niceness is not a virtue

"The key objection to niceness amounts to the fact that it's not really a virtue. You can't rely upon it as the foundation for the duties required of friends, family members, or fellow citizens. A nice person won't fight for you; a nice person wouldn't even lie for you, unless there's something in it for him. A nice person wouldn't be a Good Samaritan, if it required genuine risk or an undue deployment of time and treasure. A nice person isn't animated by love or honor or God. Niceness, if you think about it, is the most selfish of virtues, one, as Tocqueville noticed, rooted in a deep indifference to the well-being of others. It's more selfish than open selfishness, because the latter accords people the respect of letting them know where you stand. I let you do — and even affirm — whatever you do, because I don't care what you do as long as it doesn't bother me. Niceness, as Allan Bloom noticed, is the quality connected with flatness of soul, with being unmoved by the relational imperatives grounded in love and death."

—Peter Augustine Lawler, Our Country Split Apart

p.s. My apologies for all the quotes lately—these posts are just my way of remembering particular passages. (I used to keep a journal for this purpose, but that was so very 20th century. Not that blogs are particularly avant-garde either.) 

the principle of progress

"In his marriage, he now realised, the principle of progress was always at work, in the acquiring of houses, possessions, cars, the drive towards higher social status, more travel, a wider circle of friends, even the production of children felt like an obligatory calling-point on the mad journey; and it was inevitable, he now saw, that once there were no more things to add on or improve on, no more goals to achieve or stages to pass through, the journey would seem to have run its course, and he and his wife would be beset by a great sense of futility and by the feeling of some malady, which was really only the feeling of stillness after a life of too much motion, such as sailors experience when they walk on dry land after too long at sea, but which to both of them signified that they were no longer in love."

—Rachel Cusk, Outline 

two things

First, I would like to note that Emily Nussbaum did (mostly) pull through for me in her review of The Handmaid's Tale:

"That go-girl moment made me sit up straight—and pull back. I could feel it being hashtagged, like “she persisted.” The book is never inspiring, not explicitly. Offred is a witness, not a heroine. She’s often ashamed and numb. She’s even a little cold. It’s painful for her to remember her daughter, but her drive isn’t to find her family; it’s to stay sane."

Emily is not quite as unhappy with the show as I am, but that's ok. This is still the only review I've seen with even a whiff of negative criticism, so I'll take it. I'll also remain decidedly miffed with all other television critics. You all suck.

Second, I enjoyed this essay by Keri Smith:

"I don’t yet know what to call this part of the left...It has its own dogma and jargon, meant to make you feel like a good person, and used to lecture others on their ‘sin.’ “Check your privilege”- much like “mansplaining” and “gaslighting”- all at one time useful terms - have over time lost a lot of their meaning. These days I see them most frequently being abused as weaponized ad hominem attacks on a person’s immutable identity markers…a way to avoid making an argument, while simultaneously claiming an unearned moral highground in a discussion."

I would argue that none of those terms (you can add "microaggression" and "social justice" to the list) ever really had much meaning, but whatever. The tone of the essay is a bit woe-is-me and she makes much of an aphorism from Beyond Good and Evil—which is never a good sign—but I haven't read any criticism of the left from the left since Mark Lilla's great and much-hated contribution to this genre. Liberal critiques of the left may be my new favorite type of political writing.

A Hero's Tale

I am not at all pleased with the new series based on The Handmaid's Tale. I watched the first episode recently, and not only was the tone of the whole thing wrong, at the very end of the episode the writers made a deviation from the book that is, in my opinion, totally indefensible. (Yes, there was some yelling at the television.) Dishearteningly, I have yet to read a negative review of the series; I'm counting on Emily Nussbaum to deliver for me where no one else has. (Megan McArdle has a sharp take, which is worth reading, but she's concerned with the book, not the show.)

