Political culture – Page 9 – Yet Another Unitarian Universalist

Methinks Uber doth protest too much

A London Employment Tribunal has ruled that Uber is in the transportation business, not the software business; and that Uber is an employer, not a service that connects independent contractors to customers.

If you like reading legal documents, this decision is worth reading: the Tribunal is both witty and brutally critical of Uber. Here’s one quote from the decision, Case nos. 2202550/2015, paragraph 87 (the entire decision is online here:

“In the first place, we have been struck by the remarkable lengths to which Uber has gone in order to compel agreement with its (perhaps we should say its lawyers’) description of itself and with its analysis of the legal relationships between the two companies [i.e., between Uber B.V., and its subsidiary Uber London Ltd.], the drivers and the passengers. Any organisation (a) running an enterprise at the heart of which is the function of carrying people in motor cars from where they are to where they want to be and (b) operating in part through a company discharging the regulated responsibilities of a PHV [Private Hire Vehicle] operator, but (c) requiring drivers and passengers to agree, as a matter of contract, that it does not provide transportation services (through UBV or ULL), and (d) resorting in its documentation to fictions,36 twisted language37 and even brand new terminology,38 merits, we think, a degree of scepticism. Reflecting on the Respondents’ general case, and on the grimly loyal evidence of Ms Bertram [lawyer for Uber] in particular, we cannot help being reminded of Queen Gertrude’s most celebrated line: ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks.’ 39

“36 Eg the passenger’s ‘invoice’ which is not an invoice and is not sent to the passenger
“37 Eg calling the driver (“an independent company in the business of providing Transportation Services”) ‘Customer’ (in the New Terms [of service]). This choice of terminology has the embarrassing consequence of forcing Uber to argue that, if it is a party to any contract for the provision by the driver of driving services, it is one under which it is a lient or customer of “Customer’.
“38 Eg ‘onboarding’ for recruitment and/or induction and ‘deactivation’ for dismissal
“39 Hamlet, Act III, sc 2″

The Tribunal doesn’t come right out and say that Uber is lying. But the Tribunal does state, for example (para. 89), that “Uber is in business as a supplier of transportation services,” not as a technology company. The Tribunal quotes with approval the following paragraph from a North California District Court judgment: “Uber does not simply sell software; it sells rides. Uber is no more a ‘technology company’ than Yellow Cab is a ‘technology company’ because it uses CB radios to dispatch taxi cabs.”

And the Tribunal later states (para. 93) that Uber “is precluded from relying upon its carefully crafted documentation because, we find, it bears no relation to reality.”

And further, the Tribunal calls Uber’s legal arguments (para. 96) illustrative the phenomenon of “‘armies of lawyers’ contriving documents in their clients’ interests which simply misrepresents the true rights and obligations on both sides.” So while the Tribunal does not say that Uber is lying, the Tribunal makes it very clear that Uber is not telling the truth.

As you’d expect, Frances O’Grady, General Secretary of the British Trades Union Congress, speaks more harshly of Uber. Calling Uber and its ilk purveyors of “sham self-employment,” O’Grady said, “For many workers the gig economy is a rigged economy, where bosses can get out of paying the minimum wage and providing basics like paid holidays and rest breaks.”

This is pretty much what the Tribunal said in its decision, except more politely.

All this reveals a dark side of Silicon Valley: a significant part of the Valley’s vaunted “innovation” actually relies on armies of unscrupulous lawyers contriving documents to avoid legal requirements designed to protect workers and consumers. So thank goodness for the scrupulous lawyers who help expose the facts when Silicon Valley does not tell the truth.

BBC News offers more on this story here.

Alexandria, Va., to Washington, D.C.

We left Alexandria and drove up to Washington, D.C., in time to have lunch with my old friend Rabbi Michael and his wife Lawyer Julie.

Michael and I hadn’t seen each other in almost a decade, and now his children are no longer children; two of them are older than I was when I met Michael. I was in the first few weeks of college, feeling a little bit adrift, when the fellow in front of me in the dinner line started talking to me about science fiction. Next thing I knew, he got me to go to Washington, D.C., to participate in a political rally in support of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) on the law of the Capitol building. That was my first trip to Washington, as well as the furthest south and the furthest west I’d ever been in my life. I guess it is not entirely surprising that two geeky, politically committed teenagers wound up as middle-aged progressive clergy committed to peace and social justice.

After lunch, Carol and I wandered over to the Capitol Hill Bookstore, a maze of books on shelves and books in stacks on the floor. The woman sitting at the front desk was listening to audio of the Congressional hearings on gun control. After dinner, my friend E took us over to East City Bookshop, a new bookstore near Capitol Hill. E pointed out the substantial number of books on politics and political figures, and said something to the effect that you’re just going to find more politics in a D.C. bookstore.

