No, teachers are not the same as nurses (Or: Let's talk about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs)

Kristen McConnell writes at The Atlantic this morning that schools should reopen, because, well ... the title says it all: "I’m a Nurse in New York. Teachers Should Do Their Jobs, Just Like I Did."

What I don’t support is preemptively threatening “safety strikes,” as the American Federation of Teachers did in late July. These threats run counter to the fact that, by and large, school districts are already fine-tuning social-distancing measures and mandating mask-wearing. Teachers are not being asked to work without precautions, but some overlook this: the politics of mask-wearing have gotten so ridiculous that many seem to believe masks only protect other people, or are largely symbolic. They’re not. Nurses and doctors know that masks do a lot to keep us safe, and that other basics such as hand-washing and social distancing are effective at preventing the spread of the coronavirus.

Instead of taking the summer to hone arguments against returning to the classroom, administrators and teachers should be thinking about how they can best support children and their families through a turbulent time. Schools are essential to the functioning of our society, and that makes teachers essential workers. They should rise to the occasion even if it makes them nervous, just like health-care workers have.

She adds: "I can understand that teachers are nervous about returning to school. But they should take a cue from their fellow essential workers and do their job. Even people who think there’s a fundamental difference between a nurse and a teacher in a pandemic must realize that there isn’t one between a grocery-store worker and a teacher, in terms of obligation. "

But of course there's a difference. Let's turn back to our high school psychology class, and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, to understand why. Wikipedia explains the fundamental concept pretty well:

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is often portrayed in the shape of a pyramid with the largest, most fundamental needs at the bottom and the need for self-actualization and transcendence at the top. In other words, the theory is that individuals' most basic needs must be met before they become motivated to achieve higher level needs.

Right. 

So. The very act of staying alive today is the most elemental consideration that humans have. Doctors and nurses do the job of keeping sick people alive today. If they don't do their jobs, all other considerations are moot. Similarly, the act of staying alive today and beyond today is pretty elemental: If grocery store workers -- and my wife is one, and it makes me nervous as hell -- don't do their jobs, people will starve. (Protections for those workers should be as stringent as possible, obviously.) Without nurses and food producers continuing their work, many of us die. It's that simple. We shouldn't take those folks for granted. They're keeping us alive.

Teachers are important. But their work takes place on a somewhat higher level of need. If a kid isn't schooled today, that kid will live. But if a kid goes to school today ...well, the kid will probably live. But we're not quite as sure about their parents or teachers. Just this morning, I've read about a school district in Georgia that has had to quarantine 260 employees while it tries to reopen. Closer to my home, Kansas educators who went on a leadership retreat to plan for reopening ended up spreading the virus among themselves -- and one of them is in an ICU.

So maybe, as McConnell says, districts are "fine-tuning social distancing measures," but there's a growing amount of anecdotal evidence they're not succeeding. 

McConnell writes: "What do teachers think will happen if working parents cannot send their children to school? Life as we know it simply will not go on." That's an important consideration. But guess what? Life as we know it simply isn't going on right now, and probably won't for awhile -- if ever. We have to adjust to that, not wish it away -- particularly if it means harming more people as a result. 

Shadi Hamid's 'America is evil' strawman

Hamid, at The Atlantic:

The United States has done terrible things in the Middle East. To even casual observers of the region, this should be clear enough. That, however, doesn’t mean there is a moral equivalence between Iran and the United States. Elevating America as a somehow unique source of evil takes necessary self-criticism and turns it into narcissism. It insists on making us the exceptional ones, glorifying ourselves by glorifying our sins. To suggest that American officials are at the rarefied level of the deliberate, systematic mass murder and sectarian cleansing that Soleimani helped orchestrate isn’t just wrong; it’s silly.

It's also ... not what is happening.

American criticism of the Soleimani assassination generally hasn't suggested that America's bad guys are as bad as Iran's bad guys. (I'm not sure how to do that moral balancing, anyway, but that's not what the criticism has been.) Instead, the criticism has been that Trump's decision didn't make Americans safer, and that it might have been a dangerous and unnecessary escalation of the low-level conflict that could lead to a shooting war the United States seems ill-equipped to win.

 That's a different critique. But it's the one most critics of the president are making. Hamid's piece doesn't really make sense.

Dear Atlantic: Hire David French instead

There've been debates in recent days about The Atlantic's decision to hire National Review's Kevin Williamson. Conservatives think (not without merit, I think) that every time a mainstream publication hires a conservative, liberals try to get that conservative fired.

On the other hand: Williamson is a dick. He's been a little bit racist,  a little bit snooty, and you'll forgive women for thinking his proposal to execute women who've had an abortion is-a non-starter. He's a talented provocateur, too smart and self-aware to let himself go Full-Blown Milo, but he also delights sticking a thumb in the eye of people who disagree with him.

I'm not going to say The Atlantic shouldn't hire Williamson. I will say there's a National Review voice they should've hired instead: David A. French.

There would still be complaints. Critics have long eyed his marriage with suspicion. He's religiously conservative on sexual matters. He's skeptical, even hostile to Black Lives Matter. There's not much about which I think he's right.

On the other hand, French is a writer who takes liberals and liberal arguments seriously. Which makes him a great writer for The Atlantic's audience: He's willing to explain his ideas, and why he thinks liberal ideas are wrong, and he's generally better at doing it without resorting to trollish, strawman arguments. And he's been willing to call out his side for its failures — something that might earn the trust of liberal readers.

I don't agree with French about much. A lot of liberals would no doubt protest his appointment. But he lacks Williamson's baggage, and possesses some virtues Williamson does not. If The Atlantic  is reconsidering Williamson's appointment, it could do much worse than to hire David A. French.

In praise of distracted, Internet-addled writing

In his review of Freewrite's "Smart Typewriter," Ian Bogost offers praise for the pre-Internet era of writing, when one could set one's fingers to the keyboard and simply write, without all the distractions and bells and whistles that a wifi connection bring to the process.

There's more than a hint of protesting too much.

No one would reasonably dispute that writing tools affect the shape and content of both writing and the thought that goes into writing, but it's mistaken to suggest — as Bogost seems to — the the older, slower way was necessarily deeper. Here's an odd passage:

For Nietzsche, the typewriter offered a way to write despite his deteriorating vision (and sanity). He knew that tools changed their users; “Our writing tools are also working on our thoughts,” Nietzsche aphorized. These are facts I happen to know just because they were memorable, not because I remember facts like these regularly anymore. I’ve long since outsourced such easily-rediscovered knowledge to the Internet.

Here's the thing: The human brain is at once both wondrous and limited. In writing this essay 30 or 40 years ago, Bogost might've dropped the exact same knowledge from memory — or, if he (as is often the case with this kind of learning) remembered-ish Nietzsche's comment, he would've gone into the stacks of books (his own, or perhaps a library's) to find the comment, quote it precisely, and cite it. Now, if he's unsure, he can Google it up. Good writing rarely stops and starts with the writer's brain and the writing tools; it's often augmented by reporting and research, knowledge of not just how to marshal facts in service of a story or argument, but how to marshal those facts. Forty years ago, Bogost might've written: "I've outsourced such easily-rediscovered knowledge to the encyclopedia," and it would've sounded silly as a lament. We writers use such tools to enlarge our understanding, and our craft.