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Nihilism Born of Pessimism

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I wrote the following in the course of a conversation on the WELL in a climate change thread. It seemed worth porting over here.

There’s a sense that nothing we do [not just with respect to climate change – in all aspects of life] ever makes anything better. So, why bother? No matter what we try, headlines and social media posts persist around the theme that we live in uniquely awful times. It’s bullshit. We don’t. But cynicism masquerades as wisdom, so try observing that we live in historically pretty good times. You’ll quickly get hit with a straw man to the effect of, “oh, just because things were shitty 200 years ago, we should pretend that everything is perfect now.” As if those are the only choices.

If any of the cynicism and nihilism is justified, it might well be in the context of climate change. But I think the flood of learned helplessness in other areas of life makes it tough for us to feel like we can deal with climate change in any meaningful sense.

HB 1568: Pharmacist Prescription of Birth Control

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Whitney Downard, writing for the Indiana Capital Chronicle (a great resource for following the legislature, I should add), has a good article about yesterday’s Senate committee hearing for HB 1568 which would give pharmacists the ability to prescribe and dispense hormonal birth control. This legislation passed the House by a vote of 86-12. It wasn’t up for a vote yesterday, just witness testimony. Amendments and a vote will apparently be considered next week. Some of the members of the Senate health committee, Sens. Liz Brown and Tyler Johnson seemed skeptical, citing concerns about maternal health and apparently questioning the proposition that physicians were less accessible in many places than pharmacies.

The point of this legislation is that hormonal birth control isn’t really such a health hazard that pharmacists can’t dispense it properly; meanwhile, it’s important and going through a physician presents what is probably an unnecessary hurdle.

Sen. Leising, not known as some sort of flaming liberal, was apparently supportive:

During their barrage of criticism, fellow Republican Sen. Jean Leising praised the bill for increasing access in her rural district – where she said just three of her seven counties had a hospital with OB-GYN services. Roughly one-third of Indiana’s counties are considered obstetrics deserts with few specialized providers.

A representative of the Indiana Academy of Family Physicians who do not oppose the bill suggested what they regard as improvements: additional requirements for pharmacists, including: mandating blood pressure checks as part of the screening process, provider referrals if health issues are identified (either in the initial screening or related to the birth control) and sharing local resources to find primary care providers.

In addition to purported health concerns, a representative of the Indiana Catholic Conference alluded to what I suspect is the main reason for opposition where it exists: people having sex.  Per this witness, “the widespread availability of contraceptives ‘further facilitated’ extramarital sexual relationships.” At this point in my life, I’ll just say: good. Sex is a very human thing. It doesn’t have to be a complicated thing. Marriage is too important to have people jumping into it just so they can have sex. Similarly, raising children is something we want people undertaking mindfully – not just stumbling into.

HB 1608: Prohibited Instruction on “Human Sexuality” and Use of Names Inconsistent with Biological Sex

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Henceforth, until the fourth grade, parents shall be referred to as “adults who dwell in your home.”

The Senate Committee on Education is scheduled to hold a hearing today on HB 1608 which concerns itself with instruction of human sexuality and polices kids’ names for gender conformity. (The committee hearing is likely underway as I write this.)

The first part prohibits “any instruction to a student in kindergarten through grade 3 on human sexuality.” O.k., sounds like it might be reasonable. Depends on what they mean by “human sexuality.” I’ll just go to the part of the bill that tells me what the General Assembly means by that. Whoops. No dice. They flat out offer no guidance on what’s prohibited. If you want to prohibit kindergarten teachers from running Pornhub on a loop and stepping out for a smoke, knock yourself out. It’s not happening, but can’t be too safe, I guess. On the other hand, this is so vague as to potentially prevent a first grade teacher from alluding to someone’s mommy and daddy because … that might lead to uncomfortable questions about what distinguishes a mommy or daddy from the other adults in a kid’s life.

The second part has language similar to what I discussed in connection with HB 1346 a couple of months ago. It says that an employee or a staff member of a school may only use a name, pronoun, title, or other word to identify a student that is inconsistent with the student’s sex if the student’s parent requests [the use] in writing. Even if the parent makes such a request, the school can’t discipline a teacher who chooses to be a dick about the situation and insist on using the kid’s legal name, notwithstanding everyone else’s request to use a different name.

