I think the opinion piece has something to do with our uniquely human ability - I hope - to be passionate about seemingly unrelated and sometimes contradictory causes and issues. It also touched upon changing one's mind. Of course I am tainted by being a child of the mid 20th century.
I believe a summary of the theme is contained in this quote (and the title!):
“Just as intersectionality gives the left a reason to connect Palestine to trans rights, sweeping conspiracy theories may give the right the glue they need for their own fatberg rather than let it be formed only in relation to the opposing fatberg."
DoorDash Grandma Simmons refuses to play Trump’s omniCause game.
"I'm here about no tax on tips," she said, and in that small act of compartmentalization, she demonstrated something miraculous:
the ability to be a whole person in a fragmented world.
The path out of antagonism is not a new political program. It is the recovery of a lost skill: the discipline of holding separate things separate. This is what the Bauhaus Vorkurs taught—not to fuse art and craft into a single identity, but to learn the distinct properties of each material. This is what Barzun meant by "intellect"—not the ability to connect everything to everything else, but the ability to make precise, disciplined, and truthful distinctions.
"The miraculous is not the opposite of discipline; it is its product"
The same is true of compartmentalization. The miracle of a functioning society is not that everyone agrees, but that people can disagree about tax policy on Tuesday and still sit next to each other at a PTA meeting on Thursday. That is the accomplishment the omnicause destroys—and the one we must now rebuild.
"Fatbergs" are big globs of grease that clog up that clog up sewer systems. The city I live in requires commercial kitchens to have a grease trap to capture the grease so it doesn't enter the system. As a maintenance man I had to see to it that the place I worked had to have it pumped every 6 months. I watched an episode of a show called Dirty Jobs many years ago about removing a "Fatberg" from a spot in the San Francisco sewer system. The pipe was 8 plus feet in diameter and had a built in access spot to catch blockages. The "Fatberg was over 8 feet! Men had to break it up. It glued together all sorts of things that shouldn't have been flushed down a toilet like: condoms, feminine hygiene pads, ect. The "Fatberg" and sewer analogy is most applicable to this article! =)
THANK you for that explanation. I too was confused. Had I seen the word out of context instead of in this article, I would have thought it was a slur against obese Jews.
I enjoyed this article. I'd never encountered the term "omnicause" before, but when I saw the title, I assumed that it was a reference to Trump himself, as the MAGA community largely adopts its positions from whatever Trump says.
For while I had never heard of the omnicause, it has been impossible to avoid the last ten-plus years. It is why our politics are so poisonous and dysfunctional, and why I despair for the future of our Republic.
Maybe it's my fault for being old, but what the Devil was this about?
I think the opinion piece has something to do with our uniquely human ability - I hope - to be passionate about seemingly unrelated and sometimes contradictory causes and issues. It also touched upon changing one's mind. Of course I am tainted by being a child of the mid 20th century.
I believe a summary of the theme is contained in this quote (and the title!):
“Just as intersectionality gives the left a reason to connect Palestine to trans rights, sweeping conspiracy theories may give the right the glue they need for their own fatberg rather than let it be formed only in relation to the opposing fatberg."
A moment of genuine wonder:
DoorDash Grandma Simmons refuses to play Trump’s omniCause game.
"I'm here about no tax on tips," she said, and in that small act of compartmentalization, she demonstrated something miraculous:
the ability to be a whole person in a fragmented world.
The path out of antagonism is not a new political program. It is the recovery of a lost skill: the discipline of holding separate things separate. This is what the Bauhaus Vorkurs taught—not to fuse art and craft into a single identity, but to learn the distinct properties of each material. This is what Barzun meant by "intellect"—not the ability to connect everything to everything else, but the ability to make precise, disciplined, and truthful distinctions.
"The miraculous is not the opposite of discipline; it is its product"
The same is true of compartmentalization. The miracle of a functioning society is not that everyone agrees, but that people can disagree about tax policy on Tuesday and still sit next to each other at a PTA meeting on Thursday. That is the accomplishment the omnicause destroys—and the one we must now rebuild.
Im a bit unclear what fatberg means.
Ok!
"Fatbergs" are big globs of grease that clog up that clog up sewer systems. The city I live in requires commercial kitchens to have a grease trap to capture the grease so it doesn't enter the system. As a maintenance man I had to see to it that the place I worked had to have it pumped every 6 months. I watched an episode of a show called Dirty Jobs many years ago about removing a "Fatberg" from a spot in the San Francisco sewer system. The pipe was 8 plus feet in diameter and had a built in access spot to catch blockages. The "Fatberg was over 8 feet! Men had to break it up. It glued together all sorts of things that shouldn't have been flushed down a toilet like: condoms, feminine hygiene pads, ect. The "Fatberg" and sewer analogy is most applicable to this article! =)
THANK you for that explanation. I too was confused. Had I seen the word out of context instead of in this article, I would have thought it was a slur against obese Jews.
I enjoyed this article. I'd never encountered the term "omnicause" before, but when I saw the title, I assumed that it was a reference to Trump himself, as the MAGA community largely adopts its positions from whatever Trump says.
For while I had never heard of the omnicause, it has been impossible to avoid the last ten-plus years. It is why our politics are so poisonous and dysfunctional, and why I despair for the future of our Republic.
I love the "Fatberg" Analogy! I have dealt with them pumping grease traps for commercial kitchens. =)