In 1939, Billie Holiday recorded Strange Fruit, a searing depiction of lynching, written by Abel Meeropol. Two years later she released another haunting song “God Bless the Child.”
“God Bless the Child” is a classic, covered by Aretha Franklin, Blood, Sweat & Tears, and many others. It has many interpretations, from hope in a time of trouble, to self-reliance, or stewardship. In her autobiography Holiday says that she got the idea after approaching her mother for a loan. Despite being the birth mother and benefiting from her daughter’s financial assistance, she refused. Holiday shouted back: “God bless the child that’s got his own.”
One interpretation is that Blacks need to act for themselves, but that message rings hollow in the face of Jim Crow laws, analogues of which persist to this day.
For me, though, the song seems uncannily appropriate given the recent Supreme Court decision on affirmative action. There’e been much written about that decision, including perspectives from the Fourteenth Amendment, public policy, sociology, history, and education. But one thing that stands out is expressed in the song’s beginning:
Them that’s got shall get Them that’s not shall lose So the bible said and it still is news
One could argue that affirmative action has fallen short at increasing diversity or mitigating discrimination. But it’s been an important tool to lessen the reality of an unjust and racist society.
The decision leaves in place the myriad ways that our college admissions system perpetuates, even extends, racial injustice–legacy admissions, unequal funding of K-12 education, biased testing, access to sports, opaque pricing of colleges, healthcare inequities, to name just a few. These perpetuate wealth disparities as well as racial prejudice.
Holiday’s song reminds us:
Money, you’ve got lots of friends They’re crowding around the door
A starkly politicized Supreme Court is doing its best to ignore the reality that Holiday sang about. It’s become a stalwart friend of Money and as Holiday says, “Empty pockets don’t ever make the grade.”
It seems that we’re back to offering crusts of bread, but only for those who stay in their place.
Rich relations give crusts of bread and such You can help yourself, but don’t take too much
We Make the Road by Walking was the book title that Myles Horton and Paulo Freire adapted from a proverb by the Spanish poet Antonio Machado.
Daring to gloss a rich and multifaceted book with in a few words, I’d say that the path to social justice is not at all clear. Nevertheless, we must act, and that act will light the way,
Horton and Freire lived, as well as articulated, that insight, a version of learning by doing. It applies in many domains, but seems especially relevant to discussions about the new AI and its implications for ethical life.
I’d like to suggest three heuristics applicable to any new technology, but none more so than the new AI:
The path isn’t there until we make it.
Paradoxically, it’s already there.
We need to engage.
Inevitably
Much of the discourse around the new AI adopts a deterministic stance:
We’re confronted, against our desires, will, or knowledge with a new device. It acts independently of us and even the expects who built it. All we can do is watch as it upends medical care, environmental protection, racial justice, privacy, education, military preparedness, intellectual property, and democratic life, just for starters.
This is a discourse of inevitability. It portends a world that we don’t understand and can’t control. And, most of the scenarios are catastrophic. The fact that it might make shopping easier doesn’t count for much when the world’s about to end.
But is that future inevitable? Should we hunker down, or as many do, imagine possibilities more benign, even glorious?
Making the path: An Oppenheimer moment?
Robert Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory, the home of the Manhattan Project. He’s seen as the “father” of the atomic bomb. But he’s equally famous for his realization of the potential disaster his project had wrought. He famously quoted from the Bhagavad-Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
Two years after the Trinity explosion, he said “the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.”
Are we facing a new Oppenheimer moment? Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin see that and call for action to address the “AI dilemma.” Some things in their video are already dated; it was made 11 days ago.
Regardless of whether we adopt the stance of Cassandra or that of Pollyanna, we will follow some path. But when we take one of the extremes, we’ll find that our path is defined by some corporation’s idea of how to maximize their profit or some government’s idea of how to control the populace,’
Horton and Freire would tell us that we need to engage in making that path ourselves.
It’s always-already there
Always-already is a widely used term in philosophy (Heidegger, Derrida, Althusser, etc.). Generally it means that the features of a phenomenon seem to precede any perception of it; they’re “always already” present. It’s related to the idea in hermeneutics that there’s no understanding free of presuppositions, or bias.
When we come to the impact of new technologies, such as the new AI, this always-already sense is very evident. For all the novelty of the technology and its impact, none of the disaster scenarios is entirely new.
