It comes as no surprise that a thinker (or perhaps I should say a feeler) such as Mrs. Woolf, with her emotional and intellectual dishonesty, should collapse all relevant moral distinctions, a technique vital to all schools of resentment. Time and again we find her misappropriating the connotation of one thing and attaching it to another, by insinuating a false analogy: that since both the British policeman and the Nazi stormtrooper wore a uniform, the British policeman was a brute. It is one of the chief characteristics of modern rhetoric, designed not so much to find truth as (in the words of former Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam) to "maintain your rage."
Saturday, July 15, 2006
The Rage of Virginia Woolf
Theodore Dalrymple, a now-retired prison psychiatrist has a chapter in his recent book Our Culture, What's Left Of It entitled "The Rage of Virginia Woolf. A quote from that essay seems appropriate in view of our cultural discussions in the psychosphere.
Friday, July 14, 2006
Visiting The Lebanese
Wandering through the Lebanese blogs today, I find much sense, but an uncomfortable amount of raving lunacy. There are commenters scattered throughout the sites who are putting forward the idea that even though Hezbollah started it, if Israel fights back, all of Lebanon must rise up to fight them to defend its honor.
"Oh the terrible police have broken into our house! Our crazy uncle Hezbol who lives on the roof was shooting at them, and we didn't do anything but tell him to be quiet, but that doesn't give the police the right to break into our house! The rest of us are fine, law-abiding people who want to live in peace. Okay, okay, a couple of the cousins are also a little violent, but most of us want to live in peace.
"Or some of us want to live in peace anyway - a lot of us would be angry if you arrested one of those cousins. Come to think of it, we'd all fight the police. But those bastards don't respect peace-loving people like us."
"Oh the terrible police have broken into our house! Our crazy uncle Hezbol who lives on the roof was shooting at them, and we didn't do anything but tell him to be quiet, but that doesn't give the police the right to break into our house! The rest of us are fine, law-abiding people who want to live in peace. Okay, okay, a couple of the cousins are also a little violent, but most of us want to live in peace.
"Or some of us want to live in peace anyway - a lot of us would be angry if you arrested one of those cousins. Come to think of it, we'd all fight the police. But those bastards don't respect peace-loving people like us."
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Who Would Jesus Bomb?
The natural conclusion is of course, "no one," and it's pretty easy to see why.
But I'd like to look at the question a bit differently, because that's not the real question. The real question for Christians is "Lord, what would you have me do?"
Also, I don't like the self-righteous sneer embedded in the question asked the first way.
The people closest to Jesus were remarkable for their repeated inability to anticipate what He was going to do and say. This alone should give us pause when making claims of knowing what Jesus would have us do. If Peter and John couldn't figure Him out until much later and after much reflection, then who are you? I make no claim that random or always counterintuitve actions are what Christ wants from us, only that the simple answers sometimes blow up in our faces when contemplating Our Lord. Jesus fed the multitudes and quite sternly admonished the rich to give. But he also criticized Judas for wanting to give money to the poor in a particular way at a particular time. Jesus went with complete nonviolence to His death - almost immediately after beating the moneylenders out of the Temple.
Almost every word that comes out of His mouth is a surprize, in fact. Not what we expected. Jesus, do you want to eat? "I have food of which you know not." "Be perfect." "Whose face is on the coin?"
These things are understandable and explainable in their context, and under the instruction of the Holy Spirit, but they are emphatically not our first guesses of what He would do.
Jesus frequently turned a general question back to an individual answer. "You must be born again" He says to Nicodemus. He admonished the rich young ruler "Sell all your goods and give the money to the poor." When the Pharisees tried to trap Him, He usually told them something about themselves and their own thoughts.
So my first guess is that Jesus might tell many of us, asking about war in Israel, war in Iraq, threats from North Korea "That is not for you to know. You have other work to concern yourself with." Which is hardly what any of us want to hear. Jesus is far more likely to tell us "What happens in the world is unimportant" than "I forbid war." This is reflected in the actions of the first few centuries of the church, when Christians were (much) more likely to see themselves as avoiding the wars of governments because they were called to a higher goal than to preach pacifism. We should not impose our way of seeing things on them.
Jesus didn't go up to any of the rulers of the age and tell them what they should be doing. John the Baptist did, but here's the thing: John didn't give political condemnation, he gave condemnation for the individual acts of Herod. Those personal sins don't appear to have had much to do with any of the political decisions of the age. In the context of oppression, the Baptist finds it more important that the ruler of the people be personally pure than that he act in some political fashion. And Jesus clearly approves generally of the actions of His cousin John.
This was a common OT theme. God seems exceedingly overconcerned with the personal piety of Moses and his own individual sins. The sins of Saul, David, and Solomon are believed to affect the entire nation somehow, though the Scriptures are not very clear exactly how that is.
When we pray for our leaders, we usually go for some variation of praying that they have wisdom. Perhaps we would do better to pray for the personal actions of presidents, Senators, military commanders, that they be righteous in their family and business dealings. How will that help? I dunno, but God seems to like it. He mentions it often.
When Jesus speaks to a Roman soldier, He doesn't hint that maybe the man would find spirituality easier in another profession. He tells him how to do his job justly. Go figure. On the other hand, Christ is clear, even emphatic about not hitting back when attacked. On the other other hand His disciples are still carrying swords around three years into the ministry of the Lord.
It is just to easy to use a phrase like "Prince of Peace," and believe we know what we are talking about while putting an entirely modern spin on the word "peace."
Beware the false dichotomies in these questions. "Oh, so you think Jesus would nuke the Iranians then?" "Are you saying that Jesus wants us all to spend more time making money?"
No, I'm just saying it's never simple, and always requires prayer - sometimes an agony of prayer if you really want the True Answer. Don't even listen to those who would make it simple.
But I'd like to look at the question a bit differently, because that's not the real question. The real question for Christians is "Lord, what would you have me do?"
Also, I don't like the self-righteous sneer embedded in the question asked the first way.
The people closest to Jesus were remarkable for their repeated inability to anticipate what He was going to do and say. This alone should give us pause when making claims of knowing what Jesus would have us do. If Peter and John couldn't figure Him out until much later and after much reflection, then who are you? I make no claim that random or always counterintuitve actions are what Christ wants from us, only that the simple answers sometimes blow up in our faces when contemplating Our Lord. Jesus fed the multitudes and quite sternly admonished the rich to give. But he also criticized Judas for wanting to give money to the poor in a particular way at a particular time. Jesus went with complete nonviolence to His death - almost immediately after beating the moneylenders out of the Temple.
Almost every word that comes out of His mouth is a surprize, in fact. Not what we expected. Jesus, do you want to eat? "I have food of which you know not." "Be perfect." "Whose face is on the coin?"
These things are understandable and explainable in their context, and under the instruction of the Holy Spirit, but they are emphatically not our first guesses of what He would do.
Jesus frequently turned a general question back to an individual answer. "You must be born again" He says to Nicodemus. He admonished the rich young ruler "Sell all your goods and give the money to the poor." When the Pharisees tried to trap Him, He usually told them something about themselves and their own thoughts.
So my first guess is that Jesus might tell many of us, asking about war in Israel, war in Iraq, threats from North Korea "That is not for you to know. You have other work to concern yourself with." Which is hardly what any of us want to hear. Jesus is far more likely to tell us "What happens in the world is unimportant" than "I forbid war." This is reflected in the actions of the first few centuries of the church, when Christians were (much) more likely to see themselves as avoiding the wars of governments because they were called to a higher goal than to preach pacifism. We should not impose our way of seeing things on them.
Jesus didn't go up to any of the rulers of the age and tell them what they should be doing. John the Baptist did, but here's the thing: John didn't give political condemnation, he gave condemnation for the individual acts of Herod. Those personal sins don't appear to have had much to do with any of the political decisions of the age. In the context of oppression, the Baptist finds it more important that the ruler of the people be personally pure than that he act in some political fashion. And Jesus clearly approves generally of the actions of His cousin John.
This was a common OT theme. God seems exceedingly overconcerned with the personal piety of Moses and his own individual sins. The sins of Saul, David, and Solomon are believed to affect the entire nation somehow, though the Scriptures are not very clear exactly how that is.
When we pray for our leaders, we usually go for some variation of praying that they have wisdom. Perhaps we would do better to pray for the personal actions of presidents, Senators, military commanders, that they be righteous in their family and business dealings. How will that help? I dunno, but God seems to like it. He mentions it often.
When Jesus speaks to a Roman soldier, He doesn't hint that maybe the man would find spirituality easier in another profession. He tells him how to do his job justly. Go figure. On the other hand, Christ is clear, even emphatic about not hitting back when attacked. On the other other hand His disciples are still carrying swords around three years into the ministry of the Lord.
It is just to easy to use a phrase like "Prince of Peace," and believe we know what we are talking about while putting an entirely modern spin on the word "peace."
Beware the false dichotomies in these questions. "Oh, so you think Jesus would nuke the Iranians then?" "Are you saying that Jesus wants us all to spend more time making money?"
No, I'm just saying it's never simple, and always requires prayer - sometimes an agony of prayer if you really want the True Answer. Don't even listen to those who would make it simple.
When I Say 'Religious Left'...
Update: My wife assures me that this post is too long. Reading it over, I know she's right. Regard this as more of a reference work for when you need it someday.
Now, who is it, exactly, who makes the claim that Jesus is a Republican? The answer of course is “Well, no one, but…” followed by the same tired talking points. Here’s a tip, Dr. Campolo: when you have to exaggerate what your opponents are saying, it suggests you can’t go toe-to-toe with their actual claims. Moreover, it is simply dishonest, and I recall there is a commandment against bearing false witness against your neighbor. Your thought that you are just speaking dramatically, pointing out an important general truth in an engaging way, is self-deception. It’s just lying.
The conventional wisdom is that there has been no religious left since the heyday of civil rights and antiwar protests, a time which many boomer Christians look back on in fondness, overvaluing the effect of their protests. In this model, liberals in the church have just sort of gone quiet while the Religious Right did all this grassroots organizing and splashy politicizing. Only now (and they hope it’s not too late) has the liberal church begun to slowly re-emerge, claiming back the territory in the public square that was usurped by conservatives.
That is nonsense. Liberal Christians own the power structures of the mainstream denominations. They do not merely have some influence on where the money goes, or what is taught, or what the public statements of the denomination are. They control these things. I do not use the word “control” lightly. News outlets often refer to political parties “controlling” a house of congress, or “controlling” the judiciary. Certainly not in the last fifty years, and perhaps not in the history of the republic, has one party had sufficient dominance to “control” anything.
There Is a Powerful Religious Left. The social, economic, foreign policy, and environmental policies of the mainstream denominations are between Liberal and Far Left.
You might find that a good thing. You might believe that the gospel compels us to a POV that is called leftist in today’s culture but is in fact merely correct, or righteous. We will argue that point later. My current goal is to show that whatever their eternal value, the political positions of institutional Christianity are more than mildly liberal according to our current designations. The religious left is not without power. It is in fact the Power Structure, the Establishment, The Man.
Examples:
The United Methodist Church, in its official statement on The Economic Community:
Or again in a statement from the General Board of Church and Society:
Quick, someone notify the churches of the old Soviet Union to come help us.
Or its statement on war and foreign relations:
*And now that they're true...?
This ain’t conservatism (certainly not libertarianism); it’s not the moderate view in the current breakdown; it’s not even the liberal viewpoint, as it moves a bit left of that. It’s not far left, Kossack, DU territory, but it’s farther left than most Democratic senators.
Let’s see if the Lutherans are doing any better. The denominational statement about peace is pretty middle-of-the road, but there’s a whole section on childrens' peace and justice resources, and a statement protesting Israel’s building of the wall. The environmental and economic statements run mid-left, though there is significant effort to note the complexity and contradictory nature of issues. Bully for them on that.
The Presbyterian Church (USA): Is concerned about just trade and fair food in its hunger statement. Just trade isn’t the same as fair trade, which they’re against:
And fair food is actually about farm wages
Church of the Brethren slips in a nice equivalence between international law and God’s sovereignty, with the requisite slam against nationalism.
And their statement about Iraq is in the left-liberal range of the historical peace churches.
United Church of Christ, where I grew up, goes beyond liberal into truly leftist territory in its justice statement, and recent articles include this worry about privacy rights
I just have to interrupt here. Is she seriously suggesting that some people have been under federal telephone surveillance because they disagree with the president about social policy? Moonbat paranoia. Or maybe just making dramatic statements to scare us, without worrying about whether they're like, true or anything.
Or this wonderful use of repeated sneering quotation marks by one Diane Ford Jones
then goes on to explain how Frederick Douglas might have made reference to precious global resources, national imperialism, corporate greed. Yeah, US infallibility. I heard Rush talking to Rove about that one at the last vast right-wing conspiracy meeting.
You’ll notice that I didn’t have to go anywhere near the Episcopal, Quaker, and Unitarian churches – the denominations usually associated with liberalism – to pick up these examples. The victim claims of the religious left that they are being shut out of the national dialogue and have no power are specious.
But of course the granddaddy of all liberals is the National Council of Churches , and they’re going to get their very own post.
Also to come in this series:
Where the religious left gets the false idea it needs to reclaim power;
Crossover with the non-Christian religious left; and
Where they go wrong.
"We are furious that the religious right has made Jesus into a Republican. That's idolatry," (Tony) Campolo said. "To recreate Jesus in your own image rather than allowing yourself to be created in Jesus' image is what's wrong with politics."
Now, who is it, exactly, who makes the claim that Jesus is a Republican? The answer of course is “Well, no one, but…” followed by the same tired talking points. Here’s a tip, Dr. Campolo: when you have to exaggerate what your opponents are saying, it suggests you can’t go toe-to-toe with their actual claims. Moreover, it is simply dishonest, and I recall there is a commandment against bearing false witness against your neighbor. Your thought that you are just speaking dramatically, pointing out an important general truth in an engaging way, is self-deception. It’s just lying.
The conventional wisdom is that there has been no religious left since the heyday of civil rights and antiwar protests, a time which many boomer Christians look back on in fondness, overvaluing the effect of their protests. In this model, liberals in the church have just sort of gone quiet while the Religious Right did all this grassroots organizing and splashy politicizing. Only now (and they hope it’s not too late) has the liberal church begun to slowly re-emerge, claiming back the territory in the public square that was usurped by conservatives.
That is nonsense. Liberal Christians own the power structures of the mainstream denominations. They do not merely have some influence on where the money goes, or what is taught, or what the public statements of the denomination are. They control these things. I do not use the word “control” lightly. News outlets often refer to political parties “controlling” a house of congress, or “controlling” the judiciary. Certainly not in the last fifty years, and perhaps not in the history of the republic, has one party had sufficient dominance to “control” anything.
There Is a Powerful Religious Left. The social, economic, foreign policy, and environmental policies of the mainstream denominations are between Liberal and Far Left.
You might find that a good thing. You might believe that the gospel compels us to a POV that is called leftist in today’s culture but is in fact merely correct, or righteous. We will argue that point later. My current goal is to show that whatever their eternal value, the political positions of institutional Christianity are more than mildly liberal according to our current designations. The religious left is not without power. It is in fact the Power Structure, the Establishment, The Man.