My grandpa, Nelson, went by “Nellie” and his sister was nicknamed “Bob.” I doubt my great-grandparents would have fussed enough to send a note to the school on the subject. So, any teacher referring to them by those nicknames would be lawbreakers in modern Indiana. Progress!

And, more seriously, as I said in connection with HB 1346:

I guess if I were a better person, it wouldn’t take personal experience to help me form my opinion on this issue. But, as luck would have it, I have several friends with transgender children. I’ve known the kids and their parents for a long time now. So, it’s hard for me not to take offense at this legislation because it seems like a monstrous attack on these kids that I know and like and their families. They’re working through issues that can be challenging enough to navigate even when everyone wants good things for the kids and is tackling the issues with an open mind. Now you’ve got the Indiana General Assembly turning these kids into another front in the culture wars. Just marvelous.

 

HB 480 Banning Gender Affirming Care Advances

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Idea: The General Assembly should try not to make difficult situations more difficult.

SB 480, prohibiting gender affirming care passed out of the Senate Health Committee on an 8-5 vote. It prohibits doctors from providing necessary medical assistance to transgender kids who need their help. I suppose its proponents fancy that they are taking bold action to stop a rash of doctors recklessly cutting off penises and otherwise mutilating the genitals of momentarily confused children while their approving parents look on. But: a) that’s not what is happening in the real world (surgeries on minors aren’t happening in Indiana); and b) this legislation prohibits a lot more, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy.

I’m no expert, but I trust the General Assembly even less than I do myself with these decisions. I’m told puberty blockers are generally reversible and, while hormone therapy might be less so, whatever risks there are have to be weighed against the benefits of action and the risks of inaction. The mental health problems and suicidal ideation rates among transgender youth are appalling. Preventing these kids from getting medical help is cruel. The kids, their parents, and physicians need to navigate the costs and benefits of action and inaction. Getting the General Assembly involved and tying the hands of physicians isn’t going to help anyone.

This is cut and paste legislation being promoted by national groups. Why? Some of it is surely cynical. Divide the country with easily understood culture war issues that provoke an emotional response and profit. Liberals are emasculating our boys and making our girls masculine! Well, shit. That’s horrifying. Better vote for the real Americans who will put a stop to this hippie-dippy nonsense. Some of the politicians and a lot of their supporters likely believe in their cause. Men are men. Women are women. And “science” which says otherwise is against God and Nature. I think it’s also partly another manifestation of the nostalgia-sickness from which we suffer. Through the lens of nostalgia, the past was a simpler time where, among other things, gender roles were clear and the world was better.

Only they weren’t, really; and it wasn’t. In the past, there were still gay people and transgender people. Mostly, I think they just hid and suffered. And, in so many ways, the world was objectively worse in the past for almost everyone. But, it was especially worse for people who didn’t conform to the cultural defaults. We should aspire to make the world a place where people can take joy in their lives. This legislation is decidedly not that.

Edited to add link to a good article by Whitney Downard, writing for the Indiana Capital Chronicle. She notes that this is part of a nationwide effort to dictate how parents raise their transgender children. However, the number of children pursuing this treatment is small – 0.001% according to one measure.”  Supporters mostly did not justify their committee votes; though Dennis Zent, R-Angola, shared his thoughts, “saying testimony about changing ideals in Europe influenced his affirmative vote.” Changing ideals in Europe?

Meanwhile the potential harm from this bill is very real:

“My child is 16 and I can tell you before he started in hormone therapy he was withdrawn, he didn’t have friends… there was a point when he didn’t leave the house,” Westville parent Alisha Hunter told the committee. “This (ban) will be life altering for my child… He’s happy and that will all change.”

Hunter shared her son’s multi-year journey, saying that her family was considering leaving the state — a sentiment shared by multiple other families who testified against the proposal.

That Purdue Loss

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“Here lies a toppled god. His fall was not a small one. We did but build his pedestal, A narrow and a tall one.” ? Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah.

