70 Comments
Oct 13, 2021Liked by Ethan Strauss

"The favored academic perspective is to be a moral absolutist across time, but relativist across space."

That's so well said that it kinda makes me angry I didn't say it first.

Expand full comment

As always the Columbus take is spot-on. I get SO annoyed by the group of people that play the whole “Columbus didn’t discover anything” card. For the average Old Worlder Columbus discovered the New World and for the average New Worlder he discovered the Old. It’s like saying an Alien landing isn’t impressive because humans were already on Earth.

And on land acknowledgements: my biggest annoyance with them is how empty (and frankly insulting) they are. Cities like Seattle and San Francisco spend SO much energy saying that they stole the land and that it belongs to tribes, but what exactly do they do to show it? Do the tribes get special access? Land returned? Nope. They get shit. You put a sign in front of a university foodbank saying that it’s rightful property of some tribe and one of the tribal members comes in and asks for food you say it’s not for them. It’s an apology without the make-good that’s fundamental to an apology. It’s like stealing somebody’s phone, apologizing while waving it in their face, and when they ask for their phone back you just tell them no.

Expand full comment

I disagree somewhat. I think Columbus / Europeans coming here and killing people and colonizing the place was bad. We can’t reverse it centuries later without committing further injustice (displacing people who didn’t do anything). But I feel comfortable in saying that it was wrong and it’s not something we should celebrate. I support changing the name.

That said, changing the name of the holiday won’t help anyone. Native Americans need material reparations. Americans generally need more time off work. I care about that way more than I care about the name of the holiday.

Expand full comment

I've noticed, as you have, that sports figures get very little push back from the sports media when they express controversial political views, and it's left to people like Clay Travis to do the critiquing. It's refreshing to see you take on some of this.

The following line, describing Pop's worldview, stood out to me - "a perspective that sees the world’s toughest problems as easily solved with loud penance."

This is an issue I've often had of certain lefty viewpoints - many seem to believe that the solutions to certain problems are simple and obvious to all, and that what prevents us from implementing these solutions are people not getting on board for nefarious reasons (being "ridiculous", as Pop would say) or at best because they've been misled by people with nefarious intentions. Or put in another way, a belief that everyone (or nearly everyone) knows deep down, even if they won't admit it, what the solutions to our problems are, but they don't get solved because we lack the character or political will to get them implemented.

The truth is way more complicated than that. Longstanding societal problems exist because they're not easy to solve and/or there is a lot of actual disagreement on how to solve them. People on the left and right actually have different values (or place differing amounts of weight to certain sets of values) and have different sets of policies that they believe would fix society.

Expand full comment
Oct 14, 2021Liked by Ethan Strauss

I respect Pop and his accomplishments, but Ethan is on point. What courage did it take for him to cry 'fuck trump' to an entirely submissive media/Twitter audience? Everyone in the blogosphere dutifully applauded his diatribes against the last administration, because it was cathartic and overwhelmingly the default ESPN/NBA consensus, and because even if you didn't agree, you didn't want to be the one contrarian sticking out like a sore thumb. Happy to see Ethan sharing what he really thinks, because it's clear that lots of media members pretend not to have these same beliefs (see Nichols, Rachel). Yet all it takes for a preference cascade is the broader audience realizing that most of us agree with Ethan, rather than the prevailing orthodoxy.

(I say this only somewhat jokingly, but I feel like we should hang out. Been living in Berkeley for the past decade - love Inspiration Point, and drive by Ohlone Park almost every day. So far haven't found much to disagree with in your articles)

I too see the mushrooming encampments by Ashby/80 and University/80. I see the 'Give Shuumi' and the laughable "Science is Real/BLM" signs in front of the 2 million dollar homes. We can both plainly see the crumbling of our civil society - gangs of teens blatantly shoplifting, smoke rising routinely from homeless encampments on fire across the Bay, tents basically popping up on every sidewalk, a growing number of assaults and armed robberies, little kids stuck in masks all day at public school, local government running a billion dollar pension deficit, electricity costs spiking amidst chronic blackouts, vacant ground floor retail spaces on Shattuck yet dozens of Amazon delivery trucks prowl the streets....) but amazingly the response from the woke is to double down on their ideology! Blaming white supremacy, pushing so-called inclusion because that will solve all our problems, changing the names of things that were deemed morally unacceptable just a few minutes ago, virtue signaling at Council meetings, requiring that stores have an aisle for non-gendered toys, or insisting that we all put our pronouns in our e-sigs. But it should be obvious that 'subverting' and 'deconstructing' and 'problematizing' our American way of life - which is what is being taught in public schools and colleges now - will have consequences for people's ability and interest in contributing meaningfully to that society! It is truly weird to see the wacky quasi-Marxist ideas from a place as batty as Berkeley completely dominate the elite discourse in this country.

Expand full comment

In my neck of the woods (southeast US) no white public figure Pop’s age is saying anything like what he said. So there’s an educational element to what he’s doing, bringing up points of view that may not generally be expressed by people that look like him in San Antonio.