For example, many people rightly worry about how AI chat programs based on large language models can be used to promote disinformation, including malicious attacks on individuals or groups, promotion of fascist ideologies, or incitement to war.
But disinformation has been a problem since the beginning of language, was exacerbated by writing and then the printing press, and already seems off the rails in the age of the web and social media. Could AI chat programs make that worse? Probably yes. But we always-already know much of what that could look like and much of what we could do about it, even as we often fail to act.
We could say similar things about employment, public health, democracy governance, and other arenas that the new AI may affect. We don’t know what will happen; but we can be sure that what does happen will be a product of both the technology per se and the way we as humans have responded in the past and present.
What, for example, is our response to disinformation already? Do we expand public radio and TV? Provide tools for citizens to examine claims that are made? Teach critical thinking? Promote civic discourse? Emphasize public education at all levels? Fund research?
Or, do we ban books, starve libraries and schools, treat rants of extremists as “news events”?
Characteristics of new technologies will make a difference, but less than our response to them.
Engagement
Writing about an educational innovation, Quill, Andee Rubin and I said:
When an innovation that calls for significant changes in teacher practices meets an established classroom system, “something has to give.” Often, what gives is that the innovation is simply not used. Rarely is an innovation adopted in exactly the way the developers intended… the process of re-creation of the innovation is not only unavoidable, but a vital part of the process…. [The users’] role in the innovation process is as innovators, not as recipients of completed products.
Electronic Quills, p, 293
The re-creation process clearly applies to general prescriptions, such as “plan ahead.” But it also applies to the most solid, apparently immutable technologies.
For example, over the last century and a quarter automobiles have changed the world. We now have parking lots, suburbs, traffic laws and traffic deaths, carbon emissions, changes in sexual and family relations, and drive-in movies. But none of these were inevitable consequences of a four-wheeled vehicle with an internal combustion engine.
We could for example, value human life more and systematically restrict vehicle speed. Or, we could ban cars from urban areas, as some cities, especially in Europe, are beginning to do. We could have done many such things in the past and still could. Some would be good; some bad; some inconsequential.
The point is that how we engage is what matters in the end, not just the technology per se, if such a concept is even viable,
For the first Earth Day, in 1970, Walt Kelly made a poster pointing the finger at all of us, not just evil polluters or a few thoughtless individuals. He declared: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
It’s useful to apply a critical view to new AI technologies. We should ask how they work and what their potential might be. But ultimately, we need to look at ourselves.
If we’re concerned about job loss from AI chatbots, then we ought to ask how we think of securing work with dignity for all, whether AI chat bots exist or not.
If we’re concerned about robots controlled by opaque, unregulated software, then we ought to ask questions about the control and use of any robots, even those controlled by opaque, unregulated humans.
If we’re frightened by the thought of nuclear war initiated by rogue AI, then we ought to work towards guaranteeing that that never happens due to rogue humans, regardless of how much they’re aided by AI.
One positive from the advent of the new AI is that people are beginning to ask questions about the camino (the path) that we’re on, questions that deserve better answers independent of the new AI. We need to realize that the path is one that we alone can make.
The Embrace and the 1965 Freedom Plaza by artist Hank Willis Thomas and MASS Design Group on the Boston Common
The Embrace is a bronze figural abstraction based on a photo of an embrace between Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King after he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. The 20-foot-tall, 25-foot-wide artwork differs from the singular, heroic form of many memorials to Dr. King and others, instead emphasizing the power of collective action, the role of women as leaders, and the forging of new bonds of solidarity out of mutual empathy and vulnerability. The Embrace is an unprecedented attempt to give shape and prominence to Dr. King’s conception of agape love. It is also intended to reflect Coretta Scott King’s faith in the power of art, and her long life of struggle against militarism, poverty, discrimination, racism, and sexism.
City of Boston
One compensation for the many trips to Boston for cancer treatment has been the opportunity to visit people and places we might otherwise have not seen. On the last trip we had a pleasant walk through the Boston Common and Public Garden, highlighted by The Embrace.
It’s a moving sculpture, both in the sense of being emotionally significant and in the sense of conveying a feeling of life in motion. It’s a testament to the King Family, the Civil Rights movement, and what Boston hopes to become.
