Pajamas Media has a commentary on the attempt in CA to require homeschooling parents to have a teaching credential.
Parents who homeschool stress how much better children taught at home generally do academically and socially, and how they win so many national awards. They don't mention the dark underside of significantly ill parents who keep their children isolated from all non-family contact as a control measure. Opponents of homeschooling do the opposite, dwelling on the sick outliers and failing to mention the generally superior education homeschoolers get. I see both.
The point of conflict is usually around what hoops one has to jump through to homeschool, and who gets to make the rules. Parents insist with some justification that the education of their children is their job, and the state should have no say in it. The subtext of this argument is that once the state gets to make the rules, they will add in requirements of what must be taught, and these can potentially conflict with parents' values - often the reason they pulled their kids from public school to begin with. For their side of the argument, schools, boards of education, and the whole earth catalog of educators claim that they have two main interests: preventing abuses and insuring that all society's children get a fair launch.
This provides an excellent illustration of how well-meant government supervision can get out of control. To solve the problem of really sick or neglectful parents, requiring some minimal application and supervision is exactly the right solution. People who are controlling and pathological are very likely to balk at this point, standing on the principle of government non-interference, much beloved by libertarians. This solution exactly fits this problem. But...
The first difficulty is that some others who are not pathological and controlling also balk at this permission-seeking, and deeply resent being branded as some sort of kook or sicko. The fact that evil people hide behind a good idea does not discredit the idea itself. Wolves always hide in sheep's clothing; hiding in wolves' clothing would be pointless.
The second problem ultimately cuts even deeper. It is the natural pattern for power, control, and regulation to increase. Education bureaucrats will naturally keep finding new requirements. We needn't paint this worse than it is. Most of the requirements will be fairly sensible or at worst cumbersome and innocuous. But all will have unforeseen consequences, good and bad.
Third, and deepest of all, there is a vein of pathology that runs through education bureaucracies as well, the mirror-image of the pathological parents. There are enough people who don't like boys (or girls) or religion or independence or western civilization or even children in general that it leaks over into all decisions, all regulations.
Bureaucracies solve problems by going after the low-hanging fruit, and often get that first part right. It is the reapplication of one-size-fits-all solutions to all possible problems that eventually makes them inconvenient, then cumbersome, then useless, then a problem in themselves.
Monday, March 31, 2008
When Geeks Go To Church
Pastor Earl mentioned the 70 Israelites growing to 2.6 million in Egypt. Mentioned it in passing, I should note. Steve at church immediately started doing the calculation - but he had misheard and was thinking of the forty years in the desert, so he was fooling around with 40log x = [log((2.6 * 10^6)/70)]. I was thinking of the 2-3 centuries from Joseph to Moses and thinking 4% growth is the maximum sustainable giving a doubling every 18 years 288/18 = 16 so 2^16 * 70...
Too bad Branscom wasn't there, to see what his approach would have been. I should ask Denise, our high school violist who's sort of Asperger-y what she thought, but she was likely daydreaming anyway.
I forget what the sermon was about for the next few minutes. Something about slaves.
Too bad Branscom wasn't there, to see what his approach would have been. I should ask Denise, our high school violist who's sort of Asperger-y what she thought, but she was likely daydreaming anyway.
I forget what the sermon was about for the next few minutes. Something about slaves.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Generational Change
Corresponding with my brother down at East Carolina, I commented on my relationship with our stepfather (summary: Never close; sometimes antagonistic; now refuses to speak to me). My impression had always been that I had tried hard to get along with him but my overtures were rebuffed. Recently it occurred to me that my intense focus on my own wife and children was perceived as a personal affront by him. The children's families were supposed to remain under the umbrella of our parents' family. Submerged under their family would be too strong a word; even subsumed is a bit much. My independence from it was clear, even though we bent over backwards to be accommodating to family events, even when it was inconvenient.
I regarded this as individual differences in values between us, a head-butting that resulted from our individual personalities. My brother suggested that this was as much generational as individual.
