'Making Something Cheaper Does Not Make It Just'
The Sunday Night Reader for 10/30/22
Feisty, Galvanizing, Magnanimous
Anand Giridharadas is always a favorite for me. He had an essay in the New York Times with an optimistic take on what those who support democracy can do in the current, panicky moment. “[The American pro-democracy movement] needs to go beyond its present modus operandi, a mix of fatalism and despair and living in perpetual reaction to the right and policy wonkiness and praying for indictments. It needs to build a new and improved movement — feisty, galvanizing, magnanimous, rooted and expansionary — that can outcompete the fascists and seize the age,” he says. “The fascists are doing as well as they are because they understand people as they are and cater to deep unmet needs, and any pro-democracy movement worth its salt needs to match them at that — but for good.”
“Why did the Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Beto O’Rourke, go viral when he confronted the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, during a news conference or called a voter an incest epithet? Why does the Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman so resonate with voters for his ceaseless trolling of his opponent, the celebrity surgeon and television personality Mehmet Oz, about his residency status and awkward grocery videos? In California, why has Gov. Gavin Newsom’s feisty postrecall persona, calling out his fellow governors on the right, brought such applause? Because, as Anat Shenker-Osorio, a messaging expert who advises progressive causes, has said, people ‘are absolutely desperate for moral clarity and demonstrated conviction.’” Read more.
Democratization
Speaking of the power of democracy, Lorna Kelley considers the power of the word democratization and how it has been seized on by the the tech industry in recent decades. “Companies sought to give users a voice, to make them feel like they were doing something with their purchasing power. With tech’s version of ‘democratization,’ a concept rooted in politics and the public sphere was squeezed into a new container: that of the individual consumer.
This conscious capitalism became popular as customers were empowered to vote with their wallets, participating in a globalism that promised to end history. [But putting] something online, or making it cheaper, does not make it just.
Democracy has a positive social valence. An affiliation with the idea, no matter how oblique, is flattering. It suggests that a good or service — whether it’s a device that runs tests on a few drops of blood, or a one-click payment processor — is for the people. But despite lofty mission statements, companies have in the end hewed closely to traditional pathways for their purpose: making a profit.” Read more.
Everyone Needs a Hand Now and Then
If you want to know why there wasn’t a Last Gasp last week, it was due in no small part to a big project I’ve been working on professionally. The launch of a crowdfunding campaign by the bionics company PSYONIC, which until very recently was based in Champaign and is full of UIUC alums. Check the campaign out here.
