Another year, another book list . . . I read forty books in 2019-- a number which seems about average-- and for the most part, I kept it eclectic: fiction, non-fiction, genre stuff, graphic novels, economics, history, and even some self-help. My friend and fellow English teacher Kevin pointed out that I don't read enough books by women. While I definitely consume some chick-lit every year, he is right. Only six of the forty books were by women authors (but several of the books by men are about women, so that should count for something). I might remedy this in 2020 . . . but I might not. Books are one of the few things in life that you have control over. If books by women appeal to me, I'll read them. If not, Kevin can fuck off. I did go down a couple of rabbit holes. I read the entire Remembrance of Earth's Pasttrilogy by Cixin Liu . . . and it wasn't easy. I'm quite proud of this and highly recommend these books to diehard sci-fi fans. I also read four mystery novels set in Wyoming. I don't know how this happened, but I really enjoyed the Longmire stuff by Craig Johnson.
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe.
This selection may be a result of the serial positioning effect, but the best book I read in 2019 is the last book I read in 2019.
The book is about the Troubles in Northern Ireland, mainly during the 1970s and 1980s, but there is a frame story that is completely topical. The story is scary and compelling and violent and incredibly researched. It will dispel any romanticized notions you have about the IRA. The British are portrayed as no better.
These books provided a lot of material for me to write about. If it wasn't for books, my dog, my wife, and my absurd children, this blog would have died long ago.
Thank you books! 1) The Fifth Riskby Michael Lewis 2) An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green 3) The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu 4) God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State by Lawrence Wright 5) Marching Powder: A True Story of Friendship, Cocaine, and South America's Strangest Jail by Rusty Young (and Thomas McFadden) 6) The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu 7) The Tears of Autumn by Charles McCarry 8) The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester 9) Death's End by Cixin Liu 10) Atomic Habits by James Clear 11) Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and The Drug Company That Addicted Americaby Beth Macy
I'm hoping to write a longer review of this literary adventure over at Park the Bus, but I'd still like to formally announce that I have finished reading Death's End, the mega-epic conclusion of Cixin Liu's sci-fi trilogy that began with The Three Body Problem . . . this was some challenging reading for me-- while I love reading about science, I'm certainly not science-minded . . . I got straight D's in chemistry-- the series actually begins historically, with the news of an impending alien invasion, told from a Chinese point of view during the Cultural Revolution but by the end of book Liu is delving deep into quantum physics; in book two-- The Dark Forest-- the narrative forays into the game theory of diplomatic tactics in the wider universe (which is not pretty) and book three-- Death's End-- is a tour-de-force of both style and imagination (there are a sequence of lush and symbolic fairy tales nested in the middle of the novel, plenty of hard sci-fi, memorable characters and conflict, and-- finally-- a wild and surreal meta-physical journey to the end of time and space) and while this is aspirational reading and it took me a long time to finish, I still recommend the series (but sadly, confetti did NOT shoot out of the book when I completed the final page).
You're about to order some Bangin' Shrimp at your local Ruby Tuesday's when the old ladies in the booth next to you rip off their wrinkled faces, revealing that aliens live among us. You tell your server you're going to need a moment, stare into their big wet reptilian eyes and-- depending on where you born and how you were raised-- select one of the following options:
Approach them with sincere and open armed curiosity.
Run! And contact all the authorities . . . the FBI, CIA, KGB, MSS, Mossad, PETA, etc.
Drop to your knees and pledge obeisance to your new overlords.
Apprehend the undocumented interlopers and relocate them to an internment camp.
Clarification: Zombies vs. Aliens
The zombie apocalypse has a universal quality to it. It doesn't matter where you were born or how you were raised. We all know how it will go down. Around the globe, little bands of survivors will wander around, scavenging food and bashing brains.
But with aliens, it's up in the air. First contact narratives reflect the collective subconscious of the culture that creates them. Alex Graham's renowned "Kindly take us to your President" New Yorker cartoon from 1953 depicts a simpler time and a more trusting America. If the aliens weren't talking to a horse, then they'd be making a reasonable request.
