Category: Cultural Commentary

Social media and the death of friendship

I posted this last week on my person Facebook page, but I wanted to share it here as well. Enjoy.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about friendship and the role it plays in the modern millennial techno-culture that I find myself inhabiting. There is a real tendency among people in my demographic – especially among those you find online tweeting and creating meme culture – to relish in the difficulty of creating and maintaining friendships, and an attendant valorizing of the “self care” of saying no to those who want to make plans. There seems to be real comedy to be found in the last minute breaking of plans and turning down attempts at connection. I’ve come to think of this as a phenomenon called “ironized introversion”, in which it becomes cool to radically embrace the identity of introverted- to the point of refusing to interact in an embodied way with people when it is not required by work or family obligations (and even those are becoming more and more optional for many.) Social life becomes a purely digital and online endeavor, where the other avatars and accounts on social media become more “real” than anything else about people. 

I know I sound like “old guy yelling at technology” here, but I’m really not meaning to. Because I do sympathize; I am an introvert, very much so, although I like to embrace the hubris of thinking I’m a real introvert, and not one for the social credit it seems to bring nowadays. Human interaction wears me out; an evening with friends requires about three times as much isolation afterwards to recover energy. So I get it, I really do.

At the same time, I do work hard to cultivate real, embodied friendships, in the “meatspace” and not only the digital one. I spent the majority of the last two years off social media by and large, and one of my fears in doing so was that I would lose a whole host of meaningful relationships with people who I am “friends” with here. But, in fact, I found that what it forced of me instead was intentionality and active cultivation in my building and maintaining friendships. Sure, the number of people I regularly interacted with in some way went down in absolute terms. But I also became vitally aware of my actual, important friendships, and they really flourished over the last couple of years in a way that I hadn’t really experienced since high school probably (school life is, after all, probably the peak for many people’s experience of real friendship.) Now, these weren’t all free of technology. The closest friendships I built were still over distance, maintained by and large via Zoom and FaceTime and phone calls and text chains. But notice the intentionality found even in that. We made regular, weekly plans to talk, face to face as we could. We hold each other accountable to these check-ins. And, when we could this summer, we all came together for a few days of real time together, time that I look back on already as one of the highlights of the year for me.

So, it really bugs me, the attitude contained in this tweet, that I see so often around me. Friendship is really hard. It’s risky. It’s messy. It can be exhausting. It involved real flawed human beings, so the likelihood you are gonna get hurt at some point is high. I get that. But there is also nothing like it. Friendship – real, honest to goodness friendship, with other physical human beings – is amazing and life-giving and vital to being a whole human being. Family is great, but there is nothing like real friends who are there and present and choose to love you and spend time with you.

Friendship is an embodied thing. It requires proximity and effort and intimacy and vulnerability. And it is a vital feature of the Good and Virtuous Life, for everyone. Aristotle and Augustine and Aquinas all teach us this, that you cannot be fully human without the presence of others, without the love of friendship. Yeah, making plans is hard, and leaving the comfort and safety of home can be a lot, especially after a full week of work and obligations. But real friendship is necessary. Other human beings are not consumables or commodities, and they aren’t the stuff of memes and social media irony. To relegate friendship to the digital world and spend a lot of time laughing at your own ability to turn down other people’s attempts at relationship building is to make means of those around you, of which there is no greater sin we can commit against one another. 

So, make plans. Go out. Risk yourself. Court exhaustion. Cull your friends list. Be a friend, a real, flesh and blood friend. 

being a Christian does not make you an expert on medical science

The subject of medical science and research has obviously been in the news over the last year, with the Covid-19 pandemic and the race to find and implement effective and safe vaccines. And since this has been the news, of course it has become a political football. Somehow, credible, peer-reviewed and valuable medical research and science has come to be seen as a political agenda or dangerous idea to a good chunk of the American electorate. With the Delta variant spreading quickly, and large swathes of the population remaining unvaccinated despite the best efforts of literally every credible voice in American politics and popular culture to encourage vaccination (not to mention the reams of science and data on the efficacy and overall safety of these vaccines, produced in breathtaking and record-setting time by some of our finest minds), the question of what science to trust and listen to is once again on the front of everyone’s minds.