Though this was a new thought to me, it rang true immediately. When I was a boy, children were considered more appendages to their parents than they are now. The mother and father were not only the authorities of the family, they in some sense were the family. I imagine this was even stronger in earlier generations, though I don't know how one would measure such a thing. Unless one was near in age to a child in another family, one pictured the family as a mother & father plus generic children. Your aunt and uncle were important, but cousins important only if they were age-mates. The authority and status within the society at large permeated even close relationships. The parents owned the family rather than merely ran it.
Caveat: I was a child then, and saw things from that perspective. Adults then might have viewed the children of other families entirely as I do now: directed but not owned by the parents. Also, any such enormous generalization has to have many exceptions to it.
I regarded this as individual differences in values between us, a head-butting that resulted from our individual personalities. My brother suggested that this was as much generational as individual.
Though this was a new thought to me, it rang true immediately. When I was a boy, children were considered more appendages to their parents than they are now. The mother and father were not only the authorities of the family, they in some sense were the family. I imagine this was even stronger in earlier generations, though I don't know how one would measure such a thing. Unless one was near in age to a child in another family, one pictured the family as a mother & father plus generic children. Your aunt and uncle were important, but cousins important only if they were age-mates. The authority and status within the society at large permeated even close relationships. The parents owned the family rather than merely ran it.
Caveat: I was a child then, and saw things from that perspective. Adults then might have viewed the children of other families entirely as I do now: directed but not owned by the parents. Also, any such enormous generalization has to have many exceptions to it.
Higher Ed costs
I ran into young friend active in Chicago politics at Midway airport. I don't think we need be concerned whether I am increasingly amazed at the degree of corruption in Daleyville. We should be concerned that he is increasingly amazed. He's been doing this community organizing thing for awhile now, but every time I see him his eyebrows go up and he shakes his head you wouldn't believe how bad it is.
He asked my opinion on higher ed funding, and let me use his name if I am properly circumspect. His sample of how I might refer to him is exactly what I shall use:
My unedited reply.
I am not expert on this, but I have read a bit and have some thoughts. I entirely agree that we have oversold the idea of 4-year college to everyone. The pre-WWII model was that 4-year colleges served three purposes: initial training for the professions of law, medicine, and ministry; inculcation of
Western classical values in the elite classes who were going to run the country anyway; practical training in science, technology, or business for the brightest males. A lot of this is still left over in our expectations of what college is. It wasn't that bad a system, but it had serious limitations.
In addition to the GI Bill increasing the number of people -mostly male - going to college, the steady prosperity decade after decade since WWII also brought the numbers up - this time with females. To retain the elite status of the wealthy who were (originally) going to run the country anyway, the four-year liberal arts schools made status rules that within their confines, the inculcating values part would remain the pinnacle. But to maintain that against all those middle-class science and business students, who were picking up western civ lite, the elites had to go more obscure, and bring in non-western and anti-western values to teach. Impressionable young people from all classes gravitated toward the high social status studies, but it was primarily the wealthy and upper-middle class kids who populated the Medieval Lit, Art History, and Sociology majors. The elite schools kept insisting that this was where the highest intellectual status was at and structured their curricula accordingly.
In evolutionary biology, there is a concept that conspicuous waste is an advertisement of enormous resources and status - like peacock feathers, which state "I've got energy to burn, baby!" To be able to take cerebral, philosophical courses that wouldn't obviously result in better jobs and income is a sign of eliteness. "Those grasping business and computer majors are scrambling after mere money, but we have a higher calling."
