By the pool at their house, which fronts a golf course whose sprinklers turn on every ten minutes during the worst drought in California history, the calls and messages fill me with guilt. I recall the times in fall 2011, during the occupation of Philadelphia’s City Hall, when I’d do something frivolous, like browse in a bookstore, and be overcome by the shame that attaches to any private activity undertaken in a moment of public upheaval. Or worse, the feeling that intellectual work, even in the service of politics, is useless — that the only thing to do is to give yourself over entirely to the cause.