Examples:
The United Methodist Church, in its official statement on The Economic Community:
We claim all economic systems to be under the judgment of God no less than other facets of the created order. Therefore, we recognize the responsibility of governments to develop and implement sound fiscal and monetary policies that provide for the economic life of individuals and corporate entities and that ensure full employment and adequate incomes with a minimum of inflation. We believe private and public economic enterprises are responsible for the social costs of doing business, such as employment and environmental pollution, and that they should be held accountable for these costs. We support measures that would reduce the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. We further support efforts to revise tax structures and to eliminate governmental support programs that now benefit the wealthy at the expense of other persons.(italics and bold print mine).
Or again in a statement from the General Board of Church and Society:
Poverty is literally structured into our society. Through their surveys and studies, Gordon, Mary and the coalition found that as a society we do not value the labor of those whose daily work makes society operate…
Today oppression comes in many forms. Working families are facing more job insecurity. Millions upon millions of workers face layoffs…
Quick, someone notify the churches of the old Soviet Union to come help us.
Or its statement on war and foreign relations:
We gather in the name of the Prince of Peace to witness to a better way: “We believe that war is incompatible with the teachings and example of Christ” (2000 The Book of Discipline, 165c)…(italics and bold mine).
We recognize there will be no true and lasting peace in the Middle East until the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is equitably resolved and both states are safe and secure. We call upon the President of the United States to send a special envoy back to the region to restart negotiations between the parties. We call upon all participants in the conflict to cease military action and violence. We call upon Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories and to tear down the wall it is constructing (an action already determined illegal by the International Court of Justice and denounced by most of the world). We call upon Palestinians to bring an end to terrorist attacks against Israel.
We opposed this war in March 2003, declaring that the United Nations’ weapons inspectors should be allowed to complete their work. Recent reports from respected experts have confirmed the rationales given for invading Iraq have been proven false.* Believing these reports to be true, continuing the current course of action becomes foolhardy and sinful. Instead, we urge a truly united effort to transfer power and sovereignty back to the Iraqi people as soon as possible, the withdrawal of United States and other coalition forces, and their replacement with U.N. forces, and funding coordinated through that international body.
*And now that they're true...?
This ain’t conservatism (certainly not libertarianism); it’s not the moderate view in the current breakdown; it’s not even the liberal viewpoint, as it moves a bit left of that. It’s not far left, Kossack, DU territory, but it’s farther left than most Democratic senators.
Let’s see if the Lutherans are doing any better. The denominational statement about peace is pretty middle-of-the road, but there’s a whole section on childrens' peace and justice resources, and a statement protesting Israel’s building of the wall. The environmental and economic statements run mid-left, though there is significant effort to note the complexity and contradictory nature of issues. Bully for them on that.
The Presbyterian Church (USA): Is concerned about just trade and fair food in its hunger statement. Just trade isn’t the same as fair trade, which they’re against:
Revenge of the Acronyms: WTO, NAFTA, CAFTA and FTAA
Can Acronyms Cause Hunger and Poverty?
Yes, they can.
International trade is an important way that the United States engages with the world. However, even ardent supporters of international trade have begun to admit that trade can produce both "winners" and "losers."
Recent international trade policies, designed and enforced by unelected bankers, CEOs and consultants, have caused tremendous damage to the environment and to people--especially in poorer communities and countries. Not surprisingly, those affected most by international trade are women and children. More free trade as currently practiced will only increase the damage. Accordingly, faith groups and organizations in the U.S. and around the world are intent on stopping or dramatically modifying these agreements and practices.
Given the many negative impacts of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has taken a strong stance against free trade agreements.
And fair food is actually about farm wages
He thanked the church for its leadership during the successful Taco Bell boycott noting, "The church is absolutely necessary in this cause because of the power and credibility it has with corporations." He underscored the importance of the church's moral and consumer power.
Church of the Brethren slips in a nice equivalence between international law and God’s sovereignty, with the requisite slam against nationalism.
People sometimes oppose international law because of a tendency to give higher loyalty to national sovereignty, which claims the need to kill some people in war, than to God's sovereignty, which sees all people as precious in God's sight.
And their statement about Iraq is in the left-liberal range of the historical peace churches.
United Church of Christ, where I grew up, goes beyond liberal into truly leftist territory in its justice statement, and recent articles include this worry about privacy rights
“Basic Privacy rights continue to be threatened in the name of national security. Government surveillance of phone calls and electronic mail are but some examples of our threat to privacy; the privacy rights that we claim as basic to an open and free democracy. Certain people are targeted for investigation. Among those targeted are those who dare to disagree with public social policies that have a devastating impact on the poor, the elderly, the children, and people of color
M. Linda Jaramillo
I just have to interrupt here. Is she seriously suggesting that some people have been under federal telephone surveillance because they disagree with the president about social policy? Moonbat paranoia. Or maybe just making dramatic statements to scare us, without worrying about whether they're like, true or anything.
Or this wonderful use of repeated sneering quotation marks by one Diane Ford Jones
US national defense policy currently supports yet another armed conflict. Mired in a “war on terror” we are engaged in an endless quest to secure the so-called “liberation and freedom” of Iraq while claiming to serve the “righteous” interests of a self-proclaimed “civilized world.” Politcal spin doctors…would have the American people and others believe that our country simply has sided with a noble cause in Iraq in the defense of the defenseless. But instead of trumpeting US infallibility…
then goes on to explain how Frederick Douglas might have made reference to precious global resources, national imperialism, corporate greed. Yeah, US infallibility. I heard Rush talking to Rove about that one at the last vast right-wing conspiracy meeting.
You’ll notice that I didn’t have to go anywhere near the Episcopal, Quaker, and Unitarian churches – the denominations usually associated with liberalism – to pick up these examples. The victim claims of the religious left that they are being shut out of the national dialogue and have no power are specious.
But of course the granddaddy of all liberals is the National Council of Churches , and they’re going to get their very own post.
Also to come in this series:
Where the religious left gets the false idea it needs to reclaim power;
Crossover with the non-Christian religious left; and
Where they go wrong.
Bulwer-Lytton
I did not win the Bulwer-Lytton contest for bad writing this year. I sent in a dozen entries and got some (dis)Honorable Mentions a few years ago, but this year I only sent in two. It can only be one sentence long.
I still think mine are better than those that won.
Of course, only Nikhail Rao over at OK, I'm Not Really A Cowboy might get all of the second one.
I still think mine are better than those that won.
Her hair was the color of gold found at Sutters Mill in 1848, setting off a period of westward expansion that forever changed the American experience, especially for the Indians who lived there but have now been displaced to reservations, mostly throughout the west, but seldom on their actual tribal lands and perhaps not coincidentally, a period of increased nationalism and desire for self-determination in Europe, but her roots were darker, probably more the color of the amber that they would make into jewelry in northern Europe, especially the Baltic countries that sometimes had preserved insects in them and date from much earlier than 1848, being actually hundreds of years old which is how we can tell whether insect species have changed much in that time.
“Well cowpoke,” belched Pierre ‘Pastille Pete’ Capuchin, his breath giving off the odor of camembert like old vomit, or vomit like old camembert, “Ah reckon ah could sing nahn verses o’ Alouette t’ yer seven verses, modulatin’ up a half step each chorus, yuh waffle-poopin’ pancreatic discharge of a Belgian, so we’ll see who surrenders to whom, mon-siuer.”
Of course, only Nikhail Rao over at OK, I'm Not Really A Cowboy might get all of the second one.
VRWC - Secret Message
I am honored to be one of the revolving blogs chosen to be a source for secret messages from the VRWC. If you aren't a member, please ignore the following. If you don't know, I can't tell you.
From: Larkover
To: VRWC, Sector 9
Orders 7/13/06: Good job on discrediting RKJR on what happened in Ohio. That was a close one. Continue to dismiss disappearance of Idaho as an "urban legend." As for imminent collapse of economy, continue to feign cautious optimism.
Set Decoder Ring to "S" for our secret intercept from DNC.
PQTTIZGQAOWQVOBWZCV
and listen to SHUR today @ 13:53 for further instructions.
From: Larkover
To: VRWC, Sector 9
Orders 7/13/06: Good job on discrediting RKJR on what happened in Ohio. That was a close one. Continue to dismiss disappearance of Idaho as an "urban legend." As for imminent collapse of economy, continue to feign cautious optimism.
Set Decoder Ring to "S" for our secret intercept from DNC.
PQTTIZGQAOWQVOBWZCV
and listen to SHUR today @ 13:53 for further instructions.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Conservatives and Liberals
Conservatives deplore. Liberals condescend.
When they get rolling, conservatives rant; liberals sneer.
When they get rolling, conservatives rant; liberals sneer.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
That Religious Left That Doesn't Exist - Again
Under the middle-to-highbrow section on the sidebar of this blog is The Social Affairs Unit, a British site that has thoughtful conservative and centrist commenters on the events of the times.
This article, just up, discusses the letter from 20 Bishops to a UK newspaper on the incompatibility of owning nuclear weapons and Christianity.
This article, just up, discusses the letter from 20 Bishops to a UK newspaper on the incompatibility of owning nuclear weapons and Christianity.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Minor Changes
I have changed my sidebar to reflect the places I actually do visit frequently now. The newest is Vox Rodentae - a marvelous name - which is by katje, who has commented on several threads here recently.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
New And Improved
I haven't seen much increase in traffic, but I have noticed an increase in comments, and an even greater increase in intelligent comments. Good show.
Types of Answers In Education - Part Two
Part One may be found here.
Modern study in much of the Liberal Arts and Humanities rewards students for a certain type of answer. I hear conservatives shouting in the background "Liberal answer! It rewards a liberal answer!" That may be one common effect, but I think the liberalism comes late in the process. Before it rewards any political leanings, it rewards a leaning to abstraction, even at the expense of accuracy.
I don't think this occurs of necessity in the humanities, but the temptation is always there. The student is rewarded for making connections between ideas, e.g. s similarity of values of the Renaissance and the Reformation, or of seeing behind the traditional facts to deeper forces. Students are trained to look for economic issues behind cultural conflicts, or cultural issues behind economic conflicts. The author's upbringing or sexual preferences are fair game for understanding both fiction and nonfiction writing. Issues of social class or personal pathology are believed to drive issues of politics.
These skills of seeing behind and making associations between superficially unrelated ideas are much prized in the liberal arts, as well they should be. They are also prized in the sciences, but with one major, and crucial difference: in science (and a few disciplines in the humanities), these skills are regarded as tools for finding useful answers. In the humanities, they are regarded as ends in themselves. The sciences start with the simpler information and seek to learn if more complex interrelations are valid. The Sociology major is taught to leap immediately to the complex and try his wings at seeing what others may have missed.
Looking for truth is not the same thing as actually finding it.
I write this as a long-past Theatre & Speech major (at William and Mary, we preferred the pompous spelling) who nearly switched to Medieval Lit at the end. Since then I have read much of history, psychology, and culture, somewhat less of philosophy, economics, and anthropology. The little I have encountered indirected from sociology or women's studies suggest that the phenomenon is even pronounced there. I am fairly confident in my assertion that in these disciplines as currently constituted, there are few natural checks on great-sounding theories that have little basis in fact. Getting it right is a secondary, or even tertiary issue for many. It is considered much more enlightened to note the phallic nature of weapons in literature and write endlessly on their psychosexual meaning than it is to note that a sword is a pretty effective weapon, and those tribes which adopted breast-inspired weapons seem to have been eliminated from the gene pool. Rather rapidly, I would guess.
The humanities student is rewarded for statements that are plausible, well-constructed, observant, interesting, adventurous, and creative. Seeing things in a new light, and making due obeisance to prevailing values of the academy, showing that you have read the proper authorities and are familiar with their concepts goes a long way to being considered a Smart Person - which is the reward you're looking for. None of these things is bad. They are simply not in their proportionate place. They are tools to learning, they are not learning itself.
In translation, there is a bottom line: does this result in improved communication and understanding? In technology there is a bottom line: does the thing do what it's supposed to. Economics has a more avoidable bottom line, but ultimately someone can always push the question: did more people eat, or have jobs, or buy microwaves? In history, the bottom line which reasonable people think should be there has in fact vanished in some circles. Does this give us a clearer understanding of what actually happened is no longer the point, as "what actually happened" is regarded as an invalid concept, so dependent on the class, politics, and power of the speaker as to be of little interest. Of more interest are the values of the speaker, and how he imposes his interpretation on society.
Decide for yourselves. What political views will this reward system for a certain class of young adults do to their politics?
Modern study in much of the Liberal Arts and Humanities rewards students for a certain type of answer. I hear conservatives shouting in the background "Liberal answer! It rewards a liberal answer!" That may be one common effect, but I think the liberalism comes late in the process. Before it rewards any political leanings, it rewards a leaning to abstraction, even at the expense of accuracy.
I don't think this occurs of necessity in the humanities, but the temptation is always there. The student is rewarded for making connections between ideas, e.g. s similarity of values of the Renaissance and the Reformation, or of seeing behind the traditional facts to deeper forces. Students are trained to look for economic issues behind cultural conflicts, or cultural issues behind economic conflicts. The author's upbringing or sexual preferences are fair game for understanding both fiction and nonfiction writing. Issues of social class or personal pathology are believed to drive issues of politics.
These skills of seeing behind and making associations between superficially unrelated ideas are much prized in the liberal arts, as well they should be. They are also prized in the sciences, but with one major, and crucial difference: in science (and a few disciplines in the humanities), these skills are regarded as tools for finding useful answers. In the humanities, they are regarded as ends in themselves. The sciences start with the simpler information and seek to learn if more complex interrelations are valid. The Sociology major is taught to leap immediately to the complex and try his wings at seeing what others may have missed.
Looking for truth is not the same thing as actually finding it.
I write this as a long-past Theatre & Speech major (at William and Mary, we preferred the pompous spelling) who nearly switched to Medieval Lit at the end. Since then I have read much of history, psychology, and culture, somewhat less of philosophy, economics, and anthropology. The little I have encountered indirected from sociology or women's studies suggest that the phenomenon is even pronounced there. I am fairly confident in my assertion that in these disciplines as currently constituted, there are few natural checks on great-sounding theories that have little basis in fact. Getting it right is a secondary, or even tertiary issue for many. It is considered much more enlightened to note the phallic nature of weapons in literature and write endlessly on their psychosexual meaning than it is to note that a sword is a pretty effective weapon, and those tribes which adopted breast-inspired weapons seem to have been eliminated from the gene pool. Rather rapidly, I would guess.
The humanities student is rewarded for statements that are plausible, well-constructed, observant, interesting, adventurous, and creative. Seeing things in a new light, and making due obeisance to prevailing values of the academy, showing that you have read the proper authorities and are familiar with their concepts goes a long way to being considered a Smart Person - which is the reward you're looking for. None of these things is bad. They are simply not in their proportionate place. They are tools to learning, they are not learning itself.
In translation, there is a bottom line: does this result in improved communication and understanding? In technology there is a bottom line: does the thing do what it's supposed to. Economics has a more avoidable bottom line, but ultimately someone can always push the question: did more people eat, or have jobs, or buy microwaves? In history, the bottom line which reasonable people think should be there has in fact vanished in some circles. Does this give us a clearer understanding of what actually happened is no longer the point, as "what actually happened" is regarded as an invalid concept, so dependent on the class, politics, and power of the speaker as to be of little interest. Of more interest are the values of the speaker, and how he imposes his interpretation on society.