It’s no secret that I root for the other college in Indiana. That was already my team of choice and now my boy plays for their pep band which cranks it up a notch. Rooting against Purdue is in my blood, and – truth be told – there was a bit of schadenfreude when I learned of top seeded Purdue’s historic loss against #16 seed Farleigh Dickinson the other night. I didn’t see it because we were in Berlin at the time, five hours ahead, trying to catch a few hours of sleep before leaving for the airport at 3:45 a.m. local time. I woke up to a text from my mom sharing the  shocking news.

This was a horrible loss for the Boilermakers. There’s no other way to spin it. But what tends to get lost in the discussion is the level of success necessary to make this loss even possible. If Purdue had performed to pre-season expectations, they are probably somewhere in that Big Ten logjam, placing somewhere between 2 and 9th in the league; maybe a 5 or 6 seed in the tournament. If they do that, they exit in the first game or two, folks are disappointed for a week or so, but then fans look forward to next year with more experience on the court. Instead, Purdue set itself ahead of the Big Ten pack. They get swept by Indiana but otherwise stand above the Big Ten winning the  regular season and the tournament. It’s only that success that makes the historic loss possible. Instead of remembering the Big Ten championship, fans and detractors alike will remember the face plant against FDU. That’s inevitable, but I’m not entirely sure it’s fair.

Expectations are an insidious thing. I saw that in my rec soccer coaching – being up a couple of goals and then coming away with a tie felt like a loss whereas being down a couple of goals and then getting a tie felt like a win. It’s not just athletics either – it’s most things in life. Things that are objectively neutral or even good can feel bad if they don’t live up to expectations. Compared to basically every other era in history, most humans on the planet now have things better than in any other era in history; but their existence can, nevertheless, feel fraught and miserable simply because we know better is possible.

Likewise, Purdue fans feel miserable because so much more was possible. But it was only possible because of the work and success of Painter, Edey, et al, through the rest of the season. Don’t expect much empathy for Boilermaker basketball in these pages in the future, but I hope after the pain of this loss fades, there will be some ability among fans to appreciate the real accomplishments even if they are alloyed with the sting of disappointment.

Herald Bulletin Urges General Assembly to Stop Voucher Expansion

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The Herald Bulletin published an editorial urging the Indiana General Assembly to stop the school voucher expansion. It notes the measures passed by the House and being considered by the Senate which would double the spending on voucher privatization of our educational system. Their main arguments: 1) it expands the program to subsidize private education for wealthy Hoosiers; and 2) claims that vouchers improve educational outcomes are thin and, at best, studies on the subject provide mixed support for that claim.

There are troubling aspects to the expansion trend.

About 90% of Indiana’s students attend public schools. About half of the 87,000 private school students use the Choice Scholarship program through which families receive vouchers. The House proposal would widen the program to all private school pupils, at an average of around $7,500 each.

Families currently qualify for the program based on income. Families of four making less than 300% of the federal poverty level, up to $154,000, can qualify.

The expansion would expand that to families of four who earn $220,000.

Folks who have followed this debate as it has occupied the General Assembly for the past two decades know that this plea is likely to fall on deaf ears. The original pretext for vouchers was that they would give “choice” to poor students in failing schools. As the policy choices of the General Assembly have revealed, that was never the true motive. That educational outcomes are the same or worse for students who use vouchers has not slowed down their expansion. Limitations requiring students to have actually attended public schools have been lifted. The availability of vouchers is not tied to whether a student is actually in a “failing” school district. And now income limitations are being obliterated.

The goals are and always have been: 1) subsidize religious education; 2) weaken teacher’s unions; and 3) re-direct public school funds to friends and well-wishers of pro-privatization policymakers.

Another Day of Scurry and Production

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The phrase “scurry and production” caught my ear as I continued to listen to Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charley.” In his travels during (I believe) the Fall of 1960, he has just come through Ohio, Michigan, and northern Indiana – through or near cities like Cleveland, Toledo, Flint, South Bend. But he’s in a more pastoral location in northern Michigan where he writes, “I wanted a little time to think about the things I’d seen, the huge factories and plants and the scurry and production.” I guess it beats scurry without production.