The system is breaking down in many ways, including at least one dear to your heart. First, the world only needs so many physical anthropology and history of dance majors. Only a few can go on to have careers in those - usually only teaching the next poor group of suckers to get squeezed through the bottleneck. As a result, those few can self-select their peers according to whatever criteria they choose. They choose to bring in people who think like they do. Such fields - ethnic and gender studies, comparative or foreign literatures - have to keep upping the ante of obscure code-words and thoughts far above the great unwashed to keep the barbarians from the gates. They have become jokes, and bitterly resent their dead-end choice. Like all human beings who fail, their first strategy is to keep doing exactly the same thing, only harder, purer. Some catch on to the sucker's game and get out. Those who remain are doubly distilled intellectual elites, who need badly to know about things that others don't, like Chicana literature. They make themselves increasingly irrelevant to improving their lives or anyone else's, and their status drops every decade. This makes them even more resentful of the terribly unjust and regressive society they live in.
Meanwhile, their elite status further erodes because we are increasingly a science and technology world, and business models move increasingly toward change and creative destruction. That geeks and entrepreneurs now go on to run the world is axiomatic. It has become a common movie motif and cultural expectation. Forty years ago people were only beginning to be aware of that, and everyone still expected that if you wanted to make money or even make a living at something interesting, you had to do the four-year college thing. That is less true every year. Self-learning and online learning, whether formal degree programs or just getting yourself hooked into the right network, is becoming more common. As learning now has to be ongoing, and online is the most efficient way to do that, those who can't learn online will fall further behind.
Third, education is breaking down at younger levels, especially for boys. Homeschooling and online learning will continue to increase, and public school will grow less relevant. It will be an interesting collision, as formal schooling will still be required by law, and colleges will continue to turn out education majors who will join unions and insist that they are the only ones qualified, but parents - especially parents of boys - will increasingly regard non-school learning as more important. You were very cutting edge on this, and will see your intellectual descendants have pitched battles with the educational establishment. (Note to reader: Tim did both homeschool and online study for the second half of highschool. It looks like that was a good choice) So four-year liberal arts schools will continue to turn out students we don't need and charge a high price for it. The complete collapse will probably never happen. The traditional model works very well for some students and some courses of study and will persist. But they will no longer be the only item on the menu.
I do fear that the teaching of western civilization will be more and more sporadic. The elites have moved to non- and anti-western thought, online technical training will neglect it, informal networks will teach it only accidentally. The homeschoolers and Christian schools will be the last bastion, but those curricula usually stress only those parts of the western canon that fit with their world-view.
The left believes that the current college system must be mostly preserved with a few modifications to perpetuate their values, so they want to pour money into keeping that system afloat. Conservative free-marketers have the right idea, but I'm not sure they understand the consequences either, and they may not like what they get. Letting the market decide will accelerate the decline of the current system. I think it's creative destruction and a good thing, but it has its costs. Accountability will be more elusive. Governments will try harder and harder to regulate and make sure that everyone gets a good education, and will be increasingly angry about those things out of their reach. They aren't assuring a good education now, and everyone knows it.
How this will play out for poor and minority communities could be their rescue, but the risks are high. On the internet, no one knows if you're a dog, so the automatic racial and class prejudices can be avoided. Black kids will have the opportunity to move ahead unfettered. But if they are in substandard schools and they don't get hooked up with the new methods of learning, they will be doubly screwed. A lot of kids could just be competitively destroyed before anyone has a chance to see what works for them. I don't see why a hispanic kid from even a crummy school couldn't be just as good as a suburban white kid at selling stuff on ebay or otherwise online, but who is going to get them there to even try? Educators think it is beneath them to teach such grubby skills to their students.
I see little hope that legislators at any level will see the need to risk their grant money on more adventurous programs, many of which won't work. Political people and government bureaucrats don't think like that. They would rather waste money the old-fashioned way, on things that look like they should work and do work for a limited number of people. Ebay grants, or American slogan t-shirt marketing to Southeast Asia grants, or independent market-research project grants for highschoolers, or even no-writing, all-typing/mouse/Wii instruction starting in kindergarten just isn't going to impress bureaucrats.
