A Small Mission Statement
... and a name worthy of living up to
“Human history is not the battle of good struggling to overcome evil. It is a battle fought by a great evil, struggling to crush a small kernel of human kindness. But if what is human in human beings has not been destroyed even now, then evil will never conquer.” — Vasily Grossman
Grounds for Rules
It is usually quite easy to consider oneself in the right as long as one doesn’t have to explain why. The generally amorphous clouds of thought which we sprint through on our way to an action are almost always more agreeable as clouds than as precipitated language. I have found that subjecting my thoughts to the rigors of communication is beneficial to the clarity and quality of my thinking. And so goes the primary motivation for this project.
Beyond merely setting thoughts in word, having those words — plausibly — find the eyes of others subjects them to another test: the words are sensical, but are they reasonable? By this I mean: do they rely merely on heavily contingent facts about me, or is there something at least a bit more universal about them? I take well the criticism of a simplistic idea of objectivity,1 but the point remains that some things are more true than others, some experiences are more general than others, and some modes of argument cash out more convincingly than others. If my writing is at least in principle able to find others (or vice versa), simply that knowledge has a disciplining effect, not to mention the scientific value of actually having responses.
My given name being unconnected to these words is less practical and more a function of my own neuroses and fears (of which I have, to my mind, blessedly few, but alas). I understand to some extent the theoretical virtues of anonymity (as well as its vices), but I am usually free with my words in life, so it is not so much the freedom I hope to gain. No, rather, I would simply like to not have the pressure of others I care about knowing that I am embarking on a project of this kind. Someone worrying about how many people read my writing, whether I have given up, or anything like that would be a little bit more to bear than preferable. So, here we are.
Since this project is so clearly personal, I have no paid subscription and no plan to begin asking people to pay for subscription. In such an absurd case that there comes a siren’s call of monetary gain, I may consider it, but I doubt that will be the case. With that comes the other side of the bargain: this is not and likely will never be a source of income, and so will be subject to all the vagaries of hobbies — inconsistency, inefficiency, and (often) inadequacy. I’m an amateur, really, and this will likely feel amateurish for the definite future.
Why ‘A Small Kernel’
Now, I have taken enough time to outline and justify the structure of this page (a somewhat silly quest, given that by my own lights I have no reason to get someone other than myself on board), I suppose I should get to the quote I began with at the top, from which this page gets its name. All the best substacks, it seems to me, get their names from a good, mission-statement-y quote.2 And why should mine not be at least a pantomime of the best?
Why ‘Kernel’
Beyond the archetypally Russian tragedy that grounds the quote (and the faith which uplifts it), there is a dual subversion in the imagery of kindness as a kernel which I love. The first is kindness as a hardy thing. Too often, kindness is characterized as soft or dainty — something that can wilt. Kindness, true, is beautiful, and the imagery of beauty summons to our minds flowers more readily than their seeds. However, this is a dangerous misreading of the nature of kindness. It is something of a platitude that kindness is a strength, not a weakness, but I mean something more than that: not only is kindness a strength, but it is indicative of strength.3 I believe that generally, people are not malicious — far more often they are scared. Fear and insecurity are more compelling contenders for a root of evil in the general case than actual pleasure in making others’ lives worse; evil as malice is rare, evil as tragedy is common.
The second subversion is kindness (and its hardiness) as a thing perpetually ready to grow. No matter what it endures, if you give it what it needs, it is always prepared to create and spread. A kernel cannot shrivel, it can only spread. Yes, it is hardy, but that doesn’t mean that it is guarded. Rather, its hardiness allows it to always be in the position to impact the world when the time is right. We are too often worried about not being taken for a fool and too rarely in awe of the wonders fools open themselves up to.
There is no dichotomy between strength and kindness, courage and openness. With this framing, kindness is not a strength but is strength — security, trust, openness, and resilience. All of these things indicate the ability to handle defeat, humiliation, and betrayal. That is personal strength.
Why the Kernel is Small
The idea of good overcoming evil is entertaining, edifying, and sometimes useful. It is, fundamentally, a Manichean view of things — two great forces battling it out for the world. This is the assumption that undergirds much of our unhealthy contentiousness. Fundamentally, there is the assumption that it is in the nature of good to vanquish evil. This is a mistake. Good does not, generally, overcome or conquer evil — it befriends it. Rather than seeing the world as good struggling to overcome evil, the ethos of this blog will be that it is evil’s nature to attempt to crush good and good’s nature to not be crushed. Good remains — not taunting, but with a hand outstretched.
I’m not totally comfortable using the terms good and evil here — I do so mainly out of fealty to Mr. Grossman, who so kindly provided them to me. I would prefer kindness and contempt, or virtue and vice, or even good living and mistaken living. All of these dichotomies reframe the matter somewhat, but the main point is this: a life well lived includes an attempt to be a fellow to all.
Writing as a Friend to All
And so we come to the name I have chosen for myself and which I claim is worthy of being lived up to: enemy of none. This has had the unintended consequence of substacks’ emails to me all beginning with “Enemy,” but I suppose I will take this as one more test of my camaraderie. By claiming to be an enemy of none, I do not mean that I will not be arguing, sometimes vociferously, against certain actions or positions — I will certainly do so. However, the position of an enemy is that one’s loss is your gain, that you are not merely rivals, engaged in sparring with an undercurrent of goodwill, but enemies.
I do not doubt that enemies exist, and that there are times when one must have enemies, at least for a time. However, as a frame of mind for the kind of work I aim to do here, enemies are deeply unproductive. When dealing with thoughts, there is no point having enemies, because your enemies may be right, and the quickest and best way to become right after being wrong is to change your mind. Argument is not for sport, but for correction. And there ought to be no losers in correction.
What to Expect
At one point, this mission statement was getting out of hand, as I tried to justify each portion of its vision (or at least draw attention to those portions requiring justification). It has, if you can believe it, been slimmed down since then. I will elaborate on ideas presented here (both explicitly and implicitly) in future posts, if they can support them. These future posts will likely cross many domains, but my points of some capability are philosophy, culture, and politics, with some economics and history perhaps included. I may discuss a philosophical doctrine I find compelling (or not so compelling), expound on a quote or story I find insightful, point out a cultural trend I take issue with, or find some connections between these realms and more.
As I said before, this is an amateur’s attempt to corral his thoughts. Hopefully by subjecting them to some rigor, I can find what in my mind is persuasive and what only seems so. I do all of this in the hopes of finding out how to live just a little better in a wonderful and difficult world. If I cannot be the kernel, I’d at least like to see how I can be friends with it.
In a very rudimentary sense, I take this criticism to be that we all necessarily are speaking and writing from some particular perspective, knowingly or not. Therefore, if your unconscious biases and prejudices are informing your writing, you can’t merely say that you’re telling the truth — it’s motivated. One could riposte, perhaps, that of course all communication is motivated, but that doesn’t mean that there are not some things are true on their face while others are more contentious. These thoughts, though, are for another post.
By this, of course, I refer to Slow Boring by Matthew Yglesias.
I disambiguate here between strength and power. By strength I mean something closer to strength of character. I don’t mean to traffic in Motte-and-bailey fallacy here. I believe power is covered by the idea that kindness creates strength, broadly construed (that is a separate, more empirical argument which I do agree with but is outside this specific scope). Generally, when people want to seem strong, they want to seem both of these things: powerful and having strength of character. I focus here on the latter.
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