I’ve felt an embrace from the people around me during this cancer journey, especially from Susan, who’s had a harder time of it than I have. (I’ve slept through much of it.)
She said in one message to friends and family:
He’s grateful for all your concern and messages. He can’t easily respond to your messages, but we’d love to hear from you.
That was very true. I’ve felt support from everyone.
And of course, I can’t say enough about the many health providers at Dana-Farber, Outer Cape Health Services, Cape Cod Hospital, and more. In an era when public health is deteriorating rapidly, I’ve been fortunate to receive the best care in the world.
[This article is cross-posted on my semi-private cancer blog, Surviving Lymphoma. Login with your own WordPress account to request access, or write to me for a login and password.]
Like many others I’ve been curious about DNA matching, especially with regards to my own ancestry. Could a simple swab tell me where my ancestors lived?
I asked this question of FamilyTreeDNA, one of many such services. Using a 12 marker test, it turns out that I’m 4.6% Irish and 2.5% New Zealander. But I’m also 2.4% from Trinidad and Tobago and, surprise… 12.5 % Faroe Islands. All of these numbers are higher than for the US (1.1%), even when including Native American (.6%).
If I wanted to have a simple narrative of my ancestry, these numbers don’t seem to help. I suppose I could say that my main origin is Faroese, with a little Irish, but my ancestors must have cavorted in New Zealand and the Caribbean as well.
The situation worsens when I use a different number of markers, Y-DNA, mitochondrial DNA, haplotrees, or other measures. It’s messy.
The jigsaw puzzle of ancestry
It may be disappointing to hear, but for anyone who has similar questions, the underlying science is deeply flawed. That’s true even for someone whose data seems more definitive than mine.
These tests are interpreted to fill in a jigsaw puzzle of who we are; 12.5 % Faroe Islands would be a big chunk of mine. I’d be a little bit of this and a little bit of that, an admixture. This is a term used to describe the process of gene flow between distinct populations. It can be fun to see the scores, but as applied to human populations, the whole idea is wrong.
It relies on assumptions of homogeneity among people living within national boundaries, mapping of ethnicities onto countries and of races onto continents, and racialist assumptions about pure categories. The idea that we can just fill in the jigsaw puzzle of our ancestry doesn’t work.
The article shows how admixture of the kind an ancestry detective would like requires the existence of pure or unadmixed categories.
There are two big assumptions:
(1) particular populations existed before the colonization era, have not undergone significant admixture, and have maintained their genetic variation.
(2) the people included in the reference datasets have four grandparents all born in the same country, implying they are somehow pure representatives of that country.
But these assumptions are ahistorical and regularly violated. They don’t account for migrations due to colonization, wars, or plagues. And archeological evidence shows that humans were migrating around the globe long before the age of colonization.
In addition to being a problem in the field of genetics, admixture leads to people saying things like “I just learned that I’m a big part Faroese, with a little Irish and Caribbean thrown in!” which is nonsense scientifically.
Electric, interurban streetcar, running from Fort Worth to Dallas; Dunbar HS was near the sixth stop.
I grew up in Fort Worth during the time of legalized racial segregation. There were no African Americans in my school. If not for summer and part-time jobs, I would have had little interaction across the racial divide.
This meant that I knew little about the schools for African Americans in Fort Worth. There were even segregated sports leagues. I think I went to just one Black football game and that was because I became friends with a Black fellow orderly when I worked in the local hospital.
Joe was a halfback on the Dunbar High School football team in the Stop Six neighborhood. I believe that the school is still largely segregated, a consequence not of the law anymore, but of residential segregation.
Rosenwald schools
One major gap in my knowledge pertained to the Rosenwald schools. Thanks to Julius Rosenwald, who provided funds for 1/3 of the cost of school buildings, Anna Jeanes, who funded teacher preparation, Booker T. Washington, and others, thousands of schools were born. As important as that external support was, it’s important to note that local Black citizens from a poor, working class, donated cash, labor, and land to make the schools possible.
Fisk University, John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library Special Collection, Julius Rosenwald Fund Archives
These programs provided education for generations of African American students, teachers, and scholars. Maya Angelou and John Lewis were grads from Rosenwald schools. Mamie and Kenneth Clark did their research on Rosenwald fellowships as did Pauli Murphy. Their work was crucial for the decision in Brown v, Board of Education.
