If Your World Is Not Enchanted,
You’re Not Paying Attention
The Convivial Society: Vol. 5, No. 11
L. M. Sacasas
Aug 22

Welcome to the Convivial Society, a newsletter about technology and culture. In this installment, I return to a perennial subject for me: attention and its moral dimensions. Because I do come back to this topic more than most, I sometimes feel as if I ought to give it a rest. But I continue to think that it is a vital matter, and a key to so much else. So, once again, some thoughts about attention, enchantment, and, ultimately, love.

Disenchantment is one of the most venerable, and contested, concepts in the vast literature devoted to understanding the state of affairs we call modernity.

The term was popularized by the eminent German sociologist Max Weber in the early 20th century. It is an English translation of a German word, Entzauberung, that means something like “de-magic-ifcation.” To say that the modern world is disenchanted is to say that it is no longer experienced as a realm of magic, mystery, animate spirits, or other non-human forces and agents. According to some accounts, it also means that we inhabit a world bereft of any intrinsic meaning or purpose and which thus generates relations of alienation and exploitation.

I am, of course, glossing a long and multi-faceted tradition of scholarship, which has more recently included arguments to the effect that we have never been disenchanted or that the world remains enchanted (although more like enchanting) if only we’re willing to embrace certain modes of being. The former position is staked out by Jason Josephson-Storm in The Myth of Disenchantment, and the latter claim is argued by Jane Bennett in The Enchantment of Modern Life. And while I do have my own lightly-informed positions on these debates, I certainly don’t intend to adjudicate them here.

Instead, I simply want to posit one idea for your consideration: Enchantment is just the measure of the quality of our attention.¹

In other words, what if we experience the world as disenchanted because, in part, enchantment is an effect of a certain kind of attention we bring to bear on the world and we are now generally habituated against this requisite quality of attention?²

In suggesting this correlation between attention and enchantment, I am partially endorsing Bennett’s argument that “the contemporary world retains the power to enchant humans and that humans can cultivate themselves so as to experience more of that effect.” Bennett, a political philosopher interested in the ethical dimensions of enchantment, which she treats more like a state of wonder, believes that enchantment is something “that we encounter, that hits us, but it is also a comportment that can be fostered through deliberate strategies.”

One of these strategies is “to hone sensory receptivity to the marvelous specificity of things.” I would argue that this is another way of talking about learning to pay a certain kind of attention to the world. In so doing we may find, as Andrew Wyeth once commented about a work of Albrecht Dürer’s, that “the mundane, observed, became the romantic”— or, the enchanted.

As the art historian Jennifer Roberts argued several years ago, “Just because something is available instantly to vision does not mean that it is available instantly to consciousness.” Or, as she also puts it, just because you have looked at something doesn’t mean that you have seen it. Seeing, in this sense, is a form of knowledge arising from a way of being that brings a greater measure of the fullness of reality to consciousness. According to Roberts, achieving this kind of knowledge and quality of experience requires “time and strategic patience,” which is a form of “immersive attention.”

To speak of attention in this manner, as a patient waiting on the world to disclose itself, recalls how Simone Weil insisted that attention is a form of active passivity. “We do not obtain the most precious gifts by going in search of them,” she insisted, “but by waiting for them.”³

This form of attention and the knowledge it yields not only elicits more of the world, it elicits more of us. In waiting on the world in this way, applying time and strategic patience in the spirit of invitation, we draw out and are drawn out in turn. As the Latin root of attention suggests, as we extend ourselves into the world by attending to it, we may also find that we ourselves are also extended, that is to say that our consciousness is stretched and deepened. And this form of knowledge is ultimately relational. It yields a more richly personal rather than clinical or transactional relation with the object known, particularly insofar as affection may be one of its consequences.⁴

After all, attention can also be understood simply as the name for the contact the mind makes with the world, and, if it is sufficiently attenuated, our capacity and inclination to care, desire, love, and act also suffer. This, too, is one of the concerns animating Bennett’s explorations of enchantment. “You have to love life before you can care about anything,” she writes. “One must be enamored with existence and occasionally even enchanted in the face of it,” she adds, “in order to be capable of donating some of one’s scarce mortal resources to the service of others.”

