But here is the friction: the bill that Moore has generated has never been to discover new facts to lie down alongside the vast mountain of knowledge already obtained. It is rather a typically American ritual. A performance by Forward Motion which, in reality, preserves the status quo: the activity pretending to be success. We don’t expect more data. We await the will of the political elites to make up for the facts that we have already gathered on the state of the world. We hope that we could create a strong enough force to dissolve the lucrative network of mutual dependence that exists between politicians, their donors and their funding beneficiaries – an arrangement that allows some to take advantage of the rooted policies that deplete many.
For a large part of my lifespan, the nation, like our technological devices, worked as a machine designed for planned obsolescence: appearing functional on the surface but designed to degrade slowly under the hood. Our dissatisfaction is tempered by the attraction of a new brilliant upgrade which promises new features with each campaign cycle. Like our most profitable films, electoral cycles are restarts and franchises. This includes our policy. Our institutions are not only failing; They are built to delay, degrade, to differ. We claim to work, and when they don’t, we keep another audience, commission another report, launch another study, believe another promise.
Moore is hardly the first to challenge these negligent impulses. More than a decade ago, The Atlantic Historical test of Ta-Nehisi Coates published “The case for repairs. “” It was not just a manifesto but a meticulous historical excavation – from the Redline to Chicago to the racist exclusions of the GI bill – which presented irrefutable details how government policy, not just private prejudices, created a black drawback. It forced a national conversation. But again, the answer was mainly spoken.