Alan Jacobs

Giorgio Agamben: 

The other thing, no less disquieting than the first, that the epidemic has caused to appear with clarity is that the state of exception, to which governments have habituated us for some time, has truly become the normal condition. There have been more serious epidemics in the past, but no one ever thought for that reason to declare a state of emergency like the current one, which prevents us even from moving. People have been so habituated to live in conditions of perennial crisis and perennial emergency that they don’t seem to notice that their life has been reduced to a purely biological condition and has not only every social and political dimension, but also human and affective. A society that lives in a perennial state of emergency cannot be a free society. We in fact live in a society that has sacrificed freedom to so-called “reasons of security” and has therefore condemned itself to live in a perennial state of fear and insecurity. 

Rusty Reno: 

That older generation that endured the Spanish flu, now long gone, was not ill-informed. People in that era were attended by medical professionals who fully understood the spread of disease and methods of quarantine. Unlike us, however, that generation did not want to live under Satan’s rule, not even for a season. They insisted that man was made for life, not death. They bowed their head before the storm of disease and endured its punishing blows, but they otherwise stood firm and continued to work, worship, and play, insisting that fear of death would not govern their societies or their lives. 

I find this convergence quite interesting, and wish I had the time to trace the intellectual genealogy that led a post-Heideggerian, quasi-Foucauldian continental philosopher and a traditionalist Catholic to make precisely the same argument. Reno’s contemptuous dismissal of the value of “physical life” echoes Agamben’s “purely biological condition,” his famous concept of “bare life,” while Reno's attack on "a perennial state of fear and insecurity” echoes Agamben’s "perennial crisis and perennial emergency,” his equally famous “state of exception." (One common ancestor, I think: Carl Schmitt.)

But for now I’ll just note that perhaps the strongest obvious link between them is indifference to the truth of their historical claims. What Reno got wrong about the American response to the Spanish flu I mentioned in an earlier post; for a refutation of Agamben’s claim that a sense of emergency in plague time is a new phenomenon, see, for instance, this post by my friend and colleague Philip Jenkins, and Anastasia Berg's critique. When the facts get in the way of the narrative, print the narrative. 

UPDATE: One brief thought: We see here an excellent example of what happens when you over-extend a plausible thesis. For both Agamben and Reno technocratic modernity is really really Bad — that’s the plausible thesis! — so when they see uncomfortable social constraints occurring in the reign of technocratic modernity they think that technocratic modernity must, perforce, be the cause of those uncomfortable social constraints. So they instantly assume that earlier societies did not respond to plagues in the way that we do. But, it turns out, the primary factor shaping social behavior in time of plague is not technocratic modernity but rather the actual transmission of infectious disease. Imagine that: human behavior shaped not by ideology but by plain old, unavoidable old, biology. 

I am teaching three classes right now, distance-learning style. My students and I are isolated from one another, confined to our homes, denied the free movement we are accustomed to. Oh, and those classes?  

• In one we are reading The Pilgrim’s Progress, which John Bunyan began when he was in prison. 
• In the second we are reading Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison. 
• In the third we are reading letters that St. Paul wrote while in prison. 

How’s that for a convergence? When I planned the semester I never noticed this rhyming of theme — nor, needless to say, did I anticipate that our very lives would be playing the same theme at this moment. 

Super-spoilery. 

I think my earlier prediction that Season 5 would not primarily be about Jimmy/Saul — because the transformation from the former into the latter is complete — has been borne out by subsequent episodes. Notice that the Saul storylines are largely comical, about his scams and tricks: filming stupid commercials, playing pranks on Howard, etc. It’s great fun, but nothing fundamental is at stake, because the character arc is essentially complete. 

Which leads us back to Kim. Episode 6 ends with a shocker: Kim suggesting to Jimmy that they get married. (At which my wife cried out Nooooo, and for very good reason.) I’m going to make another prediction: She doesn’t mean it. She is bitterly angry with Jimmy for having played her in the Mesa Verde case, and she is in turn playing him. This is payback. For a change, Kim will, at least for a moment, be the puppeteer pulling the strings. 

Think back to the beginning of the episode: young Kim standing outside her school, in the dark, waiting for her mother to pick her up. Mother finally arrives, drunk, and Kim takes a good look at her and says: I’m walking. Mother pleads; Kim walks. Mother pleads and wheedles and threatens; Kim keeps walking. Kim knew then when to draw the line, when enough is enough, when she’s not going to be played any more. And she still does. 

Thus my prediction. Let’s see if I’m right. 

[UPDATE: Wow was I wrong.] 

