Breaking the barrier: Equal Rites, by Terry Pratchett (Yes, "Rites")

 This morning, we have two reasons to have a look back at one of the earlier books in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series.  Equal Rites.  Honestly, we're stepping into the Wayback Machine here, because this one was published in 1987.  We have a few reasons to turn to this one, which is not the best of the Discworld books, but has its moments.  Joe Biden will nominate the first black woman to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court will be examining affirmative action policies, again, in some interesting contexts.  Both are relevant, but really, it's the former that prompts me to w...rite about Equal Rites.

So here's the book, in very brief form.  The way wizardry works is that if you are the eighth son of the eighth son (eights are important, instead of sevens), you are all magical, 'n stuff.  If you are sponsored, you can vie for admission to Unseen University, in Ankh-Morpork, which is where most of the best books take place.  Note the date of publication, this is way before the popularization of the concept of "magic school."  Anyway, Unseen University is more like a parody of a university.  Also, it's just like a university, except that the librarian is cooler.  Anyway, off in a podunk mountain town, an eighth son has seven sons and then... a daughter.  Esk.  Short for Eskarina.  Women can be magical, but they are witches.  What's the difference?  Instead of memorizing spells from books, they use a combination of herbalism, bullshit, and some actual magic, along with cliches.  So is she a witch or a wizard?  A wizard who is about to die shows up to bestow his staff upon her, and that sounds creepy, but no, he's basically just sponsoring her to head off to Unseen University, except that they don't take girls.  Girls can become witches, not wizards.

The local witch, Granny, eventually decides that Esk just needs to head off to Unseen University.  Journey ensues.  Unseen University is completely dysfunctional.  It is, therefore, slightly more functional than an actual university.  The big problem is that a new wizard, whom she meets along the way, is inadvertently causing some magical issues.  That'd be Simon.  Basically, he stumbles upon quantum mechanics, theories of the multiverse, and membranes, p-branes, and lots of other shit.  Why is this a problem?  There are interdimensional critters that, like, feed off of magic, magical thoughts, and... it is only poorly specified because that's not the point.  The point is that Simon is too smart for his own good.

Care to guess who saves the day?  Just guess.  C'mon.  I know, it's a hard problem.  Here, I'll help you out.  It actually takes two of 'em.

Shocker:  it takes both Granny and Esk to save the day.  Yeah, you're totally shocked, right?

Basically, Granny is a bullshit artist, but despite the bullshit, she's actually pretty damned powerful, and in a magic duel, the country bumpkin can mop the floor with the Dean, and Esk hasn't studied spells, but she has, well, intuition, and problem solving skills.  So day gets saved.

In terms of literary plotting, um... it's a Terry Pratchett novel.  Lots of smart-ass writing, random digressions, puns, Unseen University is what every university really is, and you don't read a Terry Pratchett novel for meticulous construction of plot.  You read it for some combination of social commentary and escapism, which is perhaps a contradiction in terms, but whatever.  The world in the books is a disc, sitting on the backs of four giant elephants, standing on the back of a giant turtle, swimming through space.  What the hell do you expect?  Coherence?

Regardless, the basic point about what is happening is the question of admission to Unseen University.  Esk is the eighth child of the eighth son, if not a son, and she clearly has wizardly understanding.  So the question is asked, why can she not be a wizard?  Why can she not be admitted to Unseen University?  When she saves the day, any objection is demonstrated to be absurd, of course, but throughout, what happens is that nobody can ever give a coherent answer.  Because of course there isn't one.  "Lore."  The wizard/witch distinction.  But whenever pressed, there is never a logical answer because there cannot be one.

Have you ever gone on youtube and watched those old "debates" from the 1960s, where some ancient shitbag tries to defend some strict division of sex, or segregation, or anything like that?  Like, go watch James Baldwin wipe the floor with anyone who tries to debate him.

There's never a coherent answer in defense of standing at the schoolhouse doors, or refusing to consider certain applicants (um...) because there cannot be.  John Rawls always has been, and always will be right.  And the point was that there were never any coherent answers in the real world, nor in the book.

