I’m trying something new for those of you who prefer to listen instead of read - an audio version of the main body of the newsletter (you’ll still have to check out the actual newsletter for the links). You can listen directly above or choose to open in your favorite podcast app. Let me know what you think!
I was listening to a podcast this week that veered into a bunch of Covid denialism. It was a looong podcast that I had picked because I wanted to hear from the person being interviewed, so by the time it got into the Covid part, I had already listened for awhile and picked up on some good juice. (Side note: I don’t think the podcast is worth your time; just reply to this if you want the good juice without the rest!)
The conversation centered around the dangers of fundamentalism of any variety, which is where I got confused when they veered into Covid territory because Covid deniers, anti-maskers, or anti-vaxxers are most likely to be white fundamentalist Christians. So, I guess when it comes to Covid, the host agrees with the fundamentalists even though he spent most of the rest of the interview pointing out the pitfalls of their belief system?
In the podcast, the host decried people as sheep who blindly went along with the Covid fear-tactics (as he called them), but, as he said this, he didn’t offer any actual facts, he seemed to just reference stories about scientists on YouTube that he had heard about. He said the antidote is to think for ourselves and do our own research (and I agree!), but it seemed to me that he was sitting under others’ authority as much as any of us are; he just chose different authorities to listen to.
This got me thinking more broadly about authority. I, as a rule, don’t really like people telling me what to do. I’m skeptical by nature, so I typically have to do my own research before accepting someone else’s dictates. The greatest danger of any kind of fundamentalism is how it separates us from ourselves - fundamentalism tells us that something out there is wiser than our own experience and our still, small voice inside.
Fundamentalism comes in many different forms - religious, political, partisan, familial, economic. I think many of us Americans are under the spell of some kind of fundamentalism if we really dig deep and are honest with ourselves; our work as we grow up is naming the ways in which we’ve given away our authority and freeing ourselves from those binds.
However, even after all of that, we still have to sit under the authority of others. I can’t be an expert on everything. As much as I love to research, I don’t have time to research the various sides of every topic. We have to, at some point, trust ourselves enough to seek out good authority figures and/or to go with the consensus of trusted experts. We have to find ways of continually assessing those authorities we’ve delegated to, so that we’re still flexible enough to change our minds.
I don’t know what this looks like to be honest, but I think finding ways to test our own hypotheses, our own biases, or own preconceived notions is more important than ever. In a world where so much information is at our fingertips at all times, how we go about determining whose authority to listen to and whose authority to dismiss seems like one of the most worthwhile skills to cultivate.
So I’m curious: how do you decide whose authority to trust and whose to dismiss?
Rants and raves
👍 I’m 30 pages into this, and it has already blown my mind twenty different times. The title/subtitle might throw you off, but he explains where he is going with it in the prologue so maybe just read that part to see what you think.
👍 This conversation was SO GOOD. I’ll be thinking about it for months. I’m rereading Braiding Sweetgrass and finding it even more magical than I remembered.
👍 We have four more days of school over here, and we are all four crawling to the finish line. I’m not sure we’ve ever needed the looser structure of summer more.
👎 People cheering about this decision and not protesting this one make no sense to me.
Stuff worth sharing this week
As I’ve been thinking about authority this week, I’ve been thinking about how one thing I’ve decided as a way of discerning whom to listen to is that I’m going to tend toward sitting under the authority of people indigenous to this land. I’m going to be partial to what they’re saying, teaching, grieving, and protesting. To that end, I came across this older piece from Potawatomi writer, Kaitlin Curtice, that was a perfect pairing with that Robin Wall Kimmerer interview shared above.
I’ve been trying not to put my head in sand about the Israeli/Palestinian crisis, but, because this situation is so complicated, I’ve been trying to listen and learn instead of have a bunch of opinions. I’ve been reading Arab News daily instead of paying much attention to American news on the subject. Pantsuit Politics has an older, primer episode that helps give some background if you’re new to this topic. And one of my favorite Twitter follows, Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, signed this letter calling for Jewish solidarity with the Palestinians.
One thing the Trump Administration taught me was a better understanding of “gaslighting.” I now notice how it’s used in so many situations. This post’s list of scripts is definitely worth bookmarking or copying down for those times you find yourself on the receiving end of gaslighting:
Seasonal view of the week
I finally got some of the garden planted this week. It felt so good to be in the soil again!
Cheers to thinking about authority in the week ahead!
Sara
thoughts on authority