AuthorWilliam Alba

good-tired

Last month I wrote about the joy of working and the joy of having worked.

Of course we should find delight in our lives… and yet consistent enjoyment is perhaps expecting too much of our labors. Rather than focusing on the processes or the products of what we have accomplished, we could instead take note of the transformations in ourselves.

For example, when it comes to mowing the grass, while I feel satisfaction at producing a neat lawn, I also observe the “good-tired” in my muscles.

I learned about “good-tired” from Harry Chapin. During grad school I often listened to his Gold Medal Collection. On one track, the storyteller tells us about his grandfather:

My grandfather was a painter. He died at age eighty-eight; he illustrated Robert Frost’s first two books of poetry. And he was looking at me and he said, Harry, there’s two kinds of tired: there’s good-tired, and there’s bad-tired.

He said, Ironically enough, bad-tired can be a day that you won. But you won other people’s battles, you lived other people’s days, other peoples agendas, other people’s dreams. And when it was all over, there was very little “you” in there — and when you hit the hay at night, somehow you toss and turn, you don’t settle easy.

He said, Good-tired, ironically enough, can be a day that you lost. But you don’t even have to tell yourself, ’cause you knew you fought your battles, you chased your dreams, you lived your days, and when you hit the hay at night, you settle easy. You sleep the sleep of the just, and you can say: “Take me away.”

He said, Harry, all my life I’ve wanted to be a painter, and I’ve painted. God, I would’ve loved to be more successful, but I painted and I painted, and I am good-tired, and they can take me away.

Now, if there is a process in your and my lives, in the insecurity that we have about a prior life or an afterlife (God, I hope there is a God. If He is, if He does exist, He’s got a rather weird sense of humor, however. But let’s just…) — But if there’s a process that will allow us to live our days, that will allow us that degree of equanimity towards the end, looking at that black implacable wall of death, to allow us that degree of peace, that degree of non-fear: I want in.

I remember learning at summer school when Harry Chapin died. The radio stations at the time would have been playing music from Bruce Springsteen, Styx, ELO, Pink Floyd, Rush, REO Speedwagon — songs orchestrated to fill arenas. This was before indie rock and lo-fi — even ballads on albums like Double Fantasy were produced with sheen. Harry Chapin’s songs are better heard in their masterful live versions, raw in their conversational intimacy.

He played his folk songs at benefits for world hunger assistance, starting around the time of George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh and years before the MTV-friendly “We Are The World” and the stadium rock of Live Aid.

The news of his death came as an aftershock, because he was the same age as John Lennon the previous winter.

People say that life is not a dramatic narrative. Yet when Harry Chapin died, he was, of course, driving himself to perform at a free concert.

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intentionally difficult

I honestly don’t understand the phrase “I am on a fixed income” when spoken by retirees. Isn’t anyone drawing salary from a full-time job also on a “fixed income”? Unless I receive an internal or external promotion, which typically occurs in the academic world only in the summer, my own income is fixed for twelve months at a time. I could take additional hours — over the years I have been paid for tasks such as teaching, consulting, and delivering speeches — but my current year-round roles already occupy my mornings, nights, and weekends well beyond nine-to-five Monday-through-Friday. Pensions and salaries are both subject to fluctuations: neither one is entirely guaranteed, nor guaranteed to keep up with inflation. In summary, because I don’t draw an hourly wage, have a job that consumes most of my time, and don’t live off investments or on commission, I consider myself to be on a “fixed income” too.

People who say “I am on a fixed income” generally use the phrase when their expenses closely match or exceed their income. They receive an income that is less than when they worked. In addition, they depend upon passive investments, which may lose value, or are drawing down their net worth, which may not last through the uncertainties of personal emergencies, market fluctuations, and longevity. The issue is not that they are on a fixed income. It is that they have little margin of error in the face of substantial financial risks.

…

One day I hope to retire. To minimize future worries, the plan is to build a large nest egg, by spending less than I earn in order to save the difference. The standard advice is to keep a budget, but I know from personal experience it is one thing to make plans and another thing to execute them. Success comes from a combination of having a firm vision and then maintaining good habits that will move you in that direction.

Therefore, I make it smooth to save money, by automating certain tasks, such as placing money every month into my 403(b) retirement and the children’s 529 educational accounts. This is pretty common financial advice: pay yourself first, put money into savings accounts before you even see it, and so forth.

