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What the Agenda-Setters Are Talking About

The Atlantic: Is #MeToo Too Big?

"One of the challenges we face is that everyone is trying to file everything under the #MeToo label," the American feminist organizer Tarana Burke said at the Aspen Ideas Festival.

Burke started the movement a decade ago. It caught fire worldwide only last October, after the Weinstein scandal broke and the actress Alyssa Milano urged survivors of sexual assault to speak up under the #MeToo hashtag. Its original meaning was to end the silence of those survivors, especially low-income women of color. But its expansion soon pulled it into a familiar pattern in American politics, carrying it far past sexual crime. Today its broad banner covers equal pay, power structures, whisper networks (workplace sexual harassment) and "the promise of American culture that the rights of marginalized people still hold" (equal rights).

Piling many causes into one tent and letting it grow is common enough. The Women's March of January 2017 was not only a feminist march: those who joined wanted to speak on much more, from the new president's misogyny to immigration, civil rights, LGBT rights, reproductive rights, human rights, science and simple decency. A year later, the March for Our Lives was not only about school shootings; it also asked who gets to be heard in a political system tilted toward power, wealth, men and whiteness. And the recent Families Belong Together rallies, whose core demand was to reunite the immigrant families separated at the US-Mexico border, widened from immigration itself to women's abortion rights and the true meaning of "patriotism" (conveniently, just before Independence Day).

MeToo has become one of those big tents. So does a movement now "about everything" risk solving nothing at all? Has it already lost its point?

Burke thinks the risk is real, even if the impulse behind it is easy to understand: the anger of people fighting for their own rights has been bottled up for a long time and needs an outlet sooner or later. But equal rights is a larger and more distant goal, and a different thing from the narrow aim of #MeToo. The movement would be better off recovering the particular qualities that defined it at the start.

Sexual violence is an enormous matter in itself, she points out, yet mixed into the wide range of subjects #MeToo now carries, it becomes merely one item among many — a category error. That does not mean the other subjects are not worth discussing; many of them are bound up with misogynistic culture and feed sexual violence. "I understand why people do it — if you attach this label, people pay more attention... But we should be more imaginative about it... Right now people are just taking an existing structure — #MeToo as a movement and as a hashtag — and loading other meanings onto it. They are asking too much of #MeToo," she said. The hopes heaped on it are close to crushing it.

The result is that its first purpose — preventing sexual violence — struggles to get attention. Burke says this damages the work they are doing, "because you simply cannot look after that much. Sexual violence is already a huge issue on its own."

There is nothing wrong with discussing inequality, cultural flaws, prejudice, race and class, but Burke's advice is to "actually get to work": break the problems apart instead of lumping them together, refuse the merging and the expansion, and solve specific problems inside the general mess. "Nine months ago, millions of survivors of sexual assault around the world put their hands up and said, me too. Their hands are still up."

The 24-Hour News Makers

Poles rally against the government's purge of the Supreme Court.

The Polish government purged the Supreme Court in a surprise move on Tuesday night, meaning to abolish judicial independence outright. Ten thousand citizens took to the streets in protest.

After the Soviet Union collapsed, Poland was the model other Eastern European countries studied, the country that had "embraced Western democracy." Lately, like its neighbor Hungary, it has rulers who have chosen autocracy.

Law and Justice (PiS), the right-wing party that holds a majority in parliament, has long treated judges as diehard communists and wreckers. Since taking power in 2015 it has seized control of the Constitutional Tribunal (whose job is to keep laws from violating the constitution, and which feeds prosecutors to the justice ministry). More recently it gave itself a new power to pick judges, forced out 27 of the Supreme Court's 72 judges (including the chief justice), and created a judicial disciplinary chamber — all of it aimed at taking over the judiciary completely.

Every step has drawn international condemnation and public protest, and every step has gone ahead anyway. Judges who spoke out have been harassed and threatened.

A few hours before the midnight purge, tens of thousands of Poles filled the streets of more than 60 towns and cities. In Warsaw they gathered beneath a monument to the anti-Nazi resistance, sang the Solidarity anthem, held up EU flags and handed out placards printed with one word: "Constitution." This time the call for solidarity was not aimed at a foreign invader or at Soviet oppression, but at their own elected government, by people afraid that the system they had worked to build was about to be torn down.

