Hi, welcome to Crumbling Empires, a show about living here and now in the midst of crumbling empires, both wide awake and with hope. I’m Lyndsey Medford, author of My Body and Other Crumbling Empires and your neighborhood chronically ill keep-going coach. I write about the practicalities of spirituality, social justice, and how the system of your life interacts with the larger systems of our world.
This is a Substack podcast, which means that you can listen via your favorite podcast app. Or you can subscribe to the Hopeful Cynic Substack to receive the recordings, transcripts, essays, links from me, and other things once a week in your inbox. Hop over to lyndseymedford.substack.com to subscribe. On to today’s interview!
Lyndsey: Hi, I’m here today with Paul Bowers. He is the author of the Brutal South Substack newsletter, he’s a former neighbor and a good friend of mine. Thanks for coming and talking with us, Paul!
So your newsletter is called Brutal South, and it makes a lot of sense to me because I know you, but it’s been interesting to see how much it has resonated with lots of other people because you write, probably most of the time, about politics in the South and particularly in South Carolina, but almost as much you write about parenting or about being a formerly evangelical, still Christian person, or you’ll write about music. I am curious where the name Brutal South came from and what you would want to tell us about the origin of your newsletter.
Paul: Yeah. I’m trying to think, I think I might’ve, I think I met you a little bit before I started it, um, cause I was still working in the news business at the time. And, um, so I was a local news reporter for about eight years in Charleston area and lost my job in 2019 and just wanted to keep writing. And I, I knew a few other people who’d lost their news jobs at the time. And newsletters or just, you know, blogs basically were sort of a life raft for people to keep writing, sometimes make a little bit of money on the side. And so I knew I wanted to keep writing and I have to do it to stay sane a lot of weeks. So I just set myself a fake deadline of every Wednesday, I’m going to put something out there and then I did it for like four years now. So.
I never had like a mission statement, but the name was sort of like this vague illusion to brutalist architecture, which is like, one of the most hated styles it’s like the giant, Soviet-looking concrete blocks and stuff. Um, yeah, I don’t know. I’ve always had kind of an affection for it. And like the first thing I ever wrote for the newsletter was just this weird self-indulgent piece about a Brutalist federal building in Columbia, South Carolina. So brutal in that sense, brutality in the sense of brutal politics that dehumanize and harm people, particularly in the South. And then also brutality in the positive sense that it’s used in heavy metal where you might say someone wrote a particularly brutal riff and you mean it in a good way.
So, yeah, I don’t know. It was just vaguely thematic. I didn’t and still don’t have a mission for it. But those are all things that are kind of in my wheelhouse. So I stuck with it. And now I think I’m stuck with it.
Lyndsey: Yeah, you are. We were just hanging out outside like a month or two ago with some other friends, and some guy rode on a bike and pointed at you and he was like, “Brutal South guy!” So you are very stuck with it because that’s your name now.
What is it you… We’ve talked about brutalist buildings and stuff a few times, but I don’t think I know like exactly what it is about brutalism that you love so much. I also don’t know if you loved Brutalism first or if you were a socialist first.
Paul: Ooh, that’s a good question. I don’t think you can be a socialist unless you are actually organized and doing organizing work. So I loved Brutalism first because I had beliefs about the world but wasn’t acting on them in a lot of meaningful ways.
Lyndsey: That’s a great point.
Paul: Yeah. Brutalism was my first of those two loves, I think. And it’s just, you know, everybody loves an underdog. It gets looked down upon. But I just had a friend, a friend of mine, Gardner, started sending me pictures of like, you know, weird sculptures from Eastern Europe and, you know, Marcel Breyer buildings. And then I found, oh, there’s one right down the street from where I went to college in Columbia. And I just kind of felt this sense of awe. And especially for Brutalist churches of which there are a few around the world. I just think there are different ways to think about the fear of God and the the awe that we can feel in the presence of God. And I think that sometimes like a mountain of concrete is one way to think about that.
