My Social Justice Story

Posted on September 17, 2011 by Victor Chudnovsky

I was one of a handful of people asked to tell my “social justice story” at the Social Justice Fund Northwest’s annual dinner tonight. These are my prepared remarks.

As with many other people, my awareness of social unfairness began at home. My parents pointed out and lamented the injustices that plague the lives of the poor—both individuals and societies. Coming from Latin America, we were acutely aware of our differences with the First World—which is to say, aware of the widespread impact of American culture, consumerism, and foreign policy. I was to learn much later that my parents had actually been involved in progressive causes earlier, but growing up, I did not experience their angst and concern being translated to action. Instead, there was always this attitude that charity was just throwing money away: a feel-good measure that did nothing to advance the systemic change needed to solve the root problems. That stance certainly has some merit (“teach a man to fish” and all that), but it can all too easily become an excuse for inaction and helplessness.

As I grew up and my newspaper reading shifted from the comic pages to the front pages to the editorial pages, my sense of urgency around social issues grew. What also changed is that I finally had money of my own: first my grad school stipend, and then a real, honest-to-goodness salary. I now had much more motivation and many more resources than I had ever had before, but I was still confused as to the best means to effect change. I gingerly became an online member of one or two national progressive groups (they were pursuing systemic change!). I soon became inundated with solicitations from many more. Most seemed worthy, and I had money, so I sent fifty dollars here, fifty dollars there, fifty dollars everywhere, and got a walletful of membership cards. But was spreading my money around really effective? Was there a way to become more directly involved in creating change without either giving up my day job or throwing money at the problem as though it were somebody else’s job to fix?

And then 2000 happened. The suspense and non-resolution that followed that election felt to me like the beginning of a nightmare, one in which (I’m ashamed to admit) I disengaged in despair for eight painful years. I knew that disengaging was not helping anyone, but watching the social and political discourse was just too painful, when all I could do—all I knew how to do—was wring my hands at my own powerlessness to make the world right.

But soon enough, I wasn’t alone anymore. I eventually dated and married Knox. One of the many remarkable things about him is how centrally he values reaching out to others and building community. He’ll stop to help or chat with a neighbor just because; he’ll organize a community harvest to glean fruit that would otherwise be going to waste; he’ll spend much time helping folks throughout the country organize Soup Swaps where they can rediscover the fun of cooking and sharing and telling stories. In short, through Knox, I came to understand more viscerally how communities get built from the ground up based on individual interactions. At the same time, I noticed that this community-building was also happening on the national stage, as the left began to coalesce around the Obama campaign. Thanks to what was happening at both the national and very local levels, I came to realize that by fostering community, the isolated helplessness to which I had succumbed could instead become collective progress.

And so this year, at the urging of my friend Jessan, I got involved with the the Next Generation Giving Project run by the Social Justice Fund. I was fascinated by the discussions we had around wealth, class, and privilege—a complex of topics I want to keep exploring. We learned about fund-raising: I wasn’t very successful at that, yet I was still pleasantly surprised at how receptive people were to my pleas. And we evaluated a heck of a lot of applications in a few short weeks. Every night I would grumble at how long that process took, and yet, when I read each application, I would feel guilty about my complaining when it was them doing the hard, amazing, often thankless work down on the ground.

Now, unlike most of the really great SJF members with whom I worked this year, I don’t have a background in social work nor, as you see, in activism. I can’t say “intersectional analysis” without feeling self-conscious. That makes me feel like a bit of an impostor among all of you here tonight. But I know I’m not, because of course this is where my social justice journey has taken me: SJF is working for systemic change, by channeling resources to effective groups while building and sustaining a community working toward a shared vision.

I don’t know yet what form my social activism will take in the future, but I do know that I take to heart the old Jewish saying: “It is not your responsibility to finish the work [of perfecting the world], but you are not free to desist from it either.”

Thank you.

Why wait for marriage?

Posted on July 18, 2011 by Victor Chudnovsky

The same-sex marriage debate is, in part, about the separation of church and state. Should the government discriminate against some citizens simply because it offends others’ religious sensibilities? Or, formulated another way, how much should private morality be entwined with public policy?

This is well illustrated, of course, by folks like the town clerk in New York who resigned rather than perform gay marriages, which offend her religious convictions. (Whatever happened to “render unto Caesar…?”)

However, there’s another aspect to the private morality/public policy question that puzzles me. The media talks about the legalization of same-sex marriage as heralding a surge in gay weddings. Marriage licenses and civil marriages, I understand. But weddings? Are people really not getting married if the state doesn’t sanction it? Are we really acquiescing to second-class status? Has the wedding industry really been ignoring this market segment?

I’m not arguing civil marriage does not matter; of course it does. It matters a lot. That’s precisely why celebrating your union before your family and community, in defiance of a government that tries to render it invisible, is a radical, transformative, and liberating act.

Sex at Dawn

Posted on October 24, 2010 by Victor Chudnovsky

Everyone with a stake in the culture wars needs to read Sex at Dawn. It presents an idea that is often absent from public discourse: that monogamous pair bonding (our traditional idea of marriage) is not part of our evolutionary heritage and that, in fact, it is a social imposition contrary to deeply ingrained human inclinations. The alternative and, according to the authors, more natural behavior is a sort of promiscuity that they take pains to point out is not what we think of in the vernacular (sex with strangers and almost-strangers) but rather closer in spirit to polyamory: sex as a social bonding act between various members of a tribal group.

