Engagement is a means but not an end
Swinging pendulums are overused metaphors for social and political movements, probably because they are so apt. I’ve been thinking about those swings while plowing through the epic Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Robert Moses called Power Broker, written by Robert Caro in 1975.
With 1,200 pages of small-font text, it is the sweeping story of how one man, a deeply flawed genius, transformed the landscape of New York City and the surrounding areas by developing hundreds of parks, big and small, hundreds of miles of highways, and thousands of acres of marsh and muck filled-in for future developments.
The arc of his own life swung from Yale-educated, reformist do-gooder fighting the corrupt Tammany Hall political machine before World War I to ruthless destroyer of poor neighborhoods that stood in the way of his visions for moving endless streams of automobiles with maximum efficiency around bridges and boroughs. First hailed as the man bringing bucolic beauty to the masses, he could do no wrong. His power grew with a fawning press. No single mayor, governor or even President Franklin D. Roosevelt dared stand in his way. President Dwight Eisenhower sought him to help get the interstate highway system accomplished.
And then the pendulum swung. By the time Caro published his book, Moses was 85 and the world had changed. His legacy became one of ugly urban blight bullied into existence with a ruthless disregard for actual humans living among his creations.