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walkitoutSeveral opinion pieces published in the last few weeks got me thinking again about education and publication and debate. In school, I think we all experience or experienced being asked to write something either in favor of or in opposition to a thing, an idea, a trend, an event, whatever. Lately, I have been wondering how much public policy is the result of newspaper opinion pieces generating substantial debate and eventually clarity about how to go forward, whatever that might mean.
Specifically, in the Now, I am starting to suspect that sometimes, opinion pieces are published to clarify why something is a terrible idea. I have wondered about this since Mayim Bialik’s NYT op-ed about Harvey Weinstein, her initial doubling-down on the position, followed by multiple apologies and walkbacks of varying degrees of success. I suspect newspapers of recruiting people of influence who are wandering around saying something particularly annoying to really lay their thoughts out in detail so the reading public can lay waste to it and then the rest of us can quit arguing with the offending person / argument and just point.
Here is Christina Paxson of Brown, on the topic of in-person college in the fall:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/26/opinion/coronavirus-colleges-universities.html
Here is the person in charge of the Safra Center on the topic of K-12 returning to in-person schooling in the fall:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/weve-wasted-enough-time-we-must-figure-out-how-to-reopen-schools-this-fall/2020/05/14/2ac9392e-960e-11ea-91d7-cf4423d47683_story.html
Here is a piece about in-person summer camp, that quotes the Safra Center:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/opinion/coronavirus-summer-camp.html
Finally, I ran across this one today, more generically about predicting the future:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/22/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-prediction-future.html
Keep in mind, this is an author who says: “I, myself, who find sundown something of a surprise every evening”, so we should expect up front not to take anything he says too literally, because, I mean, duh. Here he is on the topic of weather prediction and school closings:
“Take a banal example: snowstorms and school closings. A half century ago, when meteorological forecasting was less sophisticated, parents and children would not learn that classes were canceled until the storm began and it was announced on radio and television that very morning. We lived in harmless uncertainty, which for kids was thrilling. When snowflakes fell they even looked like manna from heaven.
Today, mayors and school superintendents, putting their faith in the meteorologists, routinely announce closings a day or more in advance. If the storm fails to arrive, though, they are sharply criticized by parents who lost a day of work or had to find day care. And if an unforeseen storm paralyzes the city, leaving streets unsalted and children stranded at school, the reaction is far worse. More than one mayor has lost a re-election bid because of failed prophecies, victim of our collective overconfidence in human foresight.”
First, writing about children being excited about having a snow day right now is cruel. But let’s just ignore that for a moment and contemplate his assertion that there are snow storms which fail to arrive in the recent past. Oh, really? I mean, there are towns that close and then the snow drops a foot on all the surrounding towns but leaves them entirely in the clear. But the town that only gets 2 inches and could have opened still has teachers, staff, bus drivers, etc., living in those surrounding towns who cannot get out of their driveways, or have children whose own school has been canceled and so they must, as parents, stay home with the kiddos and cannot go, as teachers to the town with little snow.
Also, describing storms as arriving before school starts and living in harmless uncertainty is contemptuous of the people who had to deal with the 1978 Blizzard. The author appears to either be from some other world, or perhaps suffers the common problem of people who survived to adulthood of thinking that everything was fine when they are kids and all the hard things are only happening now that they are adults.
Mostly, tho, I cannot help but feel like the humanities are a monstrous disappointment. We were promised — I distinctly remember this — that learning about the past, about history, and reading the great literature, would give us resilience and prepare us for blah blah blah blah, I may have sprained an eyeball at this point. I mean, I love reading history. And literature that everyone hated from day zero is not literature that survives to be forced on junior high school students a century or more later. Some job lot of people loved that shit somewhere along the line, so presumably, there is some fun to be had (open question whether it is worth the effort).
History and literature are full of stories about past pandemics. The story they tell is a pretty relentless one. It is a story of inequality, of the wealthy trying to evade the worst consequences, of death, of waste, of suffering. Mostly, tho, it is the story of those who cared for the ill themselves becoming ill and often dying. It is the story of quarantine failing, of breakdown in communication between towns and countries and regions subsequent to the closing of roads and suspicion of travelers and severe curtailment of trade. We are, today, attempting something new in the history of humanity. We are trying to keep the doctors and nurses alive. We are trying to keep the hospitals and health care system functioning. We are trying to figure out ways to protect even the poor among us, or, failing that, at least remember their names, not just nameless numbers in mass graves.
