The Counterpublic Papers vol. 5 no. 17

Somewhere around 1997 or so, I decided to take my daughter (who was finally old enough to walk) to campus. Went to the bus stop for the commuter bus (which was pretty much right outside of my door), hopped on the bus, rode it for about twenty minutes until we got to campus, hopped off, walked for about ten minutes or so until I got to the office, took care of some errands in the department, then went back home on the commuter bus.

And found myself so exhausted I could’ve passed out.

Now I’d been on that schedule for a few years. What was different about this instance was that I had a child who was old enough to walk but not old enough to look after herself. So the twenty minutes that I’d use for meditation on the bus? Gone. The minutes I’d spend daydreaming while my body took me to where I needed to go? Gone. Every single second of that trip I had to be focused on what I was doing, and on the little being next to me. More than twenty years later when I read that the 1984 World Chess Championships were cancelled because Anatoly Karpov lost so much weight, I understood.

Today is really the first time I’d been able to open the laptop and work on it in about ten or so days. I had two sons in Ann Arbor and Pittsburgh respectively and had to have a long distance eye on both of them until I could get one or both of them home (my oldest stayed in Ann Arbor and is there now). And even though we’ve been physically isolated (we are not socially distant, we are physically distant) and in the house pretty much since Tuesday, I’m still thinking about my children and then about my extended family. And then reading the news and am back on facebook.

I imagine that many of you are trying to hold everything together while somehow being “productive”. Give yourself and others grace. The energy output required to stay even keeled during this process is massive. We’re going to be in this for a long time—the Imperial College report out of London suggests something on the order of 18 months with at best intermittent removal of physical distancing policies.

(For the first time in ages I’ve binge watched. I’m still planning on returning to and writing about Watchman—it’s on a large and growing list—but I took in a couple of timely for different reasons alternate-earth stories. The first one was The Man in the High Castle a Philip K. Dick novel translated by Amazon into a tv series, the second one was Counterpart an original television series developed for Starz. As far as High Castle goes I haven’t gotten around to reading the original novel, from what I understand it’s more radical than the tv series, but it does a decent job I think of articulating what the world could’ve been like had the Axis won, and then after that a decent job of articulating what a black radical response could look like. The parallel’s between where we are now and that television show are obvious and were probably obvious to the show runners. Counterpart on the other hand? The difference between the world of High Castle and the primary alternative earth was WW2—in their earth the Axis one, in the other earth—ours—the Allies did. The difference between earths in Counterpart is that one of the earths fell victim to a global pandemic and the other did not. I finished this series a few days into the virus. It only lasted two seasons—they don’t quite wrap up all of the loose ends—but it’s worth examining. Even for thinking about the way we show intimacy may shift.)

I ended up spending a big chunk of yesterday in virtual DJ sessions—one a 100K IG virtual event spun by New York City’s D-Nice. Your mileage may vary—but to the extent you’re able to do so, take advantage of these moments to extend the reach of the social technology we have. Earlier in the week my sister organized a virtual birthday party for her son. There were about a dozen or so of us “there”—my son in Ann Arbor was on the call, my daughter in Baltimore City, my mother, my brother’s kid. A few of my friends have already had zoom happy hours. Neighborhoods throughout Baltimore are creating mutual aid networks. This is who we are. Create spaces like this. Cultivate spaces like this.

….

In Fall 2001, the beginning of my second year at Washington University in Saint Louis, I taught Public Opinion and American Democracy. The original syllabus contained readings by Alexis DeTocqueville and a few others and then segued into an examination of public opinion formation, concluding with works on differences in attitudes. My first class of the semester was on Tuesday, Sept. 11.

That class was canceled.

As I walked through the campus that day with a colleague, as I looked into the sky and saw no airplanes for the first time I could remember, I realized that the class I’d originally designed didn’t fit the world that was about to come into being. And I had two choices. I could ignore that feeling and teach the class as I’d designed it…and in hindsight I can see an argument for this. In as much as students were going to be spending the rest of their lives wrestling with the consequences of that act, they needed a sense of normality that would just get them through the semester. Or I could toss the syllabus out, with their permission, and create a syllabus better attuned to the workd that would be constructed.

We chose the latter. I don’t have a copy of that syllabus we designed—I wish I did—but I remember us focusing far more on what would come to be called racialization, and focusing much more on media effects and propaganda. The only people I asked for permission were the students themselves. It was one of the best decisions I made as a young faculty member. In fact, I’d suggest that decision shaped the rest of my career.