Dwight D. Eisenhower was a moderate conservative who continued the New Deal, expanded Social Security, funded NASA, opposed McCarthyism, integrated schools, and built the Interstate Highway System. The joke wasn't on the President, it was on the aliens. They were asking a horse! That horse doesn't know President Eisenhower! Today, the caption would be very different (perhaps the horse would reply, "He's not my President" or "Sure, he loves fake news!" or something equally bi-partisan).
"Kindly take us to your President!"
I recently digested three excellent first contact stories, each from a different cultural perspective:
Representing the liberal American democratic techno-state: Hank Green's novel An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. Hooray for the liberal American democratic techno-state! If you're reading this blog then I'm assuming you are extremely familiar with this cultural milieu and the human rights/political stance inherent within it.
Cixin Liu's The Three-Body Problem hails from China; the story begins during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and heads into what is probably uncharted ideological, political, and philosophical ground for most Westerners.
District 9 is a 2009 South African sci-fi movie directed by Neill Blomkamp. It's streaming on Netflix right now . . . if you haven't seen it, watch it. It's awesome.
The arc of each of these three earthlings-meet-aliens narratives reveals just as much about the culture of the humans making first contact as it does about the desires of the aliens. All three present the same scenario: humans learn that they not alone in the universe, nor are they at the top of the technological totem-pole. They also learn that the aliens possess thoughts and emotions that might be slightly inscrutable to human reason. How folks handle an existential bombshell like this depends on their culture. And how authors portray how folks handle an existential bombshell like this depends on what culture the author is from. It's far more philosophical than a zombie apocalypse. The zombie apocalypse is pragmatic, which is why people love to imagine it. Food, shelter, weapons, and watching loved ones transform into slobbering ghouls. First contact is profound (at least Stanley Kubrick thought so . . . he thought it was so profound that it's almost impossible to watch 2001 in its entirety unless you're in an altered state . . . that's what you get when you make a first contact film in 1968).
What happened to the plot?
An Aside: Real Science Fiction vs. The Other Stuff
Before we dive in, I'd like to assert that District 9, The Three-Body Problem, and An Absolutely Remarkable Thing are "real" science-fiction (by my definition anyway). This is important. It means these stories go beyond the human, beyond character. This is normally a terrible idea. Characters are what makes stories great (e.g. Shakespeare and J.K. Rowling, both of whom used derivative plot elements to get the ball rolling, but excelled at creating fantastic characters). Plots are a dime a dozen. So real science-fiction is a risk because the setting has to become more than a plot device. It has to become the focus.
Certainly, sci-fi has some tried and tested working elements; it's usually speculative and contains themes of technology and alternative history, but more importantly-- the great risk of real science-fiction-- is that the setting is the main character. There might be actual characters, but you don't care about them as much as the setting. Brave New World is the perfect example. No one cares what happens to Bernard and Lenina, or even John the Savage. We're entranced by the world. There was no reason to make sequels to The Matrix. I refuse to watch them. I don't give two shits about Neo and Trinity. The real love story in that movie is between the alternate apocalyptic reality and the matrix. That dynamic is far more fascinating than the fact that Keanu Reeves is "the one." Cypher's choice is the sci-fi version of Sophie's choice. Which world does he love more? Ursula LeGuin's The Ones That Walk Away from Omelas is the extreme version of this principle, the story that tests the boundaries of convention. There is no character but the setting: Omelas.
So Star Wars does not qualify as "real" science-fiction. You could make it a Western and the themes would remain the same. Fathers and sons, good and evil, darkness and light. Horses instead of Tauntauns. Tonto instead of Chewbacca. E.T. is barely sci-fi. E.T. himself is more of a religious figure, and the story is about how individuals-- his child disciples and the others-- relate to him.
One more stick and it's perfect . . .
Close Encounters starts to grapple with how the government and the world would handle first contact, but it's more the story of the disintegration of a family because one of the members experiences an incredible event and that alienates him from his wife and family (we watched it a few weeks ago and my son Ian said he would help me if I started building a giant dirt and brick mountain in the living room, instead of splitting town with mom).