Decide for yourselves. What political views will this reward system for a certain class of young adults do to their politics?
Friday, July 07, 2006
Free-Floating Outrage
The Assistant Village Idiot Changes His Mind About Why Leftists Say What They Say.
Update on board below.
Second update - a non-political one - on board below that.
There is a concept used in psychology called "free-floating anxiety." It describes an anxiety which does not derive from obvious external circumstances, but attaches itself to whatever is handy in the environment which might be thought to provoke it. The anxiety is already there, but the sufferer misattributes it to her job, or her relationships, or aspects of her health. As any of these things could drive anxiety, they are seen as driving this particular anxiety.
We don't use the terms "free-floating depression," or "free-floating paranoia," but something much the same happens with these as well. The mind seeks explanations, seeks a narrative which accounts for bad feelings. Come to think of it, the mind seeks explanation for good feelings as well. Early in a first psychotic break, the patient will often recognize that his paranoia doesn't make sense. "I know it sounds crazy to you but..." or "There's no reason why people should be spying on me..." Soon enough, the paranoid explanation becomes imbedded, and the patient no longer has access to the reasonable part of the brain which knows it's impossible. There's a chip implanted in my brain. No, there really is. The FBI had it put in because I know something about drug deals in my neighborhood.
The need for a coherent narrative seems to be stronger than the need to hold onto reality. People believe that the television is giving them special messages, even though they were previously not the sort who would adopt unusual ideas. The impression that the TV is speaking to them is so strong that finding an explanation for this becomes the brain's primary objective. It is not enough to say to oneself "That is an hallucination. It's not really happening." Because it is happening.
I've seen first paranoias change over the years. In the 70's, people in their first break would believe it was the CIA; when the Godfather movies came out it was the Mafia; satellites, computers, and now implanted chips have all had their run. Whatever is in the air becomes the explanation. High school students who are angry can always find something about their school or their parents that must be causing it.
The point to remember is that once anxiety, or depression, or paranoia is occurring, the mind will seek an explanation for it, and will not rest until it has done so. Once imbedded, it is no longer responsive to reason. No amount of counter-evidence will ever be enough. Any radically new information will simply be grafted into the old explanation somehow. If your brother was spying on you and your brother dies, then you will believe that some other family member has taken over the job.
In the 1994 elections, the Republican victory was attributed to "angry white males." They (uh, we) were supposedly insecure because of changing masculine roles, or affirmative action robbing us of status, or whatever, but we weren't aware of it conciously, so we redirected that anger onto the political arena and voted to restore our ancient glory because the Republicans had so skillfully manipulated these feelings in us. Agree with it or not, if you get that concept then you get this one: the Left has free-floating outrage. They're angry and they don't know why, so they attach it to whatever George Bush (and his cabal, cronies, henchmen, thugs, junta, etc) does. The data no longer makes any difference. There were enormous complaints then about the economy, and that's why they hated Bush. The economy has been going brilliantly now for years, but they no longer notice. Environmentalists complained about conservative's attitudes. We are now ahead of the Kyoto Protocol goals even though we didn't sign it, and the Europeans lag. The air and water keep getting cleaner, alternative energy is increasingly used, and there's more wilderness, but that's irrelevant. Bush hates the environment, he's evil.
Joe Wilson's a liar? No, he's a hero. Chemical weapons are found? No, can't be.
Until quite recently, I thought the lefties must just be lying. The economic news crossed the AP wire, why was it on page 14? Investigative panels absolve the accused but the accusations persist. Reporters must know that when your only document is a hoax/forgery, then you have no case, so why is the TANG story still extant? I concluded they must be lying. They know the unemployment numbers but conceal them because it hurts their cause.
I have at least partly changed my mind on this. While some on the left and in the MSM may be lying, I now think most have free-floating outrage instead. They are unhappy about "where this country is going," so they pick up something close to hand that's vaguely related and attribute it to that. Conservatives often call it a template but it's stronger than that. It is the narrative by which they live and have value that is collapsing. We all tend to hear what we like and allow the uncomfortable to recede, but this has moved to the point of the bizarre. The left is not merely cherry-picking data to make a point, but completely ignoring an entire side of the balance sheet.
This is because if they had to attend to the other side of the balance sheet, and engage in a discussion about whether Bush has simply overstepped Constitutional authority, then they would have no explanation for their outrage. If they can't blame it on Bush, they will have to examine it and see where it comes from. It would be a reasonable discussion to ponder whether there was more this administration could have done diplomatically to build a coalition for Iraq, but that discussion doesn't occur, because even winning the argument would not give sufficient cause for liberal rage. It has to be that we were unilateral, that we alienated our allies, that we were imperialists who fought for oil, that we have made the world less safe. If those things were true, they would be sufficient reason for outrage. I am outraged, therefore those things must be true.
There are a lot of subterranean reasons why liberals don't like where the culture is going, but cannot admit to themselves. I will tell you one, from personal experience. See if you can extend it out to a fuller explanation.
Social workers resent hearing about people in other, unworthy professions, who make more money than they do. "I have a friggin' Master's and I barely make $40,000/year, while (fill in the blank) barely got out of highschool and is making twice that."
Update: Gagdad Bob over at One Cosmos posts at length on a related topic.
Second Update: This morning's readmission was particularly interesting in this light. I knew Tim twenty years ago on his first admissions. A personable, intelligent young man with quite voice and refined features. Over his last few admissions for unsafe hoarding (bags of food, which he retrieves from the dumpster as soon as his MIMS worker leaves), he has shown more isolation and less affect. He showed a great deal of affect this morning.
We very frequently encounter patients who do not believe they have an illness, or that they do not need medications. Less frequently, our clients might believe that they are not actually being evicted when they are, or that the people who claim to be their family are imposters. Todays denial, delievered with real anger, was new to me. "The Mental Health Center is closed. It's gone out of business. They're going to make it into apartments. I don't have to go there." From there he took it a step farther. "I never did go there. I don't think it ever did exist." That's denial at impressive levels.
Update on board below.
Second update - a non-political one - on board below that.
There is a concept used in psychology called "free-floating anxiety." It describes an anxiety which does not derive from obvious external circumstances, but attaches itself to whatever is handy in the environment which might be thought to provoke it. The anxiety is already there, but the sufferer misattributes it to her job, or her relationships, or aspects of her health. As any of these things could drive anxiety, they are seen as driving this particular anxiety.
We don't use the terms "free-floating depression," or "free-floating paranoia," but something much the same happens with these as well. The mind seeks explanations, seeks a narrative which accounts for bad feelings. Come to think of it, the mind seeks explanation for good feelings as well. Early in a first psychotic break, the patient will often recognize that his paranoia doesn't make sense. "I know it sounds crazy to you but..." or "There's no reason why people should be spying on me..." Soon enough, the paranoid explanation becomes imbedded, and the patient no longer has access to the reasonable part of the brain which knows it's impossible. There's a chip implanted in my brain. No, there really is. The FBI had it put in because I know something about drug deals in my neighborhood.
The need for a coherent narrative seems to be stronger than the need to hold onto reality. People believe that the television is giving them special messages, even though they were previously not the sort who would adopt unusual ideas. The impression that the TV is speaking to them is so strong that finding an explanation for this becomes the brain's primary objective. It is not enough to say to oneself "That is an hallucination. It's not really happening." Because it is happening.
I've seen first paranoias change over the years. In the 70's, people in their first break would believe it was the CIA; when the Godfather movies came out it was the Mafia; satellites, computers, and now implanted chips have all had their run. Whatever is in the air becomes the explanation. High school students who are angry can always find something about their school or their parents that must be causing it.
The point to remember is that once anxiety, or depression, or paranoia is occurring, the mind will seek an explanation for it, and will not rest until it has done so. Once imbedded, it is no longer responsive to reason. No amount of counter-evidence will ever be enough. Any radically new information will simply be grafted into the old explanation somehow. If your brother was spying on you and your brother dies, then you will believe that some other family member has taken over the job.
In the 1994 elections, the Republican victory was attributed to "angry white males." They (uh, we) were supposedly insecure because of changing masculine roles, or affirmative action robbing us of status, or whatever, but we weren't aware of it conciously, so we redirected that anger onto the political arena and voted to restore our ancient glory because the Republicans had so skillfully manipulated these feelings in us. Agree with it or not, if you get that concept then you get this one: the Left has free-floating outrage. They're angry and they don't know why, so they attach it to whatever George Bush (and his cabal, cronies, henchmen, thugs, junta, etc) does. The data no longer makes any difference. There were enormous complaints then about the economy, and that's why they hated Bush. The economy has been going brilliantly now for years, but they no longer notice. Environmentalists complained about conservative's attitudes. We are now ahead of the Kyoto Protocol goals even though we didn't sign it, and the Europeans lag. The air and water keep getting cleaner, alternative energy is increasingly used, and there's more wilderness, but that's irrelevant. Bush hates the environment, he's evil.
Joe Wilson's a liar? No, he's a hero. Chemical weapons are found? No, can't be.
Until quite recently, I thought the lefties must just be lying. The economic news crossed the AP wire, why was it on page 14? Investigative panels absolve the accused but the accusations persist. Reporters must know that when your only document is a hoax/forgery, then you have no case, so why is the TANG story still extant? I concluded they must be lying. They know the unemployment numbers but conceal them because it hurts their cause.
I have at least partly changed my mind on this. While some on the left and in the MSM may be lying, I now think most have free-floating outrage instead. They are unhappy about "where this country is going," so they pick up something close to hand that's vaguely related and attribute it to that. Conservatives often call it a template but it's stronger than that. It is the narrative by which they live and have value that is collapsing. We all tend to hear what we like and allow the uncomfortable to recede, but this has moved to the point of the bizarre. The left is not merely cherry-picking data to make a point, but completely ignoring an entire side of the balance sheet.
This is because if they had to attend to the other side of the balance sheet, and engage in a discussion about whether Bush has simply overstepped Constitutional authority, then they would have no explanation for their outrage. If they can't blame it on Bush, they will have to examine it and see where it comes from. It would be a reasonable discussion to ponder whether there was more this administration could have done diplomatically to build a coalition for Iraq, but that discussion doesn't occur, because even winning the argument would not give sufficient cause for liberal rage. It has to be that we were unilateral, that we alienated our allies, that we were imperialists who fought for oil, that we have made the world less safe. If those things were true, they would be sufficient reason for outrage. I am outraged, therefore those things must be true.
There are a lot of subterranean reasons why liberals don't like where the culture is going, but cannot admit to themselves. I will tell you one, from personal experience. See if you can extend it out to a fuller explanation.
Social workers resent hearing about people in other, unworthy professions, who make more money than they do. "I have a friggin' Master's and I barely make $40,000/year, while (fill in the blank) barely got out of highschool and is making twice that."
Update: Gagdad Bob over at One Cosmos posts at length on a related topic.
Second Update: This morning's readmission was particularly interesting in this light. I knew Tim twenty years ago on his first admissions. A personable, intelligent young man with quite voice and refined features. Over his last few admissions for unsafe hoarding (bags of food, which he retrieves from the dumpster as soon as his MIMS worker leaves), he has shown more isolation and less affect. He showed a great deal of affect this morning.
We very frequently encounter patients who do not believe they have an illness, or that they do not need medications. Less frequently, our clients might believe that they are not actually being evicted when they are, or that the people who claim to be their family are imposters. Todays denial, delievered with real anger, was new to me. "The Mental Health Center is closed. It's gone out of business. They're going to make it into apartments. I don't have to go there." From there he took it a step farther. "I never did go there. I don't think it ever did exist." That's denial at impressive levels.
The Interconnectedness of Republican and Democrat Unpopularity
It has been all the rage this election season to note that the Republicans, especially Bush, are doing badly, and should be so easy to beat, except that the Democrats are frittering it all away and are doing even worse. Various plans are offered on the op-ed pages and news commentary shows advising the Democrats what they should do about this (Ever notice that this friendly advice is always given to the Democrats? On the rare occasion that such advice is ever offered to Republicans, the advice is to move to the center - read: center-left - and not "pander" to their base).
Most of this advice misses the point. Much of the reason that Republicans are doing badly is that the Democrats have been going consistently negative on them for years, and the MSM is echoing this is milder terms. Unfortunately, the reason the Democrats are doing badly is that they are seen as always negative, being critical without solutions. The method the Democrats have used to give themselves this opportunity is precisely the method by which they are losing it. The positive numbers that generic Democrats are showing are because their brand name still has some cachet, and people don't necessarily associate a generic Democrat with intensely negative campaigning.
There are no generic anything's running. There never are. Once a Democrat has to actually run, making statements and giving interviews, s/he has a dilemna. Every move toward criticism opens the door to all those impressions of shrill, outraged liberals pandering to their nutcase base. But if s/he doesn't go negative, s/he can't inflict damage. It's a wash, or worse.
There was an excellent example of this in the run for the Democratic presidential nomination leading up to Iowa. Howard Dean was showing some good poll numbers, but the support was known to be soft. He was clearly vulnerable on several areas where he had made an ass of himself, but none of the other candidates wanted to be seen as going negative on him. All the focus groups had indicated that an upbeat message was going to prevail. In the last two weeks before the caucus, it was clear that Dean could win unless someone took him down. But whoever took him down would go down himself, being immediately perceived as mean or irritable.
Dick Gephardt took one for the team. Dick went negative, and both he and Howard dropped in the polls in a matter of days (It wasn't the scream that did Dean in. He had already lost the caucus, remember?).
The strategy had worked pretty well for the Democrats over the years, because they had been able to effectively disassociate the attack dogs from the current candidates. Send out your wild accusers, but let the Joe Liebermans of the world take the high road. That method seems to be falling apart this year, because the attack dogs aren't staying in their place. They're attacking the Democrats who don't feed them red meat, and attacking with much of the fervor they reserved for Republicans before.
This is because they're batshit crazy, of course. They've come to believe their own rhetoric about fascism and police states.
P.S. Republicans run for office telling you they're going to work for you, because that's how they perceive progress happening: someone works for it. Democrats run telling you they're going to fight for you, because they believe that's how improvement comes: someone has to wrest good stuff away from others. This year it is even more extreme. The Democratic ads are assuring people that the candidate will protect the citizens from the Republicans, who are apparently on the verge of stealing lunch money from Cub Scouts.
Most of this advice misses the point. Much of the reason that Republicans are doing badly is that the Democrats have been going consistently negative on them for years, and the MSM is echoing this is milder terms. Unfortunately, the reason the Democrats are doing badly is that they are seen as always negative, being critical without solutions. The method the Democrats have used to give themselves this opportunity is precisely the method by which they are losing it. The positive numbers that generic Democrats are showing are because their brand name still has some cachet, and people don't necessarily associate a generic Democrat with intensely negative campaigning.
There are no generic anything's running. There never are. Once a Democrat has to actually run, making statements and giving interviews, s/he has a dilemna. Every move toward criticism opens the door to all those impressions of shrill, outraged liberals pandering to their nutcase base. But if s/he doesn't go negative, s/he can't inflict damage. It's a wash, or worse.
