Bad News Friend: Effective Altruism, Kidneys and the Media Octopus

While waiting to have lunch with my local Effective Altruism chapter today, I had a run-in with a close friend, a mathematician, with whom I speak frankly and openly (hi Aaron!). 

We scarcely had time to talk, but he breathlessly encouraged me to check out the NYT piece 'Bad Art Friend' which he summarized as a writer donating her kidney as an Effective Altruist cause, while actually wanting attention. 

I don't read articles from the octopus as a rule, but I made an exception for a friend. I won't link the article here. If you're the terminally-online sort who's followed the story, you don't need me telling you about it, and if you aren't, you won't get anything from the Times coverage. 

(I would, however, pay good money for a linguist to explain why 'bad art friend' and similar terms have such a distinct woke/coastal American sense to them)

In summary: An author named Dorland donated her kidney and made sure everyone knew about it. She was unsatisfied with how much others were talking about it, in particular another author named Larson. Larson later wrote a story in which her Asian-American protagonist receives a kidney from a white woman who wants recognition/love from the protagonist. Dorland contends the short story features some of her own writing and is based on her. Larson denies this. A years-long orgy of arguing, blame, lawsuits and accusations of racism culminate in the subpoena of Larson's facebook messages, which reveal she was lying. Nobody comes out looking good, the action is ongoing, drama continues. 

Having now gone through it, my friend's summary now seems spurious. Nothing indicates Dorland is aware of EA, though the framing of the story clearly indicates that she wanted some form of recognition for her good deed.

I'll first discuss the story in the actual context of charity and EA, and then the juicy cultural criticism. Veggies before dessert, kids.  

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First, is kidney donation an effective cause? 

As far as I'm aware, the EA organization does not especially promote or prioritize organ donations, and the consensus is that it's a good thing to do, but once you add up the costs, in dollars and opportunity, it drops waaay down the priority list. Fiscal donations to highly effective organizations remain the gold standard. 

Tom Ash in 2014 had a lengthy argument against this and in favor of widespread organ donation among EA members. I have not read it through, nor have I crunched the QALYs myself, and link it for completeness.

Nevertheless, organ donation does have much greater benefits to the ultimate recipient than the donor suffers from the surgery, and one can hardly fault someone who gives up a part of their body for the sake of another. 

Second, did Dorland donate a kidney for likes, and does it matter? While the NYT's description is suggestive (no shit), here's my 2¢. 

1. Don't know

2. Don't care

Part of the credo of Effective Altruism (perhaps contrary to the name) is that the ultimate reason for doing good doesn't matter. So long as you do it well and you keep doing it, your motivation is of little importance. Whether you're doing it to assuage your privilege anxiety, to feel good (fuzzies) to look good for the cameras (prestige) or because you care selflessly about the reduction of suffering is immaterial. 

The road to hell may be paved with good intentions, but the road to doing good can be paved with whatever intentions you like, just get the damn thing paved. 

However, not all charitable activities are equally (or at all) helpful. Some maximize doing good, others maximize making people feel good, and yet others maximize making people look good. None of the latter groups do so explicitly, but it is their function. A charity ball to inaugurate a museum, for example, lifts the prestige of the donors. A high-powered lawyer who donates their time working in a soup kitchen is lifting his own spirits. Only a scarce few charities deliberately maximize for altruistic impact, and these are the causes which groups like EA, Givewell and the Gates Foundation research, develop and fund. 

In summary: the role of organ donation in EA is not obviously settled, it's a good thing to voluntarily do, and one's motivations for doing so don't altogether matter. 

Now to the juicy bits.

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I love nothing more than to rip off The Last Psychiatrist, and so will steal his schtick. What does the author want to be true?

The NYT explicitly compares the offending narrative to 'Cat Person' the, I am informed, hit 2017 New Yorker short story, which is as good a time as any to link the Hotel Concierge post which dissects that story in detail. 

The concise insight HC grabs from that story is that

Pain is tolerable if it can be told in a story but ambiguity is anti-story and weak people cannot stand it.

The Times' portrait of Dorland certainly fits. A woman who removes a part of her body for the benefit of another, but who is unsatisfied with having done good, and becomes obsessed with getting praise for it. I've met real people who remind me of the opening description of Dorland, 

There is a sunny earnestness to Dawn Dorland, an un-self-conscious openness that endears her to some people and that others have found to be a little extra. Her friends call her a “feeler”: openhearted and eager, ... she is the sort of writer who, in one authorial mission statement, declares her faith in the power of fiction to “share truth,” to heal trauma, to build bridges. 

I should clarify, I've met such people and don't get along with them. As with Dorland, that emotional openness is paired with a great deal of discomfort with 'negative' emotion, including her own. Early on, she refuses to listen to the offending story because

“What if I had listened,” she said, “and just got a bad feeling, and just felt exploited. What was I going to do with that? What was I going to do with those emotions? There was nothing I thought I could do.” 

So she didn’t click. “I did what I thought was artistically and emotionally healthy,” she said.

I realize saying 'process them' is flippant, but I'm not sure what else to say. This sounds like a person who treats their emotions like something outside their control and understanding. She is swayed from action by the possibility of bad feelings. 