District 9, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, and The Three-Body Problem are different. You might enjoy and root for some of the people involved, but these characters all pale in comparison to the detail and attention given to the worlds in each.
Let's Relocate to District 9
Just scrawl on the dotted line.
You might argue that District 9 is character driven (at least the second half). Wikus begins as a tragically bureaucratic anti-hero out of a Kafka novel who transforms into an actual warrior-hero (and there's even a bit of intergalactic romance at the very end) but truth be told, the real stars of the film are the South African government bureaucracy, the prawn relocation camps which have gradually devolved into metaphorical apartheid slums, the forcible relocations, the alien biotech, and Multinational United (the insidious quasi-governmental weapons manufacturer/mercenary task force the government hires to move the prawns). The impact of the film comes from the world and the message it delivers: your culture will steer how you treat aliens. If you are prone to apartheid and relocation, you will use these tactics on the newcomers. And once they are ensconced in that system, it will be hard to treat them as citizens of the universe.
An Absolutely American Thing
If you live in a polarized country where half of the nation is concerned with identity politics and the other half wants to wall off and defend the country from any change in identity, then this is going to be a major influence on how immigrants from the stars are treated. Especially if this country is essentially democratic, and the citizens possess freedom of speech and unlimited internet access.
This is the world of Hank Green's new novel An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. He tackles first contact from an emergent bottom-up viral media stand-point. Because this process is relatively democratic and unstructured, it inevitably pits the liberals against the conservatives. People think how they want to think, and then have the the capability to express this on a grand stage. They choose sides.
April and "Carl"
At the start of the story, sixty-four hulking alien statues miraculously appear in urban areas across the globe. Late one night, April May and her art school buddy Andy stumble upon the New York statue and film an empathetic and welcoming YouTube video, in which they name the statue "Carl." The video (and the nickname) goes viral. April May becomes the self-deprecating, self-aware, and self-consciously-famous narrator of our first-contact-experience. Not only is April May special, she's extra-special. Extra-terrestrially special. She's also emerged as the most important person on earth. The alien visitors chose her and so did the internet, and then-- at least for most of the story-- she uses her special status to stay several steps ahead of the government, her fans, and a political faction called the Defenders. She is constrained by nothing. In District 9 and The Three-Body Problem, all roads lead to authority. And authority controls decisions and destiny. But not in America. We don't need no stinking badges!
Meanwhile, things get very binary between the liberals, who want band together as one human species and solve all the puzzles the alien force has presented (in a shared Dream) and the Defenders, who are xenophobic and pragmatic and defensive. It's a bit of a political caricature of America, but it works, especially since this book is probably geared for precocious YA readers. We get democracy of thought at its best and worst. Individuals making decisions that have real impact. It's such an American perspective. The enemies of global cooperation are a large amorphous binary faction and from this mentality emerges some awful individual action. Terrorism. It's a simple way to view the world. There's us and them, the liberal and the conservatives . . . and even individual conservatives might have some good ideas, but some of them get carried away and take things too far and try to take matters into their own hands. It's a tale of individual fame and knowledge, and how that can get amplified by feedback loops and viral media. This is what Green gets best . . . and so the science and technology and viral nature of ideas and fame in our world is just as strange and speculative as the world of the shared alien Dream. They are both portrayed in loving detail, and make up for the fact that April May is a mildly annoying representative of the the liberal American democratic techno-state.
I also love that April May's trusty sidekick is Robin, the personal assistant/handler assigned to her by her ruthless publicity agent, Jennifer Putnam. April May and Robin, modern superheroes endowed with the power of millions of YouTube followers and the aegis of robots from space. America: we are an absurd society, a silly superpower.
Life is More Than Humanity
In stark contrast to Hank Green's ode to the power of individuality, we have Cixin Liu's depiction of China. The novel begins during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. A physicist is being beaten to death because he inserted Einstein's Theory of Relativity into his physics curriculum. The current regime regards Einstein as an American Imperialist who helped build the atom bomb, and so not only is Einstein the person anathema, but his ideas are heretical as well. He did not fit properly into the Revolutionary Ideology, and so both the idea and the individual bearing the idea are quashed. In this society, you are defined not as an individual, but by which government (or anti-government) faction you belong to.
