Reposted by Ralph Snyder
I’m 1/4 through Chapter 1 of @zephoria.bsky.social’s new ethnography of the US census & I am full-on IN TEARS in my lounge room at 10pm. I’ve aspired to be a “bureaucrat for the revolution” for 25 years & this book is giving my battered old heart words for everything I’ve been striving for
![Photo of a page displayed on a Kobo e-reader, saying:
… and yet civil servants dedicate their lives to the pursuit of creating more perfect data. The census cannot ever be truly apolitical given that it is at the heart of the politics of the United States, and yet civil servants never stop pursuing the ideals of nonpartisanship. The persistent tension between ideals and pragmatics is what makes the administrative state so critical to a healthy democracy.
Civil servants serve the public through their dedication and persistence, despite the challenges of the work. And despite having bosses who want to weaponize them.
I see the Census Bureau's civil servants as heroes-not
because I believe in bureaucracy, but because these workers are committed to the ideal version of the American project. [THIS BIT IS HIGHLIGHTED] Public servants toil in the shadows, making consequential choices with little recognition, only to be attacked for trying to make the system work for the people. Too often, they're blamed for the Kafkaesque nightmare in which they operate, even as politicians and advocates quietly configure what they are able to do. [END HIGHLIGHT]
This book is, in many ways, a love letter to those civil servants and the kind of institution that enables them to rise to the occasion. If we want to escape our death spiral of polarization, we must stop treating bureaucrats as…](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:iah4k2w7lsxqm7hp76pzbr6z/bafkreidxxgblvidhce4sepm5h4fn5juhecqizgggyue4pzodxqw3r3csdm)