There was an excellent example of this in the run for the Democratic presidential nomination leading up to Iowa. Howard Dean was showing some good poll numbers, but the support was known to be soft. He was clearly vulnerable on several areas where he had made an ass of himself, but none of the other candidates wanted to be seen as going negative on him. All the focus groups had indicated that an upbeat message was going to prevail. In the last two weeks before the caucus, it was clear that Dean could win unless someone took him down. But whoever took him down would go down himself, being immediately perceived as mean or irritable.
Dick Gephardt took one for the team. Dick went negative, and both he and Howard dropped in the polls in a matter of days (It wasn't the scream that did Dean in. He had already lost the caucus, remember?).
The strategy had worked pretty well for the Democrats over the years, because they had been able to effectively disassociate the attack dogs from the current candidates. Send out your wild accusers, but let the Joe Liebermans of the world take the high road. That method seems to be falling apart this year, because the attack dogs aren't staying in their place. They're attacking the Democrats who don't feed them red meat, and attacking with much of the fervor they reserved for Republicans before.
This is because they're batshit crazy, of course. They've come to believe their own rhetoric about fascism and police states.
P.S. Republicans run for office telling you they're going to work for you, because that's how they perceive progress happening: someone works for it. Democrats run telling you they're going to fight for you, because they believe that's how improvement comes: someone has to wrest good stuff away from others. This year it is even more extreme. The Democratic ads are assuring people that the candidate will protect the citizens from the Republicans, who are apparently on the verge of stealing lunch money from Cub Scouts.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
The Silent Planet, not The Warming Planet
Inspired by a discussion of "An Inconvenient Truth" over at GM's Corner, I recalled a long-favored theme of mine: I am much more concerned about the survival of Western Civilization, and in particular, the Christian faith, than I am about making sure my descendants have enough varieties of beetles to keep their environmentalists happy, or that enough areas are declared protected wilderness. Think about it. If they don't believe in such things as the worth of the individual, freedom before God, or even kindness or honesty, why are we worried about whether they survive at all?
I am reminded of the final section of C.S. Lewis's Out of The Silent Planet, in which this whole idea of preserving the destiny of our descendents is shredded.
The introductory remarks in italics are taken from the delightful Crusty Curmudgeon.
Standing before the Oyarsa, Weston delivers a bombastic speech about the moral superiority of technological advancement and the manifest destiny of humanity to expand to the stars. However, he has so little common ground with the innocent Martians that communicating his philsophy to them proves impossible. (Fans of the Narnia books will recognize this plot device: Uncle Andrew's encounter with the talking animals in The Magician's Nephew is a recycled Weston.) Ransom, translating Weston's rhetoric into plain language for the simpler-minded Martians, strips it naked and exposes it as high-minded nonsense:
More fun on this topic over at Into The Wardrobe, the most popular of the C.S. Lewis commentary sites.
I am reminded of the final section of C.S. Lewis's Out of The Silent Planet, in which this whole idea of preserving the destiny of our descendents is shredded.
The introductory remarks in italics are taken from the delightful Crusty Curmudgeon.
Standing before the Oyarsa, Weston delivers a bombastic speech about the moral superiority of technological advancement and the manifest destiny of humanity to expand to the stars. However, he has so little common ground with the innocent Martians that communicating his philsophy to them proves impossible. (Fans of the Narnia books will recognize this plot device: Uncle Andrew's encounter with the talking animals in The Magician's Nephew is a recycled Weston.) Ransom, translating Weston's rhetoric into plain language for the simpler-minded Martians, strips it naked and exposes it as high-minded nonsense:
"It is in her right," said Weston, "the right, or, if you will, the might of Life herself, that I am prepared without flinching to plant the flag of man on the soil of Malacandra: to march on, step by step, superseding, where necessary, the lower forms of life that we find, claiming planet after planet, system after system, till our posterity - whatever strange form and yet unguessed mentality they have assumed - dwell in the universe wherever the universe is habitable."
"He says," translated Ransom," that because of this it would not be a bent action - or else, he says, it would be a possible action - for him to kill you all and bring us here. He says he would feel no pity. He is saying again that perhaps they would be able to keep moving from one world to another and wherever they came they would kill everyone. I think he is now talking about worlds that go round other suns. He wants the creatures born from us to be in as many places as they can. He does not know what kind of creatures they will be."
"I may fall," said Weston. "But while I live I will not, with such a key in my hand, consent to close the gates of the future on my race. What lies in their future, beyond our present ken, passes imagination to conceive: it is enough for me that there is a Beyond."
"He is saying," Ransom translated, "that he will not stop trying to do all this unless you kill him. And he says that though he doesn't know what will happen to the creatures sprung from us, he wants it to happen very much."
Weston, who had now finished his statement, looked round instinctively for a chair to sink into. On Earth he usually sank into a chair as the applause began. Finding none - he was not the kind of man to sit on the ground like Devine - he folded his arms and stared with a certain dignity about him.
More fun on this topic over at Into The Wardrobe, the most popular of the C.S. Lewis commentary sites.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Types of Answers In Education
Just playin' around with an idea here. More to follow.
Behavior that is rewarded will tend to be repeated. Behavior that is punished will tend to extinguish. Simple enough to understand, and pretty readily demonstrated. Its simplicity tends to break down in real-world situations, which are complex and dynamic. What we thought of as a punishment, such as smacking someone, turns out in some cases to be a reward: attention. When we reward a child for good grades, we might be unwittingly rewarding the cheating they did to get there. Real life is messy, but the principle still holds.
The actions that children engage in – what are the rewards they are receiving for various activities? Children who play video/computer games receive tiny but instantaneous rewards, which they can string together into larger rewards, especially mastery. Computer games reward focused attention, reflexes, fine motor coordination, keyboarding, instant memory retrieval, pattern recognition, and more. Experimentation and recombination are rewarded. A variety of skills useful in various adult contexts. Other important skills are rarely used.
Text-messaging, cell phones, VOIP and IM, email and MySpace teach the encoding and decoding of small bits of information into social meaning. They reward availability, quick response, and social flexibility as well as the fine-motor skills that most technology uses nowadays.
Other computer uses reward other skills. My sons have the first few letters of dozens of url’s memorized, so that they can look up when movies are playing or what the weather will be from any computer, even if it doesn’t have the bookmarks from home.
What a child learns from athletics varies enormously. We hope we are teaching both individual striving and cooperation, both independent action and respect for authority, both intensity and self-control. Realistic self-assessment, resiliency, grace under pressure, and strategy are lessons we hope our children learn over time. But we also know that sports can teach intimidation, humiliation and futility, selfishness, and scapegoating. A child ready to learn initiative may have a coach who does not allow it, and a child who should learn to stop blaming others may end up on a team where her good actions are, in fact, swallowed up in the mistakes of others. We don’t always teach what we hope to.
What was rewarded in our own childhood learning, and what was unrewarded or punished? My own experience was rather typical for children of a certain bent, I think. I read voraciously, which became its own reward. I wanted new information, any information, so cereal boxes, matchbooks, magazine ads, and road signs were as good a target as classic literature or good non-fiction. Better, in fact, because speed was of the essence. No poetry or elegance of expression mattered much. I wanted information, charts, plot, or dialogue. Quick-hitters for stimulation. An information-addicted brain, searching relentlessly for a fix, quality not important.
Does the type of reward for learning in children and young adults affect religious, political, and cultural values?
I have a suspicion we are doing something very, very wrong here.
Behavior that is rewarded will tend to be repeated. Behavior that is punished will tend to extinguish. Simple enough to understand, and pretty readily demonstrated. Its simplicity tends to break down in real-world situations, which are complex and dynamic. What we thought of as a punishment, such as smacking someone, turns out in some cases to be a reward: attention. When we reward a child for good grades, we might be unwittingly rewarding the cheating they did to get there. Real life is messy, but the principle still holds.
The actions that children engage in – what are the rewards they are receiving for various activities? Children who play video/computer games receive tiny but instantaneous rewards, which they can string together into larger rewards, especially mastery. Computer games reward focused attention, reflexes, fine motor coordination, keyboarding, instant memory retrieval, pattern recognition, and more. Experimentation and recombination are rewarded. A variety of skills useful in various adult contexts. Other important skills are rarely used.
Text-messaging, cell phones, VOIP and IM, email and MySpace teach the encoding and decoding of small bits of information into social meaning. They reward availability, quick response, and social flexibility as well as the fine-motor skills that most technology uses nowadays.
Other computer uses reward other skills. My sons have the first few letters of dozens of url’s memorized, so that they can look up when movies are playing or what the weather will be from any computer, even if it doesn’t have the bookmarks from home.
What a child learns from athletics varies enormously. We hope we are teaching both individual striving and cooperation, both independent action and respect for authority, both intensity and self-control. Realistic self-assessment, resiliency, grace under pressure, and strategy are lessons we hope our children learn over time. But we also know that sports can teach intimidation, humiliation and futility, selfishness, and scapegoating. A child ready to learn initiative may have a coach who does not allow it, and a child who should learn to stop blaming others may end up on a team where her good actions are, in fact, swallowed up in the mistakes of others. We don’t always teach what we hope to.
What was rewarded in our own childhood learning, and what was unrewarded or punished? My own experience was rather typical for children of a certain bent, I think. I read voraciously, which became its own reward. I wanted new information, any information, so cereal boxes, matchbooks, magazine ads, and road signs were as good a target as classic literature or good non-fiction. Better, in fact, because speed was of the essence. No poetry or elegance of expression mattered much. I wanted information, charts, plot, or dialogue. Quick-hitters for stimulation. An information-addicted brain, searching relentlessly for a fix, quality not important.
Does the type of reward for learning in children and young adults affect religious, political, and cultural values?
I have a suspicion we are doing something very, very wrong here.
Merritt Ruhlen's List
Linguist Merritt Ruhlen declares there are worldwide cognates for a small set of words. This drives most other linguists crazy. Even if it could be granted, they argue, that there were one original language from which all others descend, the time-depth is too great to have any confidence in word similarity. Language changes too quickly, they say, especially languages which are not written down. As writing only goes back 5-6,000 years, and an original language would have to be at least ten times as old, all similarities must be regarded as mere coincidence.
Ruhlen's counterargument is that a small set of words change much more slowly, slowly enough that we can still hear echoes. Other linguists would agree that some basic words change more slowly, but nothing like slowly enough to be useful.
With that as introduction, this is Ruhlen's list of words that he believes have been stable enough that we can find cognates in every language superfamily in the world (though not in every human language). Words in italics are cognates from supposedly unrelated languages. I took liberties with the orthography.
Who? !ku, k(w), kwi, kwi, okoe, kune
What? ma, ma, ma, mi, ma, manu, mina, minha, mana
Two ball, bala, bwar, pala, boula, bula, p'al
Water k"a, nki, engi, akwa, rtsq'a, akwa, oKwa, namaw, okho, akwa
One/finger tok, dike, tak, tik, tok, dik, diki
Arm kani, kono, gana, kang, kone, kan, Xeen, akan, kano
Bend/knee bonggo, bunqe, buka, buku, buku, bungku, buka
Hair sum, somm, toma, tsham, syam, summe
Vagina/vulva buti, butu, put, put, poccu, p'ut'e, put'i, betik, puda, butie
Smell/nose c'u, cona, suna, sun, cuntu, sna, sung, ijung, sunna, cuna
Seize/squeeze kangkam, kama, km, kama, kamu, kem, nggam
Fly (v.) par, pere, pyarr, p'er, para, para, p'hur, apir, paru
Ruhlen would also add Mama and Dada, the words for mom and dad in many languages. Traditionally, this commonality is attributed to the fact that these sounds are the easiest for an infant to say. Kaka, however, is a common word worldwide for uncle, grandfather, older male relative, and the k- sound does not come early for children.
Looking at the list, it's hard not to see it as a slam-dunk case for Dr. Ruhlen. Perhaps so. But with 6,000 languages it could just be that you could find something similar from at least one language in every family for whatever word you wanted.
Ruhlen's counterargument is that a small set of words change much more slowly, slowly enough that we can still hear echoes. Other linguists would agree that some basic words change more slowly, but nothing like slowly enough to be useful.
With that as introduction, this is Ruhlen's list of words that he believes have been stable enough that we can find cognates in every language superfamily in the world (though not in every human language). Words in italics are cognates from supposedly unrelated languages. I took liberties with the orthography.
Who? !ku, k(w), kwi, kwi, okoe, kune
What? ma, ma, ma, mi, ma, manu, mina, minha, mana
Two ball, bala, bwar, pala, boula, bula, p'al
Water k"a, nki, engi, akwa, rtsq'a, akwa, oKwa, namaw, okho, akwa
One/finger tok, dike, tak, tik, tok, dik, diki
Arm kani, kono, gana, kang, kone, kan, Xeen, akan, kano
Bend/knee bonggo, bunqe, buka, buku, buku, bungku, buka
Hair sum, somm, toma, tsham, syam, summe
Vagina/vulva buti, butu, put, put, poccu, p'ut'e, put'i, betik, puda, butie
Smell/nose c'u, cona, suna, sun, cuntu, sna, sung, ijung, sunna, cuna
Seize/squeeze kangkam, kama, km, kama, kamu, kem, nggam
Fly (v.) par, pere, pyarr, p'er, para, para, p'hur, apir, paru
Ruhlen would also add Mama and Dada, the words for mom and dad in many languages. Traditionally, this commonality is attributed to the fact that these sounds are the easiest for an infant to say. Kaka, however, is a common word worldwide for uncle, grandfather, older male relative, and the k- sound does not come early for children.
Looking at the list, it's hard not to see it as a slam-dunk case for Dr. Ruhlen. Perhaps so. But with 6,000 languages it could just be that you could find something similar from at least one language in every family for whatever word you wanted.
Taxing Other Wealth
When we tax wealth, why tax only income and property? Why not tax educational achievement instead? If you have a PhD you pay more. Goodbye Marxist U.
I don’t want an overall increase, just redistribution, so that the educationally rich pay their fair share. Set everyone’s tax rate lower. Put in a multiplying factor for additional years of schooling after highschool. For those professions where schooling already leads to higher income, such as engineers, doctors, or lawyers, it will be a wash. If you had a poor education but made a bundle of money, big advantage to you.
If you have a Master’s in Theatrical Arts or a PhD in Social Theory, the outlook will be less rosy. Alternatively, we could treat education like property, and have people pay a tax each year on what they’ve got.
Look, the educationally wealthy are just winners of life’s lottery, like the monetarily wealthy, right? They chose their parents and their genetics well, and were rewarded with the great wealth of knowledge and understanding that makes life worth living. So what if they worked hard for it? Didn’t people work hard for their money as well?
I’m undecided whether people could donate their educational skills instead of cash. The folks with advanced degrees would want to teach in their specialties, but what we need are math and science teachers for grades 7-12, especially in cities. I’m not sure they’d be competent to teach that. If they passed a subject competency, maybe…
Try to articulate why this is a ridiculous idea without also proving that taxing income is ridiculous as well.
I don’t want an overall increase, just redistribution, so that the educationally rich pay their fair share. Set everyone’s tax rate lower. Put in a multiplying factor for additional years of schooling after highschool. For those professions where schooling already leads to higher income, such as engineers, doctors, or lawyers, it will be a wash. If you had a poor education but made a bundle of money, big advantage to you.
