Day 80, Wednesday May 22, 2024: Baraboo

I decided to stay in Baraboo for the day. I’m not feeling great, and I wanted to rest and write. Baraboo’s Carnegie-Schaade Library is my jam: historic preservation in love with modern amenities. From my table I see an archway made of books which lead into the room and the county courthouse through the large windows.

The recovery meeting of the Baraboo Afternoon Reflection Group was just so-so, and that’s good enough. The highlight was the purse-sized poodle who played with a chew toy throughout the session. Dogs are definitely life-enhancing.

Every AA group seems to receive a set of readings laminated in plastic. Not every group uses them – I’ve heard of a group in the south which calls itself FTL (‘fuck the laminates’) – and this one does. The one entitled “How It Works” begins like this:

Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest. 

During my first experiences with AA I thought this statement was bullshit. Like all recovery programs, AA has a rather low success rate, depending on what success means and given how difficult it is to study the program. The most important study comparing AA to other recovery programs shows that it is as effective, if not more effective. This study unfortunately shows only relative rates of effectiveness (proportion of AA abstinent/proportion of other programs) rather than absolute rates of effectiveness (number who remain abstinent relative to the number who participate at some point). And success is often measured in fairly short periods (e.g., six months, twelve months). As any day that an alcoholic doesn’t drink is a miracle even a six month period of sobriety is notable. So when an alcoholic “goes back out” after six months and resumes drinking, should we count that as a person who has failed?

It’s the second sentence that gets to me, however: “Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.” It’s not a stretch to believe that many individuals who at some point  “completely give themselves to this simple program” nonetheless go back to drinking unless, of course, one believes that resuming drinking is proof that they did not give themselves unconditionally. The phrase “constitutionally incapable” is both saving and damning. Saving, in that the person who fails is blameless. Damning, because it implies that such a person simply cannot be saved.  

It occurred to me today that a recovery program is like a seatbelt. I have never actually needed to wear a seatbelt, as I have never been in a crash in which it protected me. It’s unlikely that I’ll get in such an accident today. I wear a seatbelt as a matter of routine because I might need one. I wear one even though I might never need to do so. I wear one as a form of protection in case I do get in a crash. Likewise, I attend meetings because I might want to drink, and attending helps me avoid getting wrecked. I’m baffled as to why it took me so long to understand this principle

Speaking of seatbelts…for years I taught a class on “policy ethics” and, for most of the time, it was one of my favorite classes. In it we addressed questions like “what is good public policy?” and “is this specific policy good?’” I used hypotheticals and actual cases. So, for example, when I asked my students “Should wearing seat belts be mandatory?” their answer was always a unanimous “Yes.” Their reasoning was generally that mandatory seat belt laws save thousands of lives, and they are designed not only to protect the wearer but others in the car (in an accident, a person not wearing a seatbelt becomes a projectile). Ok. When I asked my students, “Should wearing helmets be mandatory for motorcyclists?” They typically gave the same answer, even though many fewer die because they weren’t wearing helmets (that is, the benefits of the policy are not as large), and not wearing a helmet exposes only the rider to risks – no one else. Students generally gave their justification as helmetless riders are likely to impose costs on the (social) medical system. Yet if I suggested that an adult (like me), competent to make decisions about what risks are worth taking, and fully insured, so that they themselves (and no one else) pays for the additional risk, their answer is still the same: helmets should be required. I pressed them further: skydiving, skiing, scuba diving are all inherently risky activities that produce no social benefits. Should those activities simply be banned? Universally, their answer was no. 

I puzzled over these answers and this is what I concluded. The students almost never rode motorcycles, so the requirement wouldn’t personally affect them, and so they weren’t worried about their own personal liberty being restricted. Oh, and it was just stupid not to wear a helmet, and requirements are necessary to prevent stupidity, even if it takes away individual liberty. Skydiving, skiing, and scuba diving are “good” activities, – and, perhaps the activities they might be more likely to engage in – and so individuals should have the freedom to enjoy them. To be fair, I didn’t ask them if helmets should be required for these sports.

As time went by, I found myself increasingly distanced from these students. I perceived that they were becoming increasingly dogmatic and ideological in their thinking, and that such thinking was morally inconsistent. I am aware that my perceptions might have more to do with changes in me than changes with my students, and I don’t want to overgeneralize. 

Let me give you another example. By the end of my tenure, my students were almost universally abortion absolutists: there should be no restrictions of any sort, and to suggest any restrictions was unacceptable. I also found this problematic. I’m essentially a Roe standards guy who believes that the freedom to have an abortion should be unrestricted until viability, with some restrictions after that. 

Bear with me. If I asked “Should it be legal to kill a newborn?” the answer is obviously no, and of course the students agreed. When I asked, “Should it be legal to kill the unborn person 15 minutes prior to delivery?” they became squeamish. What, I asked, is the difference in the state of the unborn in those two circumstances other than its physical location? What about 30 minutes before? One day before? When does the unborn have a life worth protecting? For abortion abolitionists, the answer is easy: the unborn is fully human at the moment of conception. For supporters of unrestricted abortion rights, the answer is also easy: only after delivery. Both answers, in my view, pay little heed to the differences between a small cluster of cells and a fully formed infant.

One final example. I posed the hypothetical “Suppose a safe, effective, and affordable technology was developed that would allow the parents to determine the sexual orientation of the infant in utero. Should this technology be legal?” Most often, my students were appalled by this idea: of course not. They did not appreciate the implications I drew: “I thought you believed that women/parents should have full control over their reproductive decisions” and “So it should be permissible to abort the unborn but not alter their sexuality?”

I know their reasons for opposing this procedure, because they told me, and they’re pretty obvious. Their chief concern is that, given our culture today, parents would overwhelmingly choose to have straight children and, if this is the case, a vulnerable community – those who identify as LGBTQ – would likely be harmed. I’m sympathetic with this viewpoint, and I myself don’t think that such a procedure, if it actually existed,  should be legalized. I was hoping that my students would understand that they are not fully “pro-choice, leave reproductive decisions up to the individuals involved.” They are “pro-choice, unless the choice threatens some other important value.” 

My thinking on these and similar issues evolved over time. I became more supportive of individual freedoms while also sympathetic to the view that (virtually) all freedoms must have some limits. I defended the rights to own guns, and I especially defended the idea that millions of Americans believe that gun ownership is a freedom equivalent to the freedoms of speech, the press, and religion (which, by the way, all face some limitations). I became more wary 0f expanding government, primarily because I fear how these powers would be used if they were placed in the wrong hands (e.g. I wouldn’t want my President to have certain powers because I worry how your President would use them). In short, I became more liberal (in the classic sense of liberal) in my support of individual freedoms and limited government.

I’ll confess that I was not always fearless in my presentations as I should have been. It is a standard belief on many college campuses, for example, that gender-affirming healthcare should be provided to those who seek it, without question. To question this is to present as transphobic, and I was worried that I would face such criticism. My concerns are more closely aligned with those emerging in several European countries (for example, Sweden and Norway). Two issues are paramount. Gender affirming care (hormones and surgery, for instance) have risks and so they should be scrutinized as any other medical procedures regarding safety and efficacy. Moreover, some who accepted treatment later regretted this decision. While the proportion seems quite small, it seems appropriate and essential to have guardrails in place to minimize this possibility.

I know this section might seem off topic – what does it have to do with my quest? – yet it is really a continuation of my efforts to develop a coherent moral philosophy. Needing a break from these ponderings, I visited a couple local libraries.

LaValle Public Library

Wonewoc Public Library