We are doing a new thing, and we have op-ed pieces hammering on the importance of returning to the past.
Fuck that.
Specifically, in the Now, I am starting to suspect that sometimes, opinion pieces are published to clarify why something is a terrible idea. I have wondered about this since Mayim Bialik’s NYT op-ed about Harvey Weinstein, her initial doubling-down on the position, followed by multiple apologies and walkbacks of varying degrees of success. I suspect newspapers of recruiting people of influence who are wandering around saying something particularly annoying to really lay their thoughts out in detail so the reading public can lay waste to it and then the rest of us can quit arguing with the offending person / argument and just point.
Here is Christina Paxson of Brown, on the topic of in-person college in the fall:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/26/opinion/coronavirus-colleges-universities.html
Here is the person in charge of the Safra Center on the topic of K-12 returning to in-person schooling in the fall:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/weve-wasted-enough-time-we-must-figure-out-how-to-reopen-schools-this-fall/2020/05/14/2ac9392e-960e-11ea-91d7-cf4423d47683_story.html
Here is a piece about in-person summer camp, that quotes the Safra Center:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/opinion/coronavirus-summer-camp.html
Finally, I ran across this one today, more generically about predicting the future:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/22/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-prediction-future.html
Keep in mind, this is an author who says: “I, myself, who find sundown something of a surprise every evening”, so we should expect up front not to take anything he says too literally, because, I mean, duh. Here he is on the topic of weather prediction and school closings:
“Take a banal example: snowstorms and school closings. A half century ago, when meteorological forecasting was less sophisticated, parents and children would not learn that classes were canceled until the storm began and it was announced on radio and television that very morning. We lived in harmless uncertainty, which for kids was thrilling. When snowflakes fell they even looked like manna from heaven.
Today, mayors and school superintendents, putting their faith in the meteorologists, routinely announce closings a day or more in advance. If the storm fails to arrive, though, they are sharply criticized by parents who lost a day of work or had to find day care. And if an unforeseen storm paralyzes the city, leaving streets unsalted and children stranded at school, the reaction is far worse. More than one mayor has lost a re-election bid because of failed prophecies, victim of our collective overconfidence in human foresight.”
First, writing about children being excited about having a snow day right now is cruel. But let’s just ignore that for a moment and contemplate his assertion that there are snow storms which fail to arrive in the recent past. Oh, really? I mean, there are towns that close and then the snow drops a foot on all the surrounding towns but leaves them entirely in the clear. But the town that only gets 2 inches and could have opened still has teachers, staff, bus drivers, etc., living in those surrounding towns who cannot get out of their driveways, or have children whose own school has been canceled and so they must, as parents, stay home with the kiddos and cannot go, as teachers to the town with little snow.
Also, describing storms as arriving before school starts and living in harmless uncertainty is contemptuous of the people who had to deal with the 1978 Blizzard. The author appears to either be from some other world, or perhaps suffers the common problem of people who survived to adulthood of thinking that everything was fine when they are kids and all the hard things are only happening now that they are adults.
Mostly, tho, I cannot help but feel like the humanities are a monstrous disappointment. We were promised — I distinctly remember this — that learning about the past, about history, and reading the great literature, would give us resilience and prepare us for blah blah blah blah, I may have sprained an eyeball at this point. I mean, I love reading history. And literature that everyone hated from day zero is not literature that survives to be forced on junior high school students a century or more later. Some job lot of people loved that shit somewhere along the line, so presumably, there is some fun to be had (open question whether it is worth the effort).
History and literature are full of stories about past pandemics. The story they tell is a pretty relentless one. It is a story of inequality, of the wealthy trying to evade the worst consequences, of death, of waste, of suffering. Mostly, tho, it is the story of those who cared for the ill themselves becoming ill and often dying. It is the story of quarantine failing, of breakdown in communication between towns and countries and regions subsequent to the closing of roads and suspicion of travelers and severe curtailment of trade. We are, today, attempting something new in the history of humanity. We are trying to keep the doctors and nurses alive. We are trying to keep the hospitals and health care system functioning. We are trying to figure out ways to protect even the poor among us, or, failing that, at least remember their names, not just nameless numbers in mass graves.
We are doing a new thing, and we have op-ed pieces hammering on the importance of returning to the past.
Fuck that.