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Pluralistic: General Mills and cheaply bought “dietitians” co-opted the anti-diet movement (05 Apr 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Thursday May 2nd, 2024 at 5:40 PM

Comments on: Pluralistic: General Mills and cheaply bought "dietitians" co-opted the anti-diet movement (05 Apr 2024)
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A lab-coated scientist in a chem lab filled with retorts, glassware, etc. The image has been modified. The scientist's head has been replaced with the head of the Trix rabbit, and his labcoat now has a General Mills logo patch stitched onto the shoulder. The contents of his main beaker have been replaced with a floating Cocoa Puffs logo.

General Mills and cheaply bought "dietitians" co-opted the anti-diet movement (permalink)

Steve Bannon isn't wrong: for his brand of nihilistic politics to win, all he has to do is "flood the zone with shit," demoralizing people to the point where they no longer even try to learn the truth.

This is really just a more refined, more potent version of the tactical doubt sown by Big Tobacco about whether smoking caused cancer, a playbook later adopted by the fossil fuel industry to sell climate denial. You know Darrell Huff's 1954 classic How To Lie With Statistics? Huff was a Big Tobacco shill (his next book, which wasn't ever published, was How To Lie With Cancer Statistics). His mission wasn't to help you spot statistical malpractice – an actual thing that is an actual problem that you should actually learn to spot. It was to turn you into a nihilist who didn't believe anything could be known:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/04/how-to-truth/#harford

Corporations don't need you to believe that their products are beneficial or even non-harmful. They just need you to believe nothing. If you don't know what's true, then why not just do whatever feels good, man? #YOLO!

These bannonfloods of shit are a favored tactic of strongmen and dictators. Their grip on power doesn't depend on their citizens trusting them – it's enough that they trust no one:

http://jonathanstray.com/networked-propaganda-and-counter-propaganda

Bannonflooding is especially beloved of the food industry. Food is essential, monopolized, and incredibly complicated, and many of the most profitable strategies for growing, processing and preparing food are very bad for the people who eat that food. Rather than sacrificing profits, the food industry floods the zone with shit, making it impossible to know what's true, in hopes that we will just eat whatever they're serving:

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2003460

Now, the "nothing can be known" gambit only works if it's really hard to get at the truth. So it helps that nutrition and diet are very complex subjects, but it helps even more that the nutrition and diet industry are a cesspool of quacks and junk science. This is a "scientific discipline" whose prestigious annual meetings are sponsored (and catered) by McDonald's:

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/05/my-trip-mcdonalds-sponsored-nutritionist-convention/

It's a "science" whose most prominent pitchmen peddle quack nostrums and sue the critics who point out (correctly) that eating foods high in chlorophyll will not "oxygenate your blood" (hint, chlorophyll only makes oxygen in the presence of light, which is notably lacking in your colon):

https://www.badscience.net/2007/02/ms-gillian-mckeith-banned-from-calling-herself-a-doctor/

When the quack-heavy world of nutrition combines with the socially stigmatized world of weight-loss, you get a zone ripe for shitflooding. The majority of Americans are "overweight" (according to a definition that relies on the unscientific idea of BMI) and nearly half of Americans are "obese." These numbers have been climbing steadily since the 1970s, and every diet turns out to be basically bullshit:

https://headgum.com/factually-with-adam-conover/what-does-ozepmic-actually-do-with-dr-dhruv-khullar

Notwithstanding the new blockbuster post-Ozempic drugs, we're been through an unbroken 50-year run of more and more of us being fatter and fatter, even as fat stigma increased. Fat people are treated as weak-willed and fundamentally unhealthy, while the most prominent health-risks of being fat are roundly neglected: the mental health effects of being shamed, and the physical risks of having doctors ignore your health complaints, no matter how serious they sound, and blame them on your weight:

https://maintenancephase.buzzsprout.com/1411126/11968083-glorifying-obesity-and-other-myths-about-fat-people