Nicholas Shackel: 

A Motte and Bailey castle is a medieval system of defence in which a stone tower on a mound (the Motte) is surrounded by an area of land (the Bailey) which in turn is encompassed by some sort of a barrier such as a ditch. Being dark and dank, the Motte is not a habitation of choice. The only reason for its existence is the desirability of the Bailey, which the combination of the Motte and ditch makes relatively easy to retain despite attack by marauders. When only lightly pressed, the ditch makes small numbers of attackers easy to defeat as they struggle across it: when heavily pressed the ditch is not defensible and so neither is the Bailey. Rather one retreats to the insalubrious but defensible, perhaps impregnable, Motte. Eventually the marauders give up, when one is well placed to reoccupy desirable land.

For my purposes the desirable but only lightly defensible territory of the Motte and Bailey castle, that is to say, the Bailey, represents a philosophical doctrine or position with similar properties: desirable to its proponent but only lightly defensible. The Motte is the defensible but undesired position to which one retreats when hard pressed.

Scott Alexander has done a great job of explaining the widespread relevance of the motte-and-bailey tactic. And it is a tactic that is getting a heavy workout these days, especially from certain parts of the Christian Right (especially its Catholic-integralist, nationalist-fundamentalist, and snake-handling Baptist wings.) Here’s how the conversations go: 

A. We’re not going to practice any sissified “social distancing” — we’re followers of Jesus, and ours is not a spirit of fear. We’re not afraid to die! We know we’ll go to be with the Lord! 

B. Okay, that’s fine for you, but what about all the people you might infect? What if they aren’t ready to die? What if they’re not even Christians? And anyway, should you be making that decision for them? 

A. Ah, those people aren’t going to die. This thing is basically just the flu, and the whole panic has been whipped up by the media to discredit the President. 

A’s first statement is the bailey, his second the motte. First he makes a bold show of defying death, and then, when his position is challenged, he avers that death isn’t at all likely. But that’s a completely different position. “People of faith should not fear” bears little resemblance, as a moral claim, to “People who are in no real danger should not fear.” The second position acknowledges what the first denies: that wisdom requires discerning the dangers of different situations and adjusting your behavior accordingly. (I cross my driveway without looking but I wouldn’t cross a highway during rush hour without looking.) Not adjusting your behavior according to risk is the first principle of True Faith in A’s initial statement; but, sensing that that stance won’t hold up to even the most cursory scrutiny, he beats a quick retreat to the motte of “No real danger here,” which is at least more defensible than the absolutism of the first claim.  

Alexander writes, “So the motte-and-bailey doctrine is when you make a bold, controversial statement. Then when somebody challenges you, you claim you were just making an obvious, uncontroversial statement” — or perhaps a statement that’s widely accepted in your social circle — “so you are clearly right and they are silly for challenging you. Then when the argument is over you go back to making the bold, controversial statement.” And that’s how it goes with the Ours-is-not-a-spirit-of-fear crowd too. 

There’s a lot to be thought and debated about how to reach the right balance of policies in a time like this, to minimize both loss of life and economic devastation. But that’s not what I’m talking about here. Here I’m reflecting on how Christians should understand these matters, and maybe one way to start is give up the motte-and-bailey dance and decide what your actual position is. If what you really think is that Christians should never be afraid of death, then grasp that nettle. That restaurant server who attends your church, who desperately needs the money but is afraid of getting seriously ill because she has pre-existing health issues and there’s no one but her to take care of her children? Person of weak faith. Failure as a Christian. “Get out there and bring me my quesadillas.” 

Rusty Reno: 

That older generation that endured the Spanish flu, now long gone, was not ill-informed. People in that era were attended by medical professionals who fully understood the spread of disease and methods of quarantine. Unlike us, however, that generation did not want to live under Satan’s rule, not even for a season. They insisted that man was made for life, not death. They bowed their head before the storm of disease and endured its punishing blows, but they otherwise stood firm and continued to work, worship, and play, insisting that fear of death would not govern their societies or their lives. 