The politicization of medical science means that, of course, conservative Christian political voices have seized on it and are amplifying the very worst and most damaging claims of right-wing and anti-science voices in their never-ending pursuit of cultural and political influence. Already a hotbed of bad science, anti-vax activism, and conspiracy theories, conservative churches have seized on the idea of Covid vaccines being somehow the mark of the Antichrist, or a conspiracy to oppress religious voices, or somehow a sign of the end times. A concerted effort is underway in many evangelical and conservative churches to discourage their congregants from getting the vaccine, making the ability of our society to get past this pandemic that much more difficult. Many pastors and Christian leaders are using the trust and power placed in them to undermine and discredit science and the best efforts of medical professionals who swore an oath to heal and take care. I can’t imagine a more anti-Christian message to spread.

Here’s the thing many Christians seem to have forgotten: being a Christian does not make you a special expert on other things outside the realm of faith. There is a profound confusion about the role of the Christian faith and the Scriptural witness vis a vis science and medical practice. Many Christians take their faith to be a license of expertise on empirical, researched scientific fact and practice. They seem to believe that being disciples of Christ somehow bestows the ability to make judgments about which science is “good” and which is not.

But, these Christian leaders are wrong. Nothing about being a Christian – even a prominent Christian leader, with Twitter followers and a big church and TV appearances and best-selling books – makes one an expert on any subject matter. Certainly, Christians are not even experts on being Christians. Following Paul, we are all fools, and truth be told, becoming a Christian means learning that as one of the first lessons. But, even less so are we experts on medical science and research, unless of course you are a Christian who also went to medical school and became a doctor or medical researcher. But I’m gonna guess many of the loudest Christian voices second guessing the science of vaccines and public health are not folks who have medical degrees or who are actively engaged in the work of medical research.

The place Christians can speak authoritatively to medicine is in the realm of ethics. Christianity has much to contribute to the conversation about how we practice medicine, about the choices we make in the application of medical science and learning to the lives people live. But notice: this does not include space to second guess or speak ignorantly about the science behind medicine. For example, Christians can have an opinion on the ethics of knee replacement surgery (to choose an anodyne and non-controversial medical practice: this conversation could and has been had about euthanasia, or abortion, or stem cell treatments.) Are knee replacements ethical? Is it something we as a people should do? Is it something we as Christians should condone or practice? How do we care for those who have the surgery? What about when the surgery fails? Can Scripture speak to our care for those with bad knees? Is there a better way to treat those with bad knees? Now, yes, this is a rather tongue-in-cheek example. Nobody, outside of Jehovah’s Witnesses I suppose, has a problem with knee replacements. But, the questions posed here are the kinds of ethical questions Christians are trained to ask and think about. Where we aren’t qualified to speak is on the science of how knees work, or the medical science behind how to complete a knee replacement surgery, or the medicine required to ensure the patient is comfortable and survives the treatment. Those are specialized questions of medical science, outside the realm of faith and what can be known as a result of being a follower of Christ.

Likewise, in the case of Covid and vaccines, Christians can certainly speak on methods of ensuring public health, on the ethics of enforced vaccination regimes, on the best societal practices to limit transmission. Christians should not, on the other hand, be spreading bogus science about the safety of vaccines, about vaccination as a legitimate practice of large-scale disease control, about conspiracy-laden understandings of what is in the vaccine, or about the scientific efficacy of vaccination on marginalized and high-risk communities. To deny the science is to deny the reason God gave us as human beings, the reason that drove the medical science and research that led to the breakthrough in vaccines as a medical practice, and today in its usefulness in battling Covid.

This is hard for some Christians, because they desperately want the Bible to speak authoritatively and clearly on every subject conceivable, when it just doesn’t. For instance, the Bible doesn’t tell me anything about how to replace the starter on my Kia, and any Christian leader who tries to convince me it does is just full of shit, and probably trying to coerce me into submitting myself to them and ultimately enriching them in some way. Likewise, the Bible simply says nothing about how to conduct medical research, how to set up a pharmaceutical trial, or which protein compounds are active in the healing process. You may want the Bible to speak to these things, for various reasons (usually related to political commitments), but the fact is, it just doesn’t. And that’s ok! God gave us good brains and the ability to figure this stuff out, and specifically, God imbued some people with a talent and aptitude for this kind of work. We should listen to and generally trust those people! And likewise, they should listen to people like Christians when making ethical decisions about the application of all that science and learning. But, when you start trying to make the Bible a science book, you are making a terrible mistake, one that marks you as someone reasonable people should not take seriously in these conversations.