But the real reason I was prompted to write was the preceding paragraph where Steinbeck says:

It is the nature of a man as he grows older, a small bridge in time, to protest against change, particularly change for the better. But it is true that we have exchanged corpulence for starvation, and either one will kill us. The lines of change are down. We, or at least I, can have no conception of human life and human thought in a hundred years or fifty years. Perhaps my greatest wisdom is the knowledge that I do not know. The sad ones are those who waste their energy in trying to hold it back, for they can only feel bitterness in loss and no joy in gain.

Bitterness in loss and no joy in gain. I see a lot of that now. I guess that’s part of why I’m always railing against nostalgia. First of all, it’s reverence for things as they never were. But, also, that reverence has a pernicious tendency to blot out joy in the things that are or might be.

Indiana Basketball: 2022-23

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Before the various basketball seasons come to an end and fade into memory, I just want to take a moment to talk about what a delight the season has been. Given the realities of tournament basketball, the strong likelihood is that any team I care about will end its season with a loss and then fade into memory. The West Side basketball teams have already hit that end. The WL boy’s team showed some resurgence as compared to last year and won quite a few games in the second half of the season. But they made a quick exit from the tournament. My main complaint with them was that their home games seemed few, far between, and unpredictably scheduled. The West Side girls were really good. Their main problem was being in a conference that was having a strong year overall. They had a good season and took an undefeated Twin Lakes team to double overtime in the tournament.

Now, on to the Big Ten where the State of Indiana has owned basketball this year. Purdue won the men’s side. I’m going to call Indiana tied for second. (Technically, Northwestern gets the tie breaker, but I refuse to credit the uncalled travel/push-off game “winner” by Buie as time expired.)  The Boilermakers have a national player of the year contender in Zach Edey and a plausible chance at winning the NCAA tournament.

Post-game performance

Despite that, IU swept Purdue. I was raised a fan of the Hoosiers, and I’m even more in the bag now that my son plays trombone in the Big Red Basketball Band. Whenever there is a broadcast, Amy & I play a game of “Find Cole.” Typically he’s in the front row toward the left side of the band. Things could still fall apart – I’ve been hurt before – but you get the sense that under Coach Woodson, the Hoosiers are moving toward a return to prominence. This season Trayce Jackson Davis established himself as an all-time Hoosier great. He has set school records for rebounds and blocks, is currently sitting in fourth all-time on the scoring list and looks very likely to grab the third spot. The Hoosiers have a team that can beat to anyone but which can also lose to pretty much anyone. So, to me – a basketball amateur who still thinks guys getting shoved around in the paint is probably a foul under the rules as they’re written and who can’t reliably predict whether the referee will call a charge or a block – the likelihood of IU stringing together three wins in the Big Ten tournament or six wins in the NCAA tournament seems remote. I’ll be delighted to be wrong. What’s great for the state, however, is having both IU and Purdue nationally ranked, playing closely contested games at Assembly Hall and Mackey Arena. We love hating each other and doing so on a massive stage is a wonderful thing.

On the women’s side, Teri Moran has built a monster of a team. They only lost two regular season games despite playing in by far the toughest conference in the nation. Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Ohio State, and Michigan were all top 20 teams. They won the Big Ten outright for the first time in 40 years. The day we went down to watch a game against Purdue, the women’s team sold out Assembly Hall for the first time. We’ll lose Grace Berger next year, but the talent that should be coming back is crazy. Purdue’s women’s team isn’t quite on that level at the moment and they had to play in an insanely competitive conference. But, Katie Gearlds looks like she has great potential and Purdue’s women will be in good hands. (I make all of these predictions for a bright future hesitantly. I know from bitter experience and bright hopes past that any of these teams could spiral into mediocrity or worse.)

Between the West Lafayette boys and girls teams and the IU men’s and women’s teams, I’ve watched way more basketball season this year than in recent years. Having grown up in Richmond (Beast from the East), that’s a good thing!