In addition, I do something I haven’t seen financial advisers mention: I also make it rough to spend money. I keep close track of the items that I purchase, including when and from where I ordered them, when I received them, how much they cost, what discounts I applied, etc. I do this not only with durable goods like clothing and games, but also with consumables like groceries and vitamins. This process is annoying and takes time — which is to say that it makes me less inclined to spend money and slows me down. It goes hand-in-hand with my inclinations to make lists, to shop for the best deals, to ask myself whether I really need something, to wait for the best prices. In addition, at the end of every month I pay each credit card bill manually. I don’t have the money transferred automatically from checking, because that would be easy. Instead, I directly observe how our overall spending varies with the different cards, which provides a rough idea of how much we spend in various categories. I record these amounts every month in a spreadsheet, allowing me to track spending trends and to clearly see the amount in our reserve account.

I avoid subscriptions. We have never had cable, although we now stream Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu. I keep my cell phone and tablet data plan on a prepaid basis. I do pay certain bills automatically, such as insurance and utilities, because those amounts are the same every month. And I go on partial holiday of tracking expenses whenever I travel, which is one of my fondest pleasures.

Overall, I do make it as frictionless as possible to save money, and difficult to spend money. This system works for me, and maybe some variation of this idea would serve you well too. At any rate, it’s worth considering, in different aspects of life, what to make easy and what to make intentionally difficult.

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to be a citizen of the world

When I attended an adult class on Judaism, the rabbi described the significance of four entities within that religion: God, people, law, and land. Although I did not convert, I think about the interplay among the elements of that tetrad. The national motto of the Philippines expresses a similar sentiment: Maka-Diyos, Maka-tao, Makakalikasan at Makabansa (For God, People, Nature, and Nation).

Politicians in the United States do invoke the will of God and sometimes claim to defend Christianity; our money contains the national motto “In God We Trust”; the Pledge of Allegiance introduced the phrase “under God” during the height of the Cold War; court witnesses and elected officials often swear on a Holy Bible. Despite all of this, unlike nearly half of all countries, the United States has no state religion and never has. The Declaration of Independence, which broke the previous system of governance, refers to “Nature’s God” and to the Creator only to justify how the rights of the people take precedence over the divine right of the King of England. The Constitution, which established the current system, does not mention God, while the First Amendment prohibits Congress both from restricting religious practice and from favoring one religion over others.

US citizenship at birth is defined with regard to people and to land: whether your parents are American, or whether you were born in the country. I have been a citizen of the United States my entire life for the latter reason: by birthright. There is a long tradition across the Americas of citizenship by jus soli. This makes great historical sense because the so-called New World is mostly populated by immigrants (both willing and unwilling) and their descendants.

In addition, I am a citizen of the Philippines by ancestry. Nearly every nation today permits citizenship by jus sanguinis, that is, the nationality of the child’s parents at birth.

I could apply to become a citizen of Spain by naturalization, if I resided there for two years and can demonstrate that I understand and have integrated into Spanish society. The two-year residency period is much shorter than the usual ten years because I am already a citizen of the Philippines. This is a form of reparation for the colonial actions of the Spanish Empire across the globe in the Philippines, Ibero-America, Portugal, Andorra, and Equatorial Guinea. There is a similar scheme for Sephardic Jews who can trace their heritage to Spain.

…

In order to become a Spanish citizen, Spain would require me to renounce US citizenship, because its naturalization process does not permit dual citizenship (except for situations above, like the Philippines). However, the United States does not recognize renunciation of US citizenship unless the declaration is in front of a US official (the US is eager to retain citizens, who must file and pay Federal taxes no matter where they live). Therefore, in this situation, it seems:

  • España would recognize me as a dual citizen of ES and RP;
  • the United States would continue to hold me a citizen of the US and RP;
  • Republika ng Pilipinas would consider me a citizen of the US, ES, and RP.

Under this plan, we could maintain residences (only Philippine citizens can own land in the country) in Europe, North America, and Asia: home bases on three continents from which to explore the world. In particular, Spanish citizenship would grant freedom of movement across the European Union. Its passport is more powerful than nearly any other.