Malgorzata Gersdorf, the chief justice, said a few days earlier that she was worried: "I don't want to say I'm afraid, but there is no doubt this is not the direction I want to see or support. I think it is destroying what we have built over the past 25 years."

Under the new law passed by parliament, judges over 65 are forced into retirement unless they petition President Andrzej Duda, who decides alone whether they stay. Gersdorf points out that the law is itself unconstitutional; the public believes it has nothing to do with age and everything to do with particular people. Officials say they are only cracking down on a corrupt system that blocks the will of the people, but commentators inside and outside Poland believe the authorities want a judiciary that does as politicians say.

The EU's failure to stop Hungary's slide into autocracy is thought to have given other leaders in the region ideas. With right-wing nationalism and populism rising, Poland's government is unlikely to pay much of a price either. The dismantling of democracy goes on.

What Else Happened in the World

China will not "fire the first shot" in the trade war. The US will impose tariffs on tens of billions of dollars of Chinese goods on July 6. From Xinhua, July 4: an official at the office of the Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council said on July 4 that they had noted the report in Japan's Asahi Shimbun that "China's 'retaliation' will begin before the United States'." China's position has been stated many times: it will never fire the first shot, and will not impose tariffs before the US does.

Another nerve agent case in Britain leaves two people unconscious. A couple fell into deep comas on Saturday in Wiltshire, in the south of England. Police say the substance that felled them is the same Soviet-made nerve agent, Novichok, used to poison the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter. There is no evidence the couple were targets, police say, and they cannot confirm the poison came from the same source as the Skripal case, though they plainly cannot rule it out. They also warned the public not to pick up unfamiliar objects: "This time we have no idea what the nerve agent was in."

Robby Müller, master cinematographer of independent film, dies at 78. A long-standing collaborator of Wim Wenders, he shot Wenders' "road trilogy" film Paris, Texas, Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark and Breaking the Waves, and Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law, Mystery Train and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, among others.

Macron warns Europe that if it plans to set up migrant reception centers in North Africa, the countries concerned must take part. Speaking on a visit to Nigeria, Macron said many African countries fear such centers would become the main draw pulling migrants in, while Europe has to face an African population soaring in the absence of family planning. North African migrant centers are "feasible, provided African governments decide to organize themselves." His first priority remains "stopping people from taking wild risks and reaching Europe at the cost of their lives."

The 12 Thai boys and their football coach trapped in a cave introduced themselves one by one in a video, telling the outside world they were in good health. The water in the cave will keep rising, and the rescue may not be finished for months.

Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal rules that same-sex partners can obtain a "dependant visa". Hong Kong law still does not recognize same-sex marriage or civil unions, but this is a key step forward for the rights of same-sex couples. In QT v. Director of Immigration, QT, a British lesbian, was refused a spousal visa for her same-sex partner by Hong Kong's Immigration Department. The Director of Immigration argued that he encouraged skilled workers to join Hong Kong's workforce accompanied by dependants, but that he was entitled to draw a clear line between the married and the unmarried. On July 4 the Court of Final Appeal dismissed the Director's appeal, holding that marriage and civil partnership are each statuses recognized by UK law, and that although the latter is not called marriage, it is in no way different from married status.

The Northern Hemisphere went through record heat in the past week. Places across North America, Europe, Eurasia and the Middle East broke their records for June 28. No single one of them can be blamed directly on global warming, but taken together the heat matches what people expect of an extreme climate.

Months after Sudan, the last male northern white rhino, died, scientists say they have made rhino embryos by in vitro fertilization, using sperm from dead male rhinos and eggs from a related subspecies, securing the population's survival. They hope a northern white rhino calf can be born within three years.

Someone Said

"All of England is probably feeling this right now: hello darkness, my old friend~"

— the British comedian David Schneider, tweeting after watching Colombia drag England into a penalty shootout, with a "sad Ben Affleck" GIF and the line from The Sound of Silence: Hello darkness my old friend.

England lose on penalties at the World Cup: to West Germany in 1990, to Argentina in 1998, to Portugal in 2006. Their one shootout win came against Spain at Euro 1996 (and they lost the next round on penalties, to Germany). The overall record at major tournaments was one win and six defeats — enough to leave deep scars on players and fans alike.

This young England side broke the curse, beating Colombia 4-3 on penalties. For a great many young fans, it was the first shootout they had ever seen England win.