Richard J. Hatchett, Carter E. Mecher, and Marc Lipsitch (2007): 

We noted that, in some cases, outcomes appear to have correlated with the quality and timing of the public health response. The contrast of mortality outcomes between Philadelphia and St. Louis is particularly striking. The first cases of disease among civilians in Philadelphia were reported on September 17, 1918, but authorities downplayed their significance and allowed large public gatherings, notably a city-wide parade on September 28, 1918, to continue. School closures, bans on public gatherings, and other social distancing interventions were not implemented until October 3, when disease spread had already begun to overwhelm local medical and public health resources. In contrast, the first cases of disease among civilians in St. Louis were reported on October 5, and authorities moved rapidly to introduce a broad series of measures designed to promote social distancing, implementing these on October 7. The difference in response times between the two cities (≈14 days, when measured from the first reported cases) represents approximately three to five doubling times for an influenza epidemic. The costs of this delay appear to have been significant; by the time Philadelphia responded, it faced an epidemic considerably larger than the epidemic St. Louis faced. Philadelphia ultimately experienced a peak weekly excess pneumonia and influenza (P&I) death rate of 257/100,000 and a cumulative excess P&I death rate (CEPID) during the period September 8–December 28, 1918 (the study period) of 719/100,000. St. Louis, on the other hand, experienced a peak P&I death rate, while NPIs were in place, of 31/100,000 and had a CEPID during the study period of 347/100,000.

Let’s be clear about this: Reno thinks the city of Philadelphia got it right, while the city of St. Louis “lived under Satan’s rule.” 

UPDATE: I just read Damon Linker’s column on Reno's essay, which is outstanding. 

When it comes to comfort food, our number 1 go-to in the Jacobs household is a thoroughly Americanized version of the Italian classic spaghetti carbonara. Don’t bother telling me that they wouldn’t do it this way in Rome. I know that. This is adapted for American ingredients and American palates. But it’s darn good, and dead easy to boot. 

Ingredients: 

• One pound pasta, ideally shells or orecchiette 
• Four slices thick-cut bacon 
• One medium onion  
• One large or two small green bell peppers  
• Two eggs 
• Freshly ground black pepper 
• Freshly grated Parmesan cheese 

Method: 

• Get a lot of salted water in a big pot and heat it to boiling 
• In a skillet, fry the bacon on medium heat until done, then remove and set aside 
• While the bacon is cooking, dice the onion and pepper 
• Remove some of the rendered bacon fat, if you’re that kind of person, then add the diced pepper and start to sauté 
• After a few minutes, add the onion; sauté onions and peppers until soft 
• When the water starts to boil, throw the pasta in there  
• While the veggies and pasta are cooking, chop the bacon into bite-sized chunks 
• When the pasta is done, drain it and return to the pot 
• Add the onions, peppers, and bacon to the pasta; stir 
• Crack two eggs into the pot and stir around like crazy for 30 seconds or so; that will coat the pasta with the egg and cook it gently with the retained heat of the ingredients 
• Grind lots of pepper into the mix, and I mean LOTS; grate Parmesan into the mix to taste 
• Distribute into bowls and eat while hot. 

You don’t need to add any salt because there’s plenty in the bacon and Parmesan. Shells and orecchiette are good for this dish because they have little cups that catch pieces of the bacon, onion, and pepper. This should serve 4 as a one-dish (plus salad, if you’re into that kind of thing) meal. A robust, earthy red wine is a perfect accompaniment. 

I disagree with pretty much everything in this post by Ephraim Radner. I don’t think consolation of lonely people is distinctively “motherly”; I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with the church being “motherly” — that’s not just a “well-worn trope,” that’s part of the job description; I don’t think any of the things he believes we ought to learn are in any way compromised by livestreaming services. I don’t see the value of seeking, in a time of deprivation, still more deprivation.

So why do Radner and I see things so differently? I wonder whether it has something to do with the difference between a priest (Radner) and a layman (me). Radner might well ask whether it makes sense for churches to keep trying to do the same things that they’ve been doing all along; but church is not something I have been doing all along. 

In the first part of this year, before the coronavirus and its consequences hit, I wasn’t at church very often. Some Sundays I was traveling. On others I was trying to recover from exhaustion, because for the past few months I have had, for the first time in my life, ongoing insomnia. (I have never been a good sleeper, but this level of sleeplessness is something new to me. New and not good.) And some Sundays I was just lazy, wanting some few hours in which to drink coffee and watch soccer. Only when I couldn’t go to church did I realize what price I might have been paying for missing it. And that’s when I started to crave it. 

In my biography of the Book of Common Prayer I discuss the transformation, starting in the second half of the nineteenth century, of parish worship services from a model based on Morning Prayer to a model based on weekly Parish Communion. That hasn’t been universal but it has certainly been widespread, especially in the U.K. and the U.S. This recession of Morning Prayer from Sunday worship has led also to a general lack of familiarity with that service, and a lack of interest in participating in it. That, plus rigid work schedules, helps to explain why at my parish church, St. Alban’s, we might have 350 people show up for Communion on Sunday and then seven people show up at Morning Prayer for the entire rest of the week. I think I have been to Morning Prayer at St. Alban’s twice, ever. 