Carol and I went for a walk this morning while it was still relatively cool (that is, under ninety degrees). We came across this “Little Library” — not an official Little Free Library, or at least it is not listed on the official Web site — which Carol wanted to examine more closely because it has a green roof.

We walked as far as the Capitol building, where a political rally was in progress. About 75 people in bright orange t-shirts stood on the rear steps of the Capitol building in the hot sun. Perhaps a hundred people stood directly in front of them in the hot sun, and another couple of hundred stood further back in the shade. We could hear the amplified voice of a woman telling about how her son was permanently disabled by stray gunfire. Several of the people in the shade held signs that said “Disarm Hate.”

I am glad that we still have the right to freely assemble in the United States — more or less, with significant restrictions on public assemblies, and generally with a significant police presence. But I’ve changed my mind about protest politics since the days I protested on the lawn of the Capitol building for the Equal Rights Amendment; protest politics is easier and more exciting than face-to-face door-to-door political organizing, but I now believe protest politics simply polarizes opposition while it’s the face-to-face one-on-one conversations that actually work best.

From a pragmatic standpoint, I suppose protest politics might work, a little, if you can get some media coverage. Carol and I saw several young protestors, dressed in bright pink shirts and signs, talking with a television news cameraman; their signs read “Ban Assault Weapons Now.” Perhaps they will get a five-second slot on the evening TV news. Perhaps someone will watch that five seconds on TV, and change their mind about gun control. But I doubt it….

Marion, Va., to Alexandria, Va.

Carol found us a hotel in Marion, Virginia, of a better quality than we have been staying at: this hotel provided breakfast; and the breakfast was not just microwaved eggs (“eggs-in-a-bag”) and cold cereal and stale bagels, it was eggs and waffles cooked for you by a pleasant young woman in a small restaurant open to the public. This is high luxury for us, so we settled in to enjoy it.

At the table next to ours sat a man and woman who were somewhat older than us. She was one of those forthright Southern women in upper middle age who are polite and unafraid to say what they think about the world. These women remind me of my mother, for there is a type of New England woman who become equally forthright in upper middle age, with much the same polite-but-firm manner.

When I got to breakfast, she and Carol were having a lively conversation about fracking, while the woman’s husband sat between them, mostly listening. This forthright Southern woman did not like fracking. What you learn in Real Estate 101, she said, is that you own your property, but these fracking companies can come in and do what they want on your property and there’s nothing you can do about it. Carol said that out where we live, some counties were organizing to ban fracking, but our new friend told us that in many eastern states, the state government has said that counties and municipalities cannot ban fracking. She said she had been taught that ours is a government of the people and by the people, but not when it comes to fracking. She was funny and articulate, and clearly very angry. The companies that engage in fracking, and the elected representatives that kowtow to those companies, had better watch out: it is not wise to anger women like this. They may appear to be polite older ladies, but they do not forget, they do not forgive, and they do not give up.

Most of the rest of the day involved driving in the rain, with too many cars on the road, and too many drivers who had abandoned all common sense once it started to rain. The less said about this part of the day the better.

It was raining when we arrived in Aleaxandria, Virginia, where we are staying with an old friend of Carol’s, someone she knew in college, and his wife. He is a principled and very knowledgeable Republican who used to work for the Congressional Quarterly, and I always enjoy look forward to hearing his views on politics. But none of us wanted to talk about politics very much. None of us like Donald Trump very much though we all agree that he speaks some truths, particularly about the effects of globalization and free trade agreements on average workers. And none of us felt that Hillary Clinton is particularly trustworthy, though aside from that she might make a capable administrator.

We went out to dinner, and on the drive back we saw the fireworks display through the rain and mist. Our host remarked that today is the 240th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Only ten years to the 250th….

Happy Watergate Day

A friend from high school reminded me that yesterday was Watergate Day. On Saturday, June 17, 1972, five burglars paid by CREEP (Committee to Re-Elect the President) broke into the Democratic National Convention headquarters at 2600 Virginia Avenue, Washington, D.C., in the same building as the Watergate Hotel. They placed hidden microphones — bugs — and took photos of sensitive material. It eventually turned out that then-President Richard (“I Am Not A Crook”) Nixon authorized and had direct knowledge of the burglary; he resigned rather than face impeachment proceedings.

The Watergate scandal shaped the political consciousness of my immediate age cohort. People a few years older than my age cohort talk about the assassination of Robert Kennedy and Malcolm X as defining moments in their political awareness, but for us the defining moment was criminal activity by the President of the United States.