In this top-down system, it's not possible for an individual viewpoint to go viral. April May is not possible. In fact, it's not even possible for disembodied ideas to go viral. The top-down influence can oppress and dismantle actual ideas. We first see this with the government and the various intelligence agencies, but then we learn that the alien forces also have the power to destroy ideas and impede science. Liu sees this in Chinese history, and assumes that aliens would use the same strategy. The aliens do not choose an individual, ergo there is no April May. They examine systems. Democracy of thought does not win out in this world. Killings are utilitarian and without empathy. They are done with a cost/benefit ratio in mind, whether it's a spouse, a rival, or someone who possesses information . . . computation trumps individuality. Some factions even consider the entire human race expendable for the greater good. Ideology creates morality, and individual morality is rare.
It's difficult or impossible to operate outside this top-down sphere. The only one who has some success is the hardboiled detective Shi Qiang (who goes by the nickname Da Shi). He's earned his individuality though, by brutal and pragmatic success within the police/counter-terrorism force. He's proven himself indispensable.
Thank God for Da Shi. He's the only way into the novel for someone like me. I'm not Chinese, so understanding this totally ideological, utilitarian perspective is a stretch (although I enjoyed the historical/political parts of the book immensely . . . they are just as strange as the sci-fi portions). And, I regret to admit, that I'm not that interested in the stars. Black holes, three-body star systems, light speed . . . I should be more curious, but I'm not. I'm interested in other life forms, but the vast expanse of space leaves me cold. I'm not profound enough to contemplate it. I like when creatures move around, procreate, evolve, eat each other and have sex.
So Da Shi is a breath of fresh air. Here's some archetypal Da Shi dialogue. He's talking to nanotechnologist Wang Miao. Miao has been experiencing some hallucinatory events involving the background radiation of the universe that is making him question the fundamental laws of physics.
"You're saying the universe was . . . was winking at you?" Da Shi asked, as he slurped down strips of tripe like noodles.
"That's a very appropriate metaphor."
"Bullshit."
"Your lack of fear is based on your ignorance."
"More bullshit. Come, drink!"
Wang finished another shot. Now the world was spinning around him, and only the tripe-chomping Shi Qiang across from him remained stable. He said, "Da Shi, have you ever . . . considered certain ultimate philosophical questions? For example, where does Man come from? Where does Man go? Where does the universe come from? Where does it go? Et cetera."
"Nope."
"Never?"
"Never."
"You must see the stars. Aren't you awed and curious?"
"I never look at the sky at night."
"How is that possible? I thought you worked the night shift?"
"Buddy, when I work at night, if I look up at the sky, the suspect is going to escape . . . to be honest, even if I were to look at the stars in the sky, I wouldn't be thinking about your philosophical questions. I have too much to worry about! I gotta pay the mortgage, save for the kid's college, and handle the endless stream of cases . . . I'm a simple man without a lot of complicated twists and turns. Look down my throat and you can see out my ass . . ."
The Three-Body Problem (Cixin Liu)
I love the fact that Da Shi lives in this very hardcore-sci-fi novel. He's a reminder that when the aliens come, most of us are going to have to go on living our lives. Business as usual. So how we treat the aliens will be constrained by the limits of our culture. I can't imagine that we'll treat them any better than we treat our own citizens with opposing political views, that we'll treat them any better than those who try to immigrate to our country without permission, or that we'll treat them better the members of our society who propose controversial ideas. We'll probably treat them worse than those people . . . because, when the aliens come, most of us will root for the home team (but not everyone . . . if you read The Three-Body Problem, you'll run into the Adventists, who think the human race might be expendable).
If you don't feel like reading Cixin Liu's trilogy, you could simply wait for Amazon to make the series. Supposedly, they're thinking about plunking a billion dollars down for the rights. I hope they get it done before the aliens actually arrive.