If you have a Master’s in Theatrical Arts or a PhD in Social Theory, the outlook will be less rosy. Alternatively, we could treat education like property, and have people pay a tax each year on what they’ve got.
Look, the educationally wealthy are just winners of life’s lottery, like the monetarily wealthy, right? They chose their parents and their genetics well, and were rewarded with the great wealth of knowledge and understanding that makes life worth living. So what if they worked hard for it? Didn’t people work hard for their money as well?
I’m undecided whether people could donate their educational skills instead of cash. The folks with advanced degrees would want to teach in their specialties, but what we need are math and science teachers for grades 7-12, especially in cities. I’m not sure they’d be competent to teach that. If they passed a subject competency, maybe…
Try to articulate why this is a ridiculous idea without also proving that taxing income is ridiculous as well.
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Peter, Paul, and Ingrate
Via Shrinkwrapped. Can we at least hope this is an urban legend, or an exaggeration?
Friday, June 30, 2006
All In The Mind III - The Carnival of the Psychosphere
The new carnival is up. I didn't contribute this time, for which I am heartily ashamed.
No One Is Minding The Store
I will likely be returning to this idea of diffuse power over the next few days - or weeks - as it is new and enchanting to me. I have browsed into similar ideas before, but this variation has shown considerable explanatory power for events that were puzzling.
Short version: no one is running the world. The 60's fantasy of trying to figure out who is behind it all - and the idea that it was the phone company was pretty funny - of tracing the military-industrial complex, blaming Nixon, or otherwise speculating who had the power to move society, is completely off reality. Even the modified version, of multinational corporations, advertising, Big Oil, Microsoft, etc is wildly exagerrated. Because people feel powerless, they speculate that Someone Else must have the power to do things. There is no danger of American fascism, or theocracy, or empire. Even if there were a determined collection of the rich and powerful who somehow decided to act cooperatively for evil, it wouldn't change things much. The types of power are too varied, and overall power simply too diffuse, for them to have much effect. Worry about something else.
As interested as I am in political events, I have long maintained that what happens at that level is almost never the strong force in making your life what it is. The births, marriages, and deaths of friends and family have far greater impact. Health, employment, finances, and how well your relationships are going all have more effect on you. Government is more like the weather. Though it affects all of us in common, it is usually in minor ways. Occasionally, a major negative event in government or weather will overwhelm all other events, but this is rare.
Even the most politically obsessed person, unless his job is dependent on an election, is not going to think of national events when asked "How's it going?" On a particularly contentious issue, or right at election time, some few might answer for a day or two "I'm really very depressed about this Supreme Court thing."
While everyone's job is affected by the government in some way, it is only rarely the determining factor in business prospects or job satisfaction.
Conservatives can get just as bent about this as liberals. Whether the Ten Commandments are posted in a courtroom, even the courtroom you work in every day, is not going to have a measurable effect on your life. Even if the worst fears of the anti-Gay Rights crowd are true, and sexual orientation is malleable at young ages and the gays are just recruiting, one Gay Pride parade is not going to change much of anything.
This is not to say that we shouldn't stand up for what we believe and try to influence events in the way that we want. In fact, it's an encouragement to do that, because there isn't some enormous force working against you to keep you down; do your bit. You do have influence, though you don't perceive it. But all the "bigs" that are running things - Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Labor, Big Tobacco, Multinational Corporations, the teacher's unions, the Religious Right, Big Media, Alternative Media, Oprah, Microsoft - they can't all be big, right? In extreme circumstances, under extreme autocracies or oligarchies, a few people do wield enormous power. That's rare. The way the US is structured, it's never going to happen. Other bad things may happen, but not that.
More to follow.
Short version: no one is running the world. The 60's fantasy of trying to figure out who is behind it all - and the idea that it was the phone company was pretty funny - of tracing the military-industrial complex, blaming Nixon, or otherwise speculating who had the power to move society, is completely off reality. Even the modified version, of multinational corporations, advertising, Big Oil, Microsoft, etc is wildly exagerrated. Because people feel powerless, they speculate that Someone Else must have the power to do things. There is no danger of American fascism, or theocracy, or empire. Even if there were a determined collection of the rich and powerful who somehow decided to act cooperatively for evil, it wouldn't change things much. The types of power are too varied, and overall power simply too diffuse, for them to have much effect. Worry about something else.
As interested as I am in political events, I have long maintained that what happens at that level is almost never the strong force in making your life what it is. The births, marriages, and deaths of friends and family have far greater impact. Health, employment, finances, and how well your relationships are going all have more effect on you. Government is more like the weather. Though it affects all of us in common, it is usually in minor ways. Occasionally, a major negative event in government or weather will overwhelm all other events, but this is rare.
Even the most politically obsessed person, unless his job is dependent on an election, is not going to think of national events when asked "How's it going?" On a particularly contentious issue, or right at election time, some few might answer for a day or two "I'm really very depressed about this Supreme Court thing."
While everyone's job is affected by the government in some way, it is only rarely the determining factor in business prospects or job satisfaction.
Conservatives can get just as bent about this as liberals. Whether the Ten Commandments are posted in a courtroom, even the courtroom you work in every day, is not going to have a measurable effect on your life. Even if the worst fears of the anti-Gay Rights crowd are true, and sexual orientation is malleable at young ages and the gays are just recruiting, one Gay Pride parade is not going to change much of anything.
This is not to say that we shouldn't stand up for what we believe and try to influence events in the way that we want. In fact, it's an encouragement to do that, because there isn't some enormous force working against you to keep you down; do your bit. You do have influence, though you don't perceive it. But all the "bigs" that are running things - Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Labor, Big Tobacco, Multinational Corporations, the teacher's unions, the Religious Right, Big Media, Alternative Media, Oprah, Microsoft - they can't all be big, right? In extreme circumstances, under extreme autocracies or oligarchies, a few people do wield enormous power. That's rare. The way the US is structured, it's never going to happen. Other bad things may happen, but not that.
More to follow.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
The Survival of Western Culture
Jerry Bowyer over at Tech Central Station, has an interesting article abour the survival of Western Culture entitled The Renewal of the West. He takes as a jumping-off point Pat Buchanan's comment that if the ideals of Madison and Jefferson survived another 200 years in America, but by that time most Americans were brown and yellow and black, it would be a "disaster and a tragedy."
Buchanan is just nuts on this point. If I get brought to the future, see an America with few white people, but the citizens are largely Christian, market-believing, eccentrics who like reading to their children (or whatever the equivalent is then), I'm just tickled pink. Or brown. I might have some curiosity what my own legacy was, and where my descendants are, but if some genealogical tracer-bot identifies "those two brown families over there are part you," I'm fine with that. If one of them is wearing a Hawaiian shirt or is very big on C. S. Lewis, my life is complete.
One of the reasons why I care so little for preserving "the environment" according to some artificial standard that bobos have left over from their stays at summer camp, it's because I value the other legacy - the legacy of ideas - so much more.
Buchanan is just nuts on this point. If I get brought to the future, see an America with few white people, but the citizens are largely Christian, market-believing, eccentrics who like reading to their children (or whatever the equivalent is then), I'm just tickled pink. Or brown. I might have some curiosity what my own legacy was, and where my descendants are, but if some genealogical tracer-bot identifies "those two brown families over there are part you," I'm fine with that. If one of them is wearing a Hawaiian shirt or is very big on C. S. Lewis, my life is complete.
One of the reasons why I care so little for preserving "the environment" according to some artificial standard that bobos have left over from their stays at summer camp, it's because I value the other legacy - the legacy of ideas - so much more.
Diffuse Power
Wandering over to comment on some left-leaning blogs, I was puzzled yet again by the accusations of tyranny, of fascism, and of the new pet phrase Unitary Authority, referring to Bush, of course. This rhetoric is so common on the left, with frequent mentions of how the Republicans "control" all branches of government, worries of imposed theocracy, and fear of multinational corporations (or "corporate interests").
Conservatives see this as merely bizarre, that anyone could think that Chavez, the Saddam of yore, and Bush differ in national authority only in small degree. Liberals think conservatives blind for not seeing it. It is for this reason that protestations that the left is being paranoid and hyperbolic fall on deaf ears. They really believe that a president wields enormous power, and any move by the Bush administration to assert authority in an unclear area is an attempt to capture that last few percentage points of power and bring us close to autocracy.
Power is quite diffuse in American society. The power of a president, or a Supreme Court Justice, or a Senator is much less than - I suspect - liberals know. The TV news likes to use phrases such as "the most powerful leader in the world," but that gives a very false impression. There are many kinds of power, and many players in the game. There is power to do as one pleases, there is power to influence, there is power to be left alone; cultural power, financial power, political power, military power. Bush is limited in his power not because of the unceasing efforts of progressives fighting brilliant rearguard actions, but because of the basic structure of American society. No one has that much power, and none of us are without some power.
Libertarians understand this better than conservatives, conservatives better than liberals. I wish I could penetrate why this is. Small businessmen perhaps have a realistic understand of the contradiction between having great freedom and limited power. It is hard to influence others, hard to make the world work the way you would like it. Government employees, on the other hand, may see themselves as powerless to change top-down authority, and see politics as working in much the same way. They may believe that some few get to tell others what to do, and the trick is to become one of the few, or band together to push one of the few around. Perhaps this is particularly strong in African-American and other minority communities, which believe that only by banding together do they have any power at all.
Bringing up children teaches both the hugeness and limitation of individual power; multiple children even more. I have had enormous influence on my sons - but they are who they are and they go their own way. And they in turn have influenced me, from their earliest days.
Do liberals feel personally powerless? Or more subtly, do they believe they have a measure of control over their destiny but the great mass of American society does not (the rubes)? They believe advertising drives purchasing more than personal choice. This would go some way to explaining why they believe that elections are stolen from them or that Darth Rove tricks the public.
If they believe that some few pull most of the strings, it would explain their paranoid reactions to the normal ebb and flow, checks and balances of political life. As I'm writing off the top of my head here, I welcome comments to help clarify this.
Conservatives see this as merely bizarre, that anyone could think that Chavez, the Saddam of yore, and Bush differ in national authority only in small degree. Liberals think conservatives blind for not seeing it. It is for this reason that protestations that the left is being paranoid and hyperbolic fall on deaf ears. They really believe that a president wields enormous power, and any move by the Bush administration to assert authority in an unclear area is an attempt to capture that last few percentage points of power and bring us close to autocracy.
Power is quite diffuse in American society. The power of a president, or a Supreme Court Justice, or a Senator is much less than - I suspect - liberals know. The TV news likes to use phrases such as "the most powerful leader in the world," but that gives a very false impression. There are many kinds of power, and many players in the game. There is power to do as one pleases, there is power to influence, there is power to be left alone; cultural power, financial power, political power, military power. Bush is limited in his power not because of the unceasing efforts of progressives fighting brilliant rearguard actions, but because of the basic structure of American society. No one has that much power, and none of us are without some power.
Libertarians understand this better than conservatives, conservatives better than liberals. I wish I could penetrate why this is. Small businessmen perhaps have a realistic understand of the contradiction between having great freedom and limited power. It is hard to influence others, hard to make the world work the way you would like it. Government employees, on the other hand, may see themselves as powerless to change top-down authority, and see politics as working in much the same way. They may believe that some few get to tell others what to do, and the trick is to become one of the few, or band together to push one of the few around. Perhaps this is particularly strong in African-American and other minority communities, which believe that only by banding together do they have any power at all.
Bringing up children teaches both the hugeness and limitation of individual power; multiple children even more. I have had enormous influence on my sons - but they are who they are and they go their own way. And they in turn have influenced me, from their earliest days.
Do liberals feel personally powerless? Or more subtly, do they believe they have a measure of control over their destiny but the great mass of American society does not (the rubes)? They believe advertising drives purchasing more than personal choice. This would go some way to explaining why they believe that elections are stolen from them or that Darth Rove tricks the public.
If they believe that some few pull most of the strings, it would explain their paranoid reactions to the normal ebb and flow, checks and balances of political life. As I'm writing off the top of my head here, I welcome comments to help clarify this.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Where's The Study?
Via Pajamas Media, the headline suggests that there's a new study about Immaturity In Adults. I read the article. Where's the study? Some guy has an opinion that adult immaturity is increasing. He's probably correct in his observations. But no data, no study.
Do people at Discovery not know what the word means?
Do people at Discovery not know what the word means?
That Religious Left That Doesn't Exist
or
The Great Karnak Knows Without Reading
Randall Balmer has an essay in the most recent Chronicle of Higher Education entitled Jesus Is Not A Republican.
Balmer is a professor of religious history at Barnard College. The Assistant Village Idiot puts his fingers to his temples and makes some guesses: (Full disclosure: I read the opening one-sentence blurb, so I did see the phrase “drunk on power.” Therefore I made no predictions about what would be written about that, figuring I had an unfair hint.)
Scoring is in bold type.
1. Balmer will use black-and-white rhetoric to decry the black-and-white thinking of the Religious Right. Their approaches will not be criticized for being unwise or inadequate, they will be condemned as completely without merit. Other sides to any religious argument will simply not exist, because he knows the Bible better than you. Arggh! I missed one right at the beginning: raised as an evangelical. Minus 1 point Otherwise, perfect score (The Bible I read…) 9 out of 10
1A. Oh, and we’re closed-minded, too. Perfect 3 bonus points
2. Ballmer will note that God loves the poor. Therefore, we know the Religious Right has perverted the gospel, because they are in favor of cutting the poor off without a farthing. There will be no mention in Ballmer of what conservative evangelicals want to do for the poor, because it is so obviously a sham that it doesn’t bear mentioning. The RR doesn't want to do what the liberals want, therefore they don't care about the poor. Too easy. 10 out of 10
2A. He will believe every liberal spin of economic statistics as if they are unassailable. Tax cuts for the rich and corporate greed will both be mentioned at least twice each. This will prove that the Religious Right hates the poor. Perfect 3 bonus points
3. He will complain how today’s public Christians are rotten, not like the Christians in the Good Old Days when he was a boy, and were involved with the Civil Rights movement and the anti-war protests. I was pretty much wrong on this one. There are only hints with the McGovern reference. 1 out of 10 points. Ouch
3A. The 50-50 chance of mentioning the abolitionists will rise to 90-10 because he’s a religious history professor. “City on a Hill” will be mentioned. perfect 3 bonus points
4. He will explain that the war in Iraq is unjust because it doesn’t adhere to “just war” doctrine, by which he will mean “We didn’t get final approval from the UN.” The extended examinations of Just War doctrine by other Christians who reached different conclusions, such as over at First Things, will not be mentioned. Conveniently, they won’t have to be refuted, either. “…would not meet even the barest of just war criteria…” Score! He doesn’t mention the UN (I suspect it’s in his head though), which keeps me off full credit. 8 out of 10 points
5. We will learn that he has a book coming out. Being published in a Respectable Magazine, getting paid for having a captive college audience for his ideas, and having a book published will not alter his claim that the Religious Right unfairly dominates the public religious discourse. Dead on.Perfect 10 out of 10
6. Ruining the environment for corporate interests – what the rest of us would call “jobs” – will be mentioned in vague terms 4-7 times. The terms will be vague because he doesn’t really know much science. But he knows we’re ruining the environment. He mentions it a lot in one paragraph, but I don’t think that’s the same as 4-7 times. 5 out of 10 points.