As far as socialism, I, you know, I worked in the news, I couldn’t really take sides explicitly on much of anything. Like, uh, especially when you go to work for a traditional newspaper, like a daily local newspaper, at least the place I worked, you had to sign a contract that said, I will not, uh, you know, publicly endorse any candidate, join any protests, join any activist organizations.
I should back up and say, I think reporting is inherently a political act and that you do bring your own politics into it. But outside of doing journalism, I wasn’t politically engaged. I guess the one other thing I did was vote, which that always feels a little futile around here, but I did it. I still do it.
Lyndsey: Yes, it does. You were writing about education there too, weren’t you?
Paul: Yeah, I covered kind of every beat when I was at the Alt Weekly in town and I went to the daily paper and covered kindergarten through 12th grade and then eventually higher education and some of the state level politics around it as well.
Lyndsey: So you were at a South Carolina Senate Education Subcommittee meeting last week to testify against a bill. Can you just tell that story such as it is?
Paul: Yeah, sure. Yeah, I still feel kind of thrilled to be able to take a side on these things, but South Carolina is like a lot of states right now where a lot of the political action around schools involves censorship, um, especially of, uh, history and literature from black perspectives. And especially of anything that would teach people about sexuality and gender. So, um, you know, wherever you are in the United States, this is probably happening on some scale too.
One of the most high profile bills in the legislature this year would, uh, write out this list of forbidden topics that teachers cannot discuss in class. And it’s sometimes described as like a ban on critical race theory, which is however the ideologues would like to define that term from day to day. But it’s also a way to punish and hide or force into hiding gay and trans people, including both teachers and students. So.
These all are concerns of mine as a, among other things, a parent with three kids in the public schools now. Like, there are constant concerted attacks on public education in the state. This is just the most current one. This is the angle they’re trying this year. So I had a day off week, day off work last week. My brother was in town. He left early in the morning on the last day. So I had a free day and I knew this hearing was going on. So the first time in my life, I went up to Columbia and talked to some state lawmakers and gave a little testimony. So I don’t know.
It was interesting because I know a lot of people who do that routinely and have been doing it for years. So I still kind of feel like a little bit of an interloper in that world. You know, like I’m trying to watch and take notes from people who know what they’re doing up there. And I don’t know, it remains to be seen if my little speech or my presence there made much of difference. But I’m really glad that I could, you know, because it’s, you know, it’s Wednesday morning, most people can’t travel across the state and just do that.
Lyndsey: I was so surprised that you that it was the first time you did you say was the first time you’d been to the State House?
Paul: As a public speaker, you know, I’d been a few times as a reporter. But yeah, right.
Lyndsey: Okay. Yeah. Because we had been to a couple of city council meetings that we had both attended and county council stuff happens. And so I was familiar with seeing you operate in those areas. And I was really surprised that you haven’t done the same thing on a state level, just because most of the, most of the activists I know in South Carolina are spread so thin that they end up just doing everything all the time, which I don’t necessarily, um, advocate myself, but.
I have not spoken to any sort of state legislators before either. But when I have testified in in city or county council meetings, I’ve always been very struck by the incredible mixture of despair and hope that I feel walking away. It’s interesting to me, I think a lot of people end up talking about their state politics and feeling almost more hopeless about it than about their about federal politics, which kind of confuses me because I don’t, it should be a place where you have a little bit more power to be seen and heard or to organize with other people, right, directly and to make a noise that someone hears. I guess I just want to hear more about what made you want to testify and what your experience was even walking out of that room and the rest of the day. And then you wrote about it in your newsletter, if you’ve heard from other people.
Paul: Yeah, I definitely struggle with despair about everything from national politics to the school board. And I don’t know. I think going and speaking to politicians has limited efficacy. They might dismiss you out of hand. But I still think it’s good to speak the truth regardless. And that’s kind of keep that in mind that, you know, there are questions of like political strategy and what’s, what’s going to move the needle. And then there’s beneath that still a moral imperative just to go and speak, you know, bear witness when you can.
