We live in a partisan age, and our news habits can reinforce our own perspectives. Consider this an effort to broaden our collective outlook with essays beyond the range of our typical selections.
FROM THE LEFT
From “Imagining The Nonviolent State,” by Ezra Klein in Vox.
The context, from the author: What if nonviolence wasn’t an inhuman standard demanded of the powerless, but an ethic upon which we reimagined the state?
The excerpt: That is what nonviolence demands. That you torment not just yourself but those you love, in the hope that your antagonists will rediscover their humanity within your suffering. That in order to change them, you risk yourself, your future, your family. Nothing in modern life, with the possible exception of parenthood, is built atop such self-annihilating logic. It is the truest radicalism, destabilizing to societies built on transaction and domination because it inverts their workings, lays bare their weaknesses, dissolves their core ethic.
From “The Anti-Vax Movement’s Radical Shift From Crunchy Granola Purists to Far-Right Crusaders,” by Kiera Butler in Mother Jones.
The context, from the author: Back when I started covering the anti-vaccination movement more than a decade ago, the loudest voices came from politically liberal, mostly white, and affluent enclaves.
The excerpt: But over the last few years, (an epidemiologist) has observed a subtle rightward shift: Online anti-vax communities, most of which are on Facebook, have taken on a very different tone. Instead of fretting over unwholesome additives in vaccines, members now rant about government overreach. They describe schools’ immunization rules as an assault on their freedom, and they swap theories about how Bill Gates is working with the government to control citizens with microchips, says (the expert). They’re “railing against the government and pharma companies controlling the population.”
From “How The Movement That’s Changing America Was Built And Where It Goes Next,” by Jamil Smith in Rolling Stone.
The context, from the author: The sweeping calls for change we see today are not sudden, but the fruits of the labor of activists.
The excerpt: Rebuilding a country that doesn’t care about black life into one that does must include a fundamental and systemwide reformation of American policing. But “black lives matter” going mainstream helps the liberation movement up its demands. If America accepts that black lives are inordinately threatened, we have to then talk about what and who is threatening them.
FROM THE RIGHT
From “Will 2020 Be a Realignment Election?” by Samuel J. Abrams in The Dispatch.
The context, from the author: The open issue, as I tell my students, is what happens in the precarious 20 weeks leading up to the election itself. Will tribalism continue to grow and in doing so quash room for debate, difference, and disagreement or will a new, diverse coalition emerge that actually brings Americans together and moves the country forward?
The excerpt: One could imagine a realignment of unambiguous polarization where the world after November is one where the parties simply govern without regard to those outside of their bases and the party in power simply ignores the needs and interests of the minority party, akin to the first two years of the Trump administration. Such a move would set the stage for the nation to swing regularly from one set of extreme policies to another from election to election with increasing numbers of executive orders and never-ending litigation. This would create massive anxiety and puts our nation’s stability in peril as the country cannot persevere indefinitely as one group celebrates while another seethes.
From “Confederate History and the American Soul,” by Cameron Hilditch in the National Review.
The context, from the author: Is this still the case today? Is the toleration of Confederate iconography still necessary for the preservation of the Union? The question of grammar — “Shall we say, ‘The United States is’ or ‘The United States are?’” — over which classics scholar Basil Gildersleeve argued that the war was fought has been thoroughly resolved.
The excerpt: If Confederate statues, monuments, flags, and symbols are displayed in a museum, it sends a message that Americans want to insulate contemporary politics from the veneration of the Confederate cause. It shows that Americans regard the sentiment that originally inspired the sculpting and erection of a given secessionist statue or the sewing of the stars and bars as something foreign to their own system of values, a historical curiosity rather than a living faith. Opposing the destruction and vandalism of these symbols while advocating for their removal from public places to museums strikes me as the obvious and necessary course of action. It would safeguard the memory of the conflict while also acting as a kind of moral, political, and racial disinfectant for public spaces across the country.
From “American Nationalists,” by Ofir Haivry and Yoram Hazony in the American Conservative.
The context, from the authors: Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist Party provides a blueprint for conservatives today.
The excerpt: A nationalist politics must be built upon a fundamental understanding that was embraced by the Federalists—and that can be embraced again by their nationalist heirs in our day as well: the insight that Americans are not merely a collection of individuals, an essentially arbitrary subset within some universal brotherhood of individuals. They are rather a distinct nation, with a proud and important heritage that is unique in the world, and that still has much to achieve and much to contribute, both to America and to others.
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June 20, 2020 at 08:30AM
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Here’s what to read from the left and the right - Tampa Bay Times
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