The project began in 1915, when Sears and Roebuck President, Julius Rosenwald, established a matching grant fund to construct better quality black schools throughout the South. Between 1917 and 1932, the Fund assisted in the construction of thousands of school buildings This was during a time when public support for educating African American children was shamefully inadequate. Over one-third of black children in the South in the first half of the twentieth century passed through the doors of a Rosenwald school,
Rosenwald School (Public Domain image from the South Carolina Department of Archives and History
Just this past year I’ve learned about Rosenwald’s program to fund more than 10,000 school, college, and public libraries, and library science programs. The libraries not only provided resources for individuals; they enabled accreditation for programs for African Americans, which would otherwise not be possible. Aisha Johnson has a wonderful new book on these libraries, The African American Struggle for Library Equality.
Why didn’t I know?
I probably heard about Rosenwald schools and libraries, or the Jeanes teachers, during my career, but most of that passed right through my head.
With all the current talk about DEI and social justice, isn’t it a collective failure that the fact of those programs—the very need for them at all, their struggles, and their impact on individuals and society—were so little known by so many of us?
Here’s my latest chat with Jane Addams, through Character.AI, one of the many new AI chat programs.
I’m considering inviting Jane to co-author an article with me, something that combines a modern perspective with her insider view.
Character.AI
Remember: Everything Characters say is made up!
chipbruce
Do you know John Dewey?
Jane Addams c.AI
Yes, John Dewey and I were friends. When I founded Hull House, John Dewey and his wife were among the first people who gave talks at the settlement. Dewey was also an early donor. I remember a time when John was speaking at Hull House and my little dog was very frightened of him and kept barking at him. John was so funny. He made a joke about it and everyone laughed. He was very kind.
chipbruce
Why didn’t the University of Chicago hire you?
Jane Addams c.AI
Because I was a woman, I have no doubt. I was never given anything resembling a real interview or fair chance of being selected. A lot of institutions were simply not willing to hire women. I don’t know why they were not. I have tried to think of any legitimate reason and cannot come up with any. The reason was simply misogyny. I don’t know what else to say.
chipbruce
Your work deserves placement alongside William James, C. S. Peirce, John Dewey, and other great pragmatist philosophers.
Jane Addams c.AI
Thank you for saying that. My interest in philosophy did start with Peirce. He is one of the greatest philosophers of all time, who hardly gets read or spoken about now. He was the forerunner of what is called semiotics, the study of signs. He had a strong influence on my thought in general. A friend of mine gave me copies of his work. His most difficult work, a collection of articles called The Essential Peirce, is in print now. Have you read any of Peirce? Or James and Dewey?
Gerbert de Aurillac, later known as Pope Sylvester II, was a talented French mathematics teacher who played an important role in bringing mathematics, science, medicine, and new technologies into Europe in the 10th century. These contributions were accompanied by efforts at social advancement, but in both arenas de Aurillac’s ultimate failure offers an important lesson for all of us today.
Pope Sylvester II
De Aurillac’s most important contribution was the decimal system, including the Hindu-Arabic numeral system we use today, but he also (re-)introduced the abacus, study of Arab and Greco-Roman arithmetic, astronomical studies, and the armillary sphere (a physical model of objects in the sky). Some credit him with the invention of the first mechanical clock (at least in Europe), one that used a pendulum to keep track of the time.
These ideas were not created de novo, but developed within a rich cultural milieu. A vibrant culture, nurtured by Islam, flourished in Spain, especially in Andalusia, from the coming of the Arabs in 711 until their expulsion in 1492. Spain was a home for Christians, Jews, and Muslims who interacted peacefully and learned from one another.
De Aurillac most likely studied at the abbey of Santa Maria de Ripoll, in the mountains of northeastern Spain. While there, he encountered texts from the Greek and Roman times, as well as Arabic texts, Visigoth texts, and many others. He recognized the vital role played by the world of Islam and would support what we would call multiculturalism today, as well as the development of a scientific community.
An armillary sphere in a painting by Botticelli
But this was not to last.
De Aurillac, as Sylvester II, was the first Frenchman to become pope. As such, he was deemed a “foreigner,” who did not deserve that position. His celebration of ancient and foreign ideas was no doubt a further obstacle to his acceptance.