My two oldest sons are both transitioning to online learning. In as much as a large swath of us aren’t used to teaching virtual courses with students who may be in vastly different time zones, we are asking questions about pedagogy. In as much as students themselves have varying access to technology and may be in home environments that aren’t good for learning (even before we take the possibility of them becoming infected into consideration) some ask questions about grading protocols. Should we really be giving out “grades” when those grades may be determined even more than usual by dynamics that have nothing to do with learning capacity?

These questions are important ones and should be asked and answered.

But I’d suggest that in this moment we have another set of responsibilities—and when I write “we” I’m really talking about tenured faculty and then to a lesser extent tenure track and adjunct faculty. Those of us teaching courses that are somewhat relevant to the moment have a responsibility to use this moment to teach to the virus, to help students understand the world that exists now and the world that will exist ten weeks from now and the world that will exist ten years from now. We need new institutions. We need new conceptions of citizenship. Teachers are the ones best situated to help the people who will live in this world understand and develop it.

One of the benefits of something like Zoom is that it isn’t just open to our students. And while I’m sensitive to the idea of a digital divide I’d note that this divide doesn’t really apply to smartphone usage. Almost everyone has a smartphone that gives them access to youtube, Zoom, and similar forms of social media. D-Nice was able to take an extended DJ set and share it with over 100,000 people. We should be able to take the classes we have and extend them similarly. There are people working from home who are themselves struggling to understand this moment who could use the information.

Finally, and I didn’t really think about this until I had a conversation with a tenure track colleague, we also have a responsibility in this moment to work within the university on two different projects. The first project is a project designed to protect workers. Hopkins evacuated everyone from campus except for those deemed “essential” last Tuesday. I can’t go on campus without the express permission of the dean. Somehow though, Hopkins janitorial staff—who are the lowest paid and most contingent—have been deemed essential. This population is the most likely to be affected by mass transit shutdowns, the most likely to be on the bottom rung of any hierarchy of care, and in this specific instance most likely the ones to have the least access to the type of resources needed to stay safe while they do their job. The workers at Hopkins aren’t unionized so they need individuals to speak with them. If not for them.

(One of the things this crisis brings to light is the essential nature of a range of laborers previously viewed as expendable. Where would we be without the workers still at the supermarket, without the laborers working to keep various supply chains stable?)

The second project is one a bit broader in scope. If this does last as long as some think it should, then the university is going to have to change radically. That change can take any number of forms, but faculty should play an essential role in devising and implementing those forms. What should teaching look like if people are no longer in the same physical space? What is our obligation to the extended community? Faculty have been in the midst of a long-term struggle for the nature of the university—fighting against those who’d want to turn the university into yet another corporation. This crisis amps the struggle and the consequences of that struggle up a bit.

Both projects rely on a set of ideas that I think we’ve tossed aside—ideas of duty and responsibility. These ideas seem a bit antiquated and even when they were in widespread usage were primarily connected to problematic nationalist projects. These ideas aren’t solely connected to those projects though.

   ….

I’ve a few friends who didn’t believe the virus was real. Thought it was the flu. I’ve others who are promoting a range of solutions that will at least keep one relatively protected from getting it. We’re fighting three viruses at the moment. One is the larger virus of capitalism—which in its drive for profit really does behave like a virus. Another is the coronavirus itself. And yet another is the misinformation virus. In fighting the first two, we have to be attentive to the last one. Misinformation in this moment, has stark consequences. Don’t be afraid to ask people where they received their information from. Don’t share information you haven’t directly or indirectly vetted. Extend a bit of grace to the folk in your network who spread the information—now might not the time to go HAM on them—but halt its spread to the extent you can. Just like our individual actions can make a difference in how the virus spreads, our individual choices when it comes to misinformation can make a similar if not the same difference.

(Around the same time I took my daughter to campus in the late nineties I watched Babylon 5 religiously. I remember the episode “Confessions and Lamentations”. A virus had infected an alien race on the space station, but in part because of misinformation, by the time the cure is found the entire race is extinct. The disease was a loose analogy for AIDS, but it fits now.)

….

One more thing before I go. We’re in a weird band of time—when we turn to Italy we can see ten days into the future, even as Rolling Stone’s website contains ads selling tickets for a July Alanis Morrisette concert that won’t likely happen. This band dilates in some ways (my middle son came home Tuesday, but by Wednesday I’d already thought he was home for days) and contracts in others. Try to stay present through all of this. Step outside. Take a walk. We’re going to get through it, together. One moment at a time.

My name is Lester Spence. This is The Counterpublic Papers.