Fat people and their allies have banded together to address these real, urgent harms. The "body acceptance" movement isn't merely about feeling good in your own skin: it's also about fighting discrimination, demanding medical care (beyond "lose some weight") and warning people away from getting on the diet treadmill, which can lead to dangerous eating disorders and permanent weight gain:

https://www.beacon.org/You-Just-Need-to-Lose-Weight-P1853.aspx

Fat stigma is real. The mental health risks of fat-shaming are real. Eating disorders are real. Discrimination against fat people is real. The fact that these things are real doesn't mean that the food industry can't flood the zone with shit, though. On the contrary: the urgency of these issues, combined with the poor regulation of dietitians, makes the "what should you eat" zone perfect for flooding with endless quantities of highly profitable shit.

Perhaps you've gotten some of this shit on you. Have you found yourself watching a video from a dietitian influencer like Cara Harbstreet, Colleen Christensen or Lauren Smith, promoting "health at any size" with hashtags like #DerailTheShame and #AntiDiet? These were paid campaigns sponsored by General Mills, Pepsi, and other multinational, multibillion-dollar corporations.

Writing for The Examination, Sasha Chavkin, Anjali Tsui, Caitlin Gilbert and Anahad O'Connor describe the way that some of the world's largest and most profitable corporations have hijacked a movement where fat people and their allies fight stigma and shame and used it to peddle the lie that their heavily processed, high-calorie food is good for you:

https://www.theexamination.org/articles/as-obesity-rises-big-food-and-dietitians-push-anti-diet-advice

It's a surreal tale. They describe a speech by Amy Cohn, General Mills’ senior manager for nutrition, to an audience at a dietitian's conference, where Cohn "denounced the media for 'pointing the finger at processed foods' and making consumers feel ashamed of their choices." This is some next-level nihilism: rather than railing against the harmful stigma against fat people, Cohn wants us to fight the stigma against Cocoa Puffs.

This message isn't confined to industry conferences. Dietitians with large Tiktok followings like Cara Harbstreet then carry the message out to the public. In Harbstreet's video promoting Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cocoa Puffs and Trix, she says, "I will always advocate for fearlessly nourishing meals, including cereal…Because everyone deserves to enjoy food without judgment, especially kids":

https://www.tiktok.com/@streetsmart.rd/video/7298403730989436206

Dietitians, nutritionists and the food industry have always had an uncomfortably close relationship, but the industry's shitflooding kicked into high gear when the FDA proposed rules limiting which foods the industry can promote as "healthy." General Mills, Kelloggs and Post have threatened a First Amendment suit against such a regulation, arguing that they have a free speech right to describe manifestly unhealthy food as "healthy."

The anti-diet movement – again, a legitimate movement aimed at fighting the dangerous junk science behind dieting – has been co-opted by the food industry, who are paying dietitian influencers to say things like "all foods have value" while brandishing packages of Twix and Reese's. In their Examination article, the authors profile people who struggled with their weight, then, after encountering the food industry's paid disinformation, believed that "healthy at any size" meant that it would be unhealthy to avoid highly processed, high calorie food. These people gained large amounts of weight, and found their lives constrained and their health severely compromised.

I've been overweight all my life. I went to my first Weight Watchers meeting when I was 12. I come from a family of overweight people with the chronic illnesses often associated with being fat. This is a subject that's always on my mind. I even wrote a whole novel about the promise and peril of a weight-loss miracle:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781429969284/makers

I think the anti-diet movement, and its associated ideas like body acceptance and healthy at every size, are enormously positive developments and hugely important. It's because I value these ideas that I'm so disgusted with Big Food and its cynical decision to flood the zone with shit. It's also why I'm so furious with dietitians and nutritionists for failing to self-regulate and become a real profession, the kind that censures and denounces quacks and shills.

I have complicated feelings about Ozempic and its successors, but even if these prove to be effective and safe in the long term, and even if we rein in the rapacious pharma companies so that they no longer sell a $5 product for $1000, I would still want dietary science to clean up its act:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2816824

I'm not a nihilist. I think we can use science to discover truths – about ourselves and our world. I want to know those truths, and I think they can be known. The only people who benefit from convincing you that the truth is unknowable are the people who want to lie to you.

