Cultural Revolution is so hot right now. As fate would have it, the week’s most important cultural fault line appeared in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, just a few blocks from my home. A violent, apparently Marxist mob – as evidenced by their internet champion, Joe Rivano Barros, a white Stanford alum who has publicly branded himself a champion of the working people – destroyed the statue of Ulysses S. Grant. I… admittedly lost my cool.

Destroying historical and cultural icons is of course a well-storied tactic of violent Marxists, though it has been recently confused in America by the well-meaning introspection of young people grappling with the United States’ legacy of slavery and the Confederate South. Statues of Confederate figures and generals have been targeted for years. The question – why are we celebrating these men? It’s obvious we should not be. Immediately following the Civil War, it was important to reintegrate the North and South. That meant there was perhaps a more complicated cultural calculus at work in the late 19th Century. But Jim Crow-era celebrations of the Confederacy came to evoke something altogether different, and cannot be justified. The problem is, for many people, this was never about the Confederacy. This was always about the United States in general. America is increasingly observed by our cultural founts of power as force of tremendous historic evil in the world, and therefore all heroic celebrations of America must be eradicated. If this was not already clear to you, the destruction of the statue of Ulysses S. Grant should make it obvious this is not about race. Grant inherited one slave in his life, a man named William Jones, and freed him. Then he conquered the Confederate South, and vanquished the institution of Southern slavery. He placed black and indigenous men in prominent positions of power. As president, he tried his best to help the freed slaves toward prosperity, but was ultimately thwarted by pro-Confederate Democrats at the turn of the century.

Check out Ron Chernow’s spectacular biography of the man.

MVP of the week goes to my friend Kmele Foster, who I previously interviewed on liberty for Problematic. He has been writing and speaking thoughtfully on a handful of very important issues, including race and racism (check out the thread below). Well worth a follow.

So what is all of this about? From Seattle’s CHAZ to Golden Gate Park’s pitchfork socialists, I think it’s worth asking what the mob is really fighting for. The New York Times’ Nikole Hannah-Jones provides helpful illumination on the issue. It’s important to keep in mind nuanced views of history are not reserved for once-in-a-century heroes who end slavery, like Grant.

But nuanced views are crucial when attempting to parse the legacy of mass murderers like Fidel Castro, who made his country a nation of slaves.

Marx is quite revived in contemporary American politics and culture.

Gene drives. If you’ve followed my recent work you know I have a great interest in synthetic biology, and the associated biohacking movement. De-extinction – for example, bringing the woolly mammoth back to life – is a drama we are closer to publicly grappling with by the day, and more on that in the weeks to come (I’ve got a project cooking). But at the other end of the spectrum we have launched from “let’s have a complicated conversation about the ethics of gene drives” to full on eradication of mosquitoes. Gene drives are used here to alter the fertility of a mosquito in such a way as it can only spawn mosquitoes of one sex. The modified mosquitoes are released into the wild, and their fertility glitch is driven through the native population. Theoretically, the mosquito population should then crash. I do think the ethics here are complicated, but I come out in favor of eradicating the handful of mosquito species that carry human disease. This is an easy thing to critique when you yourself do not have to worry about something like malaria. But destroying polio was good. Effectively eliminating the guinea worm… was good.

Bioethicists are almost uniformly mad, but what even is a “bioethicist”? You don’t need a degree in bioethics to parse ethics, which in any case most of these men and women don’t have. They’re just press-anointed talking heads, and the press is always going to platform people who excel at terrifying readers. Click farmers gonna click. Among biologists, there’s plenty of disagreement on the issue. But we are all capable of parsing ethical decisions, and we should all be involved here. The real danger we’re going to be facing in synthetic biology is still a few years out. The field is fairly democratized, and that is a trend that will continue. In most ways, this is incredible. But one tremendous downside is we won’t be having any thoughtful conversations on the ethics of what is happening in a basement somewhere in the middle of the country. I’d love to deal with invasive pythons in Florida, or lionfish (KILL THEM WITH FIRE). But none of us want to see a honey bee crash. Not sure what the answer is. Would love to hear from you in the comments.

Guillotine Twitter. The French Revolution has always captured a certain kind of academic, neck-beardy man’s imagination. Every generation has its share of weak people who fetishize violence, but our generation does seem inordinately saturated by idiocy. It could be social media. Or maybe it’s just so many of our teachers, and so much of our culture, glamorize the revolution, and revolution in general. Many Europeans think the French Revolution happened before the American Revolution – that the French invented the concept of revolution. Many Americans think the French Revolution liberated the French people from tyranny. Friendly reminder, the French Revolution ended in mass murder, and one of the most notorious dictatorships in human history.

Fun new conspiracy. P.E. Moskowitz, a journalist in New York (can anyone just call themselves that? Am I a journalist?), has become the champion of an exciting, new conspiracy theory. The government is setting off fireworks to inhibit class consciousness and mobilization.

Groovy.

I frankly love a good conspiracy theory, and try to believe everything I’m told for at least a minute or two. I am, as ever, very interested in weird shit, and belief is the gateway. But the verdict is still out on this one. I’ll keep you posted.

Until next week, godspeed.

-SOLANA