In her view, the story we’ve been told about disenchantment already conditions us against the attention that we must necessarily bring to the world in order to perceive its enchanted quality. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think more than the story of disenchantment is at work here, but she is right to observe that we are trapped in a vicious circle. Habituated against attending to the world with patience and care, we are more likely to experience the world as a mute accumulation of inert things to be merely used or consumed as our needs dictate. And this experience in turn reinforces the disinclination to attend to the world with appropriate patience and care. Looking and failing to see, we mistakenly conclude there was nothing to see.

What is there to do, then, except to look again, and with care, almost as a matter of faith, although a faith encouraged by each fleeting encounter with beauty we have been graced to experience. To stare awkwardly at things in the world until they cease to be mere things. To risk the appearance of foolishness by being prepared to believe that world might yet be enchanted. Or, better yet, to play with the notion that we might cast our attention into the world in the spirit of casting a spell. We may very well conjure up surprising depths of experience, awaken long dormant desires, and rekindle our wonder in the process. What that will avail, only time would tell.

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By Wade Lee Hudson

So much for The Politics of Joy. As CNN’s Audie Cornish stated immediately after Kamala Harris’ acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, “Some were saying she was a joyful warrior. Tonight she was a warrior.” Harris did not ride the convention’s wave of positive energy. It was as if she had not watched her own convention. 

On August 7, in a CNN analysis, Stephen Collinson reported, “Happy warriors Harris and Walz propose(d) an antidote to Trump’s American carnage” He reported, “Kamala Harris and Tim Walz want to make America joyful again. The vice president’s rocking rollout of her running mate on Tuesday sent jolts of energy through a huge crowd, as the pair personified the extraordinary transformation of the 2024 election campaign.”

Yesterday, after Tim Walz’s inspiring speech, I commented, “As individuals and as a society, we can tap into love and control hate. The Kamala Harris campaign against Donald Trump will test this belief.” Following the Obamas’ Tuesday night values-laden speeches, I expressed appreciation for their 

rare affirmations of two principles at the heart of the Compassionate Humanity Community project…. Michele used a great phrase that was new to me despite how obvious it is. It hits the nail on the head: ‘ensuring that everyone has enough.’… (And) Barack once again addressed the need for self-improvement to overcome personal weaknesses that society inflames…. We need to remember that we’ve all got our blind spots and contradictions and prejudices…. We need to listen to their concerns and maybe learn something in the process. 

On Thursday night, however, Harris relied on righteous anger to present a traditional Democratic laundry list of policy goals “on behalf of the middle class.” Harris reverted to the emphasis on an “opportunity economy” that enables “more” people to “get ahead” of others and enter the middle class, as I had feared prior to the emergence of the campaign’s joyful concentration on positive values. Starting gate equality prevailed.

Her strident speech emphasized a prosecutorial pursuit of justice. It was more the politics of anger than a politics of joy and compassion. It was a politics of power.

On the issue of Palestine, however, she backed away from the forceful use of American leverage to protect the Palestinians. She said their suffering was “devastating” and “heartbreaking,” but she did not say the Israeli attacks were unjustified. She supported Palestinian “self-determination,” but she did not affirm a two-state solution or call for the settlers to stop their West Bank expansion. She gave no indication she would consider placing conditions on American military aid to Israel.

On the domestic front, she gave little or no backing for cultural and personal change. She concluded, “Let’s vote for it.” 

Fortunately, Donald Trump will likely continue to operate “on tilt,” mentally and emotionally confused and irrational. Harris will likely win in a landside as Trump implodes, but she may fail to cultivate deep transformation.

By Wade Lee Hudson

When I recently added “spread joy” to the CHC mission statement, I worried the phrase would be too “New Age.” I had studied The Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama and have often used the phrase “contagious happiness” that I picked up from the Buddhist monk Ajahn Amaro. I didn’t know the Harris campaign would unleash a tsunami of joy. 