Hey look at this (permalink)


A Wayback Machine banner.

This day in history (permalink)

#20yrsago Every copy of Reason customized with sat photos of subscribers’ homes https://web.archive.org/web/20100521071233/https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/05/business/mediatalk-putting-40000-readers-one-by-one-on-a-cover.html

#15yrsago Congressman who’s giving payday loan companies legal 391% APR loans says he’s powerless to resist their lobbying https://consumerist.com/2009/04/05/house-preparing-to-legalize-payday-loans-with-391-aprs/

#5yrsago The New York Times’s chilling multimedia package on China’s use of “smart city” tech to create an open-air prison https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/04/world/asia/xinjiang-china-surveillance-prison.html

#5yrsago Googler uprising leads to shut down of AI ethics committee that included the president of the Heritage Foundation https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/4/4/18295933/google-cancels-ai-ethics-board

#5yrsago Most paint-spatters are valid perl programs https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZGGNMfmfpWB-DzWS3Jr-YLcRNRjhp3FKS6v0KELxXK8/preview

#5yrsago The Internet Archive has recovered 500,000+ of the 50,000,000 songs Myspace “accidentally” deleted during a server migration https://www.techspot.com/news/79511-internet-archive-recovers-half-million-lost-myspace-songs.html

#5yrsago Ontario’s low-budget Trump-alike wants to eliminate sedation for people getting colonoscopies https://toronto.citynews.ca/2019/04/04/exclusive-changes-proposed-to-ohip-coverage/

#5yrsago Colorado’s net neutrality law will deny grant money to ISPs that engage in network discrimination https://coloradosun.com/2019/04/05/colorados-own-net-neutrality-bill-gets-some-teeth/

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, holding a mic.


A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.

Recent appearances (permalink)


A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..

Latest books (permalink)


A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.

Upcoming books (permalink)

  • Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025

  • Unauthorized Bread: a graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025


Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources: Super Punch (https://www.superpunch.net/).

Currently writing:

  • A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

  • Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS JAN 2025

  • Vigilant, Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM

  • Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM

Latest podcast: Subprime gadgets https://craphound.com/news/2024/03/31/subprime-gadgets/

This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to <a href="http://pluralistic.net" rel="nofollow">pluralistic.net</a>.

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Let's check in on the enriching discourse over on the Books of Face by jwz
Thursday May 2nd, 2024 at 5:19 PM

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The Deepwater Horizon’s Very Unhappy Anniversary | Hakai Magazine
Thursday May 2nd, 2024 at 5:18 PM

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Proposal to teach Palestinian history in schools faces backlash | CBC News
Thursday May 2nd, 2024 at 5:14 PM

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A group of teachers has successfully campaigned for the B.C. Teachers' Federation to lobby the government to include the history of Palestinians in the provincial curriculum.

The proposal has drawn backlash from members of the Jewish community, who say the move is problematic and "one sided." 

The resolution, passed at the BCTF's annual general meeting in March, aims for the union to "continuously lobby" the Ministry of Education and Child Care to include the Nakba — or "catastrophe," the Arabic term used to describe the displacement of Palestinians between 1947 and 1949 — along with the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the military occupation of Gaza and the West Bank in the list of sample topics for schools.

Teachers 4 Palestine, a group born in the wake of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas that includes teachers of different faiths and backgrounds, was behind the motion.

Tara Ehrcke, a Jewish high school teacher in Victoria who is involved with Teachers 4 Palestine, said the topic was "noticeably absent" from the curriculum.

"It does impact the kind of background learning that teachers themselves do and are exposed to," said Ehrcke, who was a delegate at the AGM. 

"If something is in the curriculum, that means teachers would receive education about this topic and be better equipped in order to have that discussion with students."

But the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) has contacted the BCTF to express their concerns that the inclusion of the topic will increase antisemitism and intimidation against Jewish students and educators in the classroom. 

"Characterizing the return of the Jewish people to their ancestral homeland after more than 2,000 years of exile as a 'catastrophe' ... is deeply offensive," said Nico Slobinsky, vice-president of CIJA for the Pacific region.