The Telegraph counted three reasons: painstaking planning, repetition, and nerve.

Gareth Southgate, the current manager, is precisely the man who missed his penalty against Germany in 1996. Having lived it, he understands what runs through a player's head. Since March, England had finished every training session with penalties, trying to turn the mental struggle of the walk from the halfway line to the spot into a train of thought that gets the most out of a player's technique. (Kieran Trippier: "We practiced and practiced and practiced... every session, when we were finally tired, we'd start on penalties.") Southgate also took the squad to train with the Royal Marines, splitting the players into groups to mock each other and harden them. The FA even hired a psychologist, Pippa Grange, purely to improve the team's mental resilience.

The FA's technical director led a study group looking into why the national team kept losing shootouts. They found that England's players took less time over a kick than any other team, and that the process ought to be lengthened. Walking to the spot, a player should take his time, leaving himself room to clear his head and rehearse in his mind how to execute the idea properly.

The other key was owning the process. The goalkeeper, Jordan Pickford, secured it through a run of ritual gestures — handing the ball to each teammate himself to show he had the situation in hand, and using sheer presence to unsettle the Colombians.

Southgate's summary: "Making sure the atmosphere out there is calm, making sure we control the process rather than making decisions in the heat of the moment. Stay calm, get the right people on the pitch, and don't let the players have too many voices in their heads."

Long drilling and orderly arrangements let England's players put panic aside.

Winning or losing is not decided by luck alone. Whatever the result, England's management knew that the whole process of training and planning was sound — and that this was all they could control on the pitch anyway.

Things You Might Also Be Interested In

Why do Americans like gunfighting preachers?

A shooting at a Walmart in Washington state in late June produced a hero: David George, a 46-year-old church pastor who, after watching the gunman fire on shoppers, stepped forward, drew his own gun and killed him, then took out the first aid kit he carries and treated the badly wounded. A Bible, a first aid kit and a gun are the three things he keeps on him.

The American fighting preacher goes back much further than the comic Preacher or the lyrics of rock singers. Such figures were turning up in real life from the 1900s on. Frank Norris, a nationally known preacher, was given the title "the pistol-toting divine," and the time he shot a man dead in an argument only made him more popular with his followers.

The Conversation looks at the American fascination with the armed preacher, in fiction and in life, and argues that it shows the country's collective attitude toward guns, religion, violence and justice. The US still has the largest Christian population in the world (70-83% of Americans call themselves Christian) while also being a country of guns and gun violence, and the two together have a marked effect.

Scholars have found this closely tied to the American interest in vigilante justice — the lone hero who saves people when the system fails. Other vigilantes may act on their own reckoning, on a private reading of what justice is; the preacher figure stands for divine authority, dispensing justice on God's behalf. His actions always carry the suggestion that he is doing heaven's work. The image expresses a powerful assertion of the individual self while insisting on the duty to protect a larger community.

Bible in one hand, gun in the other, the avenging preacher tells people that real justice cannot be left to institutions and systems, and that when it is needed, God will stand with those who choose to enforce the law themselves.

To protect young coral polyps, Hawaii has banned over-the-counter sales of 3,500 sunscreen products.

Most sunscreens contain oxybenzone, which is lethal to young coral polyps. A 2015 study found that oxybenzone disrupts the hormones of coral polyps and damages their DNA, "deforming their soft tissue and leaving them to die inside their own shells."

Over the past three years a fifth of the world's coral reefs have vanished. Warming is the chief cause; water pollution is another. An estimated 14,000 tons of sunscreen come off swimmers' skin and into reef areas every year, and the whole reef system grows more fragile for it.

In May, Hawaii passed a bill banning oxybenzone and another common sunscreen ingredient, octinoxate. Once it takes effect, any Hawaii resident or visitor who wants sunscreen containing the two ingredients will need a doctor's prescription. In other words, all 3,500 sunscreen products on the islands become prescription drugs. The sunscreen industry has protested.

Hawaii's governor is expected to sign the bill this week; it takes effect on January 1, 2021.

On This Day

July 5, 1687: Isaac Newton publishes Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica.

July 5, 1811: Venezuela becomes the first South American country to declare independence from Spain.

July 5, 1946: The world's first bikini is unveiled.

July 5, 2003: The World Health Organization declares SARS successfully contained.

Cover image from AMC's Preacher