But what happens when the demand changes?  When it is no longer a demand to remove the obstacle to application or admission?  The word, "affirmative," demonstrates a fundamental change in concept.  There is a difference between removal of barriers and active policy on behalf of.  There are a variety of reasons motivating affirmative policy, depending on the policy under consideration, because the term, "affirmative action" is so broad as to be almost meaningless.  It does not mean, "quotas," which are illegal in hiring or admissions.  How can Biden say that he will only consider black women?  Because a nomination is not precisely a hiring decision in legal terms.  Nominations work a little differently.  Nevertheless, if you saw an add for a job which said, "only black women need apply," that'd be lawsuit territory.  Instead, they say things like "equal opportunity employer."  What is "affirmative action?"  That term is so broad that it can mean almost anything.  It can mean anything from outreach and recruitment to extra points on a point-based admissions file to the interesting things that Harvard does to disfavor Asian and Asian-American applicants.  Yeah, you don't think of that as "affirmative," do you?  Zero-sum, fixed number of spots.  Someone's getting fucked, and in the name of "affirmative action," it's the people about whom you claim to be so worried as victims of hate crimes.  Funny how Asian-Americans get it from the left when it suits the left's ends.  But I'm gettin' ahead of myself.

So why has the demand changed?  It depends on the context.  At the level of the Supreme Court, and other governmental institutions, this is based on the concept of "descriptive representation," as opposed to "substantive representation."  The former means having people in positions of power who "look like you," based on whatever definitions of "look" we have politicized (e.g., we exclude height, despite its clear social and economic importance).  The latter means having people in positions of power who represent your substantive political interests, regardless of how they look.  Consider the examples I raised yesterday.  Do you consider soda can garnish man to represent African-American interests?  Do you consider creepy cult lady to represent women's interests?  Or does Stephen Breyer represent both, substantively, better than either?  And of course, I reject the claim that Rapey McDrunkface or the maskless plagiarist represent me, substantively, in any way.

You can tell where I stand on "descriptive representation."  (A few inches below everyone else, not that I'm bitter anymore.)  It's bullshit.

What about contexts, such as admissions?  Is there value to having a diverse student body?  OK, being a professor, and having experienced diverse and non-diverse classrooms, I can directly answer this one.  Yeah!  Just straight-up, yeah.  Then, you have the question of whether or not a rule, neutral on its face, can have biases.  Can it?  Yes.  Critical theory rejects the concept of neutrality, though.  That's a nonstarter.  This all sends us down some different paths, and it has sent political dialog down the path of a different demand.

Removing the barriers to admission is different from a demand for positive, or affirmative assistance in the admission process, or simply clearing the field of any other competing applicant for a job.  The Supreme Court is taking up affirmative action again, and getting a new Justice, who is determined in advance to be a black woman because the politics of the party require clearing the field of all other potential nominees.

In 1987, Pratchett was writing about Unseen University throwing out its rule that girls weren't allowed in.  To be sure, it may have read as kind of antiquated at the time (that wasn't when I read it).  I mean, '87 was pick-your-number-wave feminism (trying to count this stuff gets into silly games).  This was not revolutionary in the way that, say, Left Hand of Darkness was (even if I still think that was kind of over-rated).

Nevertheless, it is worth thinking about this change.  The change from the removal of a barrier to an affirmative process.  Of course, Esk was to be a first.  Biden's nominee, whoever that will be, will be a first.  In a sense, like Esk, yet selected differently, but of course, the case of Esk was a school admission case rather than a hiring case.  There isn't a formal restriction against a black woman on the Supreme Court.  Not even "lore."  We've had African-Americans.  We have had women.  We've had a Latina, there have been various "firsts."  Just not that particular intersectional identity yet.  And then the Court will rule on the use of such characteristics in school admissions, beyond mere barriers.  Again.

We're past Esk.  How we read this kind of book now is an interesting question, but it is important to understand that we are past Esk.

Honky Tonk Homeslice, "School Bells," from their self-titled album.