"Teaching about the Nakba will delegitimize Israel. The delegitimization of the Jewish state leads to the demonization not only of Israelis, but of Jewish Canadians who overwhelmingly support Israel."

'Big ideas' curriculum

B.C.'s curriculum is unique in the sense that social studies and history are taught around "big ideas".

Teachers are free to choose the content they use to teach those ideas, but are provided a list of key questions and sample topics to guide them.

"There is no mandatory textbook or resources in the B.C. curriculum," said Lindsay Gibson, assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy in the Faculty of Education at UBC. "It really is up to teachers to have to identify their own research and resources that they're going to bring into the classroom for students."

WATCH | People share memories and photographs related to the Nakba and Holocaust:

B.C. teachers launch campaign to include education on Palestinian history

A group of B.C. teachers is calling for an addition to the province's curriculum. They're hoping to teach the history of the creation of Israel and the displacement of Palestinians from the land. As Radio-Canada's Francis Plourde reports, their initiative is being met with some opposition.

The idea behind the proposal is to include the history of Palestinians in the list of sample topics, which also include subjects like the Armenian genocide, apartheid in South Africa, the genocide in Rwanda and the internment of Japanese people in Canada during the Second World War.

According to the UN, the Nakba refers to the "mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war."

As a result of the war, more than half of the Palestinian population — more than 700,000 people according to UN figures — were displaced. Many sought refuge in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, while others settled in neighbouring countries.

Israel insists the Palestinians were not driven out, but instead that most of them left the territory voluntarily for various reasons, among them to avoid being caught in the crossfire.

'It can be scary talking about Palestine and Israel'

While being in the list of sample topics would not make teaching the Nakba mandatory in B.C. schools, it would go a long way toward filling a gap in knowledge, according to Khaled Shawwash, an elementary school teacher also involved with Teachers 4 Palestine.

He and others believe the curriculum doesn't currently include enough about Palestine and Israel. By making those changes, they feel they would have more tools to approach the topic.  

"As a Palestinian educator, it's been challenging," Shawwash said. 

"There's a lot of uncertainty around what parts I can discuss or how I can discuss it. And I think it's really been the driving force behind this campaign.

"It can be scary talking about Palestine and Israel. By having it in the curriculum, teachers and educators will have more confidence in approaching the topic."

Their efforts have received support from various groups through a petition online. As of April 24, 6,397 people had signed it the petition.

Strong opposition from members of Jewish community

But some members of the Jewish community have countered the proposal with a petition of their own. 

The petition, started by Vancouver mother Maria Kleiner, calls on the B.C. government to reject the proposal, which it says "has the potential to increase targeted hatred of specific children thus creating an unsafe learning environment."

As of April 24, her petition had received more than 5,915 signatures.

"It brings politics into the classroom, which is to create division and polarization. It comes at a very difficult time already," said Kleiner, adding that the proposal was "one sided."

"It's a very complex topic, and by simplifying, it becomes purely political propaganda in the classroom, which doesn't belong there," said Kleiner, who, after the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas in Israel, started a website in which she shares her thoughts and documents about antisemitism in Canada.

WATCH | B.C. and Ontario expanding Holocaust teaching in schools: 

B.C. and Ontario expanding Holocaust teaching in schools

Ontario and British Columbia will update their high school curriculum by the 2025 school year in an effort to combat antisemitism. B.C. says it will make it mandatory for Grade 10 students to learn about the Holocaust while Ontario will expand its current Holocaust curriculum.

But another Jewish mother from Vancouver disagrees. 

Tamara Herman, whose grandparents survived the Holocaust, grew up hearing stories about the genocide of Jews during the Second World War and its impact, and says it shaped her world view. That's why, she says, she strongly believes in the need to tell the full history of the region. 

"One of the most important things in breaking cycles of devastation is to understand how we got to a certain point and why," says Herman, who is involved with Independent Jewish Voices, an organization advocating for the rights of Palestinians.