My main beef is this: in the book, Atwood finds everyone guilty—the new regime and the old. In the show, the Republic of Gilead is purely evil, a theocratic society radically imposed upon an otherwise virtuous and free people. In the book, Atwood is very clear that Gilead is a direct product of the free and liberal society that came before it. We often want to imagine that tyranny arrives suddenly and with no chance to avert it, but the book (and history) generally indicate otherwise. The most interesting theme of the novel is an exploration of the close relationship between freedom and tyranny, but the show ignores that. I'm sure no one wants to be accused of blaming the victim.

I ended up yelling at the television at the end of the first episode because of something else, though: the show gives Offred, the main character, a name. In the book, her only name is Offred (meaning "of Fred," in reference to the man who owns her) and the reader never learns her real name. This reflects not only the narrative intimacy of the book—it's mostly interior monologue—but also something very important about Offred herself: she could be anyone. Indeed, she isn't special in any way; she isn't particularly beautiful, brave, ingenious, or even kind. By giving her a name (and in a triumphant way), the show negates all that. It suggests that Offred is special, that she is a hero. The book is about the quiet desperation of everyday life in an oppressive regime, and there is no heroism in it. But I guess that story would not be much fun to watch on television.

And finally: no matter what the critics might say, the novel sheds no light whatsoever on Trump. (Megan McArdle covers this point better than I could.) Good novels remain good no matter who the president is. This could have been a great series, too, but it would have required the writers to trust the audience a bit more. It's really a shame that Margaret Atwood didn't insist on that.

the gospel of dave

About two and a half years ago, I was in the car with Josh one night (probably on our way back from eating xiao long bao in Rockville) when a deep voice with a southern twang came on the radio. Josh turned the volume up. "Have you heard this guy?" he asked. "You might like him."

The guy in question was Dave Ramsey, and the first thing I heard on his show was a caller asking, "How are you, Mr. Ramsey?" and Dave answering, "I'm better than I deserve." And I turned to Josh immediately and asked, "is this Christian talk radio?" And the answer was yes, it is a Christian talk radio show about personal finance. And you may be surprised to learn, Dear Reader, that I was hooked.

First, I think the Ramsey message is wonderful in its clarity: 1) don't go into debt and 2) pay off any debt you have as fast as you can. If you want to buy something, you need to save up for it and pay cash. (With the caveat that 15 year mortgages are acceptable.)

The advice is entirely pragmatic, merely with added bonus of being in line with scripture (or so Dave says). Furthermore, the Ramsey system is designed to work for everyone, no matter their location, salary, or education. Dave himself is intrinsically egalitarian and charmingly pro-free market; the people who call in to his show are earnest regular folks looking for advice about everyday money issues. I'm not the only one who has found this compelling; the show is syndicated on over 500 radio stations. (Though I guess these days that doesn't say much about your relative sanity. And I should note that a lot of people dislike Dave, too.)

The overarching argument is that if you get out of debt and stay out of debt, you will be free (and not just in the financial sense). This is the actual language he uses, too: people in debt are slaves, and people who have no debt are free. That message resonates with me, but it's incomplete. While I have no debt at the moment, and I'm very happy about it, I don't exactly feel free, either. I'm still, as Marx would say, a wage-slave. And while my white collar servitude is cushy, I will likely remain a wage-slave until I retire to my estate and live like the landed gentry of old (i.e., never).

Regardless, though, I keep listening to the show. And why I keep listening is somewhat mystifying to me. Dave's plan is very simple, and while I don't follow it to the letter, at this point I could recite the steps for you by rote. I guess I keep listening because the people who call in represent a fascinating range of American experience and they talk about money which, frustratingly, almost no one speaks about openly.

For example, just the other day I was listening and a woman called in. She is 24 years old and her husband is 25 and they have a five month old baby. They both work on the family ranch. Her question was about how much life insurance to buy. I knew the answer to the question already, but the very nature of this person is fascinating to me. I doubt that I will ever in my life meet a 24-year-old ranch hand with a husband and a baby. And then you have the guy who works on an off-shore oil rig and wants to know if he should take a job that pays him a third of what he makes now but lets him see his kids more than once every six months. Who is that guy? I will also probably never meet someone like him, and even if I did he probably wouldn't want to talk to me, much less tell me about his job conundrum.

