The point I’m making here is that a lot of the hype around “thinking machines” and artificial intelligence seems to be Team Descartes, ignoring that he got it really, really wrong when it comes to what it means “to be.” To that end, one of the amazing and disturbing things about living in the world today is the word “algorithm” has made its way into so many places. Most people know what algorithms do. An algorithm probably decided that you would be reading this post (or not) based on whether the words in it triggered some key words that suggested it might be interesting to you, and so it popped up in your social feed or search engine results or whatever. Algorithms decide what you see, watch, read; they steer you toward what to buy and where to invest, they decide how much to charge you for insurance, how to win baseball games, prosecute wars, catch welfare and tax cheats; and even whether you’re an efficient enough worker not to get fired.

But an algorithm is just a complicated mathematical model…

Part of this idea of “strong” means to be unafraid—unafraid to stand up for what is right, to defend oneself and others, and so on. But I am afraid of a lot of things. And so are you. Being afraid isn’t weak; at the most basic biological level, it’s being alive and wanting to stay that way. Like pain, fear is information about the world that guides you to pursue some behaviors and avoid others. Working out and anything else that’s challenging involves enduring physical discomfort, but pain is also your body warning you of its physical limits. If I don’t listen to my body, I will hurt myself, and in middle-age I don’t heal as quickly as I used to, meaning I have to gauge the “right amount” of pain during exercise. Too little, and I’m not challenging myself. Too much, and I’m going to risk injury and will not be able to work out at all, perhaps for weeks.
Similarly, the trick with fear is to make sure that fears are proportional to the actual risk posed by some hazard…

Mint chocolate chip ice cream is, in my opinion, the best flavor of ice cream. Maybe that isn’t a popular opinion to hold, or to express. I know lots of people prefer rocky road, or chocolate, or vanilla. But it’s an opinion I hold, and you may, or may not, hold the same opinion. No big deal, right? If I like mint chocolate chip ice cream, I can eat it, and if you don’t, you don’t have to. It is easy to have an opinion, express an opinion, and respect one another’s opinions. That’s what an opinion is…

if you could pick any time in the whole history of the human species in which to live, and you didn’t know who your parents would be, how much wealth or privilege you would be born into, what your race or gender or sexual orientation would be, when would you choose? The only rational choice, in my view, would be now…

I am a very sensitive person. I am so sensitive I once punched someone in the face for calling me sensitive (more on that later). I have been bullied, harassed, ridiculed, threatened, and stigmatized—both as a child (for things I’ll get into in a moment) and as an adult (mostly for writing things like this). Being sensitive is a touchy subject if you’ll forgive the terrible pun; it might make a short list of things that people find desirable in a friend or a mate, but it might also make one an object of ridicule and even hatred today…

I don’t teach people to make the world into what I would want it to be. My job, as I see it, is to draw some general conclusions about what social movements are, and how social change works, by looking at how others have done it, how they are trying to do it now, and what can be learned from their successes and failures. Some of the things I have learned from this point of view are not just or moral or uplifting. Many are uncomfortable, amoral, and cynical…

In the fall of 2020, I finally got the chance to teach a course on Religion and Politics from a sociological perspective. Here’s a bit about how and why. Edited and updated.

I’ve never heard a child say, “I want to be a sociologist when I grow up” in the same sense that children want to be firefighters, doctors, professional athletes, or celebrities. And when I explain to family or old friends from my own blue-collar upbringing in Arlington, Texas that I study sociology, they’re often puzzled. “A degree in sociology? What are you going to do with that?” This is a brief response, a personal take on what sociologists do, and what sociology can offer.