"And I don't feel my children can be equipped to be able to find a different trajectory moving forward as they pick up the pieces after this horrific devastation without understanding the history of Palestine and Israel.

"That history includes the Nakba, and my child is entitled to learn about it just as much as my child is entitled to learn about the Holocaust and other factors that contributed to where we are."

'Difficult histories'

The history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is considered to be one the most challenging to teach for educators, according to experts.

"In history education, we call these 'difficult histories'" said Gibson, who teaches future educators at UBC.

He says teachers are often left wondering how to teach topics such as this one at a time of increased polarization.

But he's quick to relativize the significance of the proposal and the backlash it's facing.

"I'm not convinced that just including this [in the suggested curriculum] is going to marginalize any population," he says, adding that it's likely the Nakba is taught in some B.C. schools already. 

"I don't know how you could teach about the history of Palestine and Israel, about the refugee issue over time and the root of that without the Nakba," he added.

"It's a pivotal moment, it's a historical root issue of what we're seeing today."

Teachers 'fully equipped' to teach complex topics: minister

Asked recently about the issue, Education Minister Rachna Singh closed the door to discussions about changing the school curriculum.

"I'm leaving it to the teachers," she said. "I feel that they are fully equipped and they have the professional judgment on how to assess their student population and how to impart these lessons. This is what my expectation is, that every child is feeling safe in their schools."

In a statement provided to CBC/Radio-Canada, the BCTF said it would connect with the Ministry of Education and Child Care "to discuss this and other important issues B.C. teachers are facing." 

BCTF president Clint Johnston will also communicate with his members about the resolution, the statement said. 

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Chartbook 280 The state as blunt force - impressions of the Columbia campus clearance. by Adam Tooze
Thursday May 2nd, 2024 at 5:12 PM

Chartbook
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Last night, up close, on the barriers on Broadway barring the approaches to Columbia campus, I witnessed riot police crush protestors, driving them out of the way, pinning them against walls. Somewhat further away, on Amsterdam through the haze of drizzle and flashing lights we glimpsed what looked to be disheveled young people being herded into police buses.

It has been a while since I have been on a rough demonstration. Returning to the experience after many years was shocking and deeply thought-provoking. For me, the juxtaposition of the the blunt force deployed against demonstrators and the the themes I am normally preoccupied with, brought home an essential point: the strange multiplicity of ways in which the state manifests its power, but also the ways in which those hierarchies of power intersect and reinforce each other.

My mind was supposed to be on a very different aspects of state power - the multi-billion dollar aid package for Ukraine and Israel and the question of who gets which missile systems. 

The other big policy questions on the Chartbook agenda are:

  • The scale of incentive schemes like the Inflation Reduction Act or the Just Energy Transition Partnerships.

  • The lurching moves in currency and capital markets brought about by the interest rate policy of central banks.

Let there be no mistake about this, all these have their coercive aspects. The mute power of money and the lack of it are all too real.

But then, after all the debate and talk of the last few weeks, last night, there in front of us on the street was the state manifesting in a primitive battle for control of space. Burly officers, shoving, pushing, man-handling, crushing protestors, climbing into buildings - a building I taught in on Monday - using what looked like medieval siege machinery, bodily hauling students off to police vans and cells, pinning their wrists with plastic straps. 

In the main, this force isn’t lethal. But what you realize up close is that non-lethality makes it all the more direct, personal and bodily. After all, the whole point of a gun is that it is a “stand-off” weapon. You don’t get to close quarters. Cinema captures this distancing effect in the geometries of armed stand-offs.

Tarantino: Reservoir Dogs

The lethal, distanced threat of the guns serves to hold everyone, frozen, concentrated in place. Often, as a result, very little happens. An armed stand off is a time to talk. This was true of the only armed confrontation I have ever witnessed up close, the armed siege of a pub in Cambridge, one Sunday morning. That morning nothing moved for several hours. There was a deathly silence apart from the police loud hailer.

The policing of crowds we witnessed last night, is something very different. It is an intensely physical, sweaty, muscular business. This is state power exercised in the manner of a wrestling match or rugby scrum. One might also say that it has something in common with the herding of large-animals, except the animals are people, citizens, indeed.