Now, none of this should not be construed as me saying that science is unassailable, or perfect in its practices and conclusions. Far from it. But, criticism of science must derive from within the realm of scienctific enquiry and practice, not faith, because science speaks a different language than faith. Christians have a lot of say about the practice of medicine. We don’t have much to say, Scripturally and ecclesiastically, on the development of medical science and its conclusions on disease. Science is not faith. The Bible is not a medical textbook.

Here is what science tells us: vaccines work. The Covid vaccines work remarkably well. Covid is a deadly and dangerous virus that spreads through the air. Masks work to slow the spread. Distancing works to slow the spread. No one is immune to Covid. Medical science has spent decades developing the tools and empirical practices to come to these conclusions, and the large majority of medical practicioners (including Dr. Anthony Fauci) are smart, good people doing the hard work of trying to keep people safe and alive.

Here is what our Christian faith should tell us: trust the science. Pastors are not medical doctors. Doing your best to limit the spread of a deadly disease, by social distancing and masking up and getting vaccinated, is the Christian work of loving your neighbor as yourself. Conspiracy theories and the politics of fear are competitors with God for our allegiance, not helpful tools to become better Christians, and should be rejected. Christians can and should think hard about how we apply the medical knowledge we gain towards the end of healing and caring for others; but Christians are simply not qualified by dint of being Christians to reject medical science and research. If your preferred Christian leader or voice tries to act otherwise, you should probably rethink your affinity for them.

Wear a mask.

Social distance.

Stay informed.

Trust our doctors and medical professionals.

And please, for the love of all things good, get vaccinated if you can.

Nobody Knows Anything About CRT: Some Thoughts on CRT, Teachers, and Cameras in Classrooms

Here is the thing about the debate over Critical Race Theory in our schools: almost nobody on either side of the debate has any idea what they are actually talking about.

Critical Race Theory is not, as many conservatives would have you believe, any and all talk about race as a social construct or systematic oppression. Critical Race Theory is also not, as many liberals would have you believe, simply the teaching of the “real” history of race relations in America. These people bloviating on tv and social media about CRT and how it does this or that: they just simply don’t know what they are talking about. So my first piece of advice when thinking about this is, ignore almost everyone who makes declarative statements about what CRT does or is.

I don’t say this as the CRT expert you should be listening to. I also don’t have a lot of clarity on what it is. And I actually studied the subject! In my Masters studies, I took an entire course on Race in America that drew heavily on CRT; I also took a course on critical theory more broadly, which pulled on aspects of CRT while also focusing on the roots of critical theory in the Frankfurt School and especially the liberatory pedagogies of Paulo Friere. So, sitting here writing this, while I am certainly no expert – far from it, in fact – I can say confidently that I do know more about the subject than 99% of those who are spending all their time on your television or social media feed insisting they know what’s happening.

Here’s a hint: they don’t. This especially goes for those on cable news and those holding elected office. Their goal is not to inform or protect you. It’s to draw your attention, and they do that best by trying to scare you.

So, here are a few things that I believe are and are not true about CRT in American schools.

First, when most people on both sides of this debate say “Critical Race Theory”, they almost certainly don’t mean the school of legal and social theory that aims to critique the American legal system, as developed by folks such as Derrick Bell, Kimberle Crenshaw, and Richard Delgado. So, right off the bat, the term CRT is simply a convenient shorthand for whatever other political hobbyhorse the person has.