One downside is a potentially complicated tax situation. Also, in order to maintain Spanish citizenship, we could not live abroad for three years or longer, at least without notifying the government. But perhaps the largest question for me is whether I am willing to pledge loyalty to the Spanish monarchy.

…

Wikipedia classifies Spain as a unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy. It’s not clear to me what it means for Spain to be unitary, in contrast to the US, for example, which is federal. Yes, the Spanish national government maintains the central authority of a unitary state, but in practice it devolves many governmental functions among the country’s autonomous communities and cities. This creates a highly decentralized governmental tapestry that reflects the distinctions in language and culture among Spain’s regions.

In any case, I have no qualms about being subject to a unitary parliamentary constitutional government. The question is whether I am willing to be the subject of a monarch.

Although I have considered living for a limited time in an absolute monarchy, mostly because CMU maintains a campus in Qatar, over a longer period I could envision living only in a more constrained monarchy, where the right of rulership derives from and is limited by written law. In addition to Spain, I could well imagine myself living in other constitutional monarchies such as Australia, Canada, Denmark, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, or the United Kingdom.

Still, most monarchs hold hereditary and lifetime appointments, which offends my democratic republican sensibilities. While the actions of contemporary limited monarchs are generally ceremonial and politically neutral, this summer Queen Elizabeth II prorogued the UK Parliament, preventing legislative oversight of PM Boris Johnson’s plans for Brexit. Within my parents’ lifetime, former Emperor Hirohito led Japan when its military committed atrocities in China, the Philippines, Korea, and elsewhere around the Pacific. My reflexive distaste for monarchs even extends to Disney royalty and the mad public obsession around Princess Diana and her progeny.

However, monarchies are not unique in these problems — republics can also foster authoritarian leaders founded on the cult of personality. The US today has Donald Trump, who flagrantly defies modern norms of the presidency and who appears headed towards impeachment; the Philippines had Ferdinand Marcos, who plundered the nation, and now has Rodrigo Duterte, who supports and has himself performed extrajudicial killings and other human rights violations; during World War Two, the other Axis powers besides Japan were led by the totalitarian fascists Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, who rose to power from the Italian and German parliaments.

A more nuanced view of Spanish monarchy is that former King Juan Carlos I, whatever his faults, did manage the transition from the decades-long dictatorship of Francisco Franco towards a more humane and democratic government. His son, King Felipe VI, seems relatively benign. Ultimately, the Spanish people will decide for themselves whether and why they have a monarch. I can have faith in a country that attempts to make reparations for its actions dating back to the Inquisition and the Spanish Empire.

I am going back and forth on the notion of pledging loyalty to a monarch. I have mixed feelings because I admire the overall operation of many contemporary monarchies but have a deep dislike for hereditary leadership. And yet doesn’t this resemble jus sanguinis? In republics, the political power is based in the citizens, where citizenry itself is largely defined by bloodline…

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where are you from

Where are you from? park rangers ask before a guided tour. Where are you from? I also ask prospective and new students to the university. The question is meant to be a gentle opening point of reference.

When people answer where they are from, the reply depends on the current distance from their home, which relates to their assumption of the questioner’s geographical knowledge. We’re from San Francisco or I’m from Chicago, fellow visitors to the Grand Canyon might say, but when I privately ask for specifics because I have lived in those regions, it often turns out they actually live an hour or more away, somewhere in Silicon Valley or Chicagoland.

I’m from New York, a student might answer me. Where in New York? I ask and after a series of successive questions I uncover: Manhattan, the Upper West Side, near Lincoln Center, at 64th and Broadway. Oh, I lived a few blocks away before I moved here, I respond. Having inhabited and visited so many places, I love connecting over shared knowledge of the same spaces.

When we visit Spain next winter, I would first answer that I am from the United States. Someplace like Zion National Park, I might say Pennsylvania or Pittsburgh. If I learn at a conference that someone grew up in Pittsburgh, I’d start by telling them I live in the East End, or North Point Breeze. If I’m speaking to someone at work, I might immediately say that I live near Penn and Dallas, or close to Westinghouse Park. 

I would love to see a study of how self-described “geographic catchment” becomes more tightly defined with proximity to that location. 

…

Like all interrogatives, Where are you from? is not neutral. The receiver of the question can perceive it as an interrogation.