7. He will start and end his essay in kindly language that has the condescension buried quite deep. More full-throated sneering will occur in the body of the essay.The disdain isn’t well buried at the beginning and end: “minions of the right” in the second paragraph and “…not even Karl Rove and James Dobson lie beyond the reach of redemption.” In the second-to-last. But the middle does have even more intense sneering. The obligation to the poor has not trickled down (sneer) into public policy. “their machinery of vilification strikes with ruthless, dispassionate efficiency.” 9 out of 10 points.
8. Balmer will hate abortion, but not enough to do anything about it. I mean, he really, really hates it, like you just don't know how much he hates it, but that doesn't mean we should do anything except look sad. "I have no interest in making abortion illegal; I would like to make it unthinkable." Really? Does he want to apply that persuasion-only approach to poverty, war, and the environment, too? Nah. The government should listen to wise people like him and make people do the right thing. Perfect 10 for 10 points here.
I will come back shortly with the scoring: up to 10 points on each prediction, with up to 3 bonus points for the sub-predictions. Points will be deducted for things I should have predicted, but missed.
Deduction points: things I should have seen coming:
Theocracy. How could I miss that? minus 2
Theology in the schools minus 1
injustice and bondage minus 1
people on the margins of society no penalty, because I got the related concepts.
Hypocrisy of some on the the RR I never should have missed that. minus 2
Pluralism minus 1
"Seamless garment" of life issues. minus 1
Final score: 64 out of a possible 80. Not bad.
The Great Karnak Knows Without Reading
Randall Balmer has an essay in the most recent Chronicle of Higher Education entitled Jesus Is Not A Republican.
Balmer is a professor of religious history at Barnard College. The Assistant Village Idiot puts his fingers to his temples and makes some guesses: (Full disclosure: I read the opening one-sentence blurb, so I did see the phrase “drunk on power.” Therefore I made no predictions about what would be written about that, figuring I had an unfair hint.)
Scoring is in bold type.
1. Balmer will use black-and-white rhetoric to decry the black-and-white thinking of the Religious Right. Their approaches will not be criticized for being unwise or inadequate, they will be condemned as completely without merit. Other sides to any religious argument will simply not exist, because he knows the Bible better than you. Arggh! I missed one right at the beginning: raised as an evangelical. Minus 1 point Otherwise, perfect score (The Bible I read…) 9 out of 10
1A. Oh, and we’re closed-minded, too. Perfect 3 bonus points
2. Ballmer will note that God loves the poor. Therefore, we know the Religious Right has perverted the gospel, because they are in favor of cutting the poor off without a farthing. There will be no mention in Ballmer of what conservative evangelicals want to do for the poor, because it is so obviously a sham that it doesn’t bear mentioning. The RR doesn't want to do what the liberals want, therefore they don't care about the poor. Too easy. 10 out of 10
2A. He will believe every liberal spin of economic statistics as if they are unassailable. Tax cuts for the rich and corporate greed will both be mentioned at least twice each. This will prove that the Religious Right hates the poor. Perfect 3 bonus points
3. He will complain how today’s public Christians are rotten, not like the Christians in the Good Old Days when he was a boy, and were involved with the Civil Rights movement and the anti-war protests. I was pretty much wrong on this one. There are only hints with the McGovern reference. 1 out of 10 points. Ouch
3A. The 50-50 chance of mentioning the abolitionists will rise to 90-10 because he’s a religious history professor. “City on a Hill” will be mentioned. perfect 3 bonus points
4. He will explain that the war in Iraq is unjust because it doesn’t adhere to “just war” doctrine, by which he will mean “We didn’t get final approval from the UN.” The extended examinations of Just War doctrine by other Christians who reached different conclusions, such as over at First Things, will not be mentioned. Conveniently, they won’t have to be refuted, either. “…would not meet even the barest of just war criteria…” Score! He doesn’t mention the UN (I suspect it’s in his head though), which keeps me off full credit. 8 out of 10 points
5. We will learn that he has a book coming out. Being published in a Respectable Magazine, getting paid for having a captive college audience for his ideas, and having a book published will not alter his claim that the Religious Right unfairly dominates the public religious discourse. Dead on.Perfect 10 out of 10
6. Ruining the environment for corporate interests – what the rest of us would call “jobs” – will be mentioned in vague terms 4-7 times. The terms will be vague because he doesn’t really know much science. But he knows we’re ruining the environment. He mentions it a lot in one paragraph, but I don’t think that’s the same as 4-7 times. 5 out of 10 points.
7. He will start and end his essay in kindly language that has the condescension buried quite deep. More full-throated sneering will occur in the body of the essay.The disdain isn’t well buried at the beginning and end: “minions of the right” in the second paragraph and “…not even Karl Rove and James Dobson lie beyond the reach of redemption.” In the second-to-last. But the middle does have even more intense sneering. The obligation to the poor has not trickled down (sneer) into public policy. “their machinery of vilification strikes with ruthless, dispassionate efficiency.” 9 out of 10 points.
8. Balmer will hate abortion, but not enough to do anything about it. I mean, he really, really hates it, like you just don't know how much he hates it, but that doesn't mean we should do anything except look sad. "I have no interest in making abortion illegal; I would like to make it unthinkable." Really? Does he want to apply that persuasion-only approach to poverty, war, and the environment, too? Nah. The government should listen to wise people like him and make people do the right thing. Perfect 10 for 10 points here.
I will come back shortly with the scoring: up to 10 points on each prediction, with up to 3 bonus points for the sub-predictions. Points will be deducted for things I should have predicted, but missed.
Deduction points: things I should have seen coming:
Theocracy. How could I miss that? minus 2
Theology in the schools minus 1
injustice and bondage minus 1
people on the margins of society no penalty, because I got the related concepts.
Hypocrisy of some on the the RR I never should have missed that. minus 2
Pluralism minus 1
"Seamless garment" of life issues. minus 1
Final score: 64 out of a possible 80. Not bad.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Picking On An Old Friend
A psychiatrist I have known for over twenty years sent me this email, his most recent Letter To The Editor. This is an extremely intelligent person, from whom I learned a great deal about psychiatry years ago. A man of wit and humor, he holds positions of responsibility and a respected reputation in forensic psychiatry. He has had a long-standing tendency to argue via sneer and condescension - which I imagine he would describe as being unwilling to suffer fools gladly - but he is not incapable of constructed arguemnt. And yet... And yet this is what he is currently reduced to under the influence of BDS (Krauthammer 2004).
This is simply embarrassing to submit before the public. You will note that the little parable lacks a certain literary delicacy which is recommended when imitating Swift. It is ham-handed, over-obvious. Stupid George, for example, is the name that a sixth-grader would give. By highschool, students would at least attempt the irony of George the Genius or some such. Perhaps my friend believes that a large percentage of his readers - the ones he hopes to persuade - will be unable to understand unless it is spelled out. Well, even intelligent people miss satire from time to time; but why alienate the portion of your audience that has wit?
I think the analogy of the bear and the hornets inapt, but such things are permissable in the genre. If I don't like it I can go write my own fable with my own analogy I like better. No objections there. But the use of "coward," as if this is an accusation that Bush has come anywhere near making is a straw man; or worse, a projection.
My response was brief
His response was also brief, echoing the style of my comment.
This is merely lunatic, however common it is currently. (Note: if it is already clear to you why this sort of hyperbole has no place in serious argument, you may skip to the end. It's going to be tedious otherwise.) "...arrest whoever you want who says it aint so..." is there even one example in the last five years of someone being arrested for disagreeing with George Bush, or for disagreeing with anyone? I think the accusation may stem from two current issues. People suspected of aiding terrorists, including two American citizens, are being held under premises that some Americans consider insufficient. The rhetoric of hyperbole accompanies the complaint, so that terms like fascist get dragged in, but that is the point of contention. There are offered constitutional and legal justifications for the surveillance, arrest, and incarceration of these individuals. Courts have upheld some of these interventions and disallowed others, and the legal decisions are being appealed by everyone. But the assertion "...arrest whoever you want," as if neocons were patrolling the streets pointing out folks they wanted locked up is just ludicrous. The left might predict that such things are next if we let Nefarious George proceed unchecked - and I welcome that trivially easy debate - but there is nothing like that now.
The second issue tied in may be that George Bush has answered his critics publicly, and this is thought to be a chilling silencing of dissent. People disagree with Bush and he has the temerity to answer back. And some of his friends even call names, too!
"...make up your own laws...," I imagine, refers to those places where the administration has claimed constitutional authority that precedes the legislative authority of Congress on a related but not identical issue. In making this claim, the current White House is following the precedents of all previous holders of the office, including most especially his immediate predecessor Bill Clinton. As to degree, Dubya does not come close to the overreach of authority attempted by Clinton, Carter, Johnson, Kennedy, Truman, and Roosevelt - the most recent Democratic presidents. He is not even on the scoreboard with those guys.
"...the beauty of dictatorship." Does this even need comment? These days, I suppose it does. I would hope that even the most deranged Kossack does not believe we are currently in a dictatorship.* The argument must be that we are on the path to dictatorship, which is gradually coming upon us unawares. Creeping fascism, perhaps. My brief scan of the rise of dictators in the past century suggests that they come to power amidst a good deal of violence and bloodshed. Pol Pot, The Russian Revolution, Castro, Pinochet, Mao - they didn't quietly assume power and then methodically strip the citizens of rights. Even the major exceptions, Hitler and Mussolini, were bumping people off pretty regularly within a year. If Bush 43 is trying to become a dictator, he's running out of time.
"...make up your own facts..." In light of the above, that shoe seems to be on the other foot.
*I was wrong here. There was a poll over at Daily Kos that over 80% of those who answered believe we are under fascism in all but name. The words fascism and dictatorship now officially have no denotative meaning. They are now meres words of connotation: Bad. Category: Political.
Stupid George
There once was a village where the town fool was called Stupid George. One year a bear attacked and ate one of the villagers. A few years later Stupid George ran into the town square and announced that he had heard the man-eating bear snoring up in a tree. The villagers followed stupid George into the woods with their guns.
Stupid George went in some bushes and shot his shotgun, yelling “I shot the bear.” The villagers followed and saw that Stupid George hadn’t shot a snoring man-eating bear but instead had shot a buzzing hornet’s nest out of a tree. Stupid George was poking the hornet’s nest with his gun and saying “would you look at that bear?”
The hornets began to fly out and began to sting everybody. Of course all the villagers began to run, except Stupid George who yelled “Are you people going to cut and run? You cowards.”
The village wise man appeared and said: “You people were foolish to follow Stupid George in the first place. Only a fool fights hornets with shotguns. Leave them alone and they will leave you alone. If you listen to his childish taunts about cutting and running you may be even stupider than he is.”
All the villagers left, except a few foolish teenagers known for their trouble making (sic) and their poor judgement and the smiling shopkeeper who made a good business selling shotgun shells to Stupid George and his fools.
This is simply embarrassing to submit before the public. You will note that the little parable lacks a certain literary delicacy which is recommended when imitating Swift. It is ham-handed, over-obvious. Stupid George, for example, is the name that a sixth-grader would give. By highschool, students would at least attempt the irony of George the Genius or some such. Perhaps my friend believes that a large percentage of his readers - the ones he hopes to persuade - will be unable to understand unless it is spelled out. Well, even intelligent people miss satire from time to time; but why alienate the portion of your audience that has wit?
I think the analogy of the bear and the hornets inapt, but such things are permissable in the genre. If I don't like it I can go write my own fable with my own analogy I like better. No objections there. But the use of "coward," as if this is an accusation that Bush has come anywhere near making is a straw man; or worse, a projection.
My response was brief
Well, when you get to construct your own analogy it saves the trouble of conforming the story to the events. That's the beauty of fiction.
His response was also brief, echoing the style of my comment.
When you get to make up your own facts and arrest whoever you want who says it ain't so and make up your own laws - well, that's the beauty of dictatorship.
This is merely lunatic, however common it is currently. (Note: if it is already clear to you why this sort of hyperbole has no place in serious argument, you may skip to the end. It's going to be tedious otherwise.) "...arrest whoever you want who says it aint so..." is there even one example in the last five years of someone being arrested for disagreeing with George Bush, or for disagreeing with anyone? I think the accusation may stem from two current issues. People suspected of aiding terrorists, including two American citizens, are being held under premises that some Americans consider insufficient. The rhetoric of hyperbole accompanies the complaint, so that terms like fascist get dragged in, but that is the point of contention. There are offered constitutional and legal justifications for the surveillance, arrest, and incarceration of these individuals. Courts have upheld some of these interventions and disallowed others, and the legal decisions are being appealed by everyone. But the assertion "...arrest whoever you want," as if neocons were patrolling the streets pointing out folks they wanted locked up is just ludicrous. The left might predict that such things are next if we let Nefarious George proceed unchecked - and I welcome that trivially easy debate - but there is nothing like that now.
The second issue tied in may be that George Bush has answered his critics publicly, and this is thought to be a chilling silencing of dissent. People disagree with Bush and he has the temerity to answer back. And some of his friends even call names, too!
"...make up your own laws...," I imagine, refers to those places where the administration has claimed constitutional authority that precedes the legislative authority of Congress on a related but not identical issue. In making this claim, the current White House is following the precedents of all previous holders of the office, including most especially his immediate predecessor Bill Clinton. As to degree, Dubya does not come close to the overreach of authority attempted by Clinton, Carter, Johnson, Kennedy, Truman, and Roosevelt - the most recent Democratic presidents. He is not even on the scoreboard with those guys.
"...the beauty of dictatorship." Does this even need comment? These days, I suppose it does. I would hope that even the most deranged Kossack does not believe we are currently in a dictatorship.* The argument must be that we are on the path to dictatorship, which is gradually coming upon us unawares. Creeping fascism, perhaps. My brief scan of the rise of dictators in the past century suggests that they come to power amidst a good deal of violence and bloodshed. Pol Pot, The Russian Revolution, Castro, Pinochet, Mao - they didn't quietly assume power and then methodically strip the citizens of rights. Even the major exceptions, Hitler and Mussolini, were bumping people off pretty regularly within a year. If Bush 43 is trying to become a dictator, he's running out of time.
"...make up your own facts..." In light of the above, that shoe seems to be on the other foot.
*I was wrong here. There was a poll over at Daily Kos that over 80% of those who answered believe we are under fascism in all but name. The words fascism and dictatorship now officially have no denotative meaning. They are now meres words of connotation: Bad. Category: Political.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
About that Profiling
Apparently the terrorists believe that profiling would work if we used it, and are taking steps to counteract that.
Well they go to all the Terrorist Support Group meetings and see each other there, so perhaps they have noticed some similarity in each other's demographics and appearance.
Well they go to all the Terrorist Support Group meetings and see each other there, so perhaps they have noticed some similarity in each other's demographics and appearance.