The exercise of non-lethal but physically coercive power has its own tactical logic. It has its own economy. There is an entire industry of non-lethal means of coercion, with a global market-size of over $10 billion. 

On the part of the practitioners, it is well rehearsed. The police clearly prepare for action, in mind and in body. Within the New York Police Department there is an extraordinary argument going on right now, as to whether there should be mandatory testing for banned steroids. The largest police trade union has filed a suit against the police-commissioner and NY mayor Adams to shield the police against excessively intrusive testing. Whether the riot police at Columbia last night were regular steroid users, I have no idea. But they certainly looked and acted “pumped”.

Up close, the concentrated aggression of a riot squad is dramatic.

Everyone else in the confrontation on Broadway was talking. Protestors shout slogans and hold placards. By-standers remonstrate with the police. If you lived above 114th street and did not happen to be at home when the police swooped, you had to plead to be allowed to cross the line and return to your own home. Those on the police-side of the barriers were simply locked in. Anyone leaving their home was treated as a potential threat and liable to arrest.

The riot police enforcing this order stand silently, in ranks, several lines deep. It creates an impression that is a strange combination of menace and insecurity. Why do these empowered people, in uniform with all the force at their disposal, need to huddle up and refuse eye contact in the way that they do?

They stand stoney faced even when addressed directly. They don’t talk to regular folks. They refuse any response until ordered.

The crowds opposite them are reduced to watching for twitches in their faces, signs of stress, "tells" that the police are about to move. Those doing the chanting try to see, which slogans produce a reaction. The NYPD smirked in response to “Quit your jobs!”. They seemed a little more disconcerted when the protestors shifted to “I don’t see no riot here. Why are YOU in riot gear?”

That was all too evidently true. There was no riot last night at Columbia any more than there has been at any other point. The violence came from the police side and it came at the invitation and request of the University administration.

My colleague at the FT Edward Luce is right. It was the adults not the students that caused the real disorder. It is the University administration not the student protestors who have seriously disrupted the end of term and examinations.

When the violence came last night, it was sudden.

When the sign came to force the passage of one of their vehicles, the police first formed up, moving close to the barrier, face to face with the protestors. The protestors formed a soft chain, many reversed, turning their backs to the police ready for what was about to come, knowing they would need to retreat under massive physical pressure.

On an order from their commander, the police pushed. They pushed hard. Very hard. They move fast, as quickly as their bulk and equipment would allow, maximizing momentum. The officers use waist-high steel barriers as plows to drive the protestors back and to pin them in side streets and against walls. Then, after the vehicle was through and the shouting and chanting of the protestors rose to an extreme crescendo, they pulled back and rearranged themselves again, across Broadway behind their barriers. The shouting and staring resumed. 

The scene was static. But I would not be honest if I did not say that my stomach churned watching it. The sheer force of the movement, the relentless and sudden drive of the steel barrier against human bodies, moved the air.

***

The recent scenes have been campus protests. But it would be naive to imagine that this kind of coercion is confined to symbolic political protests with no broader, economic meaning.

In fact, once you witness it up close, you come to realize that this kind of non-violent physical coercion - the threat of being out-muscled in the crudest sense - is at the heart of our daily lives including in every workplace. Those of us who teach on locked down campuses have recently felt this very intimately.

When we say that corporate security "escorts" a staff member "off the premises", the implicit threat is of a physical confrontation. 

When I ask to enter campus, but am refused, I might imagine that I have enough bulk and speed to get past the first barrier. But that gesture would only result in a pointless and unseemly tussle. To even entertain the idea is absurd. But why? At one level it is a physical calculation: Because there are more of the guards, they are bigger and muscling people is their job. But far more important is the sociology: because the confrontation would erase all the other significant markers of distinction and rank and privilege which 99.999 percent confer privilege and authority on me. Except in this case they don’t. I can’t get onto campus. And, once you think about it, the same is true for many other situations too.

