Jerry Cayford is a philosopher and policy analyst in the Washington, DC area. “The Radical Reading of Wittgenstein” was his dissertation for a Ph.D. in philosophy from Northwestern University, and he has a bachelor’s in economics from U. C. Berkeley. He co‑authored Democracy in Practice: Public Participation in Environmental Decisions with Thomas C. Beierle, and “American Patent Policy, Biotechnology, and African Agriculture: The Case for Policy Change” with Michael R. Taylor. Solo works include “Breeding Sanity into the GM Food Debate.” He’s been a small business manager, editor, contractor’s assistant, gardener, computer programmer, and a modern dancer. Email: jccayford [at] gmail.com
by Jerry Cayford “Yertle the Turtle,” by Dr. Seuss, is a parable for our times. That statement may seem banal to some, maybe even insultingly obvious. But I think the elements that make it so relevant are not the obvious ones. Like any great parable, it suggests more than it says, and its adaptability to…
by Jerry Cayford I was always attracted to that old dichotomy: people must be either stupid or lying when they claim to believe some obvious falsehood. This dichotomy is a staple of Democratic theorizing about our political culture. (Sometimes the choice is between stupid and evil, which amounts to the same.) For example, Adam-Troy Castro’s…
by Jerry Cayford I listened some weeks ago to a terrific discussion between Ezra Klein and Fareed Zakaria. And it really was terrific. They were both at the top of their game, doing a certain thing at a very high level. Still, I have a slight bias against both these guys, and complicated feelings about what…
by Jerry Cayford “If I Had My Way” is one of the great protest songs (aka “Samson and Delilah”). The biblical story of Samson expresses the theme that a primitive and chaotic force beneath protest can escape all restraint. Samson is a destroyer: “He lifted up that jawbone and he swung it over his head…
by Jerry Cayford “America,” by Paul Simon, from Simon and Garfunkel’s 1968 album, Bookends, speaks to our moment. What it says to me is a bit different from what I am reading about it from other people, but I don’t think I’m idiosyncratic. The key, as I see it, is to realize that the song…
by Jerry Cayford On June 28 this year, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Chevron U.S.A v. Natural Resources Defense Council (1984). This was big, since that Chevron decision was the heart of the administrative state’s legal authority. Chevron formalized the executive civil service’s authority over complex decisions of practical governance, such as how to interpret and…
by Jerry Cayford Robert Sapolsky claims there is no free will. Jacob Marley begs to differ. Let us consider their dispute. Sapolsky presents his case in Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will: everything has a cause, so all our actions are produced by the long causal chain of prior events—never freely willed—and no…
by Jerry Cayford It’s a book about how our political system fell into this downward spiral—a doom loop of toxic politics. It’s a story that requires thinking big—about the nature of political conflict, about broad changes in American society over many decades, and, most of all, about the failures of our political institutions. (2) Where…
by Jerry Cayford The Vegetarian Fallacy was so dubbed by philosophy grad students in a well-oiled pub debate back in the 1980s. There is a fundamental conflict—so the argument went—between vegetarians and ecologists. The first principle of ecology—everything is connected to everything else (Barry Commoner’s first law)—is incompatible with the hands-off, “live and let live”…
by Jerry Cayford Biden matters because he is taking on the real problems that are wrecking America, the deep structural problems, created over decades, that benefit powerful people who will do anything to prevent change (the way fossil fuel companies do anything to block climate solutions that hurt profits). He is the first president since…
by Jerry Cayford It is almost Groundhog Day again. Time for the ritual rewatching of Groundhog Day, the comically ingenious and wildly successful retelling of “Beauty and the Beast.” More than just a delightful comedy, Groundhog Day does justice to the deep psychological roots of an ancient fairy tale (“Beauty and the Beast” is, along…
by Jerry Cayford A friend of mine covers his Facebook tracks. He follows groups from across the political spectrum so that no one can pigeonhole him. He has friends and former colleagues who, he figures, will be among the armed groups going door to door purging enemies, if our society breaks into civil anarchy. He…
by Jerry Cayford We think we live in a democracy, though an imperfect one. Every election, our frustrations bubble up in a list of proposed reforms to make our democracy a little more perfect. Usually, changing the Electoral College heads the list, followed by gerrymandering and a motley of campaign finance, voter suppression, vote count…
by Jerry Cayford “This is the story of a man. Not rich and powerful, not a big man like your father, Sweetheart. Just a funny little man. I didn’t know him long, only three nights. But there was something about him, something magical.” If “Rumpelstiltskin” started with this framing, we would have a different picture…
by Jerry Cayford The topic today is misinformation and knowledge, conspiracy theory and evidence, not biblical exegesis. When Saint Paul tells the Corinthians, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12), he is contrasting partial, human knowing with the perfect knowing that will come when we reunite…
by Jerry Cayford The rigged rules that govern our economy are being rewritten right now. And the fight is fierce. “The most powerful agency you’ve never heard of” (as the media calls the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs) is revising its main guidance telling federal agencies how to structure regulations. That is, OIRA is…
by Jerry Cayford Boomer-bashing is everywhere. Maybe it’s warranted, but a reality check is in order, because the bashing starts from an easy and false idea about how power has moved in American society. The recent change in House Democratic leadership is almost too perfect an example. As a “new generation” takes power in the…