Aristotle's advice on how to lead a happy, virtuous life holds up pretty well. Like the Buddha, Aristotle was interested in the middle path, the mean between excess and deficiency. And like the Buddha, Aristotle saw the pursuit of the good life as an ever-changing journey. Also, Aristotle and the Buddha are two people who have never been in my kitchen . . . if they had been, and I were to buttonhole either one of them, I'd have a certain gripe to discuss. Why else would I bring them up? To enlighten you? If you're looking for that sort of thing, the most I can do is recommend The Celestine Prophesy.
Aristotle was not Belgian! The central message of Buddhism is not "Every man for himself!"
But before we get to my complaints with the golden mean, we need to understand how Aristotle defines happiness. He does a fine job with it. Happiness, according to Aristotle, is not just pure hedonistic pleasure, but as flourishing. A state of Eudaimonia. And this sort of happiness is the end goal of all pursuits. Aristotle was certainly not a Belgian, but there is a sort of "every man for himself" quality to his ethics. So Otto wasn't completely off base. But Aristotle explains why a you should be mainly concerned with your own path to happiness and not particularly worried about other people. He posits that if a person uses his method of the middle path to attain a state of happiness, it will follow that this virtuous person will have true friendships with people of similar virtuous character. This will be good for society. Take care of your own happiness, and the people you wish to associate with will be reflective of your virtuous ethics. Thus, there will be a flourishing society of good people (except for women and slaves . . . he wasn't so keen on their potential). He explains this in Book I of Nichomachean Ethics:
Now we call that which is in itself worthy of pursuit more final than that which is worthy of pursuit for the sake of something else, and that which is never desirable for the sake of something else more final than the things that are desirable both in themselves and for the sake of that other thing, and therefore we call final without qualification that which is always desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else. Now such a thing happiness, above all else, is held to be; for this we choose always for itself and never for the sake of something else . . ."
So happiness is the thing that we don't seek in order to acquire something else. Happiness is the something else, the ultimate aim. We seek money in order to use it for things that make us flourish, not to roll around in it (unless you're Scrooge McDuck). We seek a nice car so we can drive our friends around; spending time with our friends (at high speeds, listening to music on a bangin' system) makes us happy.
Aristotle lived a long time ago-- he wrote the Nichomachean Ethics in 340 B.C.-- and so he would probably struggle with paradoxical post-modern folks who do seek happiness in order to acquire something else . . . these are the people who seek happiness so they can post pictures of themselves-- super-fucking-happy pictures of themselves-- on social media so that their ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends from high school can witness just how fucking-super-happy they are and then these ex-boyfriends and girlfriends will get really jealous and finally realize exactly what they missed out on by dumping these super-happy people. But that kind of behavior is probably only possible with the internet, so we can't blame Aristotle for not predicting just how bananas people would become once they had access to platforms like Facebook and Snapchat and felt the need to show the world just how happy they are (despite the Zoloft). So let's consider these people who seek happiness in order to rub it in other people's faces outliers and move on with our lives. Because if you're reading this blog, then you're definitely not the sort who likes to infinitely scroll through Facebook pictures, right?
Aristotle sees virtue as habitual action: "Moral virtue is the outcome of habit." He is a consequentialist, unconcerned with deontological principles (e.g. Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative). Good people deliberately commit good behaviors. That is their purpose. He is a teleologist. Or so says my neighbor's dog.
We are defined by our actions: "It is by doing just acts that we become just, by doing temperate acts that we become temperate, by doing courageous acts that we become courageous." But how do we figure out what is just, temperate, and courageous? Aristotle concedes that it's not easy. We need to seek the mean between the excess and deficiency. And not the mathematical average, but the mean relative to ourselves.