False Equivalence
From the records of the Old Bailey in London, of a case of petty theft in the 1700’s
606. (L) Edward Cain ; otherwise Can , was indicted for stealing handkerchief value 6 d. the property of unknown, September 16. ++
William Paine. On the 16th September I saw the boy at the bar and three others with him take a linen handkerchief out of a person's pocket; I went to the person and said, Sir you have lost your handkerchief; his wife was there, I had the prisoner by the collar the hand the handkerchief down) the wife said that's my husband's property; the other three boys ran away, the man would not stay, but walked on about his business; I prosecute at my own expence.
Prisoner's defence. I was along with other boys, one of them took the handkerchief, and this man laid hold of me and said I picked the man's pocket, but I did not, I am but thirteen years of age.
Guilty . Transportation to Virginia.
Why does this story distress us? It happened long ago, to a person we don’t know. A thirteen year old boy is found guilty of stealing a handkerchief and is sent to Virginia to provide servant labor. We know that worse things have happened before and since.
We are angered because of the extreme lack of proportion. Yes, it is theft, and yes, he probably did do it, but good heavens, man. For a handkerchief? Sent at a tender age across an ocean, all alone? Yes, yes, I’m sure he was of an age where he should know better, but a single handkerchief?
We might even think the law was the greater criminal for imposing such a punishment.
True?
Proportionality is a moral principle enshrined in both law and custom. We may think the person going 5mph over the speed limit and the guy doing 80 in a 35 zone are both technically “speeding,” but we view it differently and treat it differently. We recognize that it is a bad thing to yell at your wife, but a worse thing to hit her, and worse still to injure her. Shoplifting, grand larceny, and robbing a bank at gunpoint are all “stealing,” but we make distinctions – sometimes fine distinctions – in law and in our approach to people. Having sex with underage females is rape, but we look at it differently if it is a 20 year old having consensual sex with a 15 year old than if it is a 30 year old having forcible sex with a 5 year old. We have taboos against incest, but treat having sexual relations with a sibling differently than with a second cousin. Cutting across someone’s yard is technically trespassing, and we may in certain circumstances even prosecute it. But building a road across someone’s property is viewed as a more serious offense.
This is not morally complicated. There is a time of life when children try to make everything technically equal because it violates a rule, but even they don’t mean it. A 12 year old boy might go blue in the face trying to insist that his father is breaking the law just like any common criminal by taking a rolling stop at a corner, but that same boy will go equally blue complaining if someone thinks his taking a pencil from a classmate’s desk is the same as stealing a laptop. Children even younger than 12 understand proportionality in principle.
Not only do we allow for proportionality, we consider it morally reprehensible at worst, and suspect at best, when it is disallowed, as in the example from the Old Bailey above.
In that context, let’s talk about torture. Several of the leftie sites featured on Pajamas Media (which I imagine confers some level of respectability), such as Andrew Sullivan, firedoglake, and obsidian wings, have tried to claim that proportionality makes no difference. If what the US does fits under someone’s definition of torture, then it’s torture, and we have no moral standing for criticizing our enemies. To such people, it’s all the same. Hell, Teddy Kennedy said it outright. Kerry, Reid, and a dozen others have made the accusation with wiggle-room.
The proof that they regard it as the same is in their protestations. There is always an obligatory comment that what has been done by Saddam or Al-Qaeda is horrible, terrible, no-good, very bad, with insistence that they are not drawing a moral equivalence. Then they draw a moral equivalence, for we are to regard the American actions no differently. Foreign madmen make the accusation of torture and we are to just hang our heads and take it silently.
There is a second dodge, finer-sounding at first blush, but ultimately more contemptible. “It’s not good enough to just say we’re not as bad as Saddam. That’s a ridiculously low standard,” or the related statement “we’re not responsible for what others do, we’re only responsible for what we do.” This is the language of therapists, of marriage counselors whose clients are dealing with at least semi-reasonable people. It sounds so wise, so adult, so objective, and above the fray. The sentiment is entirely true, of course. But it is relevant to only part of the question.
Because it is a truth misapplied, it is thus more base. Things can only fall as far as they have risen, and devils are made of bad angels, not bad kangaroos. If the worst actions of the US guards and interrogators were only marginally less bad than AQ, if we were cutting off one finger instead of two, then the excuse well, we’re not as bad as Saddam would of course be impossibly weak. But that is not the context. You cannot rip moral actions from context and see them clearly. Should you ever shoot a man in the back? Of course not – unless he is pointing a gun at a third person. In this instance, we are speaking of acts that are orders of magnitude in difference.
That doesn’t make our actions right. We should punish our own for evil acts. But attempting to draw equivalences is not relevant. They should not be paired in the same paragraph for discussion.
The people who make these comparisons are able to know this. It is a moral principle they learned in elementary school, though they may talk themselves out of it now. Because they acknowledge the principle in their protestations, they cannot claim ignorance of it. They are aware that the tortures of Saddam greatly exceeded anything the CIA or the military is doing. And yet they use the analogy anyway. They know the principle well enough to use it, and then proceed to disguise its misuse. That is far worse than ignorance.
606. (L) Edward Cain ; otherwise Can , was indicted for stealing handkerchief value 6 d. the property of unknown, September 16. ++
William Paine. On the 16th September I saw the boy at the bar and three others with him take a linen handkerchief out of a person's pocket; I went to the person and said, Sir you have lost your handkerchief; his wife was there, I had the prisoner by the collar the hand the handkerchief down) the wife said that's my husband's property; the other three boys ran away, the man would not stay, but walked on about his business; I prosecute at my own expence.
Prisoner's defence. I was along with other boys, one of them took the handkerchief, and this man laid hold of me and said I picked the man's pocket, but I did not, I am but thirteen years of age.
Guilty . Transportation to Virginia.
Why does this story distress us? It happened long ago, to a person we don’t know. A thirteen year old boy is found guilty of stealing a handkerchief and is sent to Virginia to provide servant labor. We know that worse things have happened before and since.
We are angered because of the extreme lack of proportion. Yes, it is theft, and yes, he probably did do it, but good heavens, man. For a handkerchief? Sent at a tender age across an ocean, all alone? Yes, yes, I’m sure he was of an age where he should know better, but a single handkerchief?
We might even think the law was the greater criminal for imposing such a punishment.
True?
Proportionality is a moral principle enshrined in both law and custom. We may think the person going 5mph over the speed limit and the guy doing 80 in a 35 zone are both technically “speeding,” but we view it differently and treat it differently. We recognize that it is a bad thing to yell at your wife, but a worse thing to hit her, and worse still to injure her. Shoplifting, grand larceny, and robbing a bank at gunpoint are all “stealing,” but we make distinctions – sometimes fine distinctions – in law and in our approach to people. Having sex with underage females is rape, but we look at it differently if it is a 20 year old having consensual sex with a 15 year old than if it is a 30 year old having forcible sex with a 5 year old. We have taboos against incest, but treat having sexual relations with a sibling differently than with a second cousin. Cutting across someone’s yard is technically trespassing, and we may in certain circumstances even prosecute it. But building a road across someone’s property is viewed as a more serious offense.
This is not morally complicated. There is a time of life when children try to make everything technically equal because it violates a rule, but even they don’t mean it. A 12 year old boy might go blue in the face trying to insist that his father is breaking the law just like any common criminal by taking a rolling stop at a corner, but that same boy will go equally blue complaining if someone thinks his taking a pencil from a classmate’s desk is the same as stealing a laptop. Children even younger than 12 understand proportionality in principle.
Not only do we allow for proportionality, we consider it morally reprehensible at worst, and suspect at best, when it is disallowed, as in the example from the Old Bailey above.
In that context, let’s talk about torture. Several of the leftie sites featured on Pajamas Media (which I imagine confers some level of respectability), such as Andrew Sullivan, firedoglake, and obsidian wings, have tried to claim that proportionality makes no difference. If what the US does fits under someone’s definition of torture, then it’s torture, and we have no moral standing for criticizing our enemies. To such people, it’s all the same. Hell, Teddy Kennedy said it outright. Kerry, Reid, and a dozen others have made the accusation with wiggle-room.
The proof that they regard it as the same is in their protestations. There is always an obligatory comment that what has been done by Saddam or Al-Qaeda is horrible, terrible, no-good, very bad, with insistence that they are not drawing a moral equivalence. Then they draw a moral equivalence, for we are to regard the American actions no differently. Foreign madmen make the accusation of torture and we are to just hang our heads and take it silently.
There is a second dodge, finer-sounding at first blush, but ultimately more contemptible. “It’s not good enough to just say we’re not as bad as Saddam. That’s a ridiculously low standard,” or the related statement “we’re not responsible for what others do, we’re only responsible for what we do.” This is the language of therapists, of marriage counselors whose clients are dealing with at least semi-reasonable people. It sounds so wise, so adult, so objective, and above the fray. The sentiment is entirely true, of course. But it is relevant to only part of the question.
Because it is a truth misapplied, it is thus more base. Things can only fall as far as they have risen, and devils are made of bad angels, not bad kangaroos. If the worst actions of the US guards and interrogators were only marginally less bad than AQ, if we were cutting off one finger instead of two, then the excuse well, we’re not as bad as Saddam would of course be impossibly weak. But that is not the context. You cannot rip moral actions from context and see them clearly. Should you ever shoot a man in the back? Of course not – unless he is pointing a gun at a third person. In this instance, we are speaking of acts that are orders of magnitude in difference.
That doesn’t make our actions right. We should punish our own for evil acts. But attempting to draw equivalences is not relevant. They should not be paired in the same paragraph for discussion.
The people who make these comparisons are able to know this. It is a moral principle they learned in elementary school, though they may talk themselves out of it now. Because they acknowledge the principle in their protestations, they cannot claim ignorance of it. They are aware that the tortures of Saddam greatly exceeded anything the CIA or the military is doing. And yet they use the analogy anyway. They know the principle well enough to use it, and then proceed to disguise its misuse. That is far worse than ignorance.
Comparison
It seems there are more WMD in Iraq than there is torture at Gitmo. But somehow they aren't "real" WMD, and humiliation is "real" torture. Sliding scale, apparently.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Ned Flanders and Evangelical Pathology
It is still an idea current on liberal blogs, and apparently in the NCC, Episcopal, and Methodist Church hierarchies, that evangelicals in general, and especially fundamentalists, arrive at their “peculiar” social ideas because they hate women and/or gays and/or sex and/or change – or that they fear same.
It’s a popular interpretation. Certainly, it’s the one we would pick up from popular culture. I think a different pathology is of greater importance. I’ve met lots of folk who hate or fear women, gays, etc, and I’ve met a lot of evangelicals and fundamentalists. I don’t find any overlap in those groups. Perhaps by location (New Hampshire) I meet unrepresentative samples of one or the other. This guy Fred Phelps out in the midwest (reportedly a Democrat, BTW) may fit the stereotype, but no one I meet does.
What I find in evangelical and especially fundamentalist culture are socially clumsy or irritating people, particularly males. My impression is that it is more comfortable to feel rejected and isolated because of one’s religion than because of one’s personality. Guys that are a little too loud, or declare their opinions tactlessly, or find lame jokes funny pop up everywhere, but we seem to have more than our share. Overfriendly, overweight guys, or leaner guys who are perpetually irritated about peripheral doctrines – I know lots of fundamentalists like that. Guys who like to show off their unimportant facts that other people don’t know… gentle guys who want to help but are intrusive - like Ned Flanders on The Simpsons, who tries to cheer you up by coming to your door with the family and singing “Arky, arky.” I often wonder who they’re irritating away from the faith out there. Relatives and coworkers, most likely.
Come to think of it, the cultural stereotypes on The Simpsons are generally more accurate than the popular imagination. Not that the stereotype applies to all of us. I, for example, am charming and socially facile.
As I said, there are guys like this everywhere, but we seem to have lots. What pathology is common among our females I am less certain of. Very insistent women, perhaps. And older women who speak like benevolent elementary schools teachers, even to other adults. The kind who love flannelgraphs.
Just as no one wants to think “people hate me because I’m a hapless jerk,” and would rather think “people hate me because I’m a follower of Christ,” so too going in the other direction. People would far rather think of themselves as hating fundamentalists because “they’re evil and filled with intolerance” than because “they’re socially clumsy.” That would be a petty reason for such intense dislike.
From my observation of the critics, both live and in writing, the petty reason is actually the main reason. I have long held that liberalism is more of a social than an intellectual discipline. These are people who believe that sailing races are more elevated than NASCAR, after all. Showing that you “get it,” that you understand the cultural references, and referring cynically to those things that all the dupes fall for is half the fun of liberalism.
If you think I’m way off the mark with that, then you really don’t listen very well. I work in a liberal environment and hear the condescension every day. Very seldom, by the way, do I hear even a sketchy intellectual argument defending liberal ideas. Some days I think it’s all social – just another way that the cool kids get to show their stuff.
So – I put the observed data of how many socially clueless people the fundamentalists have, and matched with the observed data that social skill is overvalued among liberals, to see whether there’s some relationship. Looks like a close fit from here.
It’s a popular interpretation. Certainly, it’s the one we would pick up from popular culture. I think a different pathology is of greater importance. I’ve met lots of folk who hate or fear women, gays, etc, and I’ve met a lot of evangelicals and fundamentalists. I don’t find any overlap in those groups. Perhaps by location (New Hampshire) I meet unrepresentative samples of one or the other. This guy Fred Phelps out in the midwest (reportedly a Democrat, BTW) may fit the stereotype, but no one I meet does.
What I find in evangelical and especially fundamentalist culture are socially clumsy or irritating people, particularly males. My impression is that it is more comfortable to feel rejected and isolated because of one’s religion than because of one’s personality. Guys that are a little too loud, or declare their opinions tactlessly, or find lame jokes funny pop up everywhere, but we seem to have more than our share. Overfriendly, overweight guys, or leaner guys who are perpetually irritated about peripheral doctrines – I know lots of fundamentalists like that. Guys who like to show off their unimportant facts that other people don’t know… gentle guys who want to help but are intrusive - like Ned Flanders on The Simpsons, who tries to cheer you up by coming to your door with the family and singing “Arky, arky.” I often wonder who they’re irritating away from the faith out there. Relatives and coworkers, most likely.
Come to think of it, the cultural stereotypes on The Simpsons are generally more accurate than the popular imagination. Not that the stereotype applies to all of us. I, for example, am charming and socially facile.
As I said, there are guys like this everywhere, but we seem to have lots. What pathology is common among our females I am less certain of. Very insistent women, perhaps. And older women who speak like benevolent elementary schools teachers, even to other adults. The kind who love flannelgraphs.
Just as no one wants to think “people hate me because I’m a hapless jerk,” and would rather think “people hate me because I’m a follower of Christ,” so too going in the other direction. People would far rather think of themselves as hating fundamentalists because “they’re evil and filled with intolerance” than because “they’re socially clumsy.” That would be a petty reason for such intense dislike.
From my observation of the critics, both live and in writing, the petty reason is actually the main reason. I have long held that liberalism is more of a social than an intellectual discipline. These are people who believe that sailing races are more elevated than NASCAR, after all. Showing that you “get it,” that you understand the cultural references, and referring cynically to those things that all the dupes fall for is half the fun of liberalism.
If you think I’m way off the mark with that, then you really don’t listen very well. I work in a liberal environment and hear the condescension every day. Very seldom, by the way, do I hear even a sketchy intellectual argument defending liberal ideas. Some days I think it’s all social – just another way that the cool kids get to show their stuff.