Related topic: I think city schools can be improved faster with safer neighborhoods than with more teachers. Overstretched police departments stress drug arrests - easier to catch - instead of labor-intensive violence prevention. The hope is that the drug arrests will catch a fair number of the violent in its net. Well, it hasn't worked. Non-violent or only incidentally violent drug users, disproportionately black, clog up the jails but don't get enough of the violent people off the streets. General Petraus needs to focus on Detroit and south Washington DC next.
Does that answer your question?
He asked my opinion on higher ed funding, and let me use his name if I am properly circumspect. His sample of how I might refer to him is exactly what I shall use:
Tim King is works for a young adult group called PACT in Chicago. He emailed me when they began research on higher education costs. His concern was that the prevailing wisdom of simply providing more government subsidies and loans was simply facilitating higher costs and creating a culture of debt...
My unedited reply.
I am not expert on this, but I have read a bit and have some thoughts. I entirely agree that we have oversold the idea of 4-year college to everyone. The pre-WWII model was that 4-year colleges served three purposes: initial training for the professions of law, medicine, and ministry; inculcation of
Western classical values in the elite classes who were going to run the country anyway; practical training in science, technology, or business for the brightest males. A lot of this is still left over in our expectations of what college is. It wasn't that bad a system, but it had serious limitations.
In addition to the GI Bill increasing the number of people -mostly male - going to college, the steady prosperity decade after decade since WWII also brought the numbers up - this time with females. To retain the elite status of the wealthy who were (originally) going to run the country anyway, the four-year liberal arts schools made status rules that within their confines, the inculcating values part would remain the pinnacle. But to maintain that against all those middle-class science and business students, who were picking up western civ lite, the elites had to go more obscure, and bring in non-western and anti-western values to teach. Impressionable young people from all classes gravitated toward the high social status studies, but it was primarily the wealthy and upper-middle class kids who populated the Medieval Lit, Art History, and Sociology majors. The elite schools kept insisting that this was where the highest intellectual status was at and structured their curricula accordingly.
In evolutionary biology, there is a concept that conspicuous waste is an advertisement of enormous resources and status - like peacock feathers, which state "I've got energy to burn, baby!" To be able to take cerebral, philosophical courses that wouldn't obviously result in better jobs and income is a sign of eliteness. "Those grasping business and computer majors are scrambling after mere money, but we have a higher calling."
The system is breaking down in many ways, including at least one dear to your heart. First, the world only needs so many physical anthropology and history of dance majors. Only a few can go on to have careers in those - usually only teaching the next poor group of suckers to get squeezed through the bottleneck. As a result, those few can self-select their peers according to whatever criteria they choose. They choose to bring in people who think like they do. Such fields - ethnic and gender studies, comparative or foreign literatures - have to keep upping the ante of obscure code-words and thoughts far above the great unwashed to keep the barbarians from the gates. They have become jokes, and bitterly resent their dead-end choice. Like all human beings who fail, their first strategy is to keep doing exactly the same thing, only harder, purer. Some catch on to the sucker's game and get out. Those who remain are doubly distilled intellectual elites, who need badly to know about things that others don't, like Chicana literature. They make themselves increasingly irrelevant to improving their lives or anyone else's, and their status drops every decade. This makes them even more resentful of the terribly unjust and regressive society they live in.
Meanwhile, their elite status further erodes because we are increasingly a science and technology world, and business models move increasingly toward change and creative destruction. That geeks and entrepreneurs now go on to run the world is axiomatic. It has become a common movie motif and cultural expectation. Forty years ago people were only beginning to be aware of that, and everyone still expected that if you wanted to make money or even make a living at something interesting, you had to do the four-year college thing. That is less true every year. Self-learning and online learning, whether formal degree programs or just getting yourself hooked into the right network, is becoming more common. As learning now has to be ongoing, and online is the most efficient way to do that, those who can't learn online will fall further behind.