If being "courageous" is the target trait and the deficiency of courage is cowardice and the excess is being foolhardy, then Aristotle believes we need to chose actions that are neither "neither too much or too little." There are so many ways of doing it wrong, and only one way of doing it right. And it's partially determined by who you are. If you're a soldier, then your level of expected courage is so much higher than if you're a dude prone to motion-sickness at an amusement park. A soldier may need to fearlessly charge at a machine gun nest. Perhaps he shouldn't throw himself on a grenade during the charge-- that might be foolhardy because he could just run away from the grande and direct others to do the same-- but he can't not charge with his company. That's what he's trained for. The dude at the amusement park needs to take a Dramamine and ride the looper with his children, but he doesn't need to go beyond that . . . he doesn't need to forego his seat belt. That would be foolhardy (though it's intrinsically less dangerous to charging a machine gun nest. It's all relative).
Aristotle adds another rule. There are certain characteristics that are simply evil. There's no middle path with those. There's no right amount of betrayal or adultery. So there are traits to be avoided. Even positive traits provide difficulty. It's incredibly difficult to find the mean in anything. According to Aristotle, it takes a man of science. He also believes it is "only a man of science, who can find the mean or center of a circle," so apparently most Greek laymen did not have access to a compass.
All of us can understand this struggle. My teenage teenage children desire "pleasantness of amusement" but the waver between the deficiency and the excess, what Aristotle terms as "buffoonery" and "boorishness." Only occasionally are they "witty." The great divide in American politics is essentially defined by this conflict over money: "anybody can give or spend money, but to give it to the right persons, to give the right amount of it and to give it at the right time and for the right cause and in the right way, this is not what anybody can do, nor is it easy."
Americans tend to carom back and forth between the extremes. Last week, I had to cook dinner every night (a birthday gift for my wife) and this led to some over-indulgence in alcohol. I swore this week that I would abstain completely. But that's unrealistic. And so I found the middle ground between dipsomania and tee-totaling. Moderation. Moderate alcohol consumption is fueling this post.
The problem with this Aristotelean method of trying to attain the mean is that it's two-dimensional. Our lives don't operate on a line, they operate in a three-dimensional space. Whenever we work on some two-dimensional triplet continuum, there is some other force pulling on this line. So say we want to work on eating healthy. The deficiency of healthy eating is gluttony. Stuffing your face with Oreos and pudding. The excess of healthiness is anorexic obsessiveness. Only eating kale. You want to be in the middle, eating in a smaller window of time, no late-night snacking, fewer carbs, more protein and vegetables. So you end up eating a shitload of meat. Every kind of animal in the barn and then some. Bacon . . . ham . . . pork chops.
And you don't want to do that, but it's a consequence of trying to stop eating crap. When you're fixing your golf swing, you can only work on one thing at a time. But the other things screw up the one thing you're working on. It's a conundrum. And Aristotle didn't really offer any help. Physics does . . . sort of. My analogy for this dilemma (trilemma?) is called the "three body problem." If you need to compute how two bodies will move in relation to one another, say the earth and the moon, this is relatively easy (for a mathematician . . . I have enough trouble tracking down a high fly ball in left field). But when you add a third body to the system, the problem becomes notoriously difficult to analyze and solve.Wired unravels it in this article. Good luck. And for an extremely detailed narrative look at the consequences of the chaos endured by a planet orbiting a three-body star system, check out Cixin Liu's sci-fi masterpiece The Three-Body Problem (or wait a few years and watch the Amazon series based on the trilogy).
The way I see it, it's pretty easy to compute the relative mean between two extremes. There's complete abstinence of alcohol. Prohibition. No drinks. There's excess. Ten drinks a night. And then there's moderation. A beer or two a couple nights a week. Maybe a few more on the weekend. But then add the pull of a third body. The holiday season and multiple parties. This throws a monkey wrench in things. You need to socialize. What is the mean of socializing? The deficiency is introverted reclusion. Avoiding people entirely. Then you could control your drinking perfectly. The excess is extroverted delirium. You need to attend everything. You have a fear of missing out on anything. And the mean is some sort of convivial participation. But this is going to screw with your plan on drinking moderately. And the drinking screws with the eating. And the next thing you know, it's January and you've gained ten pounds and the gym is packed.