I don’t know. I always take a deep breath whenever we get to the end of a legislative session, because it’s like there are these series of concerted attacks where they’re going to try to funnel public school money to private schools, or they’re going to pass a don’t say gay bill or whatever the thing of the year is.
When we hold them off long enough to get to that finish line, that’s such a relief.
And like, I remember one year I talked to several people I know who’d been going to the legislature throughout that and pushing and fighting. And I don’t know, it’s hard to call that a celebration, but they looked back and realized in a small way, we did win the day. You know, for now until next year. So I don’t know, I’m not a very, not a very encouraging person. And I’m trying to be more encouraging.
Lyndsey: No, it’s OK! I feel like the name crumbling empires is probably weeding out a lot of people that are looking for like a happy shiny ending or story.
Paul: Yeah.
Lyndsey: but I feel committed to it because that’s the feeling that I feel on a daily to weekly basis is that there is a sense of like, how much of how much are we just trying to stave off disaster? And how like, when do you stop trying to stave off disaster and start preparing for it?
When we all learn to just get by in the midst of ongoing disaster, what does that do to our capacity for imagining something different or recognizing what power we do have and recognizing what leverage points or tipping points we’re reaching?
So I appreciate your honesty. And I, I think when I am in those spaces, my the hope part just comes from seeing other people willing to be there. Mostly knowing that we’re going to be ignored or ignored at best and berated at worst.
Because when there are people I don’t know, I feel really hopeful about that. And when there are people I do know, it’s like, “here we are again.” And at the very least, we saw each other. And we know that, like you’re saying, that for every person in that room, there’s 100 people that can’t be there on a Wednesday morning in Columbia.
Paul: Yeah, especially in that case, teachers. You know, teachers are working that day. Yeah.
Yeah, I do think that my experience with faith and hope is that I really can’t carry on with either of them alone. Like that all has to be experienced in community. So I mean, part of going to church is looking around and seeing these people that I know continuing to hold out faith. Thinking, “if they can be here, then so can I.” And I think, yeah, part of going and giving testimony bearing witnesses, yeah, looking at the, what do you call it, the crowd of witnesses, like people around you who keep showing up. And yeah, if they can keep going, then so can I. So yeah, I do. I do take some hope in that for sure.
Lyndsey: Yeah, I definitely, I did not understand how dire the education situation was until I met you. In South Carolina in particular, and I’m just getting to know what the deal is here in Tennessee, I didn’t know that like–you might know the percentage off the top of your head of state legislators whose children go to private school.
Paul: Oh gosh, yeah, I haven’t checked in a few years. We asked them all several years ago and it was, yeah. I mean, a lot of them It was in the 80s or 90s. Yeah, yeah, most of them have no skin in this game, you know.
Lyndsey: Yeah, I didn’t know that the South Carolina state constitution requires that every student be provided with a minimally adequate education. And it is, and they keep like stretching, trying to find the limits of how you could possibly define even minimally adequate.
And I feel like this is just very representative of these things that like, again, are kind of crumbling around us and it has like, is happening somewhat slowly. And a lot of us can kind of find ways to escape the worst consequences of it, like in your and my circles and it’s very, it’s really unclear when we’re going to notice that it’s the thing we used to call public education is pretty much gone. But I wonder just what your experiences of reporting that over, like over all these years. And if you’ve heard other people say that they’ve learned something or gotten involved or made a change.
Paul: a lot of the people I talked to knew all this before I ever talked to them so I’m not teaching them anything but I think that standard of minimal adequacy is both a legal term and a thing that really weighs on people psychologically sometimes. I grew up in the public schools here. I graduated high school in 2007. Back then, I remember being aware of where South Carolina public education stood and all the different state rankings, test scores and everything. They used to say, thank God for Mississippi, because without them, we’d be 50th in the country. Actually, Mississippi passed us a few years ago. They’re doing better by some measures. And I think to hear that as a kid can be pretty damaging. I had more advantages than almost anybody and got a great education.