Also noteworthy, part of her ongoing case against Larson involved suing her for emotional distress caused by her story, including,

sleeplessness, anxiety, depression, panic attacks, weight loss “and several incidents of self-harm,”

which ultimately comes to nothing, like the prior time she tried and failed to sue on emotional distress in an unrelated case. 

Meanwhile, the Times is much less bullish on the racial themes than I would have expected. They miss no opportunity to stress Larson's mixed heritage and how it filters into her writing, but the inevitable accusation of racism leveled by Larson against Dorland is covered only little and appears to go nowhere, especially in light of the subpoena'd messages which thoroughly dispute her previous denials and show her own nastiness. 

Larson slings accusations of narcissism and of appropriation of the story to her own ends at Dorland. Given the Times' presentation, that's far from unbelievable.

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So at the end of the day, what's the point? What does the author want to be true? 

I think it's something like, "Look at this controversy in a tiny community nobody would know about if not for our coverage! It matters because we decide what matters! Bow before the Times, peons!"

Or possibly, "Look at these people you've never heard of! They're awful! Bask in their misery!"

The Guardian, following on the story, notes that the latter has become such a common message as to constitute a genre, that of e-drama. However, given the Guardian's title for their piece, and the explosion of writing about the drama, one other possibility should be noted:

"How can I make this all about meeeeeeeeee?!"

You can hear the social media engagement on the horizon, steadily clicking and tapping towards your entrenched position. 'Tag yourself! I'm Dorland's narcissistic self-image :emoji:!!1!' 

The Mary Sue (the integrity of my sources knoweth no bounds!) does the ... I suppose convenient work of collating tweets about the subject, which does sweet fuck-all for my understanding of real people's opinions, but which is excellent for my understanding of the collective unconscious of US midwit twiterati, which is what I was looking for anyway. 

By this metric, the great purpose of the article is to give the aforementioned tweeters something about which to be conspicuously in the loop, to create 'hot takes' and to air their own anxiety about privately engaging in the same two-faced behavior they publicly deride. 

Projection, describe thyself. 

But, also another option, identified by the Atlantic

Is she a genuinely kind if damaged person standing up for herself against a ring of successful and fashionable authors who consider her a nobody? Or is she a manipulative creep in a kind soul’s clothing? Kolker, it seems, doesn’t want readers to feel exactly sure.

Because a story around which one can draw battle lines is a sure draw for Twitter engagement and virality. Keep in mind, this isn't the same thing as a news report which leaves conclusions for the reader; this story and others of its kind sprinkle the landscape with the earthworks and structures through which one may have interminable online arguments which are never meant to be won. 

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But wait! Is all this true/accurate?

I've not read Larson's story, nor any of her other work, nor any of the work of the other authors featured. I have no particular desire to do so either. As a rule, fiction which contemporary lit critics enjoy makes me break out in hives. 

Lest I fall into the 'Too Good to Check' trap, I must stress that all I know about this story I learned from the Gray Lady and her barnacles. Propagate your uncertainties accordingly. 

Still, one bit which struck me familiar was the way the fictional protagonists were described. Namely, Larson's recurring protagonist is described as

a second-generation Asian American woman named Chuntao, who is used to men putting their fingers around her wrist and remarking on how narrow it is, almost as if she were a toy, a doll, a plaything.

Did you catch that? In this description, the precise sort of racial harassment to which this figure is subjected is presented as synecdochic of character.

(That is quite possibly the most lit-critic sentence I've ever written)

The technique is familiar, but it's only after reading this that I realized what it was. In an earlier draft I attributed this to Larson's own writing and views, but I know nothing about her writing. This is entirely the work of the Times. I would bet good money that the author thought about exactly how to describe this character and decided that the most salient bit was the harassment inflicted by others, rather than any character trait, and thought nothing of doing so.

I was carelessly making assumptions about an author's writing, not based on that writing, but based on how the Times framed it. I lead a discussion like this with the question, 'What does the author want to be true?' in order to stress the role of the author as the framing agent in a news story, the analysis of which is often just as, if not more, productive than an analysis of the actual content. Though I watch and comment on this battlefield from afar, I am nevertheless constrained by the same landscape generated by the author and the which the surrounding disk-horse has adopted. 

What is one to do under such oppressive conditions, when the deep-sea creatures set the agenda of intellectual and cultural discussion (maybe not in this case, this is a seriously petty topic, but they do it elsewhere)? Go increasingly meta? Devote oneself to commentary upon commentary instead of commentary upon content? Replace the substance with symbol? Trust in the inherent correctness of critique and seek to have the last word on all matters?

Nope. I'm posting this and going to bed.

Nice try octopus! You've not gotten me today!

But still! You ask, 'Is it true?' No idea. I literally just heard of this thing today and hope to banish it from memory with the respite and nepenthe of a good weekend sleep.

Wait, uhhh, this is the part where I'm supposed to provide some concrete parting insight. Don't drink pulpless orange juice, stay off twitter, love thy fellow man, wear sunscreen.

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If this rambling mess appealed to you, please comment below and follow the blog to see when I do more of it. If not... do as thou wilt, I'm not stopping anytime soon. Until the next time, a merry weekend to all, and to all, a good night!