Basically, once you add a third body to a relationship, it's extremely difficult to compute the forces and understand what habitual actions you should take. Which is why people like categorical rules. It's often easier. When you're pressed to order at a restaurant, it's difficult to fulfill both your ketogenic diet and your green ethics.
The Hidden Brain episode "A Founding Contradiction: Thomas Jefferson's Stance on Slavery" investigates an infinitely controversial historical example of the moral three body problem. There is no question that in the realm of politics, Jefferson flourished in the virtuous mean between oppressive monarch and reckless anarchist. He forged documents and laws designed to give the right amount of freedom to the man in the middle. He revised property laws, wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, outlined the proper relationship between the Church and the State, and generally conceived ideas and policies that were built to last. And during this fruitful period, he owned 175 slaves and fathered six children with one of them (Sally Hemings).
Jefferson clearly spoke against slavery (though he considered himself a "good and benevolent" slave owner).
"The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this and learn to imitate it, for man is an imitative animal."
In 1807, three weeks before Britain did the same, Jefferson signed a law banning the importation of slaves into the United States, effectively banning the slave trade. Yet Jefferson only freed a few slaves during his life; when he died, 130 of his slaves were sold as part of the Monticello estate.
Jefferson knew slavery was wrong and must end, but he wasn't ready to expend the personal capital to end it. He was working on a lot of other things. So he never computed the Aristotelian triplet on slavery that would lead him to habitual moral action. Perhaps the excess is "slave master" and the deficiency is "wanton sluggard" and somewhere in the middle is "cooperative employer." He felt the pull of the immoral nature of slavery, just as I know eating factory farmed animals is wrong-- these animals are the slaves of our time-- but if I'm going to be working on my own diet and fitness, I'm going to be eating animals.
This is not to minimize, as I would never do, the depredations of the institution of slavery - but I imagine, 100 years from now, people are going to look back at certain things that we do and say, why didn't people understand? You know, why didn't people do something? And there are a lot of things - there are a lot of times human beings don't act according to what they know is the right thing to do. Monticello was Jefferson's place. This was his way of life. It's what he knew. And he felt that he helped to found a country. He helped the United States come into existence. Breaking with Great Britain, setting up a government, that was a pretty big deal, and that the next generation of people had something to do, as well, and that was to make the progress on the issue of slavery that he thought could be made. Now, we're not satisfied with that because we say, you had the talent to do this thing. Why didn't you use the talent to do the other thing? But that's not, you know, what he thought he was here to do. The American Revolution was the most important thing in his life. And the tragedy is he couldn't see that, after the union is formed, that the thing that would split it apart would be the institution of slavery.
It's easy to espouse theoretical, deontological rules, but habitual action is hard. While it's difficult to argue for relative ethics-- I'm never going to excuse clitoral castration-- it's also difficult to universally condemn Jefferson for owning slaves. He was trapped within an economic and social machine reliant on slaves. And so while he wrote like an abolitionist, he also framed a pragmatic triplet that we might find abominable and contradictory. Jefferson saw that the excess as a slaveholder was to be a "cruel overlord" and the deficiency was to be an "apathetic and irresponsible patriarch." You couldn't just free your slaves, you also had to provide for them. There was no system in place. (Sally Hemings was freed but then negotiated to return to slavery at Monticello, but with "extraordinary privileges.") So Jefferson arrived at the mean . . . what he considered to be "benevolent ownership." We find it repugnant, but people in the future will laugh sardonically at our attempt to be environmental by foregoing plastic straws, while we drive our gas guzzling vehicles from store to store buying plastic gewgaws.
Jefferson was busy building the framework for many, many progressive policies . . . policies that were far-ranging and significant. The Louisiana Purchase. He did what he could, and did it well. We need to remember that sometimes we can't change a habitual action without the help of technology. As far as slavery goes, we have it easy now . . . it's not even an option (unless you're in the sex slave trade . . . and then, shame on you!) We would never go back to slavery now that we have better agricultural technology. It's not even a moral choice. Jefferson couldn't see a simple way to attack the problem, and there would be no simple way until the plantation system-- a system of which he was a participant-- was completely dismantled.
