On Arundhati Roy and this moment
And AI, and majoritarianism, and what constitutes writing
We’re back!
Housekeeping notes: This Monday, paid subscribers got February’s ET Leave Home, a monthly list of travel recommendations for different cities. This month, I wrote about my beloved Toronto.
Paid subscribers to this newsletter also get The Political Cycle, a weekly podcast I co-host on politics in the US, UK, India, and the wider world, ad-free and directly to their inboxes from me (these posts will now unlock later).
With that! Onto news, views, and Jews.
THE NEWS
For the Forward, I argued that the dramatics and theatrics of the announcement of Trump’s latest plan for Gaza shouldn’t distract from the extremely grim reality that, at its core, it’s about forcibly displacing a population.
This week on the podcast, we were joined by investigative journalist Tomáš Madleňák to talk about the attack on democracy in Slovakia (and, uh, here in the United States).
Friend of the newsletter Laura E. Adkins had me on her Substack to share thoughts on books and Beyoncé.
Paul Musgrave to Democrats on foreign aid: “I looked at a lot of ‘most important problem’ questions in the database, and foreign aid is about a 2 percent issue—that is, about 2 percent of Americans will list it as the most important problem. It’s not a winner and it’s not a loser. You can fight a battle on this terrain.”
Relatedly, from Reuters: “President Donald Trump's administration plans to keep fewer than 300 staff at the U.S. Agency for International Development out of the agency's worldwide total of more than 10,000, four sources told Reuters on Thursday.”
Also from Reuters: “U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday authorized economic and travel sanctions targeting people who work on International Criminal Court investigations of U.S. citizens or U.S. allies such as Israel, repeating action he took during his first term.”
I was just, as I was about to send this out, sent this project, which is basically a dream repository for these times. You can submit yours and they’ll post based on how you’re comfortable identifying and only with your consent. I was kind of surprised how touched I was that someone thought of this, this way to send out your fears to the void and have them be received in a way that might make people feel less alone.
This clip of Beyoncé finally winning Album of the Year…the only thing to make me cry in a good way the last few weeks. (Also, please think positive thoughts for my sister and me in our quest to get Beyoncé concert tickets. Thank you.)
MY VIEWS ON…
…Arundhati Roy and this moment!
I was scrolling through Instagram while I was supposed to be writing this and came across a clip of Arundhati Roy from the Louisiana Literature festival. I couldn’t believe that the clip was six years old because of how present what she says feels. It’s short and you can watch the full thing here.
She ends by talking about how we’re now told that AI can do everything better than humans can and will lead to our own demise if we don’t watch out, which I thought was pretty funny in a sad way because that has gotten so much truer and worse than was the case six years ago. It sometimes feels like every other ad is for how AI can help me do something I’d never actually wanted to do, and how actually I need to want to do this. And meanwhile every website and platform tries to get you to incorporate it in a way that actually just makes the thing you’re trying to do worse? I’m not saying that there aren’t good, practical uses for AI. But, for instance, the other day Neil and I went to the movies — we saw I’m Still Here, which I highly recommend although I think it unfortunately probably hit me more than it would have had I seen it, say, three weeks ago — and they twice showed this ad in which someone uses AI to find a particular restaurant and then text the recommendation to the person. Firstly, AI search results often have information that is wrong or incomplete; secondly, what is so awful about texting someone yourself; and thirdly, and most importantly, this isn’t really a replacement for a recommendation, is it? Or for stumbling across a place you love? I found myself irrationally angry at this ad, which told me that this was all there was to it, this was just as good.
But the thing that really struck me about the clip is that she starts by insisting that she’s not an activist. She is a writer. And the idea that she has to be described as an activist and not a writer is kind of insulting and strips away part of the writer’s work.
I worry, sometimes, that I have strayed from journalism. I don’t really do straight reporting anymore. It’s all reported analysis or opinion. I also work as a fellow with a task force that is part of a project to combat antisemitism while protecting free speech and civil rights (which is actually the only way to combat antisemitism, but I digress). All this is to say that I wonder, sometimes, if what I am doing still “counts” as journalism.
What Roy’s clip reminded me of is that this worry was put on me by other people who have a different conception of journalism (“objectivity”) than I do (transparency and accountability). She says that this is particularly true in our time, the age of majoritarianism. I think that’s truer now than it was six years ago. And the idea that writers (or for that matter journalists) shouldn’t write about the world we live in with as much honesty as we can feels less true to me than that idea that journalism can’t include analysis or opinion or calling things by their own names. “It’s our job to stand alone,” she said. “It’s our job to say what we really think, not as activists, but as writers.” That’s not to say that’s the only way to do journalism. But the idea that it isn’t journalism is, I think, wrong. If nothing else, it’s a distraction at a moment when there is more important work to do.
AND SOME STUFF ABOUT JEWS
From the Forward: “A group of 21 Jewish House Democrats launched a Jewish caucus on Thursday, with Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York and Rep. Brad Schneider of Illinois as co-chairs. The move formalizes a group that has been getting together for decades and hopes to amp up its profile in response to the rising antisemitism and other repercussions of the Israel-Hamas war.”
From NY Jewish Week: “The Pink Peacock, the anarchist, queer-friendly kosher Yiddish café that operated in Glasgow, Scotland for three years, is looking to reopen in Brooklyn this summer.”
From my inbox: “A broad coalition of 113 national and local Jewish organizations have released a new statement expressing deep alarm and concern over the Trump Administration’s attacks on democratic norms and values. The statement is jointly led by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly.”
Etan Nechin of Haaretz argues that against blaming anti-war activists who sat out the election for what’s happening now regarding Trump and Gaza: “Instead of retreating into cynicism or deflecting from their failures, liberals must reckon with the way they failed their constituents, ceding leadership to Trump, and how they also failed the world.”
I thought this statement from New Jewish Narrative on the reintroduction of the Antisemitism Awareness Act was good. You can also, if you are so inclined, read my piece from last year on why I think it will crack down on first amendment rights and attempt to legislate Jewish identity and why that is bad, not good, for the fight against antisemitism.
-ET
"Arundhati Roy" by jeanbaptisteparis is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
I’ll admit that I have not read anything by Arundhati Roy and this post has made me immediately add her to my “to-read” list.
At the risk of shoehorning this into Emily’s last post I will say that the clip of Roy reminded me of something I read regarding antisemitism a while ago that, for the life of me, I can’t recall the source so perhaps it should be aptly assumed that I hallucinated the idea.
In any case, whatever I read suggested that in some form antisemitism could or should be considered a fear, or disgust at, ambiguity.
While I don’t know how much real world work that idea can do, I do think that it provides a lens through which to understand the forces that are arrayed against human diversity and complexity in general, not just antisemitism.
The Musks and Trumps and Modis of our moment are terrified of ambiguity. They desire a world where there are clear lines between two genders, where there is no lack of clarity about who is a Jew and who is an “un-Jew”, where it is very clear where the borders are and who belongs on either side. A world where an activist is an activist, a writer is just a writer, and journalists are folks who fear creating any blurring between those lines.
A place for everything and everything in its place. At bottom I believe that is what the Right around the world wants.
To put a button on this long comment, after reading Emily’s post and watching the clip of Roy I sought out a review from The Guardian of Roy’s 2020 book of essays.
The review ends by quoting Roy and I think the quote does a good job of showing how the AI tech that is being pushed at consumers for simplifying every thing in their life can’t be separated from the politics I mention above:
“I believe our liberation lies in the negotiation. Hope lies in texts that can accommodate and keep alive our intricacy, our complexity, and our density against the onslaught of the terrifying, sweeping simplifications of fascism.”