The authors advance three lines of evidence in favor of this thesis. The first is based on observation of the mating behaviors of our close animal cousins. Most animals are not monogamous but most species have a limited and advertised period of female fertility during which the males are fiercely protective of their (generally temporary) mates and aggressive toward other males. Bonobos and humans, by contrast, hide the period of female fertility and use non-procreative sex as a way to bond individuals in the tribe. Moreover, this shared paternity makes males invested in the outcome of all children in the tribe and is hence more rather than less adaptive for the group.

The second line of evidence relies on observations (from the days of European colonization to the present) of peoples that still have a forager lifestyle similar to how it is supposed our ancestors lived. Many (most?) have a very fluid sexuality where sex with multiple partners is often not only permitted but expected. Children are considered the community’s children. The authors claim that it was the shift from foraging to agriculture (which they describe as the most significant event in human history) that led to a preoccupation with individual property and its inheritance (as opposed to the shared resources heretofore used). That, in turn, led to shrinking the sphere of sharing (sexual relations, child rearing, resources) from the community to the nuclear family. This is where the “standard narrative” of sexuality arose (men want to spread their seed as widely as possible, women want to make sure their man will provide for them and their children) and led to the inferior status of women that has historically plagued Western societies. As an aside, the authors suggest that, after agriculture led to the notion of property, property in turn led to the notion of poverty.

The final type of argument is the observation that if the “standard narrative of sexuality” were really as natural as its adherents claim, we would not need so many strictures so often enforced to guard against pre- and extra-martial sex: those behaviors would be rare. Moreover, the fluid sexuality model provides a better evolutionary framework in which to understand homosexuality: it survives in the group because it is a form of pair-bonding.

One of the interesting themes running through the book is how easy it is for scientists, both social and natural, to be biased by their own culture. Darwin himself did not venture to challenge the Victorian notion of marriage (though there are some suggestions he may have suppressed thoughts heading in that direction), while modern anthropologists and primatologists appear to contort their interpretations to make our notion of marriage inevitable.

I expect many people will dismiss or attack this book because it is threatening—threatening to the way we’ve constructed our lives and society, threatening to “traditional marriage,” threatening to our human exceptionalism. This perceived threat does not mean the claims are false, of course. Indeed, if they better describe who we are and how we got here, then perhaps we can better understand how hard it can be to live up to our cultural ideals, and be sympathetic to each other when we stumble.

Should we change our society in light of these findings? That is a more complicated question. Whether we like it or not, the fact is that we today are members of a society shaped by a history of agriculture, property, differing sexual roles, and a monogamous definition of marriage. These legacies will not disappear overnight; it is not clear that they all should (do we really want to give up agriculture? can we?). That said, some parts of our cultural legacy we have been succeeding in improving (slavery, women’s rights), and maybe marriage, the concept that tries to capture the essence of our emotional and sexual bonding, will get its turn.

For Seattle readers: One of the authors will give a reading next week.

To the spoiler belongs the victory

Posted on October 14, 2010 by Victor Chudnovsky

There is a fundamental asymmetry in any interaction that requires cooperation: the party that chooses not to play by the rules disrupts the process, preventing any win within the rules of that interaction but likely achieving a one-sided gain outside the scope of the rules.

For example, a child who does not want to play a board game and sweeps the pieces off the table spoils the game for everyone, but has himself achieved the objective of not playing (or perhaps of “not losing,” if that’s what prompted the outbreak).

A discussion with someone who refuses to debate rationally (listening and rebutting using logic) prevents either side from understanding the other better and perhaps being swayed, but achieves the spoiler’s aim of not having her beliefs challenged. Witness the various arguments with fundamentalists who refuse to entertain anything that challenges what they “know.”

Likewise, the goal of Congress is to debate, improve, and pass good laws for the benefit of society. The majority party, in particular, has an incentive to play by the rules to justify its dominance. The minority party, on the other hand, has an extraneous motivation to subvert the game: spoiling the interaction by being obstructionist and partisan prevents good legislation from passing while the other side is in power, supposedly boosting the minority’s chances for a comeback.

When the spoilers are few in number, their damage can be controlled: the child can be excluded from future games, the fundamentalist can be dismissed, the representative can be shunned and voted out. But what happens when a substantial fraction of the players are uncooperative? They just get their way, by hook (the other players giving in) or by crook (spoiling the game).

Is there a way out? By definition, not within the system itself. Perhaps the only way seems to be driving the proportion of spoilers back down—in other words, persuading people left and right that the fairest and most efficient way forward is together.

Wherefore “The Battle of the Sexes”?

Posted on June 23, 2010 by Victor Chudnovsky

At dinner with some guys the conversation veered to the unfathomability of womankind. “My daughter asked me to translate from Boy to Human.” “I just always say I’m sorry.” “Women say they communicate more, but when they’re upset you’re supposed to know why. Or to ask.” Lest one gender get all the blame, I see plenty of gender finger-pointing from women as well in questions to advice columnists.

Obviously, there are biological differences between the sexes. The mind being rooted in the physical brain (I’m not a dualist), it is plausible that there might be some biological difference in cognitive processes. However, my impression of the studies that I’ve read in the lay literature—and bear in mind this is a pre-filtered and pre-digested set, not at all a metastudy—is that these differences are small variations in the statistical distributions of various cognitive traits: the distributions are not identical, but there is a large overlap.

I’ll admit that I’m biased here: I start from the assumption that we are all much more alike than we are different, and I find validation for my bias in these studies that say the differences are small. If you start from the opposite camp, though, you’ll certainly find plenty of literature to support (I would say hype) the chasm between the sexes: Mars/Venus and all that.

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