Third, education is breaking down at younger levels, especially for boys. Homeschooling and online learning will continue to increase, and public school will grow less relevant. It will be an interesting collision, as formal schooling will still be required by law, and colleges will continue to turn out education majors who will join unions and insist that they are the only ones qualified, but parents - especially parents of boys - will increasingly regard non-school learning as more important. You were very cutting edge on this, and will see your intellectual descendants have pitched battles with the educational establishment. (Note to reader: Tim did both homeschool and online study for the second half of highschool. It looks like that was a good choice) So four-year liberal arts schools will continue to turn out students we don't need and charge a high price for it. The complete collapse will probably never happen. The traditional model works very well for some students and some courses of study and will persist. But they will no longer be the only item on the menu.
I do fear that the teaching of western civilization will be more and more sporadic. The elites have moved to non- and anti-western thought, online technical training will neglect it, informal networks will teach it only accidentally. The homeschoolers and Christian schools will be the last bastion, but those curricula usually stress only those parts of the western canon that fit with their world-view.
The left believes that the current college system must be mostly preserved with a few modifications to perpetuate their values, so they want to pour money into keeping that system afloat. Conservative free-marketers have the right idea, but I'm not sure they understand the consequences either, and they may not like what they get. Letting the market decide will accelerate the decline of the current system. I think it's creative destruction and a good thing, but it has its costs. Accountability will be more elusive. Governments will try harder and harder to regulate and make sure that everyone gets a good education, and will be increasingly angry about those things out of their reach. They aren't assuring a good education now, and everyone knows it.
How this will play out for poor and minority communities could be their rescue, but the risks are high. On the internet, no one knows if you're a dog, so the automatic racial and class prejudices can be avoided. Black kids will have the opportunity to move ahead unfettered. But if they are in substandard schools and they don't get hooked up with the new methods of learning, they will be doubly screwed. A lot of kids could just be competitively destroyed before anyone has a chance to see what works for them. I don't see why a hispanic kid from even a crummy school couldn't be just as good as a suburban white kid at selling stuff on ebay or otherwise online, but who is going to get them there to even try? Educators think it is beneath them to teach such grubby skills to their students.
I see little hope that legislators at any level will see the need to risk their grant money on more adventurous programs, many of which won't work. Political people and government bureaucrats don't think like that. They would rather waste money the old-fashioned way, on things that look like they should work and do work for a limited number of people. Ebay grants, or American slogan t-shirt marketing to Southeast Asia grants, or independent market-research project grants for highschoolers, or even no-writing, all-typing/mouse/Wii instruction starting in kindergarten just isn't going to impress bureaucrats.
Related topic: I think city schools can be improved faster with safer neighborhoods than with more teachers. Overstretched police departments stress drug arrests - easier to catch - instead of labor-intensive violence prevention. The hope is that the drug arrests will catch a fair number of the violent in its net. Well, it hasn't worked. Non-violent or only incidentally violent drug users, disproportionately black, clog up the jails but don't get enough of the violent people off the streets. General Petraus needs to focus on Detroit and south Washington DC next.
Does that answer your question?
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Genesis Irony
What if the Book of Genesis had been lost and only recently rediscovered? Had the canon started with Exodus, I doubt the skeptics would be any more willing to concede belief. For all their focus, partly because it is Christians' focus, on the unlikeliness of the events of Genesis, nonbelievers would simply transfer that to other miraculous or unusual events: the burning bush, the Red Sea, Elijah and Elisha. There are plenty to go around in the rest of the Bible. Despite the predominance of historically-attested places such as Egypt and Canaan, as opposed to Eden and Melchizedek's Salem, I doubt believers would be cut much slack.
Believers, both Jewish and Christian would look at the Scriptures differently. We would likely regard the Exodus - Malachi set as complete, and the scattered references to Genesis events in the rest of scripture seen by some as intentional and meaningful on God's part. We aren't meant to know...YHWH ordained that some things should remain mysterious... I don't mean to overgeneralize - there would likely be a variety of opinions on that score.
