Paris under Lockdown

Never were we freer than under the German occupation.

— Jean Paul Sartre

The exhibition 1940: Parisian Exodus, now on view at the Musée de la Libération de Paris, marks the 80th anniversary of the invasion of the city by Hitler's army.

On June 5, 1940, from positions along the Belgian frontier, the Germans advanced against France's Maginot Line. Hitler's objectives: the capture of Paris and the annihilation of France's government. Panicked by the onslaught, two million French men, women and childen—three-quarters of Paris's population—left the capital in a harried 10-day flight that journalists came to call the "Parisian Exodus."

The exhibition has prompted many Parisians to compare 1940's Exodus and the subsequent German occupation of the city to today's Covid-19 pandemic. Both saw mass flights by civilians, followed by severe lockdowns.

One Parisian who witnessed the German occupation was the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. In an article in The Atlantic, Sartre wrote in 1944, "Never were we freer than under the German occupation." Living “nakedly”—experiencing isolation, hardship, and continuous police surveillance—brought to light Parisians' authentic freedom, Sartre said. "At every instant we lived up to the full sense of this commonplace little phrase: ‘Man is mortal!’ And the choice that each of us made of his life and of his being was an authentic choice because it was made face to face with death."

Contemporary philosopher Julian Baggini, one of the Parisians who likens the current lockdown to the German occupation, believes "the pandemic offers an opportunity to relearn what it means to be free."

Writing in Psyche, Baggini says Covid-19 has driven home for Parisians the fact that, normally, we're trapped. We do most things "wantonly"—on a whim or out of habit; or due to peer-pressure; or because we've been manipulated by media and marketers. 

"Very little of what we do every day is the result of a considered decision," Baggini writes. "Being able to do what we want without constraint, but also without thought, is the lowest and least valuable form of freedom."

But the lockdown has taught Parisians, constrained and facing death, to consider their every choice.

"When my options shrunk and any activity required more planning, the choices I made became more authentic because they had to be more thought-through," Baggini says. "This capacity for reflective decision-making is the highest and most valuable form of freedom a human being can have."

In short, Parisians were never freer than now.

The Happiness Museum

Rules for happiness: something to do,
someone to love, something to hope for.

— Immanuel Kant

Wonderful Copenhagen has opened a Happiness Museum.

Established by the Happiness Research Institute—I want a job there—the museum comprises eight rooms dedicated to the science of joy.

One room features an atlas of the world’s happiest—and unhappiest—nations. Another explores how money and politics contribute to happiness. And still others examine merriment's connection to comfort, pleasure, laughter, and smiling.

“Our hope is guests will leave a little wiser, a little happier and a little more motivated to make the world a better place,” museum director Meik Wiking told Hyperallergic.

Civil Wars

It is possible for highly intelligent people to have a useful but mistaken theory, and we don't have to pretend otherwise to show respect for these people.

— Daniel Dennett

I've given up arguing with reactionaries; I can hardly anymore argue with liberals.

Mistaken theories abound nowadays. 

If you're struggling like me to stay civil, take the advice of Tufts University philosopher Daniel Dennett.

"Just how charitable are you supposed to be when criticizing the views of an opponent?" he asks in Intuition Pumps.

Dennett offers four rules, based on research in behavioral psychology:

1. Restate your opponent's position clearly, vividly, and fairly—so much so, your opponent thanks you.
   
   
2. List any points of agreement, unless they're points of widespread agreement (such as, "Politicians aren't always candid").
   
   
3. Describe what you've learned from your opponent.
   
   
4. Rebut you opponent only after you've taken Steps 1, 2 and 3.

This four-step process warms your opponent, so she listens to you. You might actually advance your discussion.

And if she doesn't warm to you, remember what Oscar Wilde said: "In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane."

The Tent Angel

Navigating the streets of downtown Washington, DC, you might think the Boy Scout Jamboree is in town.

But the hundreds of tents pitched on every square inch of public land house the homeless, pushed out of shelters by Covid-19.

They're the work of one man, nicknamed "The Tent Angel."

Arnold Harvey is a 58-year-old veteran who grew up dirt poor. He promised God that, if his life ever improved, he’d help others.

His life did improve. Today he's a trash truck driver with a pretty home in the Maryland suburbs.

As he makes his nightly rounds of DC in his trash truck, Harvey drops off new camping gear whenever he spots a homeless person.

He started a tiny nonprofit called "God’s Connection Transition" a decade ago, to seek in-kind donations, so he's learned how to acquire things. 

When the pandemic hit in March, Harvey went to his local Costco and struck a deal: he'd take all the tents shoppers returned opened.

Now he delivers them in the dark to DC's homeless.

“When we get someone a tent, everything gets better,” Harvey told The Washington Post.

Suddenly homeless people are visible, and other angels come to their aid.

“I guess people don’t always see them sleeping in the grass,” Harvey said. “But you can’t ignore a tent."

Illogical

The avant-garde and the rearguard, the devout and the secular, the learned elite and the lay public all seem to want to enlist nature on their side, everywhere and always.

— Lorraine Daston

Racist claims offend most 21st century ears, no matter their source. They're not only boorish, but, as Spock would say, most illogical.

So I was surprised to hear a racist claim voiced this week during an interview on NPR.

Brandon Keith Brown, a Black classical conductor, was asked to expand on his recently penned article, "It's Time To Make Orchestras Great Again—By Making Them Blacker."

Brown argued that Whites, by design, exclude Blacks from participation in classical music, because they fear Blacks' innate performative superiority.

Were they included, Blacks would soon "dominate concert halls," as they came to "dominate basketball courts" soon after they were admitted to the NBA, Brown said.

Most illogical.

Also most illogical: the fact that NPR sanctioned Brown's claim by airing it.

The network would never permit, for example, a White biker to claim Blacks purposely exclude Whites from dirt biking the streets because they fear Whites' innate stunt-driving talents.

Racist claims like this ("Whites are better stunt drivers than Blacks") commit what philosophers call the "naturalistic fallacy."

This logical fallacy places races on a par with individuals, attributing their talents to entire races and creating convenient distinctions ("Black," "White," etc.) as if they were established by nature's law. 

It's pseudo-science to claim, "Whites are better stunt drivers than Blacks." A scientific statement would never encompass an entire class, but would be empirically about individuals and attribute a range of talents to some Whites and some Blacks.

Considering the network insists its mission is to "create a more informed public," I find NPR's willingness to broadcast eristic, disrespectful and toxic claims simply, well, fascinating.