If nothing else, Dave's show has given me some small insight into my fellow Americans, who, I'm sad to admit, often seem very foreign to me. 

lodge your complaints.

Recently, I've been out of town for a work event which I played a major role in organizing. Just for the sake of an example, let's say that this event was a 12 course dinner for 100 people, and I helped plan the menu, hire the chefs, and serve the food. After the meal, a diner came up to me to express that he was unhappy with a minor detail of the event—let's say, the quality of forks provided at the table.

The complaint was put to me this way: "I come to this dinner every year with the expectation that the meal will be of a certain caliber, and the forks this year ruined (ruined!) the meal for me. It was impossible to focus on the food while using such a terrible fork." And after assuring him that we did our best on the forks but certain compromises had to be made for certain justifiable reasons, he said, "I know, I know, and I'm sure you don't make the decisions about the forks! But please tell those in charge to consider how much the forks impact the experience of the diners here." And then he repeated himself: "I know that it's not your decision, but please just pass my message on the planners of the event."

Now, this is not the only complaint I received, and as far as the complaints went this one did not bother me very much. Despite the fact that forks usually have no bearing on the enjoyment of food—and the real subject of the complaint had zero bearing on the quality of the event—I have made peace with the fact that people have peeves and they enjoy expressing them.

What bothers me is that he didn't think I had any control over the "forks." I totally did. In fact, for this event I selected the "forks" myself. If he wanted to get the forks changed for next year, he was speaking to exactly the person with the power to change them! I was happy he didn't know this in the moment because I would have gotten another earful, but in retrospect it kind of pisses me off that he didn't think it was my fault. Not only did I have authority over the forks, I also made a ton of other, waaaay more important, decisions. And if he isn't going to blame me for the forks, then I won't get any recognition for the delicious escargot, or whatever (I'm probably stretching this analogy too far, sorry).

I just need to keep this in mind for the next time I'm held responsible for something going wrong. I'll try to remember to be happy that I'm in trouble, because it means I have enough power to screw something up.

(And now I realize that this entire post can be paraphrased by that dumb quote from Spider-Man: "With great power comes great responsibility." I am trite.)

you can call me ann

I just got an email with a signature that went something like this: 

Dolly Parton (she/her/hers)
Professional Singer
Tel: 090-0900-8888
Email: dollyland@hotmail.com

The email was not from Dolly Parton, sadly, but you get the idea.

Now, I generally don't give any thought to how people choose to sign their emails. But...I am perplexed. Why do I need to know that she is, you know, a SHE? If I were to write her back, I probably wouldn't use any gendered pronouns. "You" works quite well when writing to someone directly. Is this person assuming that we will be talking about her amongst ourselves, hence the need to specify a singular third person pronoun? Perhaps. But I'm still befuddled as to why it would matter.

I've received a countless number of misaddressed emails over the years. My last name is deceptively hard to spell, and people always get it wrong. (My dissertation advisor, bless him, never got it right once.) I'd wager that I'm called "Julie" as often as "Julia." I had an otherwise nice exchange with someone who addressed me as "Ann" in multiple emails, which was also fine. The best one ever was a student who addressed all emails to me as, "Hey you." I thought that was objectively terrible, but I also didn't bother to correct it. I figured that kid was going to have enough problems in life and didn't need a lecture from me.

But aside from naming issues, what if someone used masculine pronouns for me? Do I feel affronted at the thought? Not really. Men are people too; as long as you don't mistake me for a squirrel, I think we'll be ok.

I guess most people are not as laid-back as me about this? The person who wrote to me would probably be very offended if I presumed she was, you know, a she, but was instead a he. Maybe she prefers to be a "they"? I could manage that, but it would make grammar difficult. Is there a thing where people prefer to be "it"? That just seems too rude; I don't think I could do that. But I guess those who defer to grammar and convention are not sufficiently woke?

Frankly, being woke all the time seems exhausting. Not caring about most things has, I think, served me very well in life. I am a very well-rested person.