Since Lucinda Williams’ concert Sunday at the Stern Grove Festival, her song, ”Joy,” has haunted me. She sings

You got no right to take my joy, I want it back
I’m gonna go to West Memphis and look for my joy

This song inspires me and reinforces my commitment to enjoying my work, which is inherently rewarding and rooted in compassion. When I’m not enjoying what I’m doing, I do something else.

Humans are torn between love and hate. Resolving this fundamental contradiction is ongoing and never final.

Because the “reptilian brain” is the oldest part of the brain, some people believe hate is stronger than love. This part of the brain regulates breathing, the heart rate, and the “fight or flight response” at super-fast speeds and is often unconscious. Bad actors and difficult conditions can quickly trigger fear, which can lead to anger and hate. 

Humans, however, are also instinctively compassionate and cooperative. If early humans had not learned to cooperate, they would never have survived. These instincts are now deeply embedded. Compassion is also deeply rooted in the brain.

One National Library of Medicine study, “Compassion protects against vital exhaustion and negative emotionality,” found that compassion is stronger than negativity. 

The predictive paths from compassion to vital exhaustion and negative emotionality were stronger than vice versa…  Overall, high compassion appears to protect against dimensions of stress from early adulthood to middle age, whereas this study found no evidence that dimensions of stress could reduce disposition to feel compassion for others’ distress over a long-term follow-up.

Humans learn to love in the tactile warmth of the womb and while being cared for as infants. 

However, whether love or hate is a deeper and stronger instinct is ultimately an irrelevant academic debate. As individuals and as a society, we can tap into love and control hate. The Kamala Harris campaign against Donald Trump will test this belief.

Have no doubt about it, however. As Thomas B. Edsall wrote on August 21, “Trump Isn’t Finished.” This essay is so good and so important that I pasted it into a Google Doc so anyone can read it without a New York Times subscription.

Edsall reports: 

The corporate qualms that surfaced in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection have been subordinated to the prospect of billions in tax breaks for business and the rich if Trump returns to office.

According to OpenSecrets, of the $472.8 million Trump and allied PACs have raised through the middle of this year, a quarter, $115.4 million, has come from the securities and investment industry, the financial core of the Republican establishment. In 2016, this industry effectively shunned Trump, giving him a paltry $20.8 million.

Moreover, several other factors also pose dangers. This time Trump will have a clear agenda, a carefully prepared list of prospective loyalists to appoint to key posts, and a better understanding of the workings of the federal government. Trump has driven Republican opponents out of elective office. And he has a friendly 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court. 

Sean Wilentz argues, “Many of even the most influential news sources hold to the fiction Trump and his party are waging a presidential campaign instead of a continuing coup, a staggering failure to recognize Trump’s stated agenda.”

And Timothy Snyder warns:

Trump is in the classic dictatorial position: He needs to die in bed holding all executive power to stay out of prison. This means that he will do whatever he can to gain power, and once in power will do all that he can to never let it go. This is a basic incentive structure, which underlies everything else. It is entirely inconsistent with democracy.

To counter this threat, America needs a powerful, unified grassroots movement, a movement of movements. Even if Harris wins, Trump will not go away unless Harris wins in a landside, MAGA candidates lose across the board, and the Republican Party excommunicates Trump and reconstitutes itself. 

Regardless, however, even if that scenario ensues, an effective, independent movement will still be needed to counter the opposition, pressure the Democrats, hold them accountable, and get them to do more than they would otherwise.

As I discussed yesterday, the standard Democratic starting-gate-equality stance emphasizes “opportuntiy” and neglects the needs of those who fall behind or never get out of the gate. The typical abstract commitment to “never leave anyone behind” is empty. “Building the middle class” ignores poor people.

Michele Obama, on the other hand, articulated a goal that could help unify a broader-based movement: “ensuring that everyone has enough.” This position has more substance.

So does Barack’s affirming “the freedom to provide for your family if you’re willing to work hard.” Moreover, these formulations avoid the negative implications of the “get ahead” rhetoric.

Moreover, a new, unified grassroots movement will need to provide mutual support for self-improvement to deal with divisive personal habits. Barack confronted this issue when he said, “We need to remember that we’ve all got our blind spots and contradictions and prejudices. And that if we want to win over those who aren’t yet ready to support our candidates, we need to listen to their concerns and maybe learn something in the process.”