 

Quote from Travels with Charley

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Today the weather in my neck of the woods was very pleasant. Sunny, 45, and low wind. I don’t trust that Spring is truly here, but that was a taste. I took the dogs for a nice long walk. (And, incidentally – do not underestimate how much good the simple act of going for a walk can do for mind and body.) As I walked, I was listening to an audio book of Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charley,” written based on a journey Steinbeck took in 1960, and this passage amused me:

We have inherited many attitudes from our recent ancestors who wrestled this continent as Jacob wrestled the angel, and the pioneers won. From them we take a belief that every American is a natural-born hunter. And every fall a great number of men set out to prove that without talent, training, knowledge, or practice they are dead shots with rifle or shotgun. The results are horrid. From the moment I left Sag Harbor the guns were booming at the migrating ducks, and as I drove in Maine the rifle shots in the forests would have frightened off any number of redcoats so long as they didn’t know what was happening. This is bound to get me a bad name as a sportsman, but let me say at once that I have nothing against the killing of animals. Something has to kill them, I suppose. In my youth I often crawled miles on my belly through freezing wind for the pure glory of blasting a mudhen which even soaked in salt water made poor eating. I don’t greatly care for venison or bear or moose or elk except for the livers. The recipes, the herbs, the wine, the preparation that goes into a good venison dish would make an old shoe a gourmet’s delight. If I were hungry, I would happily hunt anything that runs or crawls or flies, even relatives, and tear them down with my teeth. But it isn’t hunger that drives millions of armed American males to forests and hills every autumn, as the high incidence of heart failure among the hunters will prove. Somehow the hunting process has to do with masculinity, but I don’t quite know how. I know there are any number of good and efficient hunters who know what they are doing; but many more are overweight gentlemen, primed with whisky and armed with high-powered rifles. They shoot at anything that moves or looks as though it might, and their success in killing one another may well prevent a population explosion. If the casualties were limited to their own kind there would be no problem, but the slaughter of cows, pigs, farmers, dogs, and highway signs makes autumn a dangerous season in which to travel.

Somehow it’s refreshing to know that skepticism of hunting as a masculine endeavor was held by one of our greatest writers 60 years ago. Like Steinbeck, the killing of animals isn’t something to which I object in particular. And I don’t even have any specific problem with hunting. My grandfather was an avid hunter – I suppose I imagine he was one of the capable people. I think it’s the unearned condescension I’ve seen from hunters toward non-hunters which make me raise an eyebrow.

I have this notion that, if I’m going to throw my idle musings online, should try to do more of it here on a site that I own rather than onto one of the social media conglomerates with their fussy algorithms. We’ll see how that goes. Also, I’m trying out a plug-in that should auto-post to Mastodon for me.

SB 12: “Material Harmful to Minors” and “Inappropriate Material”

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Won’t somebody in Indianapolis, please think of the children!

Senate Bill 12 –in the form it passed the Senate – has two parts which share a theme but which aren’t legally connected: 1) it removes a defense to criminal prosecution for distributing “material harmful to a minor” that is available under current law for educational purposes and for school libraries; and 2) it creates a bureaucratic process for people to complain about “inappropriate material” in school libraries.

CRIME OF DISTRIBUTING MATERIAL HARMFUL TO MINORS

Under current law, it is a level 6 felony to disseminate, provide, perform, etc. “material harmful to minors.” (IC 35-49-3-3). Material is considered “harmful to minors” if: “(1) it describes or represents, in any form, nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sado-masochistic abuse; (2) considered as a whole, it appeals to the prurient interest in sex of minors; (3) it is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable matter for or performance before minors; and (4) considered as a whole, it lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.”(IC 35-49-2-2).

This largely tracks the definition of “obscenity” as laid out by the Supreme Court for material that doesn’t enjoy First Amendment protection except that it considers what is appropriate for minors rather than what is appropriate to the adult community as the standard. This part is not new and it isn’t being changed by SB 12.

What is being changed has to do with defenses to prosecution. Under current law, there are a number of defenses to prosecution for this crime. Among others, it is a defense if the material was made available for legitimate educational purposes and also if it was made available by a “bona fide school, museum, or public library” (and their employees.) This legislation eliminates the defense in existing law that the material was made available for educational purposes. It also strikes the defense that the material was made available by a school and, instead, limits the defense to colleges, universities, and college & university libraries.