In spite of everything, I had phenomenal teachers who showed up to work despite every incentive to quit. Looking back, I think it was pretty miraculous that our schools worked as well as they did when I was in them.
I think one thing I’ve been learning about a lot the last few years is how this thing, this public school system that’s crumbling was a great achievement and still can be. And so before we had the minimal adequacy standard of education, we had a constitution that was written by Black Republicans during reconstruction. And South Carolina’s constitution was I think the first in the South to require free education for all students, black and white. And it was flawed, it was segregated from the start, but this was the dream of people like Robert Smalls and these black statesmen who had only just been liberated a decade before and we’re now trying to rebuild this state.
So their standard of education, what they wrote in the constitution was, I think they set a liberal and uniform standard of education, like that there would be something equitable and that is a positive good for all children in the state. And the project of the post-reconstruction white redeemers in the state was to tear that down. And they rewrote the constitution. They, uh, they attacked the black schools and, uh, in some ways that project morphed and continued to this day.
And, um, I think when we talk about something crumbling in this case, it’s, it’s the crumbling of something that is inherently good and that was, and still can be beautiful.
And also when you talk about something crumbling, there are a lot of people still stuck inside it, you know, including, you know, my kids, a lot of my friends who teach and who increasingly are quitting teaching every year, you know, we have to, we have to hold this thing up because we, we need it. And there are a lot of good people stuck inside and it should be something that builds up and ennobles us and not something that’s like an anchor that pulls us down.
So that’s a lot of mixed metaphors. But I think part of having a broader creative imagination about schools is revisiting what the original dream was, what they’re for. And if we can reclaim some of that mission, I think that’s part of what it takes to overcome where we are now.
Lyndsey: Yeah, the sort of the flip side of an empire that’s been crumbling for a long time is that to rebuild it is to is to unlearn the habits that that empire has taught us and then to accept that it’s going to also take a long time to start rebuilding something new. And so I appreciate so much that you’ve been reporting on this for so long and you’re like not, not about to stop.
There’s like a gap in our civics education of like, there’s like, you learn the schoolhouse rock song about how things work and they tell you to go vote and then there’s a whole big space of like what it means to be a citizen that’s engaged with this whole process that is really kind of left out. And maybe we could talk a lot about the reasons why–that’s another education question.
I’ve been wanting to ask you, Reverend William Barber says there are no red states, only unorganized states. And I’ve been really, mostly I agree with that, but I’ve really been wrestling with it again and unsure of what I think. What do you think about that?
Paul: Yeah, that’s an interesting way to put it. Um, yeah, I think, uh, most people don’t vote here. So it’s hard to say what an entire state’s will is when, uh, most people are not expressing their will through voting. Um, in fact, they’re sometimes expressing their will through not voting. Like, um, I don’t know. I mean, that’s probably true. The way we the way we build a state, it does become a zero sum game. And the way this state is laid out and constructed and the way our votes go is controlled in the state Senate, house of representatives and governor’s office by Republicans. So I think, yeah, it is. It is true that that can change, that there’s nothing inherently Republican about the state any more than it was an inherently Democratic run place before the 1990s. That’s all malleable.
Lyndsey: so you still live in South Carolina. I still live in the South. And I’m committed to staying here as long as I possibly can. Um, which I hope will be forever. What keeps you here? What do you love about it?
Paul: My family. Yeah, I my my whole extended family almost is here. Yeah, not not leaving that. Yeah, it’s not the weather. It’s not the food. People that I’m surrounded by. You know? Yeah, I I used to think about my wife and I both thought about getting out getting away somewhere. And there was maybe a window where we could have given it a go, tried to move somewhere and get fancier jobs in a big city, but now we’re rooted here. And yeah, we don’t, we don’t intend on leaving. And it’s just, it’s just because of the people here. This is home. So we’re sticking around.