Unfortunately, however, since their speeches, I’ve heard no one echo or amplify these positions.

Another major problem is the narrow emphasis on elections. Yes, elections are important. However, year-round precinct organizing could help transform the Democratic Party into a force that serves local needs, engages in ongoing political action to advance the Party’s platform, and wins elections. 

By Wade Lee Hudson

The DNC speeches last night by Barack and Michele Obama were remarkable. Among their strong points were rare affirmations of two principles at the heart of the Compassionate Humanity Community project. I don’t often hear political leaders address these points.

Concerning the first, Michele used a great phrase that was new to me despite how obvious it is. It hits the nail on the head: “ensuring that everyone has enough.” That sums up Elizabeth Anderson’s argument for democratic equality quite nicely. Barack articulated a similar principle when he affirmed “the freedom to provide for your family if you’re willing to work hard.” 

If society guaranteed this economic security, this foundation would help people relax and devote more time to meaningful, unpaid activities.

On the second point, Barack once again addressed the need for self-improvement to overcome personal weaknesses that society inflames. In his 2020 speech at the John Lewis memorial service, Obama said

In all of us there is a willingness to love all people, and to extend to them their God-given rights to dignity and respect. So many of us lose that sense. It’s taught out of us. We start feeling as if, in fact, that we can’t afford to extend kindness or decency to other people. That we’re better off if we are above other people and looking down on them, and so often that’s encouraged in our culture. (emphases added)

Last night, Obama confronted the issue from a different perspective. He said

That approach may work for the politicians who just want attention and thrive on division, but it won’t work for us. To make progress on the things we care about, the things that really affect people’s lives, we need to remember that we’ve all got our blind spots and contradictions and prejudices. And that if we want to win over those who aren’t yet ready to support our candidates, we need to listen to their concerns and maybe learn something in the process… Our fellow citizens deserve the same grace we hope they’ll extend to us. (emphases added)

This formulation is couched within the instrumental framework of persuasion. However, this learning is also inherently valuable. Moreover, it can take place within other settings, such as a small group of trusted allies who support each other in overcoming these tensions, as proposed by the Compassionate Humanity Community website.

By Wade Lee Hudson

With one notable exception, the speakers on the first day of the Democratic National Convention didn’t talk about poor people, much less homeless people. They merely advocated action “for the people” and affirmed “working people,” “everyday people,” and, most of all, the “middle class.”

They promoted the myth of the American Dream with platitudes such as “You can go as far as your hard work and talent will take you,” and “He told me I can be and do anything.” 

In so doing, they followed the starting gate equality script. The key goals proposed were to ensure that “Everyone has a fair shot“ and “Give every child a chance.” 

This empty promise neither defines what a fair shot is nor prescribes a plan for responding to those who miss their shot or fall behind once they leave the starting gate.

Unspoken was that increasingly the Democratic response to deepening poverty is to clear homeless camps and impose mandatory outpatient psychiatric treatment (chemical straight jackets) without establishing adequate supportive housing first.

The only speaker to talk about poor people explicitly was Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock, whose rousing conclusion included:

The pandemic taught us how. A contagious airborne disease means that I have a personal stake in the health of my neighbor. If she’s sick, I may get sick too. Her health care is good for my health. We are as close in our humanity as a cough. I need my neighbor’s children to be ok so that my children will be ok. I need all of my neighbors’ children to be ok, poor inner-city children of Atlanta and poor children of Appalachia. I need the poor children of Israel and the poor children of Gaza to be ok. I need American children on both sides of the track to be ok because we are all God’s children. So let’s work together, pray together, organize together and heal the land. Keep the faith.

With these words, he brought the crowd to its feet with what was probably the loudest sudden outburst of the night. Nevertheless, none of the pro-Democratic talking heads I heard afterward discussed his remarks, and The New York Times did not include it as a key takeaway.

Maybe they’re right. Maybe “out of sight, out of mind” is a winning strategy for the November election. Maybe we need to rebuild poor houses and asylums. 

I disagree. I believe the American people are better than that, and trust Warnock’s message would appeal to them.

