Polemical Judo
David Brin
November 20th 2019
This is the same David Brin who is widely known as a futurist and award-winning science fiction author. He’s always been an outspoken voice for accountability from authority, strong reliance by society on the knowledge to be gained from science, openness of knowledge and data, and deprecation of social policy based on conspiracy theories and superstitions. He also tries to point out that even in these most polarized of times, people across the political spectrum have much more in common than the shouting suggests.
The last was backed by a list of “core conservative values” in Chapter Six, “Credibility? How Often the Right Has Just Been Wrong”. Brin begins with a list of 19 political stances that he considers core conservative values that have merit. Paraphrasing, these include reducing bureaucratic burdens, control the debt, avoiding dogma or partisanism, responsible gun ownership, voluntary service, investment in R&D, investment in education, infrastructure, R&D and the environment. I had to chuckle reading the list, including Brin’s challenge to liberals to dispute the value of the items on the list. Of the 19 items, I’ve espoused 18 of them—and been called a liberal for it. It does buttress one of Brin’s strongest points: that we have more in common than the right-left gap suggests.
I may be a wild-eyed 2019 social democrat, but that description is based upon the same opinions and values that would have made me a 1950s moderate. Brin (a registered Republican too lazy to switch his registration) and I are both within shouting distance of the policies Eisenhower stood for.
Polemical Judo is a somewhat cobbled-together collection of Brin’s thoughts drawn mostly from discussions on his blog, Contrary Brin. I’m a participant on that blog, where I enjoy a sometimes- contentious relationship with Brin.
Brin isn’t mimicking the “Can’t we all just get along?” approach of Obama and the DNC—most of the book is aimed at methods of defusing and defeating what he calls “the mad right” which would be most of the GOP and their deplorable allies.
Polemical Judo also includes a road map to a better-informed, more focused, and less fractious society. Prior to reading it, I thought the timing was just awful: the US is at one of those points in history that are literally crucial—major turning points where the very existence of the nation is at severe threat. Think April 1861, or March 1933. The fall of 2019 seems to be the same sort of national and social precipice. A “why can’t we all get along” manual for society seemed strange when nobody is quite sure we will have a recognizable country by this time next year. It seemed a bit like working on a town beautification plan for Pompeii as Vesuvius is erupting.
But here’s the thing: no matter what happens, even a worst-case scenario where the US is a captive state of an authoritarian Russia where criticizing authority courts execution, there will still be a human society, and Brin’s recommendations are not unique to any particular government or economy, but to a functional and just human society, and the large majority of them will remain valid no matter what happens. Maybe if enough people implement correlates of his suggestions now we can avoid that worst-case scenario. Even a casual reader is going to recognize nearly all the suggestions and ideas as things they have encountered before, with little that is startling or extreme. But they are ideals and attitudes that are absolutely necessary to help heal a society and make it functional.
The political crisis is (hopefully) ephemeral. Brin’s nostrums are well-thought-out, supported by history and experience. No matter what happens in the immediate future, his ideas retain their validity.
Available through http://www.davidbrin.com/polemicaljudo.html.