I have certainly been on that side of the question. Where are you from? someone asks, and I’d say that I live here in town. No, where are you from? they persist, and I reply that I grew up in Ohio, along the river, across from West Virginia. No, I mean, where are you from? they ask the exact same question again, as if we are not able to speak the same language, and I share that I was born in the Bronx and my early years were there and in Brooklyn. No, really — where are you from? they repeat, and I know they are curious about my heritage.

I understand the curiosity. At various times in my life I have been taken for Mexican, Central American, South American, Native American, South Asian, East Asian, Southeast Asian. As a young child in the small town where I grew up, I was initially assumed to be Chinese or Japanese, as though those were the only two options, although I was also discriminated by one classmate for being Black. My last name is ambiguous enough so that, before people meet me, they sometimes guess that I am Italian or Spanish.

It’s fine to be curious. However, repeating Where are you from? over and over implies: You’re not from around here, are you? You don’t look like you belong here. The repetition comes across as a microaggression.

People who are curious about someone’s ethnic heritage should first share their own, as a point of reference and shared vulnerability. Or they should just ask straight out, like the Native American delivery man in college who asked for my nation, speculating that I am Sioux.

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having fun

This is a counterpoint to some thoughts I wrote last week about the nature of work. In that piece, to have written, I admitted a focus on the joy of having accomplished something, in contrast to the difficult process of creation.

…

Stuart Levine, my dean, dear friend, and closest colleague years ago at Bard High School Early College, occasionally asked me Are you having fun? The question would come for me from out of the blue, during our drive from Columbus Circle to the Lower East Side, or waiting on line as we picked up donuts and coffee on Houston Street, or as we chatted in one of our adjoining offices, or after we discussed how to announce a policy decision. 

Are you having fun? he would say, and at first the question puzzled me because he asked at moments when I had been thinking about the task at hand, or the task just finished, or the many tasks that needed to be done next. Having fun? I wondered, What does that have to do with work?

His question would cause me to pause whatever else I was thinking about. Yes, I am, I would find myself replying, after some deliberation and sometimes to my surprise. Navigating the perilous straits of academic administration, he explained, you have to find your enjoyment and satisfaction along the way.

I miss Stuart for introducing those metacognitive moments into my days, that opportunity to reflect. His question reminded me that we are not just cogs in a machine. We should ask ourselves frequently why we are doing what we are doing, checking in with ourselves to verify that — while work is sometimes difficult, even frustrating — we enjoy the process of what we are doing, not just the product of what we have done.

Perhaps I could serve to present this question to friends and colleagues here. This requires a certain touch, as with any challenging question — the sensibility to recognize whether, when, and how to ask this and other important questions of our lives.

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personal chemistry

There is a universe I do not even know I do not know — unknown unknowns, in the parlance of Donald Rumsfeld. One of the purposes of education is to be confronted with the frontier of our ignorance, to be turned around and led to the edge of a previously unperceived precipice so that someone can point to the wide canyon before us and say: here is something you don’t know. That is, one role of education is to turn an unknown unknown into a known unknown.

I have many known unknowns, things I know I do not know. I cannot speak the primary languages of most fellow humans on this planet, build a fence, name the succession of English monarchs (or describe the detailed history for nearly any country besides the US), start or even simply maintain a garden that could sustain the family, land or even fly a plane, identify nearly any contemporary popular singer from the past two decades (to the simultaneous embarrassment and delight of my children), and so forth.

The breadth of my ignorance is extensive. Yes, I continue to learn — for example, this evening at home I advanced my knowledge of Spanish (tomar functions similarly to take in English: taking medicine, taking money, taking the train, taking a drink), drilled myself on the locations of European and South American countries, and began to read Randall Munroe’s latest book How To, including the chapter on landing a plane. But life is finite. I will always be helplessly lost about something.

…

As for the things I do know, my known knowns, I tend to take them for granted. Teaching general chemistry this fall has made more aware of how easily and often I regard objects and processes through the lens of chemistry.

On Saturday I finally took the ALCOSAN plant tour to witness how our wastewater is treated. I was fascinated at how chlorine served as a disinfectant until 9/11, which forced reassessing the risk of railroad cars filled with poisonous gas running through high-density population areas. When the tour guide mentioned they now use sodium hypochlorite, with sodium bisulfite to neutralize the excess before discharging the effluent into the Ohio River, I immediately imagined the chemical reaction. This is a reflex. It was only later that I realized probably no one else on the bus had been thinking in those terms.