So – I put the observed data of how many socially clueless people the fundamentalists have, and matched with the observed data that social skill is overvalued among liberals, to see whether there’s some relationship. Looks like a close fit from here.
Sunday, June 18, 2006
The Managing of Impressions II
A local young man was killed in Afghanistan this week. His mother has worked in the public mental health system for many years, and several of us know her slightly, so I mentioned the connection to several of the old hands. I was prepared for the inevitable complaints that “we shouldn’t be over there.” As one of the mantras of the left these days is that they were in support of going into Afghanistan but not Iraq, I responded each time by raising an eyebrow and asking “Afghanistan?” I think they adopt that posture as a way of communicating “I’m not always against military intervention, but we’ve gone overboard/Bush is stupid/it’s for oil/they don’t like us/whatever.” A way of seeming balanced, thoughtful.
I don’t want to accuse them of dishonesty about this. When they stop to think it out, they may well have coherent reasons for Afghanistan yes/Iraq no. But the reflexive response gives away a lot about how they’re storing their information about the Middle East. Their knowledge and opinion isn’t stored as a complex and subtle analysis, it’s stored as a vague negative impression. We all do this more than we would like to admit. But it is this type of thinking which most requires examination on our part. Where does it come from? Why do I think that?
When so many people aren’t thinking very hard, and are thinking just about what the MSM opinion is, you have to wonder. Interestingly, I think the hard left Kossacks and DU have something of a point in their complaint about the MSM, similar to the conservative complaint. They follow the national issues and opinions more closely than the average person. They have examples, quotes, analysis, and statistics about their issues, including the WOT. They don’t want the American public to be just mildly negative about Iraq, they want them to be incensed. At election time, they’ll take even half-hearted votes (as do we all), but they really want people to pay attention, look around, and see what they see. The left is upset at the MSM because it carries all this horrible corruption and warmongering so mildly, as if it had little importance. To them, letting Bush off with mild negatives is letting him off easy, not challenging him and investigating him as he deserves.
They would have a point, if the original premise were true. If BushCo really were guilty of all the things they suspect it of, it really would deserve the amount of energy they’re putting in. We call them unhinged, but that part isn’t. If it were true it would deserve that much anger. If it were true, then the rather emotionless news coverage would be a travesty. It all hinges on the “if,” of course.
I wonder if a certain specie of leftist confuses the passion with importance. The fact that Erin Brokovich and Silkwood made it to the list of most inspiring movies would suggest that. Also, people are impressed with Al Gore’s “passion” in An Inconvenient Truth, and this seems to be used as a proxy for accuracy.
When I prepare a presentation for work, or a note transferring a case, or a little article for the company newsletter, I have to think and write much as a journalist does. What is the most important thing people should know about the conference I went to? What is the range of prior knowledge of my audience on the topic? What piece might be easily misunderstood? What misconceptions do I want to clear up?
That is not very different from someone who wants to persuade you of something. One is reporting, the other editorializing. The line is easily crossed, but that doesn't make it right.
I don’t want to accuse them of dishonesty about this. When they stop to think it out, they may well have coherent reasons for Afghanistan yes/Iraq no. But the reflexive response gives away a lot about how they’re storing their information about the Middle East. Their knowledge and opinion isn’t stored as a complex and subtle analysis, it’s stored as a vague negative impression. We all do this more than we would like to admit. But it is this type of thinking which most requires examination on our part. Where does it come from? Why do I think that?
When so many people aren’t thinking very hard, and are thinking just about what the MSM opinion is, you have to wonder. Interestingly, I think the hard left Kossacks and DU have something of a point in their complaint about the MSM, similar to the conservative complaint. They follow the national issues and opinions more closely than the average person. They have examples, quotes, analysis, and statistics about their issues, including the WOT. They don’t want the American public to be just mildly negative about Iraq, they want them to be incensed. At election time, they’ll take even half-hearted votes (as do we all), but they really want people to pay attention, look around, and see what they see. The left is upset at the MSM because it carries all this horrible corruption and warmongering so mildly, as if it had little importance. To them, letting Bush off with mild negatives is letting him off easy, not challenging him and investigating him as he deserves.
They would have a point, if the original premise were true. If BushCo really were guilty of all the things they suspect it of, it really would deserve the amount of energy they’re putting in. We call them unhinged, but that part isn’t. If it were true it would deserve that much anger. If it were true, then the rather emotionless news coverage would be a travesty. It all hinges on the “if,” of course.
I wonder if a certain specie of leftist confuses the passion with importance. The fact that Erin Brokovich and Silkwood made it to the list of most inspiring movies would suggest that. Also, people are impressed with Al Gore’s “passion” in An Inconvenient Truth, and this seems to be used as a proxy for accuracy.
When I prepare a presentation for work, or a note transferring a case, or a little article for the company newsletter, I have to think and write much as a journalist does. What is the most important thing people should know about the conference I went to? What is the range of prior knowledge of my audience on the topic? What piece might be easily misunderstood? What misconceptions do I want to clear up?
That is not very different from someone who wants to persuade you of something. One is reporting, the other editorializing. The line is easily crossed, but that doesn't make it right.
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Tom and Ray on Car Talk
This morning, over on NPR's Car Talk, Ray (I think) had a Great Idea how to solve the energy crisis, at least as it relates to cars.
I love these guys, but I'm also from New Hampshire, so if you asked me to predict "Dave, what kind of a solution do you think two really smart guys from Massachusetts - Cambridge, no less - will come up with?" I would have a ready answer. Raise taxes.
Ray has this idea that raising the gas tax fifty cents per gallon per year for six years is the way to go. That will put gas at at least six dollars a gallon by then, but it will be "phased in," so it will be relatively painless. He's expecting it will raise gajillions of dollars for alternative energy research and public transportation solutions.
Now, this is what's wrong with letting smart people with Great Ideas run loose without being answerable to the village idiots. On paper, it all works great. But we village idiots have a pretty shrewd idea what the idiots in government - any government, even a good government - will do with this.
A very small portion of the gajillion dollars from year one will be put into unpromising types of research. Hamster wheel research, for example. By year two, the hamster guys will have decide that the problem is inadequate hamsters, and some other company will start in on hamster cloning research, to provide a better quality of hamster. Year three will be a banner year. We will discover that Nigerian and Jamaican hamsters have some of the qualities we need and we will start importing those to engineer the DNA of domestic hamsters. At the same time, ethical questions will be raised about cloning, alien species of hamster, and the use of rodents for work. Lots of people will need to hold conferences about all of these things.
In year four, many congresspersons are going to need to travel to both Nigeria and Jamaica to investigate the hamster situation. There will be back-cage deals involving lots of cash and those little water bottles changing hands. A fatal flaw in the hamster wheel program - namely, that it won't work - will be discovered, but no one will care.
In year five, there will be congressional investigations and investigations of congressmen, the ethical conferences will be going into their third year, electing officers, and setting professional standards in their organizations, to keep amateur hamster ethicists out. Year six a prototype hamster engine will be put out, Discovery Channel National Geographic will run specials on it, but no one will want a car with hamsters, so the government will have to set up large public relations campaigns to convince us that hamsters are the wave of the future. The congresspersons will resign, if they are Republicans, or get reelected, if the are Democrats, but even the new Republicans will find a little hamster money in their cages. Calls to end the hamster research will be resisted, because each of these wheel, cloning, and ethical organizations will all be in somebody's congressional district and need to be protected, so that all the good hamster jobs don't go overseas.
In the end, congress will decide to heavily regulate the various industries.
I love these guys, but I'm also from New Hampshire, so if you asked me to predict "Dave, what kind of a solution do you think two really smart guys from Massachusetts - Cambridge, no less - will come up with?" I would have a ready answer. Raise taxes.
Ray has this idea that raising the gas tax fifty cents per gallon per year for six years is the way to go. That will put gas at at least six dollars a gallon by then, but it will be "phased in," so it will be relatively painless. He's expecting it will raise gajillions of dollars for alternative energy research and public transportation solutions.
Now, this is what's wrong with letting smart people with Great Ideas run loose without being answerable to the village idiots. On paper, it all works great. But we village idiots have a pretty shrewd idea what the idiots in government - any government, even a good government - will do with this.
A very small portion of the gajillion dollars from year one will be put into unpromising types of research. Hamster wheel research, for example. By year two, the hamster guys will have decide that the problem is inadequate hamsters, and some other company will start in on hamster cloning research, to provide a better quality of hamster. Year three will be a banner year. We will discover that Nigerian and Jamaican hamsters have some of the qualities we need and we will start importing those to engineer the DNA of domestic hamsters. At the same time, ethical questions will be raised about cloning, alien species of hamster, and the use of rodents for work. Lots of people will need to hold conferences about all of these things.
In year four, many congresspersons are going to need to travel to both Nigeria and Jamaica to investigate the hamster situation. There will be back-cage deals involving lots of cash and those little water bottles changing hands. A fatal flaw in the hamster wheel program - namely, that it won't work - will be discovered, but no one will care.
In year five, there will be congressional investigations and investigations of congressmen, the ethical conferences will be going into their third year, electing officers, and setting professional standards in their organizations, to keep amateur hamster ethicists out. Year six a prototype hamster engine will be put out, Discovery Channel National Geographic will run specials on it, but no one will want a car with hamsters, so the government will have to set up large public relations campaigns to convince us that hamsters are the wave of the future. The congresspersons will resign, if they are Republicans, or get reelected, if the are Democrats, but even the new Republicans will find a little hamster money in their cages. Calls to end the hamster research will be resisted, because each of these wheel, cloning, and ethical organizations will all be in somebody's congressional district and need to be protected, so that all the good hamster jobs don't go overseas.
In the end, congress will decide to heavily regulate the various industries.
Friday, June 16, 2006
One Fake Document?
Michael Ledeen, over at National Review Online speculates that the most-quoted document from the Zarqawi raid is a fake. He doesn't cast doubt on any of the other documents, but they seem to be of a different sort anyway. Ledeen wonders out loud if the Iranians might have something to do with it. Rush Limbaugh has reportedly suggested that same document was "too good to be true," though I don't know whether he meant that seriously or humorously.
I am no documant analyst, nor am I wise in the ways of counterespionage or black propaganda, except in my daydreams. But the doubt cast on the one document opened up other speculations for me. This sudden flurry of raids based on the newly acquired information - how many of them were planned weeks ago, waiting for an event such as this one to be put into action? Some raids might compromise intelligence sources, if, say only half-dozen people could possibly have known about a particular location. A "treasure trove" of documents would provide immediate cover. When Ceausescu was overthrown in Romania, it looked at the time as if the demonstrations were spontaneous. Only in retrospect did many conclude that Iliescu and the Securitate had planned the takeover months or years before, waiting until the proper opportunity presented itself.
Was this key document prepared long before - by the Americans, by the Iraqis, by the Jordanians or Iranians - held in abeyance for the next plausible moment to be put into circulation? With thousands of new documents now come to light and looking for translators, what percentage are plants by one group or another to create a particular false impression?
Iraq is a country that lives by rumor, and believes outrageous rumors. This is standard in countries that have lived under tyranny, of course. Accurate information is seldom available, but explanations for events must be found.
I am no documant analyst, nor am I wise in the ways of counterespionage or black propaganda, except in my daydreams. But the doubt cast on the one document opened up other speculations for me. This sudden flurry of raids based on the newly acquired information - how many of them were planned weeks ago, waiting for an event such as this one to be put into action? Some raids might compromise intelligence sources, if, say only half-dozen people could possibly have known about a particular location. A "treasure trove" of documents would provide immediate cover. When Ceausescu was overthrown in Romania, it looked at the time as if the demonstrations were spontaneous. Only in retrospect did many conclude that Iliescu and the Securitate had planned the takeover months or years before, waiting until the proper opportunity presented itself.
Was this key document prepared long before - by the Americans, by the Iraqis, by the Jordanians or Iranians - held in abeyance for the next plausible moment to be put into circulation? With thousands of new documents now come to light and looking for translators, what percentage are plants by one group or another to create a particular false impression?
Iraq is a country that lives by rumor, and believes outrageous rumors. This is standard in countries that have lived under tyranny, of course. Accurate information is seldom available, but explanations for events must be found.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Added Bonus
The cry has gone out that killing Zarqawi is not a big change in the war's fortunes. Okay, how about Zarqawi's death plus 452 raids on insurgents in one week?
Rush Is Wrong - Sort Of
I catch about 15 minutes of Rush a day, in 3 five-minute bursts. Yesterday he claimed, as he has before, that the Democrats were being reflexively oppositional, before all the information is in, because they are obsessed with regaining power. That may be true in Washington, at least for some.
But what I see when I read liberals online are people who want their world-view to be validated. While the DU and KosKids, or more mildly at the liberal blogs, clearly hope that their folks come to power, that's not what seems to hurt them to their core. They really believe that certain things are true: that negotiation works in foreign policy, that mankind is dangerously warming the earth, that the poor don't get a fair chance. When others don't also act as if these things are true, they immediately conclude it must be for some nefarious reason. No one could possibly not believe these obvious things unless they had some powerful countermotive or personal interest. They must stand to make a buck off it, they must get off on being important, they must want to impose their will on the weak.
They are willing to entertain any number of extremely unlikely possibilities rather than consider that their world-view is what's awry. The oil companies must be willing to lose lots of money and get bad PR because they hope to have a monopoly later. Huh? They want to roll the dice of going bankrupt? Really? Bush and Cheney are oil men and want to make money for their buddies. Huh? Capitalists want to make money for other people? They want to have a theocracy so that everyone believes like them. You mean these churches that keep splitting off from each other, hate large denominations, and can't even decide what kind of music they want are going to somehow coalesce into a unified force to make everyone worship the same way? Are you mad? Bush must be lying...the jobs can't be good ones...thousands of people conspired to steal an election...
It's not the power. It's the inability to consider that they may have structured their lives around untruths.
But what I see when I read liberals online are people who want their world-view to be validated. While the DU and KosKids, or more mildly at the liberal blogs, clearly hope that their folks come to power, that's not what seems to hurt them to their core. They really believe that certain things are true: that negotiation works in foreign policy, that mankind is dangerously warming the earth, that the poor don't get a fair chance. When others don't also act as if these things are true, they immediately conclude it must be for some nefarious reason. No one could possibly not believe these obvious things unless they had some powerful countermotive or personal interest. They must stand to make a buck off it, they must get off on being important, they must want to impose their will on the weak.
They are willing to entertain any number of extremely unlikely possibilities rather than consider that their world-view is what's awry. The oil companies must be willing to lose lots of money and get bad PR because they hope to have a monopoly later. Huh? They want to roll the dice of going bankrupt? Really? Bush and Cheney are oil men and want to make money for their buddies. Huh? Capitalists want to make money for other people? They want to have a theocracy so that everyone believes like them. You mean these churches that keep splitting off from each other, hate large denominations, and can't even decide what kind of music they want are going to somehow coalesce into a unified force to make everyone worship the same way? Are you mad? Bush must be lying...the jobs can't be good ones...thousands of people conspired to steal an election...
It's not the power. It's the inability to consider that they may have structured their lives around untruths.
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