Second, liberals are wrong to dismiss the concerns of parents about what their kids are and aren’t being taught about race relations. It is right that we are beginning to explore a fuller, more honest history of race in America (more on this in a moment.) But, bringing narratives and practices around declaring and critiquing privilege, or forcing students to declare racial guilt, or encouraging race essentialism: none of these things has a role in K-12 classrooms. This is what many parents are concerned about, even if that concern may be baseless. We should be doing our best to reassure parents, by being open and honest about our curriculums, instead of being dismissive and sarcastic. As a public school teacher, I want buy in from parents, not anger and suspicion. Thus, I have no problem answering questions about curriculum and sharing information, and I don’t know many teachers who feel differently. So, liberals, let’s be a little less dismissive about the concerns of real parents.

Third, contrary to the narrative of conservative nationalists, we have actually done a really bad job for a long time of teaching the real, sordid history of American racial relations, and history and civics curriculums need to by and large be rethought. Many schools gloss over Reconstruction, over Jim Crow, over the role slavery and its legacy played in our nations founding and the lives of those we often hold up for unqualified praise. We have ignored the role of racism in the New Deal, the racial backlash of the 70s and 80s; we have glorified many historical figures who should be understood more critically. These are important conversations to be having in classrooms, and the only way to do that is to develop honest and rigorous curriculums, and by supporting and protecting teachers who are the ones bringing this knowledge to our kids. The idea that American history is nothing but glory and patriots and freedom is propaganda, and it does nothing but hurts the cause of healthy patriotism many conservatives claim to value. Teaching honest history is the only way to build a better future together.

Finally, and most importantly in my eyes: teachers and schools are not the enemy. CRT has become a weapon that anti-public school voices have found in their long running attempt to kill public schools in favor of private ones. Teachers are not evil state actors out to indoctrinate your children. Teachers are your neighbors, your friends, and your family. Teachers want your children to succeed, and they want to teach them the truth while helping them grow.

Here in Oklahoma, and elsewhere, there is a new line of attack from anti-public school conservatives: the idea that we must now put cameras either in classrooms or on teachers, in order to “monitor” what they are teaching our kids. In short, this is a really, really terrible idea. (Not to mention, probably illegal, unconstitutional, and unworkable.) The idea comes with the rhetoric that teachers are merely “government employees” who “work for me” and that “I have the right to supervise my employees.” Often, this language comes from the same people who spend a lot of time exercised about government overreach and privacy invasions.

Cameras in classrooms is not only a gross invasion of privacy for teachers and for students. It also won’t work to make schools better. Oh, it may work to scare teachers away from difficult (but necessary) discussions. And that is probably the goal of many of the advocates of cameras in classrooms. But it will make schools worse, and damage the education students receive.

Here are some hard truths to know about schools:

Sometimes, your kid will succeed. Sometimes, they will fail. They will experience both.

Sometimes, your kid’s teacher will succeed. Sometimes, they too will fail. Teachers, like you, are human and fallible. And teaching, for those who have never done  it and thus don’t know, is really, really hard.

Your kid will learn about lots of things you like and agree with. Your kid will also learn about lots of things you don’t like or agree with. Such is life.

You do not have to market cornered on what is true or good. If you are trying to stamp out every piece of contrary or conflicting information out of your kid’s life or classroom, you are going to be both grossly unsuccessfull, and also damaging to your kid’s future well-being. By removing the presence of hard debates and alternate ideas, you are setting them up for failure in life, as they become unable to critically and honestly grapple with hard things.

Finally, again, teachers are not your enemy. In addition, teachers aren’t unaccountable in the classroom. Teachers are constantly observed; we have other adults in and out of our classrooms all day. We must turn in lesson plans. We cannot just ignore the curriculum. We cannot push politics or religion or personal opinions on our students. Putting cameras in our room won’t stop your kid from learning things you don’t like or agree with. But it will prevent us from having that one-on-one conversation with the kid being abused by their mom at home. It will prevent us from having that five minute conversation about last night’s game to connect with that one kid we are struggling to connect with. It will prevent us from being everything we need to be for our students.

Teachers are not indoctrinating your kids. But teachers are also not shielding them. Trust our schools to do their job, and if you don’t, then get involved in a constructive, useful way to make them better. And, for God’s sake, please stop listening to all those out there who want to scare you with stories of indoctrination in the service of their political power games. They don’t know what they are talking about. Perhaps they should spend a little more time in school.

I strongly, strongly recommend this article at FIRE for more information on what is actually happening in schools regarding CRT.