Over the weekend I also found occasions to learn about the agents used in Class B fire extinguishers, as well as the Haber-Bosch process and other methods for nitrogen fixation. On the first homework set I wrote problems on using a propane heater and on thermite reactions, which both interest me personally.

…

Two weeks ago my mother, who in recent years has developed drastically different political views from mine, argued the root cause is that we were raised in different educational environments. I am willing to concede my education influences the ways I perceive and don’t perceive aspects of the world.

However, I am not persuaded that education is the root cause of our difference. Her upbringing hasn’t changed, and yet she has changed political parties. I believe the problem is that she has narrowed her current sources of information. She has inoculated herself against listening to younger people who express different views as well as to anyone who delivers news that challenge her point of view. I don’t know how to break through this dogma, or whether that is even wise, given that it seems now to have taken hold as a deep part of her identity.

Life is finite. I love my mother. I will always be helplessly lost about something. Chemistry is easier than politics.

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sometimes, the old ways

Please charge the emergency jump charger, Marissa said as she headed out with the children for Boy Scout camp, and don’t put it in the trunk of the car. What? I said. We needed it when were up in Erie, but it was in the trunk, which wouldn’t open because the battery was dead. Oh, I’m going to write about this, I replied.

…

Last month I looked for a stove. For car camping and home emergencies, it didn’t have to be incredibly portable or ultralight. However, the stove has to be reliable, even when used infrequently, and easy to maintain. For international camping and emergencies, it would also be best if it could burn multiple fuels — not just the canister fuels (so-called because propane, isobutane, n-butane, etc. must be contained under pressure), but also the more energy-dense, widely available liquids that burn at low temperatures (such as unleaded gasoline, white gas, and kerosene).

Multifuel stoves do exist, but it seems camping stoves these days are designed to minimize mass and volume. I would prefer to have something built like a tank. A good piece of kit that is going to last and, if it doesn’t work, it’s relatively obvious why it’s broken and how to fix it. I started to reminisce about the Optimus stove, a bulky metal box that I carried (and that carried me) through three weeks in the Wind River Range on my NOLS trip during the summer of 1986. This was either an Optimus 8 or 111 — the same model I relied upon during canoe trips on the Saco and hikes through the Whites when I led Search & Rescue trips at Andover in the early 1990s. Optimus seems to have discontinued this design years ago, with the Hiker+ the end of the line.

I don’t understand why old reliables like the Optimus 8 or Svea 123 aren’t made anymore, at least by their original manufacturers. Of course, on the Internet there is a community entirely devoted to these and other Classic Camp Stoves that continue to function perfectly fine after many decades of use and disuse.

…

Earlier in the summer, I was looking at backpacks at the REI Garage Sale, where I snagged a heavily discounted Osprey Ozone Duplex — perfect for international carry-on travel, as long as I can fit the smaller integrated knapsack underseat. While shopping, I realized that every single pack on display was an internal frame. I don’t understand. When did internal frames take over the world? I own an external frame that I bought from an actual garage sale when we lived in Santa Fe. When my daughter was planning to go on a camping trip, she scoffed at its alien exoskeleton. But my wife and I reassured her that even though it weighs more and is less common, an external frame is great for carrying loads, built strong, and easily accommodates straps to attach other objects. I recalled my wilderness medical training on how it can be modified to carry someone over long distances.

…

I’m not a Luddite: I am on a laptop, own both a tablet and an e-reader, and have continually maintained an email address since 1986. But I do not own a smartphone. They require coddling because they won’t hold a charge for longer than a day, their screens crack easily, and their bodies need to be wrapped in cases.

My flip phone, on the other hand, delights me because it looks like a communicator from Star Trek TOS. It snaps closed with a satisfying sound and feel. It contours comfortably from mouth to ear. It suffices for occasional calls; otherwise I use the landline in my office, and Google Voice at home. 

For email, I have WiFi at work and home. WiFi also allows me to track the bus for my daily commute before I leave. If I need driving directions, I examine the route ahead of time and memorize it, or take notes, or print the map. I don’t text because I can easily be reached by other means.

I am not alone in rejecting phones that want for updating every few years. I had lunch with a computer science professor who took out his Palm Treo, which must be over a decade old. He warned me that my flip phone would brick at the end of this calendar year as Verizon shuts down their legacy networks.