We would be the ones resisting Genesis at first. Yes, yes, it includes stories about all the Abrahams and Adams we are told should be there, but they don't act right. They do strange things. And there are lots of extra characters we didn't expect. This is clearly a book related to the biblical story, but there's no reason to think it is Holy Writ. I believe the power of God's voice would eventually force itself upon us, as believers would be unable to let the words go and would gradually come to accept them, but it might be grudging and take a century.
In that instance it might be the secular scholars who attempted to convince us to take on the new book. As with the spurious gospels we are led to believe are just as good but arbitrarily declared non-canonical by powerful and close-minded early Christians, this Genesis document would be touted by secular critics. They wouldn't credit any literalness to the individuals and specific events described, regarding them as folk heroes or composite figures. Yet the overall picture would impress them, I suspect. The Flood is there; an account of one tribe rejecting polytheism and human sacrifice shows up in the expected time and place; The conflict between planters and herders shows up in Cain & Abel, Eden turns out to be dramatically near the first places that humans domesticated animals, made shelters, and planted crops, a plausible account of famine driving Jews into Egypt would provide a likely explanation, and a wealth of customs, attitudes, and objects referred to would illuminate all other knowledge of the time and place. Most dramatically, the similarity of the order of creation to current scientific knowledge would be regarded with amazement, as it is unprecedented in the creation story of any other culture. The Francis Collins and Antony Flew style of nonbeliever seeking after truth would produce converts to the faith amazed that the ancient document got so much correct.
Nonbelievers would be pressing Genesis upon us for consideration, in contrast to the enormous energy put into disproving it now. Believers, in contrast, would be overcautious.
Believers, both Jewish and Christian would look at the Scriptures differently. We would likely regard the Exodus - Malachi set as complete, and the scattered references to Genesis events in the rest of scripture seen by some as intentional and meaningful on God's part. We aren't meant to know...YHWH ordained that some things should remain mysterious... I don't mean to overgeneralize - there would likely be a variety of opinions on that score.
We would be the ones resisting Genesis at first. Yes, yes, it includes stories about all the Abrahams and Adams we are told should be there, but they don't act right. They do strange things. And there are lots of extra characters we didn't expect. This is clearly a book related to the biblical story, but there's no reason to think it is Holy Writ. I believe the power of God's voice would eventually force itself upon us, as believers would be unable to let the words go and would gradually come to accept them, but it might be grudging and take a century.
In that instance it might be the secular scholars who attempted to convince us to take on the new book. As with the spurious gospels we are led to believe are just as good but arbitrarily declared non-canonical by powerful and close-minded early Christians, this Genesis document would be touted by secular critics. They wouldn't credit any literalness to the individuals and specific events described, regarding them as folk heroes or composite figures. Yet the overall picture would impress them, I suspect. The Flood is there; an account of one tribe rejecting polytheism and human sacrifice shows up in the expected time and place; The conflict between planters and herders shows up in Cain & Abel, Eden turns out to be dramatically near the first places that humans domesticated animals, made shelters, and planted crops, a plausible account of famine driving Jews into Egypt would provide a likely explanation, and a wealth of customs, attitudes, and objects referred to would illuminate all other knowledge of the time and place. Most dramatically, the similarity of the order of creation to current scientific knowledge would be regarded with amazement, as it is unprecedented in the creation story of any other culture. The Francis Collins and Antony Flew style of nonbeliever seeking after truth would produce converts to the faith amazed that the ancient document got so much correct.
Nonbelievers would be pressing Genesis upon us for consideration, in contrast to the enormous energy put into disproving it now. Believers, in contrast, would be overcautious.
Conservative Party
My eldest son and I listened to Car Talk on the way to pick up some dachshunds this morning. It is Spring pledge drive at NHPR.
These people are so uncomfortable with fundraising - and so bad at it - that I usually switch it off. Yet today we were minded to revel in their misery. The forced enthusiasm, the embarrassed appeals to guilt (the only sure-fire money-getter with that crew), the lame humor - ah, lovely. The missteps were best of all: Five people have pledged already this morning, and they know their contributions weren't enough, so c'mon, let's help them out!