A few years after the Watergate scandal, I think in 1977, some friends of mine and I re-enacted the Watergate break-in in our high school: we walked in to the office of one of the principals, dumped dead insects on his desk, and informed him that we were bugging his office. I don’t remember suffering any punishment for this act of street theatre. At least we weren’t selling drugs, one of the things our high school was known for (the school had its own undercover narcotics agents), and at least we showed that we knew something about U.S. history.

I have never commemorated Watergate Day since then. But maybe I should, under the theory that those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. The current presidential election campaign has already descended to mud-slinging and name-calling, and outright criminal acts may be following close behind.

Grumpy old white guys

I feel qualified to speak about grumpy old white men, because (depending on how you define “old”) I qualify as a grumpy old white man myself.

Now, I’m a big fan of being grumpy. There’s plenty to be grumpy about: endless wars, people out of work, terrorists, the list goes on and on. I say: if you’re not grumpy, you’re not paying attention. But as a grumpy old white man, if I want anyone to take my grumpiness seriously, there are some things I should not do.

If I start sounding angry, then even though I may be right my grumpiness loses much of its persuasive force. This is Donald Trump’s problem. When he says we should cut military adventures overseas and do something to protect U.S. jobs, I think he gets it right. But when he goes on one of his angry tirades, all I can think is: “Another grumpy old white guy who bores you to tears telling you everything he’s angry about.”

And if I refuse to acknowledge it when someone gets the best of me, then I lose the high moral ground that grumpiness requires to be effective. (This holds true even when I happen to be right, and others wrongly disagree with me.) This is Bernie Sander’s problem. When he says we need to further reform the health care system and we shouldn’t trust Wall Street, I think he gets it right. But when he refuses to acknowledge that Hillary Clinton has a lock on the Democratic nomination, all I can think is: “Another grumpy old white guy who won’t admit he’s been beaten by a woman.”

Pfeh. All I can say is that these two guys are making the rest of us grumpy old white men look bad; which is too bad, because grumpiness combined with persuasive force, that takes a high moral ground, has the potential to be an enormous force for good.

Obligatory election post

The creators of the Political Compass Web site assert that it is not enough to know whether a political leader is on the left or right; we also need to determine if they are authoritarian or libertarian.

Consider the economic scale first: Those on the far left believe it is best to manage the economy for the greater good of all; the further to the left, the more they believe in managing the economy. By contrast, those on the right believe to a greater or lesser degree in the power of the free market. Now consider the social scale: Those who take an authoritarian position believe that the state is more important than the individual. By contrast, those who take a libertarian view believe in the supreme value of the individual. Both scales are of equal importance.

We can put these two axes together in a Cartesian coordinate system to make the “Political Compass,” where the x axis ranges from leftists (negative numbers) to rightists (positive numbers, and the y axis ranges from libertarians (negative numbers) to authoritarians (positive numbers). In this scheme, Stalin would feel at home in the upper left quadrant, which is where you’ll find those who advocate for state-controlled collectivism. Gandhi would feel at home in the lower left quadrant, with voluntary regional collectivism. Pinochet would be happy in the upper right quadrant, with overwhelming state support for the free market. Ron Paul, with his support of libertarian social ideals and the free market, falls in the lower right quadrant. And the Political Compass Web site has a quiz you can take to determine where you yourself fall along the two axes; I scored -9.6 on the economic scale, and -7.6 on the social scale, placing me in the same quadrant as Gandhi.

As much as I like the Political Compass system, I don’t think four quadrants accurately capture the way I perceive political leaders. Therefore, I like to map the Alignment System from role-playing games onto the Political Compass.

The Alignment System describes a creature or character in a role-playing game along two axes: good vs. evil, and chaotic vs. lawful. The chaotic/lawful axis maps neatly onto the libertarian/authoritarian axis of the political compass. The good/evil axis does not map so neatly. But from my perspective, the current political environment privileges either the free market or individual persons; we are given a choice between making a profit, or protecting individual persons. In the Alignment System, “Good characters and creatures protect innocent life” (link), so I choose to map the good/evil axis of the Alignment System onto the left/right axis of the Political Compass, with good corresponding to leftist.

