From the Archives: Political Crabgrass

It's going to be really bad for the next 3 months. For your own piece of mind, think about how much your vote on a national election really counts (hint: not much) and focus on other things and, while you're at it, don't let politics creep into everything.

This piece was first published on LinkedIn.

Most people know that crabgrass is a metaphor for unwanted things that creep into our lives and are hard to get rid of. Lately, I’ve begun to wonder if there is any crabgrass worse than politics. For a while I thought this was because I live outside of Washington, DC. But I’m becoming convinced it is creeping into almost every facet of our lives. 

It’s invading education, literature, child raising, economics, law, arts and humanities, and science and medicine. Let’s start with science. Phillip Ball asserts that “Science is Political, and We Must Deal with It.” He goes on to say that “History should in fact teach us to be wary of claims that science is and must be ‘apolitical.’” He cites the devotion of German scientists to their work in Nazi Germany to avoid making “hard moral choices” or the racist aspects of Darwinian theory and eugenics. It’s not arguable that science can lead to immoral choices. But choices about what to study are individualized and choices about what to do with science is policy. 

Read the full piece on my Substack here.