I think it would be a hoot for conservatives to throw a party to listen to pledge week together.
These people are so uncomfortable with fundraising - and so bad at it - that I usually switch it off. Yet today we were minded to revel in their misery. The forced enthusiasm, the embarrassed appeals to guilt (the only sure-fire money-getter with that crew), the lame humor - ah, lovely. The missteps were best of all: Five people have pledged already this morning, and they know their contributions weren't enough, so c'mon, let's help them out!
I think it would be a hoot for conservatives to throw a party to listen to pledge week together.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Weddings
An urban legend circulated at work yesterday - "The Groom's/Bride's Revenge," which comes in numerous iterations, and involves one of the prospective couple publicly exposing the other for sleeping with some other member of the wedding party, and calling off the wedding. This version was a particularly good one, with Clemson University and Jay Leno thrown in as convincing details, and a nice dramatic build involving compromising photographs of the offending bride and best man taped underneath the guests' seats at the reception. We like the horror of stories like this. We use these legends as previous generations used folk tales to teach which values are important. "If you do this bad thing, you will deserve this humiliating punishment" is the underlying message to many urban legends.
Printing up the disproof of the legend from snopes, I browsed through the many other wedding legends and customs. Nice to have the State of NH pay me for fifteen minutes of entertainment like that. Fascinating stuff, those wedding legends. The custom of brides wearing white did not originate to advertise purity, but ostentatious display in class-conscious Victorian times. A white dress is clearly a one-use only item, so families would put their daughters in these elaborate displays to highlight their ability to waste wealth. The dresses leading up to the white gowns were increasingly elaborate, not increasingly light-colored. White has generally been used to signify joy. Practically every other wedding custom seems to be about sex, but not this one. Threshold...garter...feeding cake...veil...they're all about sex. Big surprise, eh?
Weddings are in the air around here; not in the immediate family, but among important members of the close circle. These include commenters Erin and Bethany, as well as blog-unaffiliated Lauren, all marrying this year. I think they will find the wedding legends amusing. And don't sleep with the best men, because I probably know them too, and that would be annoying to me.
Printing up the disproof of the legend from snopes, I browsed through the many other wedding legends and customs. Nice to have the State of NH pay me for fifteen minutes of entertainment like that. Fascinating stuff, those wedding legends. The custom of brides wearing white did not originate to advertise purity, but ostentatious display in class-conscious Victorian times. A white dress is clearly a one-use only item, so families would put their daughters in these elaborate displays to highlight their ability to waste wealth. The dresses leading up to the white gowns were increasingly elaborate, not increasingly light-colored. White has generally been used to signify joy. Practically every other wedding custom seems to be about sex, but not this one. Threshold...garter...feeding cake...veil...they're all about sex. Big surprise, eh?
Weddings are in the air around here; not in the immediate family, but among important members of the close circle. These include commenters Erin and Bethany, as well as blog-unaffiliated Lauren, all marrying this year. I think they will find the wedding legends amusing. And don't sleep with the best men, because I probably know them too, and that would be annoying to me.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
New Unquestioned Rule
I have a patient on my caseload who owns a cat, of which he is fond. Mental Health clients have pets less frequently than the general population, but not dramatically so, and they are often quite attached. People generally agree that the pets are good for them, as they are for elderly people, children, and heck, most of us.
When a person with a mental illness decompensates, getting care or rescue for the pet is sometimes a first order of business. It can help you form an alliance with the patient or can solidify an alliance they have with an outside support person; it is good practice for the patient to try and get past troubling thoughts and feelings to deal with the reality of day-to-day care for the pet; it helps the patient be less anxious; it is an act of kindness to the animal.
When the pet-rescue has all gone terribly wrong – when the patient is too paranoid or too angry to contact or allow contact with folks outside who might help – sometimes the pet is taken away from the patient permanently. Sometimes the pet dies.
