Weekly Grounding #35
News, links, writing
Weekly Groundings are published every Friday to highlight the most interesting news, links, and writing I investigated during the past week. They are designed to ground your thinking in the midst of media overload and contribute to Handful of Earth’s broader framework. Please subscribe if you’d like to receive these posts directly in your inbox.
“A New Global Gender Divide is Emerging”
In this fascinating report, Financial Times columnist John Burn-Murdoch explores the stark ideological divides between young men and women. He traces this trend (which is particularly pronounced among younger millennials and Gen Zs) to the #MeToo movement: “Seven years on from the initial #MeToo explosion, the gender divergence in attitudes has become self-sustaining. Survey data show that in many countries the ideological differences now extend beyond this issue. The clear progressive-vs-conservative divide on sexual harassment appears to have caused — or at least is part of — a broader realignment of young men and women into conservative and liberal camps respectively on other issues.”
Though any regular reader of Handful of Earth will recognize the major problems with categories like “liberal” and “conservative” (which in this article are indicated by self identification and voting behavior), the trends are so significant that they merit close consideration:
“It May be Genocide, But it Won’t Be Stopped”
provides a concise summary of the importance and limitations of the International Court of Justice’s initial ruling on South Africa’s case against Israel for genocide in Gaza. In addition, Hedges writes that: “The only active resistance to halt the Gaza genocide is provided by Yemen’s Red Sea blockade. Yemen, which was under siege for eight years by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, France, Britain and the U.S., experienced over 400,000 deaths from starvation, lack of health care, infectious diseases and the deliberate bombing of schools, hospitals, infrastructure, residential areas, markets, funerals and weddings. Yemenis know too well — since at least 2017 multiple U.N. agencies have described Yemen as experiencing ‘the largest humanitarian crisis in the world’ — what the Palestinians are enduring. Yemen’s resistance — when the history of this genocide is written — will set it apart from nearly every other nation. The rest of the world, including the Arab world, retreats into toothless rhetorical condemnations or actively supports Israel’s obliteration of Gaza and its 2.3 million inhabitants.”“China Challenges the West for Driverless Car Supremacy”
The Financial Times reports on the rapid progress of driverless vehicles in China. Interestingly enough, Wuhan has become the center of China’s driverless car revolution: “Since early 2020, Wuhan has been infamous as ground zero for the Covid-19 pandemic. But the central Chinese city might now be on the cusp of global recognition for a different reason: boasting the world’s biggest fleet of cars that drive themselves.” The article continues: “The ability of companies to tap into cities’ networks of roadside cameras, traffic lights and other inner-city infrastructure, as well as widespread 5G coverage and digital mapping, is already underpinning industry confidence in China.”
For more on the paradoxical unity of the United States and China on questions of technological development, see my essay, “The Left’s Problem with Technology.”
“District Apologizes for Threatening to Send Police to Family’s Home”
Dave Dentel documents one of many instances of a school district impinging upon the autonomy of homeschooling families in the United States. He discusses the state of Minnesota, where one rigorously rule-following homeschooling mother “received a disturbing letter from school officials. The letter said that because they had not filed a notice of intent, they were not in compliance with the state’s compulsory school attendance law. ‘The next steps include filing truancy charges,’ the letter said. ‘The police of the city you reside in will also be contacted. An officer will visit your home to ensure your child is safe and being cared for adequately.’” She contacted the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) (on whose website this article appears) which was able to promptly rectify the situation, demonstrating the importance of “fringe” civil liberties organizations like HSLDA.
Is Modern Society Too Big?
offers a stimulating exploration of the question of scale in political theory: “When we read about the great political philosophers of antiquity, we make the mistake of assuming that their notions about forms of government, like democracy, are the same as ours today. We often neglect to consider the scale these thinkers had in mind for implementing these ideas: the small, compact, homogeneous city-state. And this was not just a reflection of their own circumstances. They often emphasised limits to the size of a society, and gave clear reasons for these limits.”Woods’ discussion of the twentieth-century theorist, Leopold Kohr, is particularly interesting: “Unlike other theorists, who made rather straightforward pragmatic arguments about the effects of scale on the stability of republics, Kohr believed himself to have discovered a universal principle of order which he was merely applying to the political sphere. Summarised in a sentence: ‘When something is wrong, something is too big.’ Kohr first explores this philosophical argument in The Breakdown of Nations, where he observes an ordered universe built on a manifold of simplicity. Past a certain size, we observe that everything collapses or explodes. Kohr believed most order is the result of ‘mobile balance’ in nature - inconceivably complex, emergent patterns of behaviour from the dynamic interplay of small organisms, each with their own agency. If we look at how stability and freedom are balanced in nature, we can draw lessons which apply right up to the scale of devising a successful international order.”
“Millennials Are Rebranding the Menopause”
offers some occasionally insightful and consistently entertaining reflections on aging millennials at Unherd: “But ironically highlighting our impending middle-aged decrepitude doesn’t just protect millennials from the slings and arrows of the next generation’s mean teens; it also helps us pretend to ourselves that we’re not terrified by the inevitability, and vulnerability, of advancing age. To go through menopause is to confront the truth that our bodies are machines that run on their own, finite timeline: once you’ve stopped menstruating, it’s just a matter of time before you also stop breathing. To go through millenopause, on the other hand, is to hold your mortality at a cute, narrative remove. Menopause is existential dread; millenopause is a viral hashtag and a video of you taking your HRT out of a pastel-coloured subscription box.”What grounded your thinking this week? Feel free to share in the comments.