Also to your point about the importance of Columbus, maybe he has been over celebrated & it’s time to turn the knob the other way a bit without completely forgetting his contributions— and his crew’s contributions, it’s not like Columbus eradicated all those people himself 😉

Expand full comment
Oct 13, 2021Liked by Ethan Strauss

This is the best thing I've read all year, and this has been a year where I've been exposed to a lot of great writing. Excellent work - I will be signing up for a paid subscription soon.

Expand full comment
Oct 14, 2021Liked by Ethan Strauss

Very insightful and worth the subscription price. When we rush to tear down, we end up with nothing positive left to rally around, aside from our pride in tearing things down (and memes, probably).

Expand full comment
Oct 14, 2021Liked by Ethan Strauss

I don’t know if it is intentional mischaracterization of what Ethan is saying or maybe it is that people are conditioned to see anything seemingly out of step and deem it bad without truly comprehending the point even if explained. (Social media more guilty than this sub by orders of magnitude)—

But anyone who is confounded by Ethan using “great man” or doing “great things” He isn’t saying Columbus was a great guy like you would describe your friend to someone you’re setting them up with. I would liken it to a passage in the Harry Potter book series. Ollivander said this in the first book: “The wand chooses the wizard, remember … I think we must expect great things from you, Mr Potter … After all, He Who Must Not Be Named did great things – terrible, yes, but great.”.

Columbus did some awful stuff, but he accomplished great things. Impressive, turning point of Western Civilization type things. Great as a measurable of impact not as a descriptor of the means from a morality standpoint.

Even if I don’t agree with all parts of all pieces you put out Ethan— always a great read and intellectually stimulating. Keep it up. This piece another great example of crushed on Twitter comments, more nuanced positive response in this space.

Expand full comment
Oct 14, 2021Liked by Ethan Strauss

Great read, a lot to think about. One item rang false, which was describing Oakland Chinatown as an eerily vacant place due to the attacks on senior citizens. That's the headline about Chinatown, sure, but visit during the day it is just as vibrant and busy as ever. It is emptier at night, but I'm not sure that is only because of the newsreports. Oaklandside had a great dive into the crime stats, evaluating the narrative about there being a significant increase in racially motivated violence against Asians in Chinatown - https://oaklandside.org/2021/02/12/oakland-chinatown-policing-hate-crimes-community/

Expand full comment

Popovich may be a successful man, but he is woefully ignorant when it says Columbus Day has nothing to do with the celebration by Italian Americans of their culture. It’s is only about celebrating our Italian heritage and culture. I am a part of the local Italian community. One of many across the country. I have been to many Columbus Day celebrations, dinners etc. and it is all about celebrating our heritage our culture, our food and our music. It is also about celebrating people like my grandparents who came here with nothing, and solely by their own hard work were able to create a better life for their children and grandchildren.

I don’t think Columbus is even mentioned in our celebrations. It is like St. Patrick’s Day is Not really about a Catholic bishop converting those celts in Ireland or that Cinco de Mayo is not about a victory over the French. Rather a celebration of those things Irish or Mexican.

Unfortunately this cancel culture has taken away what used to be a really wonderful time of celebration. Of our immigrant ancestors and our culture. Of things that we love and are a part of who we are.

Expand full comment
Oct 15, 2021Liked by Ethan Strauss

You've put your finger on something I somewhat admire and definitely dread about thoughtful, educated, curious men in positions authority of that generation like Pop. They have enough insight and self-reflection to realize that their visions of a great, if not utopian, future have not materialized, and to seek to understand why. But they never for a second lose the confidence that, now that they know better, *they* know better--and that whatever they have to say needs to be heard. On balance, I'd rather have that type of over-confident man in charge of a basketball team or other operation than an incurious, unreflective, bigoted, over-confident man. But unshakeable confidence is not always appropriate. Thanks for tackling this subject in a thoughtful way that is different from Pop's.

Expand full comment

Great article Ethan

As someone who also lives in Northern California the Bay and most Recently Sacramento and on my morning walk and is particularly frustrated by local politics I would recomend a few books if you want to understand California's housing crisis

Golden Gates by Conor Dougherty (this narrative driven bay area focused goes through much of the history and current predicament)

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/585765/golden-gates-by-conor-dougherty/

Golden Dreams "California in an Age of Abundance, 1950-1963 (Americans and the California Dream)"

(This book explains California's transformation from far west state to the most populist state in the nation the first short chapters are almost exclusively on housing)

https://www.fishpond.com/Books/Golden-Dreams-Starr-Kevin-University-Professor-and-Professor-of-History-Uni/9780195153774?utm_source=googleps&utm_medium=ps&utm_campaign=US

The First thing to Remember is that California's recent Blue wave is fairly recent and We are the state that gave the Nation both Regan and Nixon. Reaganomics being a huge shift to the right and liberalism. The homeless issue is not really a blue/red issue as many policies from the Regan area are still intact today.

lastly a 10% decrease in rent would keep thousands of the streets every year I wouldn't dismiss it so cavalierly.