+++++

Tonight I’ll be listening for affirmations of Palestinian rights and a commitment to considering conditions on military aid to Israel.

By Wade Lee Hudson
August 18, 2024

Kamala Harris wants to “expand opportunity so that every American can not just get by, but get ahead.” However, “get ahead” means to “get ahead of somebody, ​to make progress further than others have done.” On Meet the Press, Governor Gretchen Whitman said she and the Democrats want to “pull more people into the middle class.” 

This traditional Democratic Party policy adopts what Elizabeth Anderson calls “starting gate equality.” The alleged goal is to ensure equal opportunity at the outset of life, but this rhetoric is a lie. People with more privilege give their children advantages, and those who claim to affirm equal opportunity know it.

Moreover, the number of seats at the middle-class table is limited. The number increases slightly if the economy grows, but given national economic policies, the economy will never offer everyone a living wage job. Maintaining substantial unemployment and poverty makes it easier to control inflation, though other methods could achieve the same goal.

Despite the misleading rhetoric about being very close to “full employment,” millions of Americans aren’t able to make ends meet working one full-time job. As of January 2024, 38 million Americans, or 11.5% of the population, were living in poverty as officially defined. Worse yet, that definition is inaccurate. 

A more realistic measure of what’s required to obtain a decent standard of living would find many more Americans are poor. Additionally, millions are in danger of falling into poverty and are anxious about it. Almost two-thirds of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and would be unable to pay their bills if they lost their job. 

Given these conditions, the Democrats might best shift to guaranteeing everyone economic security and the ability to advance. 

Enabling people to improve their financial condition is not the problem. You can do that without celebrating that you’re better off than others. You can improve your situation so you can better serve your family, community, nation, and all humanity. 

Your relative position is irrelevant. It’s both/and; not either/or. The more others benefit, the more you benefit. Compassionate action promotes the general welfare, but the Democrats’ emphasis on the middle class getting ahead neglects low-income and homeless people. 

This self-centered hyper-individualism reinforces the Top-Down System’s programming, which can arguably be called brainwashing. This systematic conditioning, which is embedded in the unconscious, teaches everyone to climb social ladders and look down on and often oppress and exploit those below, or submit to those above. For most people, a major motivation is the desire to be superior in some way, so even at home, they’re bossy, preachy, or controlling.

A Bottom-Up System would empower everyone, cultivate cooperation and teamwork, and ensure a good life for all. Transforming the Top-Down System into a Bottom-Up system will not be easy, but we can do it, step by step. Numerous examples already demonstrate ways forward.

I’ll be watching the Democratic National Convention this week to see if anyone addresses these issues, especially poor and homeless people, and will report on what I see and hear.

I prefer heartfelt dialogue, open and spontaneous sharing, being present and responsive, mutual support, intimacy, active listening, appreciative inquiry, peer learning, dreaming, co-creating, collaborating, exploring ideas, clarifying insights, joint political action, and deep community, with nonjudgmental respect — whether online, the phone, Zoom, or in person. In short, I prefer holistic mutuality. 

However, I don’t need it; it’s not necessary. I can manage by myself, alone but not lonely. I can commune with Mother Nature, love the universe, feel the life force, appreciate unity and inter-connectedness, meditate, enjoy music, reflect, breathe, exercise, listen to podcasts, read, write, research

 new ideas, and share my discoveries on the Compassionate Humanity Community website. In short, I can engage in holistic solitude.

On occasion, I’m willing to tell and listen to stories, complain, discuss sports, entertainment, or the weather, enjoy each other’s company, and maybe even gossip. In short, I sometimes engage in small talk, but I prefer holistic mutuality.

I asked ChatGPT, “Did Camus imagine Sisyphus smiling?”

It astutely replied:

Yes, Albert Camus did imagine Sisyphus smiling. In his philosophical essay “The Myth of Sisyphus,” Camus reinterprets the ancient Greek myth of Sisyphus, a man condemned to eternally push a boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down each time he reaches the top. Camus uses this myth to explore the concept of the absurd—the conflict between humans’ desire to find inherent meaning in life and the silent, indifferent universe that offers none.