But last week I did Morning Prayer four times (I only missed Monday because I forgot). My wife and I sat in our living room and listened to the reading of Scripture; we made our intercessions at the appropriate time; with our knees touching and our prayer book opened before us, we followed along with the service and said the responses. And gradually we are gaining a better understanding, a felt understanding, of why Morning Prayer has been so important for so long to so many people. The rite is beginning to reshape our hearts. It is of course possible that when all this is over we’ll lose this habit; but I hope not; and even if so, we’ll know what we are missing, and perhaps will be drawn back to it again in times of need. 

I don’t see how this experience can in any way be a bad thing. 

If you’re interested in participating, however virtually, in the services of St. Alban’s, you can find the streams and recorded videos here. 

What if I made for my students a guide to Auden’s “Horae Canonicae” that looks like this?

Sometimes I get obsessed about something and can only manage the obsession by writing about it. So, from nine years ago: 

I'm not sure exactly what to call this kind of music, but in my mind I think of it as NCM (New Chamber Music). A small group of musicians play pieces that are technically demanding in the way that classical music often is, but they’re playing often with non-classical instruments and often in non-classical styles and with non-classical techniques. Chris Thile seems to me the prime instigator and exemplar of this movement. 

What's exceptional about the Goat Rodeo Sessions, within this larger world of NCM, is that these sessions are conducted by musicians who have a serious claim to being the very best at what they do. Chris Thile, Edgar Meyer, and Yo-Yo Ma are commonly thought of as the epitomes of excellence on their instruments, and while probably no one would say that Stuart Duncan is the best violinist in the world, more than a few people would say he's the best fiddler around. In any case he more than holds his own with these three titans.

This song opens in the key of A, as fiddle tunes often do. It begins with a rhythmically intricate introduction by Chris Thile, the sort of thing that he often plays, and it's not necessarily a sign of pleasure to come. One of the problems with Thile's work is that he really is, as T-Bone Burnett has said, a once-in-a-century musician, and the things that are fun and interesting for him to play are not necessarily the things that are the most fun and interesting for ordinary listeners to hear. There is a cerebral quality to much of his music that I happen to enjoy but that many people don't, because it's too distant from what they think of as … enjoyable music. This song may start in that complex mode, but very soon you get, first the violin of Duncan playing a drone, and then the lovely primary melody played by Yo-Yo Ma on his cello.

You should notice even at this early point the essential role played by Edgar Meyer's double bass. Throughout the song he moves with perfect fluidity between bowing and plucking, always in a way designed to accentuate the beauty of his colleagues’ playing and the rhythmic integrity of the performance. He is the most musical of bassists — nothing is mechanical with him, everything he plays is melodically and rhythmically delightful. If you can listen to this on speakers that offer a reasonable degree and quality of bass response, please do. 

So after the mandolin introduction, the violin drone, and the melody played by Yo-Yo Ma, we get the elaboration of that melody on Duncan's fiddle. Duncan has a magnificently velvety tone – there's an interview with the four musicians in which Ma comments on the beauty of it – and he adds both urgency and plangency to the melody that Ma has initiated. Their lines intertwine and rise together, and take us into a delightful dance above which the violin soars. 

Now things get a little quieter. The bowed instruments recede into the background, and we get an intricate interlude from Thile’s mandolin. This is followed by a witty contrapuntal passage (a few moments of Celtic Baroque, maybe) and the return of the dance. Then the four musicians walk the theme down to a stop....

But we’re not done. Duncan, solo at first, leaps into a reel in G. (When the other instruments come in, take a listen to the rumble of that bass!) The pace accelerates, and now we’re headed for a breakdown — not in the psychological sense but in the bluegrass sense. Everyone is now playing at breakneck speed, and make a special note of how the fingers of Ma’s left hand move as quickly as a fiddler’s, but over a much longer neck.  

And then as the breakdown achieves maximum velocity, we ascend back to the first theme, once more in A. The full articulation of the theme is followed by another slowdown, but this time instead of the mandolin we get the violin and cello meditating together, weaving their lines quietly in and out. 

Then the music rises, and we get a return to the dance, now at its most joyful. Even the relatively stoic Meyer is caught up in the delight of it. And then another walk down, this time to the finish. 

I love this performance more than I can say. It has given me such comfort and consolation in these past few days. I hope it will do something similar for you. 

And soon the Goat Rodeo Boys will be back!