Expand full comment
Oct 13, 2021Liked by Ethan Strauss

Warning to basketball readers: Pop is bait to something more thought-provoking.

>But how do you break sedated hopelessness? Materialist solutions can help, but not all the way. People require the means to achieve comfort, but they also need to trust that society itself is worth it. In the Bay, we aren’t so keen on telling people that they’re part of anything good, let alone that they’re violating some grand tradition by bowing out of the game.

This stood out to me. Ties in well with your conversation with Tjarks.

Maybe I Freudian-slip but this is truer on a far broader scale. The evacuation of meaning is something I've seen with close friends in the well-remunerated knowledge economy too. A friend of mine, talented programmer and computer scientist formerly at a hedge fund, no more able to see meaning in the series of abstractions he kept encountering in his life -- professionally, personally, culturally -- described the state of affairs almost identically before he chose to descend down [or up? This striver wouldn't know.] to "sedated hopelessness."

Expand full comment

I fully admit to not understanding the point of this article, and I fully admit that I will continue to pay Ethan for his writing even if sometimes I do not know why he’s saying what he’s saying. Fact is, I enjoy reading it regardless

Expand full comment

Been following you since TrueHoop days. Well written.

The two sentences “I just buy that you must instill some broad sense of positive tradition in a populace …Materialist solutions can help, but not all the way” seem to encapsulate one of your main theses, but in the greater context of your article it begs several questions: need it be Columbus/Columbus day that instills that “broad sense of positive tradition” (you answer no in your article)? Does Columbus/Columbus day actually serve to instill that positive tradition? If not why this particular fuss? ? Are there equally good if not superior alternative symbols we might explore? Is the observance of Columbus day (or any Columbus hagiography) any more or less shallow or hollow than the maligned “land acknowledgment”? Have we as a nation, at least since the times of the New Deal or Great Society, engaged in any robust, sustained materialist solutions to determine how far they might go in solving some of the problems you highlight? Is there any broad sense of positive tradition that won’t be contested by parts of an active and educated population and might not such tradition ultimately rest in something material and shared, even if in an ideal form; something along the lines of we have the "positive tradition" of having good medical care, good schools, good housing, good jobs for all?

I’d add that coaches like Pop and Kerr, in many of their public pronouncements, particularly regarding Trump, seem to be more focused on issues of “decorum” and “decency” than materialist solutions and while you know their words, beliefs and politics far better than me, it doesn’t seem obvious that they are immune to the pull of such positive traditions, or at least traditionally patriotic activities that are often assumed as stand ins for such traditions, such as their participation in Team USA and Pop’s military service. Indeed while such focuses on decorum (as American liberals) may make their politics anemic, it’s hardly a Berkeley/Bay Area or even liberal problem alone. Conservatives are traditionally known for loud complaints about perceived breaches of decorum. Even the recent positions objecting to Kaepernick sitting/kneeling during the anthem before NFL games, from “it’s disrespectful” or “unpatriotic” to “we don’t want politics mixing with our sports” are on their face complaints about “decorum”. It is also not entirely new in kind for liberals: many of the liberal complaints I used to hear back in the early 2000s about George Bush were not predominantly about his disastrous policies (Iraq war, torture program, government spying, tax cuts for the rich, etc) but rather about his exaggerated Texan or cowboy accent, his lack of verbal polish, etc which may partly explain why they were mostly uncritical of Barack Obama when he continued some of those same policies.

It feels like there is an ahistorical aspect to your piece. Back in the 80s, under Reagan, was a time when a sort of patriotic American positive tradition of the sort that could be associated with Columbus Day, even an American exceptionalism, were both in ascension and publicly dominant.. It was also a time when plans and policies (from significant reductions in tax rates on the rich to anti-union practices, etc) were made that would undermine the material well being of many American citizens and significantly exacerbate the wealth gap. Indeed this approach was adopted by the New Democrats in the 90s. So when you say, referring to Berkeley/Bay Area politicians, “we were the first to banish Columbus Day and a fat lot of good it did us” and imply that maintaining the thread of positive tradition represented in Columbus day might have served us better, I’d say the scale, for most of my life, has been weighted toward such superficial versions of our positive history and public spirit all while material security and status for many of our countrymen was weakened and undermined … so does a positive tradition in the like of American exceptionalism, or even a superficial one like celebrating things akin to Columbus Day, do us a fat lot of good?

If Pop says something now that could once be heard on a Berkeley campus 30-40 years ago, is that really such a big deal?

Some of the original objections to celebrating Columbus Day came along with the fight for and rise of ethnic studies departments and curriculum. The complaints then, and active political opposition in states like Texas and Arizona, were in part that these studies focused on the negatives of our history. But it seems pessimistic to claim that widening our history to include the stories and legacies of our more diverse citizenry, and even question or replace some others, is ultimately negative.

Thank you for the read.

Expand full comment