…

I am grateful that my chemistry classroom this fall contains a chalkboard. Between chalk and dry-erase markers, there is no contest. Chalk is a more tactile medium, responsive to pressure, allowing shades of subtlety. It is not subject to technological failure or dependent upon a particular canvas — I can pick up a thick piece and take a seminar outside to draw proofs on the sidewalk. I can tell at a glance if it is there, whether it will work, and how much remains. The dust comforts my hands as though I were about to ascend a climb.

…

When I was growing up (“Back in my day,” said the old man), we hand-cranked our car windows. I’m not going to add and we liked it. However, I still believe we should have manual backup to be able to open windows when the electricity fails, including after a car accident, or when the motor is too weak to budge a window in the deep freeze of winter.

When we bought our Forester a few years ago, the salesperson pointed to the electric moon roof as an advantage. I did not see it that way at all. “One more thing to break,” said the old man (and it turns out we hardly ever use it). It is ridiculous that the only manual switch for that car’s hatchback is hidden behind an internal panel, so that Marissa could not access our emergency jump charger without stretching across the back seat inside.

The other day the director of the health professions program, who has an electric BMW that rides like a dream, mentioned how someone had sideswiped the mirror on the driver’s side when the car was parked. The replacement cost over a thousand dollars in parts and labor because there are so many sensors and other paraphernalia stuffed inside. In some of the narrow streets and parking spots around here, mirror damage is not a rare occurrence.

…

Stoves, backpacks, phones, chalk, automobile equipment. I prefer durable objects over ephemeral ones. Sometimes (not always) but sometimes, sometimes the old ways are best.

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to have written

In my first creative writing class in college, one of my fellow students said during introductions: I don’t like to write. I like to have written.

I have reflected on this statement many times over the years, replacing “to write” with other actions. For example: I don’t like to mow the lawn. I like to have mown it.

I wrote this last Sunday while taking a break from mowing the lawn that had grown too long with the neglect of the start of the academic year, from sawing down saplings that have encroached on the house and garage over the summer. I wanted a longer break, to leave the yard to later in the week or even just later in the day. But I cannot deny the press of the work week, and chlorophyll waits for no one. I should have begun earlier in the morning, knowing the extent of the green growth. The sun is overhead, the shade is fading.

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words on the Moon

As a child the spectacular daring of men on the Moon inspired me. One small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind extends a hairline beyond the terminator of my memory. I am old enough to remember the later Apollo missions. I zoomed around the living room during the opening credits of TOS before we called it TOS: to boldly go where no man has gone before. It was a time in my life and for the country when every boy dreamed to be an astronaut. And it was always man, mankind, boys: this was a decade before I began to penetrate beyond a skin-deep awareness of gender, coinciding with the biological imperatives of adolescence, visions from encountering New Wave science fiction, a broader diversity of crew on the Space Shuttle.

As an adult I maintain a general sense of optimism about the future. I’m still transported by videos and images from the Space Age, starting with we choose to go to the Moon. Thinking about space continues to influence my thinking, from teaching my history of ideas course on the circle, to archiving information across the solar system.

Yet here we are, fifty years after Armstrong set foot on the Moon, and what has changed? Here on Earth, the place where I work remains way behind the curve along many measures of diversity. The city where I live is segregated and surrounded for miles by one of the most monochromatic parts of the nation. The politics of the nation itself are fractious.

As for the Moon, we are going there again, or so we’ve been saying for years, and then beyond. But, as with any endeavor, who is actually doing the work? Who receives the credit when things go well, who distributes the blame or spins the narrative when things falter?

In Kennedy’s speech, he declared, “There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet.” But as we humans fling ourselves into space, we carry the politics of difference with us. To a certain extent, this is inevitable, even welcome — individual distinctiveness is good. And I want us to be adventurous as a planet.

However, when we leave the development of rockets to a tiny group of plutocrats, we should wonder whether only the wealthy should control access to space. When art on the Moon or communication with potential extraterrestrial intelligences is dominated by small groups, we should question how broad their perspectives and methods can be.