For the sake of order, we are constrained and accept that we are constrained, policed, not just abstractly but physically, guarded, bounded, out-muscled. Only the exceptionally privileged rich and over-mighty escape this mundane regulation. The broader that privilege the more oligarchical and disorder a society is. In extremis oligarchs travel with their own bodyguards and create their own order around themselves, if necessary with privatized violence.

This elementary physical constraint is both an inferior order of power - defined both in terms of race and class and in terms of those who are subject to it and exercise this power. And yet it is also ubiquitous and essential. Its subordinate place in the broader order is itself a threat. If you end up on the wrong end of it, if you end up being muscled, then you risk disqualification. You risk an arrest record and that in turn will devalue all your credentials, your social and cultural capital, invalidate your green card, prohibit naturalization etc.

From the micro to the macro. It is by these same techniques and according to this same logic, on a much larger scale, that major strikes are policed. Looking back, the miners strike in Britain of the 1980s, one of the largest moments of class struggle in the late 20th century, involved demonstration after demonstration, in which men hurled their bodies against each other. 

In the Lockdown protests in China in 2022 workers and security guards clashed body against body. 

Since this is not war, since, unlike in Gaza no guns have gone off, no bombs exploded, after the clashes are over, you tidy up. And apart from some broken furniture and a smashed window, order and normality are restored.

But if you have witnessed these scenes, especially close up, you struggle to unsee and “unfeel” what transpired in those confrontation, the thud of bodies, the rush, the charge. The way the corner of a building became a pen for herding people.

You realize that, in the last instance, this is what the ubiquitous uniformed staff, cameras, doors, key cards, gates that we all take for granted, are there for. They create check points, barricades, they set the stage for what we all know would be, if it ever came to it, very unequal physical encounters. Most of the time this does not need to be made explicit. If you are in my position and that of the vast majority of the readers of this newsletter, this apparatus is mainly there to preserve our privilege, protect our property, to create the playground that is the university campus, even this week.

But that force is there, a blunt, crude, simple force of body on body. It is there in reserve. And the normality which Universities will now do their best to restore, confirms one further point: Almost always, there is only one side that wins this particular type of encounter.

Of course, through struggles and negotiation different social groups and individuals can work for better, more just, more equal, more open, more transparent bargains. But after confrontation, the ordering force is restored and it perdures. Right now, the NYPD will police Columbia campus until after graduation.

The only way to change that would be to take up the most radical of demands. In a revolutionary situation that means to challenge military hierarchy and command chain.

Kiel Mutiny November 3 1918

I cite this picture not out of revolutionary romanticism, but because this is literally the history I taught in Hamilton Hall, the site of the occupation, only the other week: how it is when you politicize the state’s coercive power that you really challenge its foundations.

In the present moment the call is to defund the police and abolish prisons. Both demands strike many people as impractical. They poll badly. Authoritarian attitudes run deep. But reform of the police is quite another matter. Gallup finds solid majorities in favor of police reform with particularly strong support amongst the Black population who are most often subject to police violence.

Once you have seen the working of coercive state power up close, you realize that slogans like defund the police do one vital thing, something which should be essential for democracy, they challenge not just the bargain to which we agree - do we divest? are wages acceptable? etc - the radical slogans challenge the coercive power that ultimately sets the playing field on which we bargain. 

If we want truly democratic politics and not merely a one-sided wrestling match, the question of what kind of safety we want and how it is to be secured, how we wish to preserve order, how we fund and equip what kind of police, must be on the table. If you simply “call in” and deploy the NYPD as it stands, the result will be the shattering, brutalizing experience that Columbia University, our neighborhood and our fellow campus at City College New York now have to come to terms with and recover from.

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Photophobia is associated with lower sleep quality in individuals with migraine: results from the American Registry for Migraine Research (ARMR) by Nina Sharp, Mark J Burish, Kathleen B Digre, Jessica Ailani, Mahya Fani, Sophia Lamp and Todd J. Schwedt
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Patients with migraine often have poor sleep quality between and during migraine attacks. Furthermore, extensive research has identified photophobia as the most common and most bothersome symptom in individual...
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