The beauty of the Alignment System is that it offers a nuance that does not appear in the Political Compass: there is a middle ground, named Neutral, in both axes. This gives nine possible orientations, as seen on the chart below: Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral, Lawful Evil, Neutral Good, Neutral, Neutral Evil, Chaotic Good, Chaotic Neutral, and Chaotic Evil. Considered in terms of positive attributes, along the Lawful/Chaotic axis, Lawful equates with honorable; Neutral equates with practical; and Chaotic equates with independent. Along the Good/Evil axis, Good equates with humane; Neutral equates with realistic; and Evil equates with determined (link). All this helps me better understand why I feel left out of the current U.S. presidential race: there are no Chaotic Good (independent and humane) characters running for president.

Considered in terms of the Alignment System, Bernie is probably the best overall choice because he is a Neutral character, both practical and realistic: “…neutral characters … see good, evil, law, and chaos as prejudices and dangerous extremes” (link). Fair enough; but because I am a Chaotic Good character myself, I am turned off by Sanders’ claim that he is Chaotic Good when he is so obviously Neutral. If he would just admit that he is Neutral — a moderate Keynesian who is neither authoritarian nor libertarian — I could see my way to supporting him. Of course Lawful Evil characters dominate U.S. political discourse, and so Sanders will never be allowed to claim his true identity as Neutral; he will always be cast as Chaotic Good because that’s how the Lawful Evil characters perceive him.

Now both Hillary and Donnie are both in the authoritarian right quadrant of the Political Compass; i.e., they are both Lawful Evil, or in terms of positive attributes, they are honorable and determined: “Lawful evil creatures consider their alignment to be the best because it combines honor with a dedicated self-interest” (link). The only real difference between the two is that Donnie is significantly more authoritarian. However, since I am Chaotic Good, I am never going to feel comfortable with either one of them.

If you look back at previous U.S. presidential elections, as charted on the Political Compass Web site (2012, 2008, 2004), you will see that Barack Obama started out as Neutral, but after one term in office became Lawful Evil; and George W. Bush was of course Lawful Evil. The Political Compass Web site did not exist during the Bill Clinton years, but given that Hillary Clinton holds positions similar to his, it seems likely to me that Bill was also Lawful Evil. There is little doubt in my mind that Ronald Reagan was Lawful Evil, and so was George H. W. Bush. Thus we have had Lawful Evil presidents in the U.S. since at least 1980.

You know, that could explain a great deal….

A comment from 1933

“…In large measure the race question involves the saving of black America’s body and white America’s soul.”

— James Weldon Johnson in his autobiography Along This Way, 1933. Although Johnson was discussing his work at the NAACP fighting lynching, in large part this observation still holds true today (and, by the way, provides a self-interested reason for some of us white people to be involved in anti-racism work).

Welders and philosophers

Marco Rubio is an ass. I say this both as a philosophy major, and as someone who has worked with his hands for a living.

In Tuesday’s Republican debate, Rubio stated, “Welders make more money than philosophers. We need more welders and less philosophers.” Let’s take that first pronouncement first. Forbes.com researched the statement, and when the compared teachers of philosophy with welders, they found that philosophers earn more than welders. So Rubio is wrong.

But let’s assume that Rubio is talking about anyone with a philosophy degree. My graduating class in college had about 50 philosophy majors. The majority of them went to to law school; an undergraduate degree in philosophy was then a well-respected pre-law degree because philosophy gave you experience in debate, critical thinking, reading lengthy and mind-numbingly boring texts, and putting up with incredible amounts of bullshit — all valuable skills for lawyers. Note that Rubio is in fact a lawyer, and probably is professionally close to more than one well-to-do philosophy major; he must know the value of philosophy training to lawyers. So it’s hard to know why he puts down philosophy majors, unless perhaps he is jealous of the superior legal skills of those with degrees in philosophy.

Now let’s look at this from the point of view of people who have actually worked with their hands for a living. Which, by the way, Rubio himself has never done. Welding is a great job, and recent jobs posted on the Jobs in Welding Web site include positions ranging from really creative jobs, e.g., welder to work on experimental and production welding — to straightforward production jobs, e.g., working as a boilermaker welder in a railroad maintenance facility. Yes, these are great jobs, but as with any job where you work with your hands, you have to worry about getting hurt, and you have to worry whether your body will physically hold up until retirement. Speaking as someone who spent five years working as a carpenter, I can tell you that these are non-trivial worries, and that because of this many manual labor jobs are far more stressful than white collar jobs. Furthermore, manual labor jobs are constantly in danger of being off-shored, out-sourced, or made obsolete by new technology (e.g., robots now perform many welding tasks; so-called manufactured homes are cheaper than stick-built homes; etc.) — and these dangers just add to the stress.