People in the future may look back at us as savages because we tortured so many pigs and cows and sheep and chickens. We created huge cesspools of fecal waste and huge clouds of methane. But these future folk will be sitting on high, criticizing our evil ways, while they partake in delicious lab grown beef. No animals harmed, no animal waste, and no habitual action to compute. The Impossible Burger may solve this problem sooner than later. It's apparently "hyper-realistic" and bleeds just like real meat. It's a hell of a lot easier to fall into a virtuous habit when it's widely available and cheap.
So this is my gripe with Aristotle's middle path, the mean between excess and deficiency. It's nearly impossible to tread. There are always other virtues pulling you off course. Like a tennis serve or a golf swing, you can only work on one improvement at a time . . . you can't fix everything at once. And these traits operate in a three-dimensional space, and each attempt at moving toward the mean influences the other attempts. We can't figure it all out. And our willpower might be a limited resource. This works on a larger scale as well. As a technological society, we are struggling with free speech on the internet. The excess of free speech allows every hateful opinion and every fake news story. The deficiency of free speech is censorship . . . as the internet operates in China. So we try to plot the mean, some sort of middle ground where speech is free as long as it isn't malevolent fictitious propaganda or hate speech directed to incite riot and violence. But then toss in another dilemma to solve, say how much the government should regulate big tech monopolies-- the institutions that are controlling the platforms where this conflict is occurring-- and you've created a many-body problem that's incalculable. Who should control what we read? How free should our speech be? Who should monitor this? Should tech companies have more power than the government over our First Amendment Rights?
Who knows?
That's the end of the line for me. We need a modern Aristotle to figure this one out.
1) I read over a hundred pages of Chen Qiufan's futuristic vision Waste Tide . . . it's translated from Chinese by Ken Liu (the same guy who translated Cixin Liu's The Three Body Problem) and it's excellent-- the story of an e-waste worker on Silicon Island-- where electronics from cell phones to laptops to cybernetic limbs-- come to be recycled who gets involved with labor disputes, an American company that ostensibly wants to make the island more environmentally healthy but actually has more nefarious goals, and the future of intelligence-- artificial and otherwise; the book is dark and violent and precise and surreal and touching all at once, and apparently-- according to this Wired article-- the author is regarded as a prophetic rock star in China;
2) my family went to the movies-- the first time since the pandemic started-- and we saw Godzilla vs. Kong . . . which had HIGHLY entertaining battle scenes-- you should see this film in the theater . . . it's fantastic how often these two punch and kick each other, though they have so many other ways to attack, and the undersea battle amidst the naval vessels is stupendous and literally breathtaking, BUT-- and this is a major but-- the plot of the movie seems to have been written by a bunch of drunk twelve-year-old boys . . . maybe Hollywood was able to grab them since they aren't attending school-- they take Kong to Antarctica so that he can go through a tunnel toward the center of the earth and lead a bunch of levitating ships to an incredible power source (which the levitating ships seem to already possess) and in the center of the earth there is a weird hollow jungle environment with giant creatures and clouds and Kong plays with some inverted gravitational rocks that are floating and then he grabs a giant tomohawk and sits on a throne-- it's very surreal-- and Godzilla gains access to this world by shooting his nuclear breath straight down into the earth and then the thing ends with a battle to end all battles (and a plot twist that I predicted) and I should also point out that there are a lot of movie stars in this film-- Millie Bobby Brown, Bryan Tyree Henry, Kyle Chandler, etc-- and they all seem to find each other wherever they happen to be . . . including Hong Kong, though most people get stomped (or fall off bridges . . . Godzilla loves to stand up right when he's under a bridge) but the stars all seem to be standing close to the action but not in th epath of Kong and Godzilla . . . and the great Lawrence Reddick is in the movie for like two seconds- they must have left his role on the cutting room floor . . . my favorite moment is when Kong pops his dislocated shoulder back into place on a skyscraper and then gets back to battling--epic-- anyway, quite of continuum of skilled and ridiculous sci-fi for one Sunday.