Camus concludes his essay with the famous line: “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” He suggests that Sisyphus, despite his eternal and futile labor, can find a sense of contentment and purpose in the struggle itself. By embracing the absurdity of his situation and continuing his effort without hope of success, Sisyphus transcends his suffering and finds a form of happiness in the act of pushing the boulder. Camus argues that this acceptance of the absurd and the determination to keep pushing can be seen as a form of defiance and freedom.

I then asked ChatGPT, “Do Buddhists recommend avoiding hope?”

It replied:

Buddhism’s approach to hope is nuanced and differs from the way it is typically understood in Western contexts. While Buddhism does not explicitly recommend avoiding hope, it does emphasize the importance of understanding and managing one’s desires and expectations, which can often be intertwined with hope.

In Buddhism:

1. 1. Attachment and Desire: Central to Buddhist teachings is the concept of attachment and desire (craving), which are seen as primary sources of suffering (dukkha). Hope, when tied to strong desire and attachment to outcomes, can lead to disappointment and suffering if those hopes are unfulfilled.
   2. Present Moment Awareness: Buddhism encourages living in the present moment and developing mindfulness (sati). This practice involves recognizing and accepting things as they are without clinging to future outcomes, which can often be fueled by hope.
   3. Equanimity: One of the key virtues in Buddhism is equanimity (upekkha), which involves maintaining a balanced and calm mind regardless of circumstances. This includes not being overly hopeful or overly despondent about the future.
   4. Right View: The Noble Eightfold Path, which outlines the path to enlightenment, includes Right View (samma ditthi), which involves understanding the nature of reality, suffering, and the impermanence of all things. This understanding can lead to a more grounded perspective that tempers unrealistic hopes.

In summary, while Buddhism does not advocate for the outright avoidance of hope, it does encourage a balanced approach where hope is not based on unrealistic expectations or strong attachments. Instead, it promotes a mindset that embraces the present moment and understands the impermanent nature of all things. This can lead to a more peaceful and contented state of being.

By Wade Lee Hudson

The Republicans and the media are busy trying to label Harris and Walz. One option I suggest is “progressive populist.” 

Howsever, on November 14, 2013, in a long Op-Ed News commentary inspired by Harry Boyte’s 2007 John Dewey Lecture at the University of Michigan, “Populism and John Dewey: Convergences and Contradictions,” Rejecting the “left-right spectrum,” I suggested another: “compassionate populism.”

The readers of my Op-Ed News essay, “Building Compassionate Populism,” offered considerable support. The piece opened: 

An unholy alliance of big government and big business has created a crony capitalism administered by privileged elites who serve their own self-interest. 

Some of these elites call themselves “conservative,” but aren’t truly conservative. Others call themselves “liberal,” but aren’t truly liberal. Governing elites have perverted both conservatism and liberalism and replaced them with caricatures.

Though it’s impossible to place all issues on one “left-right” spectrum, these two camps engage in a phony ideological battle that serves to divide and conquer.

Those on “the left” should stop trying to defeat those on “the right,” and vice versa. We should strive, instead, to grow an effective popular movement to undo crony capitalism, empower all people, promote authentic free markets, and establish social and economic justice. Let us all unite to build a “compassionate populism,” in which the 99% work for the betterment of the 100%.

Now, I prefer “progressive populism.” Regardless, Harris and Walz would do well to use a new label (and call their campaign the “Harris Walz dance.”

By Wade Lee Hudson

In his July 22, 2024, review of recent books advocating the abolition of prisons, Adam Gopnik argues that the “frequent brutality and ingrained indifference” seen in prisons calls us to “freely imagine alternatives,” but he differs from the abolitionists.

He strongly supports those such as Michelle Alexander who see American incarceration as “a mechanism that preserves racial hierarchy.” Incarceration in her now famous formulation acts as the new Jim Crow.” Black people in New York State, for instance, are fifteen percent of the overall population and almost fifty percent of the prison population.

However, Gopnik rejects the argument that mass incarceration is a product of capitalism, as Angela Davis argues in Are Prisons Obsolete? He points out:

There are, in any event, a great many free-market countries in the world, and very few are marked by overstuffed prisons. Mass incarceration remains a distinctively American problem. On the other hand, plenty of anti-capitalist societies have turned to mass incarceration.