Advocates might argue that the legislation doesn’t create a new crime. That doesn’t make schools or educators uniquely subject to this prohibition of the criminal law. If this law passes, K-12 schools would be on the same footing as the rest of the public. However, it can’t be disputed that this particular legislation does increase the criminal exposure of educators and K-12 employees by removing a defense that is currently available to them. And my personal opinion is that this is utterly unnecessary because there is no evidence that schools are actually disseminating what amounts to obscene material for which they deserve prosecution; and certainly no evidence that they are evading prosecution by asserting the defenses currently available under the law. By “fixing” a problem that doesn’t exist, the General Assembly is, in a sense, defaming educators and schools by creating the impression that schools and teachers are, in fact, disseminating obscenity. There are circumstances in which “the question is an accusation.” Legislation isn’t a question, but it’s the same dynamic.

LIBRARY BOOK LIST & PROCESS FOR COMPLAINING ABOUT BOOKS

The other provision in SB 12 is a new Chapter in the School Law title of the Indiana Code. It requires the school to create a list of all of the books in its school libraries. The list has to contain the title, author name, edition, publisher, and year of publication. This list has to be on the school website and be available in hard copy.

The new law would also require the school to adopt a procedure by which a parent or guardian of a student in the school could complain that a book in the possession of the school library is “inappropriate to students.” The legislation does not contain any guidance on what might qualify as “inappropriate to students.”

STEP ONE: Parent submits a complaint. The book is reviewed by a certified librarian. If the librarian decides to remove the book, the process stops. There does not be a process for anyone else to second guess or protest the removal. If the librarian denies the complaint, then he or she is to provide a written response to the person making the complaint. (There is a middle option where the librarian could decide to put the book in an “age-appropriate” section of the library. I don’t think the legislation does a good job of laying out how that option fits into the process — I think the librarian is not required to provide a written response to the complaint in that situation but the parent could appeal the decision. But, it’s tough to be sure. For the rest of this description, I’m just going to focus on “remove the book” or “deny the complaint.)

STEP TWO: If the librarian denies the parent’s complaint, the parent can escalate the complaint to an “appeal committee.” This committee consists of the principal, the librarian, and a parent or guardian. (I think the parent or guardian can be anyone, but it’s possible they intend that the parent making the complaint is part of the committee. It also doesn’t say whether this parent or guardian has to have a kid in the school or have anything to do with the school.) The appeal committee can uphold, modify, or overturn the recommendation of the librarian and is required to issue a written decision. The parent can further elevate the complaint if he or she disagrees. (Again, there is no process for anyone else to second guess the matter if the appeal committee sides with the parent.)

STEP THREE: The parent can appeal the decision of the appeal committee to the school board. If the school board denies the parent’s complaint, it must issue a written decision. (If it accommodates the complaint, it apparently does not need to make a written decision.)

I have several complaints about this part of the legislation:

  1. The list making seems cumbersome – though maybe this is a report that can be generated easily with a library’s current indexing system.
  2. It contains no guidance as to what the General Assembly considers “inappropriate to students.” Anything at all can trigger this bureaucratic requirement.
  3. It singles out books for a complaint process. Surely there are other aspects of school life that parents grumble about, and those get resolved without taking it to the school board.
  4. The school board has enough to do. Our school district’s last meeting took something like 3 hours and it was routine business. Adding book reviewer to board member’s job description will be tough on anyone who has a day job.
  5. It’s biased in favor of removal. At every step, if the school removes the book, the process ends. Nobody seems to have the right to appeal that decision. If the General Assembly is going to insist on this process, why not notify the rest of the school community which will be deprived of a book, that the book is being removed at the request of Parent X and give anyone else the option of appealing the removal decision?
  6. It’s unnecessary. Parents can already take the issue up with librarians and school administrators and school board members. These people should be considerate of complaints, but at the same time, they should have the option to decide that a book should remain available without being subjected to a process designed to increase pressure on them to remove books.

This legislation doesn’t address actual problems. In fact, it causes a few. But it pokes at the emotional centers of our brains. “Children are being corrupted!” Ultimately, it is another skirmish in the culture wars.