Lyndsey: Yeah, I think there’s a lot of profundity to that that I maybe wouldn’t have like quite grasped in my 20s. In terms of like, that connection to family or an extended family, not just being like sort of a totally personal or individualistic or, or a nuclear family overly-oriented stance, but something that actually really matters to who we are and to the place that we’re in and what makes us us and makes the place the place.
I just heard Nick Offerman talking about that really beautifully on the On Being podcast. I also just finished Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, and he talks about that. The narrator in the book, fictional narrator, talks about that. Um, in really beautiful ways. So I appreciate you, um, bringing that up.
Paul: Did you ever read the book Gilead by Marilyn Robinson? Yes. That was, yeah, that was so formative to me. Um, just to think about, you know, this, this small town pastor who lives his whole life in a small town in Iowa and, um, built a rich life in community there. And you know, could have these profound, you know, theological moments and build a very complete life in a town where you see the same people every day your entire life. And I think that can be overly romanticized. But I do think, yeah, now that I’m getting getting a little older in my 30s. I do appreciate some of that sameness and some of the consistency and the people who keep showing up in my life. Yeah, I value that more now.
Lyndsey: I think that impulse to measure a life or an impact even in terms of like sheer numbers of people interacted with or your reach on social media or whatever is its own kind of small personal imperial project that doesn’t necessarily actually serve as many people as we might think in the end.
You touched on this a little bit earlier, but is there anything you want to add about how you would define hope?
Paul: I don’t know. I think it’s an activity. It’s not something that you just kind of passively receive. It’s like something you do, and you do it together.
I think, yeah, like the idea that another world is possible is something radical that keeps me going that, yeah, things don’t have to be the way they are. I said that one time that I was at a newspaper conference back when I worked in news and I was talking both about the state of schools in the state of newspapers because news.
Local news has been dying since I was a child. It’s sort of a cliche by now. But like, it’s not something people said often in the news business. And like, several people came up to me afterward and said, Wow, that was, that was really profound. And to admit sheepishly, I was just ripping that off from some book, who was ripping it off from someone else. But like, yeah, the notion that like, nothing is set in stone and that all this can change, I think is, yeah, that’s something worth clinging on to.
Lyndsey: That’s a whole, whole other awesome conversation that we got to have another time. I’m super grateful for Brutal South and for you as a person. Um, and I, and as a writer, your work has really inspired me that you, in the same way you like show up to witnessing and caring about education, you like show up to your own creative self and it’s really turned out to resonate with a lot of people and that’s really cool. So thanks again for sharing your thoughts with us today.
Paul: Yeah, no, and I feel the same way about you. I think, yeah, I don’t know that many people have written an entire book. And yeah, your steadfastness, like keeping on showing up and completing a project like this. That’s something I’ve never done and I aspire to. And yeah, I really have, I don’t know, I’ve valued, I mean, your friendship first, but your insights. Whenever I tell people about you, I’m like, oh yeah, she’s the first person I ever heard quote bell hooks from the pulpit. I grew up Southern Baptist, I’m still doing remedial theology, trying to think right about the world. And yeah, I think you’ve been a profound influence on my life in that way. So thank you.
Lyndsey: Well, thank you. That’s really kind. So if you’re listening and you want to witness my and Paul’s oblique, indirect conversations between our newsletters and lives, you can all have the link to Brutal South in our show notes, of course. Thanks, Paul.
Lyndsey: You’ve been listening to the Crumbling Empires podcast. To find Paul’s work, you’ll look for him at brutalsouth.substack.com. That will be in the show notes. I’m Lyndsay Medford. My book is called My Body and Other Crumbling Empires: Lessons for Healing in a World that is Sick. It’s about what my body and autoimmune disease have taught me about spirituality and about how we heal the world. Thanks for listening! We’ll see you another time on Crumbling Empires.
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