Lulu Miller’s Why Fish Don’t Exist: a story of loss, love, and the hidden order of life raises a lot of questions. If fish do not exist, why are there so many things labeled as fish? What were those things swimming in my aquariums in my bedroom growing up? Why do I have a fishing merit badge if fish do not exist? What if I decide to research someone for work and they turn out to be a bad dude?
The book focuses on David Starr Jordan and her own life. I would uncharitably summarize the book like this: how do you find meaning when you believe life has no inherent meaning, entropy will eventually destroy all order in the universe, and everything might head to a big freeze? Fighting chaos by bringing a little order to the world might be one way (as meaningless as the gesture is in the grand scheme of things). Jordan’s life might offer lessons if you can look past more red flags than a Chinese V-Day parade.
The point behind the book’s title is that from a taxonomy perspective, fish do not exist. What the layperson calls fish are different animals in different taxonomic categories. For animals to be labeled together as a taxonomic category, the animals must share a common ancestor. Fish might have some connection to each other related to water and backbones, but they don’t all come from a common ancestor-like mammals do.
As humans, we love categories and labels. We are good at lumping people together. In the chaos of our lives, it is one way to bring order. It is easier to talk about a group of people than it is to talk about hundreds, thousands, millions, or billions of individuals. When you lump people into large groups, you paint with a broad brush; when you look at people as individuals, you find a lot of difference and distinction.
One thing that drives me crazy in life is the way people attack “the Democrats” (often shortened to “Democrats”). Like that label really means anything. There are organizations and legal entities that might align with the Democrat Party. People might choose the label Democrat for themselves. Yet, there is not some nefarious cabal of puppet masters pulling strings entitled “the Democrats.”
In trying to understand people who see the world differently than I do, I listen to The Dispatch podcast. I keep listening to it, so overall I must like it on some level. Infuriating as it can be. One of the podcast’s tropes that drives me crazy is that if they spend too much time criticizing MAGA or conservatives, they feel compelled to complain about the wrongs of Wilson/FDR, “the Democrats,” non-conservative media, and/or anti-Trumpers. Both sides-ism at its best.
What really drives me crazy is in conversations about lawfare. How “the Democrats” used lawfare against Trump, so if Trump uses lawfare against them, that somehow mitigates Trump’s actions. “The Democrats” did not go after Trump. And from a logic perspective, comparing a NY prosecutor to the President of the United States is absurd, let alone crediting all Democrats with the action.
Individual prosecutors (some of whom might identify as Democrats) went after Trump. Federal government investigators and prosecutors investigated Trump, but they are/were not partisan. Regardless, they were all acting individually. Their ambitions, judgements, ethical frameworks, and/or moral convictions are their own.
Some folks are upset at some Senate Democrats capitulating in the government shutdown. Whether you think they won or lost, their communication strategy left much to be desired. The key though is that it was “some” Democrats. Not “the Democrats.” We could get into a cynical argument about how many Senate Democrats wanted to capitulate; it’s amazing they had the magic number needed and no more, but it was not all senators who caucus with the Democrats. Definitely not all House members.
Individuals act with individual motives. Our society labels some individuals; some individuals claim labels for themselves. We sometimes like to talk about these labels as if they are entities on their own, like “the Democrats.” Again, “the Democrats” do not exist. We might use it for smearing and attacking, we might use it to channel our collective feelings, but it just does not exist.
This goes beyond fish and politics. In the United Methodist Church, people often complain about annual conferences. They like to attack “the Conference.” Just as “the Democrats” do not exist, “the Conference” does not exist. Sure, there are ecclesiastical and legal structures. Leaders and committees act under the auspices of the annual conference. Members of the annual conference make up the conference. The yearly gathering of the annual conference empowers people to act on behalf of the conference and allows folks in the conference to fulfill their duties and responsibilities both in the conference and in the larger United Methodist connection. There is no “the conference” acting nefariously on its own. Individuals and groups are acting in the ways the church’s polity and decisions of the annual conference empower them to act.
We are always looking for scapegoats. It is easy to construct nefarious entities in our imaginations that are causing our problems. In truth, we are the source of our own problems. People may be unhappy with the government we have, but we got the government we elected.
Folks in the church might not like the decisions of the annual conference or those empowered to act, by the polity on behalf of the conference, but each church member takes part in the system that makes it happen. Folks in the United Methodist Church live with the collective consequences of these decisions over the years.
Genuine change starts at the individual level. Individuals deciding they individually need to change. Collectively, changed people can work for and be change in the world. Change will not happen though if we cannot name the proper sources of our problems and take them seriously. It is more fun to imagine smoke-filled rooms with power players plotting to immiserate people’s lives as they fold their fingers in a pyramid ala Mr. Burns. Reality is less fun. Instead of looking for others to blame, we need to look inward.