At this point, we could get into an interesting argument about whether Rubio’s economic priorities are more likely to help or hurt manual laborers, but let’s hold off for a moment. Let’s just say that I’d feel better about Rubio’s pronouncement if he knew what it was like to work with your hands, the constant worry about getting hurt, the seasonal lay-offs. Given that he is a soft-handed law school graduate who has always had cushy, white-collar jobs, his comment about philosophy majors and welders makes him come across as an ass.

I’m using “ass” in a philosophically precise sense, as a shorthand version of the more offensive word “asshole,” a word that has been precisely defined by philosopher Aaron James as someone who “is immunized by his sense of entitlement against the complaints of other people” (Assholes: A Theory, New York : Doubleday, 2013). While James’s book may be problematic in some areas, his definition of “asshole” is a good one. Since Marco Rubio comes across as having a great sense of entitlement, with no awareness of how other people perceive him, he fits James’s definition of an asshole, and it is in this sense that I call Rubio an ass.

So at this point, let’s look at Rubio’s second pronouncement: “We need more welders and less philosophers.” Sad to say, too many of our politicians are persons who, like Rubio, have become immunized to their sense of entitlement. As a philosophy and moral theologian, I would say that what the American political scene needs as much as anything is a healthy dose of humility and moral reflection — something that we philosophers are well-trained to supply. No wonder Rubio wants fewer philosophers: we are the ones who can point out that he’s being an ass, and tell him how to stop.

In summary, although we could use fewer people like Marco Rubio, we actually could use more of both welders and philosophers.

Religion in the public square

In the United States, all too often the phrase “religion in the public square” means someone accosting you and telling you that you should join their religion; so the meaning of the phrase becomes, “our religion is right and yours is wrong.” Or that same phrase can be used pejoratively to imply that all religious practice shouldb e kept out of public view; so the meaning of the phrase becomes, “all religion is wrong.” Either way, someone is imposing their own views on the rest of a democratic society.

But if ours is a truly multicultural democracy, we should allow space in the public square for a variety of worldviews, without letting any one worldview dominance over the others. This becomes a delicate balancing act. Literal or metaphorical shouting matches between religious worldviews don’t promote tolerance; mind you, sometimes you have to get into shouting matches to preserve the openness of the public square, as when we have to fight to limit Christmas displays on public property, but no one imagines that these shouting matches increase tolerance. So given that public religious expression is a delicate balancing act, what does it look like when you have an appropriate expression of a religious worldview in the public square?

Today I saw such an expression of a religious worldview in the public square, and it looked like a rented flatbed trailer with a sukkah built on top of it. The trailer was parked in front of the Jewish Learning Institute of San Francisco (JLISF), on Lombard Ave. right off busy Columbus Ave in the North Beach neighborhood. Carol and I walked by just as some people from JLISF were cleaning up from lunch. They were polite and friendly, and ready to explain that they were celebrating Sukkot, and what a sukkah was, and so on.

This is a good display of religion in the public square: present, but not intrusive; with friendly people who are ready to explain, but not berate.

(Posted the next day, and backdated.)

Test your religious knowledge

Think you know a lot about religion? Well, the Pew Research Center has developed a “U.S. Religious Knowledge Quiz” where you can find out. The fifteen questions on the quiz test your knowledge of the Bible and of world religions. The online quiz is here.

After you take the online quiz (and find out how much you really do know), you’ll want to go on to read about the survey from which this quiz was extracted, the “U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey.” Pew Research Center did a telephone survey in which they asked 32 religious knowledge questions of a random sample of U.S. residents. The average number of correct responses was 16 out of 32. Jews, atheists/agnostics, and Mormons scored best on this longer quiz. Scoring below average were white mainline Protestants, black Protestants, Hispanic Catholics, and “nothing in particular.”

There were so few Unitarian Universalists included in the sample that they are not included in the statistical analysis. How well would we perform? Sometime I’d like to administer either the shorter quiz, or the longer set of survey questions, to young people who have gone through a UU religious education program. How well have we done at teaching our children basic religious literacy? Since religious literacy is not the goal of most UU religious education programs, my guess is that our kids would only do well if their day school taught them this information. And how about us professional religious educators, how would we do on this quiz? I scored 100% on the quiz, but I’ve been working in UU congregations for two decades, during which time I earned my M.Div. degree — back in 1994, when I started working as a religious educator, my guess is that I would have scored between 50-75%. Finally, how about our ministers?

Do we care? — that is, should religious literacy be a goal of Unitarian Universalist religious education (and should it be a goal for our ministers and religious educators)? I’d argue that in order to be good U.S. and world citizens, we do need a basic level of religious literacy, and that Unitarian Universalists have always aimed to produce good citizens; yet there are very good reasons to disagree with making religious literacy an educational goal.

What do you think?