEI initiatives supported by the department, before asking us to chat with each other about how we can support diversity in our roles. "What power to do we have," she asked, "to make others feel as though they belong? What's our sphere of influence?" 

Everyone of course fell over themselves to agree with Tina, to point out how great her work is, to come up with innovative ideas about how they can be nice and kind to everyone who they cross paths with. To be a safe space for anyone who needs it.

I'll admit, I was fascinated by this performance. Why exactly do we have any responsibility to fix people's feelings? Tina, for example, is never satisfied — is this somehow my responsibility? Are anyone's feelings my problem at work? I am not a therapist. If a graduate student isn't getting along with their adviser, isn't that something they should talk about with their adviser? Apparently, this is not inclusive. 

And of course there was no mention of other views. The legality of the assertion that we need to admit more Black and Latinx students was never questioned. The fact that most people in the department are not white, but Asian, was also conveniently not mentioned. Everyone agreed that we need to support each other, to be kind, to belong. Welcome to a world of endless meetings, where everyone's voice is heard, no decisions are made, but lots of cookies are served. 

I understand many people do not enjoy being the visible outlier in a classroom. I have been in lots of classrooms where I was the only woman. But I have never felt more uncomfortable at work or in school than I did at this DEI training. 

Notes on the election

I am not pleased about the outcome of the election, but it is what is and I am not surprised. My post from four years ago still rings entirely true.

I am surprised by how much other people are surprised, though. A friend I haven't seen in ages wrote to me to ask if I was doing ok despite the obvious and overwhelming racism and sexism now running rampant. I was somewhat stumped on how to reply. 

If I were being honest, I'd tell her that I'm doing amazing. This is the best time to be alive in the whole history of the planet, and this is one of the best countries to live in! It's definitely the best time and place to be a woman, the best time and place to be a (quasi) Jew, the best time and place to be someone who likes to read indoors with central heating. So, yeah, I'm doing ok, thanks.  

Do I like Trump? Absolutely not. I am as Democratic as you can get — I've never voted for a Republican in my life. And yet, unlike most people who have never voted for a Republican, I know lots of people who have. I know people who voted for Trump. And I understand why they did it! I know they aren't racist or sexist. 

But if, like my friend, you don't know any conservatives and only read the New York Times, it would be very hard to know what Trump voters are talking about. It might even be easy to dismiss them all as fascists. 

I'm trying to be sympathetic to this view of the world, but honestly I find it very tedious. How can you be so uninterested in why millions of your fellow citizens freely voted for a man you think is a demagogue? Why aren't you curious about their decision, considering it will determine the future of the country you profess to care so much about? Why don't you want to take their opinions seriously, so you can win them over next time? 

Really, how is it that Democrats are so uninterested in winning elections? If you want to win an election you always need to convince people who don't already agree with you. You need to make a case that speaks to people outside your party. If you insist that anyone who disagrees with you is a racist, sexist, and fascist, how exactly does that help?? 

Again, I'm very much not a fan! Trump is a raving nincompoop and I dislike him intensely. But telling everyone who doesn't like Democratic policies that they have to vote for a Democratic candidate because otherwise they are racist, sexist and fascist is pretty much the worst campaign strategy ever. 

Is no one in the Democratic Party friends with a Republican? Do they not talk to anyone who disagrees with them? They should probably look into that before 2028. 

The news cycle

Sometime around 2018, I stopped reading the news. This was kind of a big deal, because I was raised in a family where not reading the news is a kind of heresy. Being informed was our version of being godly. I am amazed to remember that not very long ago I had the Sunday New York Times delivered in print (!) to my house. 

My father always told me that his father, who is credited with getting the family out of Germany, read the newspaper every day. Being informed about the Nazis gave him insight others didn't have, I was told. Reading the newspaper could save your life.

This is not true, of course. No amount of newspaper reading could have saved my grandfather's life, especially since newspapers in Germany in the late 1930s were not reporting the news. What saved my grandfather's life was that he married my grandmother, and she had a distant cousin living in Ohio. That cousin talked the Fleischmann family (of margarine riches) into sponsoring my grandparents. They left Germany in August 1939, less than a month before the invasion of Poland. No one else on either side of the family survived. 

I have no doubt my grandfather enjoyed reading the paper — he had three kids and got up at 4am every day to bake bread. Thirty minutes of quiet reading time every day was probably lovely. (I'm guessing. He died many years before I was born.)

Anyway, while my Opa John may have disapproved, I've been a lot happier since I stopped reading the news. It's been very freeing. The best part is when anyone tries to engage me on some topic of current events or policy, I can quite honestly say that I don't know much about it. People sometimes bloviate past this statement but in general my sheer ignorance on, say, the rate of immigration, takes the wind out of their sails.

I'm surprised at how much I haven't missed, honestly. I read articles people occasionally send me and Josh tells me breaking news, like when Trump got shot. I've never felt embarrassingly uninformed in polite company, though I did only recently learn who was running for Senate in my state. 

Though, come to think of it, I do now read the hyper parochial news religiously. I am extremely well informed on the 10th anniversary of a nearby crepe restaurant and the contentious local effort to turn a caution sign at a busy crosswalk into a traffic signal (the township wants it, the borough does not!). I find this kind of news extremely useful. I knew that a Cava was opening near me at least 2 months before anyone else. This is the kind of news I can use.