I am not interrogating whether we should go to space. I think it is inevitable. We are a wondering, wandering species. All of us begin our lives as curious explorers. Instead, I am wondering how we should go about space exploration and development. Sometimes when I consider our ventures in the early 21st century I think: yes, let’s do it, let’s go to space. But no, don’t do it like that. It hurts that way.

We should be more grown up by now, acknowledging the value of multiple efforts, values, and perspectives. Otherwise, it’s just Whitey on the Moon all over again.

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declining virtue

I support inclusive language that recognizes and respects a person’s individual gender identity. People have enough troubles making their ways through this world. The very least anyone can do is to refer to fellow human beings by their preferred names and pronouns. And focusing on pronouns is good-intentioned. To quote from the Wikipedia article on declension, the one situation where gender is still clearly part of the English language is in the pronouns for the third[-]person singular.

However, I don’t understand one particular form of virtue signaling that I have encountered at work.  When some people introduce themselves at meetings, they say:

My name is <so-and-so>. Preferred pronouns: she, her, hers

or in email signatures, they write:

Pronouns: he, him, his

Pronouns: she/her/hers

At first glance, this provides more information than any native English speaker would need. Just state your pronoun as she or he; we can figure out the rest. Any information beyond the nominative case is not merely a waste of time, it presupposes the audience does not know the grammar of the English language as well as the speaker. As a brown person, throughout my life I have experienced assumptions about how well I know my first language, so I find this style of virtue signaling rather insulting.

(Just between you and I, the great irony is that someone who introduces themselves with preferred pronouns often misuses grammar, as in the beginning of this sentence.)

However, a short list of three grammatical forms actually provides less information than a native English speaker would need: consider the four elements necessary to express {they, them, their, theirs}. If someone prefers less commonly known pronouns, such as ze, that person also needs to provide more than three grammatical forms, because there are different ways that ze could decline. In contrast, a person who provides only three pronouns is broadcasting their ignorance of grammar, their assumption about the audience’s ignorance of grammar, and/or the privilege of being associated with a common gender identity.

Listing only three pronouns reveals privileged assumptions about how grammar operates — namely, that everyone else’s pronoun grammar should operate the same way as one’s own. Consider the following table, also from the Wikipedia article on declension:

  Masculine Feminine Neuter
(non-person)		 Neuter
(person)
Subjective he she it they
Objective him her it them
Dependent possessive his her its their
Independent possessive his hers its theirs

 

To make patterns more obvious:

  Masculine Feminine Neuter
(non-person)		 Neuter
(person)
Subjective A A A A
Objective B B A B
Dependent possessive C B B C
Independent possessive C C B D

Someone who states she, her, hers is imposing the ABBC pronoun declension structure and is privileging that feminine structure over others. Someone who states he, him, his is implicitly assuming and imposing the ABCC declension structure.

I could wish English did not distinguish gender, as in my father’s Visayan language, although this did cause him to switch between he and she within the same conversation, which may have been disconcerting to his medical patients. I have heard pronouns in some Chinese languages also lack gender. Perhaps gender distinctions will eventually disappear from English. Languages do tend to simplify, like the dual disappearing after Homeric Greek or, just between you and I, the objective case.

But no one can wish away the history of the English language. The problem with any set of pronouns that decline ABCC, ABBC, AABB, or ABCD is that they incline towards existing gender roles. A truly revolutionary pronoun, in order to break out of traditional gender roles, must decline differently from these patterns.

In the meantime, what should we do about preferred pronouns? Someone may claim the perfect is the enemy of the good, stating that they were doing the best to their understanding when listing only three pronouns. That was then, before this essay. This is now. And now someone who wishes to support inclusive language that respects gender identity has several viable options:

0: State no pronouns, yet support those who do through useful actions. These could include the propagation of systems that encourage others to express their pronouns, active listening to those who confront challenges with expressing their gender identities, and other advocacy.

1: State one pronoun, for the sake of brevity and to display more explicit support of those with less common pronouns. Understand that less common pronouns may have different case declension patterns.

4: State four pronouns, for the sake of comprehensiveness.

I currently exercise option 0. The challenge is that I can be perceived to be ignorant of gender issues or to be declining virtue signaling. On the contrary, I do believe in the power and significance of inclusive language. To that end, we need to be more careful about the declension of pronouns, both in the expression of our own preferred pronouns and in the construction of new vocabularies that recognize the constraints of existing grammar.

Posted on by William Alba 0