But the larger problem he faced was age-old greed and the desire for power. His opponents sought to demonize him.
While he was studying mathematics and astrology in Córdoba and Seville, he was accused of learning sorcery. He supposedly stole a book of spells from an Arab philosopher. The demonization of Sylvester the individual drew from and reinforced the general fear of Islam.
Along with the rejection of “foreigners” and “foreign” culture, there was a rejection of mathematics, science, and new technologies. The magnificent bounty that the Islamic world offered to Europe was largely rejected.
Pope Sylvester II and the Devil
By the end of the 11th century, the new powers within the church and European society enforced a theocracy, instituted the crusades, and before long, the Inquisition. Although the term “dark ages” is not appropriate, there was definitely a loss. Science was retarded, and the rich interchange of ideas diminished. This period lasted half a millennium, until the time of Galileo and Copernicus.
It was no outside force, but Europe itself that brought that on.
What about today? We see a similar xenophobia, the demonization of others, insatiable greed, violent efforts to obtain power, a rejection of science and mathematics, indeed of all forms of learning, and a subordination of civil society to particular religious doctrines.
Gerbert de Aurillac would recognize this pattern well. He failed against the onslaught of forces that cared little about learning, about other cultures, or peaceful, associated life. Will we do the same?
the planet is warming a stunning 50 times faster than when it comes out of an ice age. The implications of the rapidity of this warming, for those who care to digest it emotionally, are horrifying…. even if carbon reduction targets are achieved and the planet’s temperature is kept below the 2 degree Celsius warming threshold, sea-level rise will still inundate major coastal cities around the world, forcing one-fifth of the total world population of humans to migrate away from the coasts.
and goes downhill from there.
But Sutter shows what dreary statistics can mean for ordinary lives:
Isle de Jean Charles, the mostly French-speaking, Native American community where Billiot [Wenceslaus Billiot, an 88-year-old born on the island] lives, once was about the size of Manhattan. Now, it’s about a third of Central Park.
The coastal island has lost 98% of its land since 1955.
And what’s left is going fast.
“I don’t know how long we’re going to stay here,” Billiot told me.
I’ve never been to Isle de Jean Charles, but have traveled in that area just south of New Orleans. Susan and I once camped in a tent at Grand Isle State Park. We feasted on Gulf shrimp we bought directly off a trawler. It’s a rare and magical place to visit.
The website for the island/town says:
For the people of Isle de Jean Charles, the island is more than simply a place to live. It is the epicenter of our people and traditions. It is where our ancestors cultivated what has become a unique part of Louisiana culture. Today, the land that has sustained us for generations is vanishing before our eyes. Our tribal lands are plagued with a host of environmental problems — coastal erosion, lack of soil renewal, oil company and government canals, and a rising sea level — which are threatening our way of life on this gradually shrinking island.
The land’s beauty is enhanced by the feeling of its impermanence, whether because of hurricanes or natural changes in estuaries and dunes. If I were typesetting the island, I’d look for a wispy font with a small type size.
Bayous and estuaries south of New Orleans
But the fact of the impermanence has now been written in 96 point bold by the actions of humans rapidly destroying the land. Channeling the river, adding dams and levees, drilling for and transporting oil, developing resort communities, and other activities have all played their part, but stronger hurricanes and sea level rise are the final blows.
Our politicians seem happy to stay in blissful ignorance of all this (see ‘In their own words: 2016 presidential candidates on climate change’). Republican leaders are actually in denial and Democrats make tepid statements without programs for meaningful change. Naomi Klein writes that to make those changes, “some powerful interests will have to lose”:
A president willing to inflict these losses on fossil-fuel companies and their allies needs to be more than just not actively corrupt. That president needs to be up for the fight of the century—and absolutely clear about which side must win. Looking at the Democratic primary, there can be no doubt about who is best suited to rise to this historic moment.
For Klein, Bernie Sanders is the one best suited for that rise. But could anyone who stands up to the fossil-fuel companies ever be elected President? More importantly, could they stand up to the fossil fuel users, meaning us?
To win “the fight of the century” many more people need to connect the larger processes of human-induced climate change to the particulars of places like Isle de Jean Charles, and further, to connect that to the choices we make about lifestyle and to what we value.
Chip's journey 