Concerning the “more abstract argument, derived from Michel Foucault and often cited in the new polemics [that] holds that incarceration itself is a capitalist-Enlightenment legacy,” Gopnik concludes that “conceptual genealogy probably won’t dismantle the modern prison.”

According to Gopnik, Davis’s proposed alternative 

model of rehabilitation for prisoners caught in the drug wars is the Betty Ford Center, once known as a drying-out clinic for the rich and famous. Her point is rationally made—what is available to the rich ought to be available to the poor as well, and the model we accept when a President’s wife needs rehab should also be offered to an unemployed teenager. This would involve huge public costs, but the public costs of prisons are already formidable, and it is more expensive to lock a man up for thirty years than to send him to rehab for six months.

Danielle Sered’s Common Justice program promotes “restorative justice,” which “seeks to replace trials and prisons with family circles and compassionate understanding, bringing together those injured with those who injured them, in search of a rational bargain with respect to goods and emotions alike.”

Gopnik doubts that this approach will ever completely replace prisons. “Restorative justice may favor better-resourced offenders” who can compensate their victims financially. He argues, “The modern rule of law…aims to reserve retribution for the state, diminishing the crevasse between the people who can pay restitution and those who can’t.”

Nevertheless, restorative justice for the crimes of well-heeled white collar criminals who can compensate their victims seems “a far saner alternative” than incarceration. Nevertheless, criticizing the incarceration of these criminals is “unpopular among the same people who are inclined to be sympathetic” to incarcerated low-income people. They want to lock up the wealthy, but Gopnik insists 

we cannot pick among the people we would protect to accord with our own preferences.…. If the logic of decarceration is to be applied, it ought to be applied—and will have more power if applied—impersonally [even to convicted child molesters, as portrayed in the play, “Downstate.”]

More deeply, Gopnik questions “transforming prisoners into patients,” as Davis “in effect” proposes.  

Treating their actions as mere symptoms diminishes their humanity, their claim to moral agency. It also reminds us that, not that long ago, patients were being reimagined as prisoners. When the deinstitutionalization movement began, Ivan Illich was there to tell us of iatrogenesis, insisting that hospitals produced as much illness as they cured, while Thomas Szasz and R. D. Laing argued for the madness of thinking that madness was a special neurological condition, rather than an understandable response to the horrors of existence. Yet decades of deinstitutionalization have seen a rise in chronic homelessness and mass incarceration, neither of which benefits the intended beneficiaries.

Whether with prisons or psychiatric institutions, merely opening locked doors is no solution.

“Anxiety over social disorder is a fact of democratic political life that cannot be wished away, and it tends to erode the kind of political power that remains the one means toward reform,” Gopnik argues. Fundamental social reform requires unified people power, and discord about how to handle anti-social threats undermines unity.

From Gopnik’s perspective, alternatives would involve “a truly equitable society that invested properly in public health—that assured access to preventive care, community wellness programs, and outpatient management of complex conditions.”

These programs would keep many people out of hospitals and prisons, which would help society humanize these institutions. The rate of institutionalization can and ought to be reduced. Nevertheless, ”that does not mean that there are no humans in need of imprisonment. Evil exists.”

Gopnik concludes:

There is no plausible world without sanctions for violations of the social covenant. Public order can be, as the abolitionists warn, a form of class policing; it is also a necessity for civil peace. Finding the honest space between these two truths is the key to opening prison doors. If we are to plant human beings in places where they might blossom again, we need to build better gardens.

A world without incarceration would be wonderful, but this controversy illustrates the danger of abstract ideology and absolute declarations. Pushing a totalistic ideal can bring heat to an issue and help mobilize outsiders to apply pressure. Ultimately, however, insiders must design institutions that confine people who pose a persistent threat. 

Achieving this goal humanely is difficult, but Halden Prison in Norway illustrates one possibility. The bottom line is a compassionate commitment to avoiding revenge, retribution, and cruel punishment and maximizing self-determination.