When either of these unfortunate situations occur, everyone automatically assumes that the patient should no longer have a pet, because they cannot care for it. I think there is a parallel situation with elderly people – if they cannot care for the animal, the animal is taken.
Well, why? Of course it is cruel to the animal to let it suffer, and that is what we are responding to. But it’s also cruel to the mentally ill person – or elderly person – to be alone. Why is the cruelty to the human okay, the cruelty to the animal not? As a practical matter, this stark choice can sometimes be avoided. We can help the patient make advance plans for what to do with the animal in an emergency. Yet sometimes real life can’t be juggled that well, and the stark choice – definitely cruel to the human being vs. potentially cruel to the animal is the operative question.
What did we tend to do a hundred years ago? I don’t think we valued animals as highly then; did we accept the death of animals because of poor human keepers more readily then?
When a person with a mental illness decompensates, getting care or rescue for the pet is sometimes a first order of business. It can help you form an alliance with the patient or can solidify an alliance they have with an outside support person; it is good practice for the patient to try and get past troubling thoughts and feelings to deal with the reality of day-to-day care for the pet; it helps the patient be less anxious; it is an act of kindness to the animal.
When the pet-rescue has all gone terribly wrong – when the patient is too paranoid or too angry to contact or allow contact with folks outside who might help – sometimes the pet is taken away from the patient permanently. Sometimes the pet dies.
When either of these unfortunate situations occur, everyone automatically assumes that the patient should no longer have a pet, because they cannot care for it. I think there is a parallel situation with elderly people – if they cannot care for the animal, the animal is taken.
Well, why? Of course it is cruel to the animal to let it suffer, and that is what we are responding to. But it’s also cruel to the mentally ill person – or elderly person – to be alone. Why is the cruelty to the human okay, the cruelty to the animal not? As a practical matter, this stark choice can sometimes be avoided. We can help the patient make advance plans for what to do with the animal in an emergency. Yet sometimes real life can’t be juggled that well, and the stark choice – definitely cruel to the human being vs. potentially cruel to the animal is the operative question.
What did we tend to do a hundred years ago? I don’t think we valued animals as highly then; did we accept the death of animals because of poor human keepers more readily then?
Observation
I notice both live and in print, progressives seem to put more energy into making their response witty (whether they are quoting, inventing, or playing to the audience) than to getting it correct. That is hardly a universal, but seems a strong tendency. I have my own guesses why that would be so, but I'd like to break out of my prism (heh) a bit and hear yours.
Links and Quotes
Just a few things I found in my travels:
Harvard Econ professor and textbook-write Greg Mankiw connects us to Robert Samuelson's Hold The Hysteria
Megan McArdle dispels some Myths of the Market, including
Breath of the Beast wonders Why Good People Believe Bad Things in the context of Israel and the Middle East.
Maggie's Farm unearths an interesting observation by Orwell,
Carl over at No Oil For Pacifists deserves congratulations on a legal outcome he had much to do with.
Neco Draconis has Latin poetry for Easter. C'mon, don't be a sissy; there's a translation.
There are childish insults on both sides caught on this political video, but the conclusion is against er, progressive stereotypes.
Thomas Sowell makes an impressive generalization about argument in general which discussing Obama's Audacity.
Harvard Econ professor and textbook-write Greg Mankiw connects us to Robert Samuelson's Hold The Hysteria
There's a disconnect between what people see around them and what they're told is happening. The first is upsetting (rising gas prices, falling home prices, fewer jobs) but reflects the normal reverses of a $14 trillion economy. The second ("panic," "financial meltdown") suggests the onset of something catastrophic and totally outside the experience of ordinary people. The economy, said The New York Times last week, may be on "the brink of the worst recession in a generation" -- an ominous warning.and a review of Galbraith on the 50th Anniversary of his The Affluent Society.
Perhaps, but so far the concrete evidence is scant.
Galbraith invites readers to look down on the conservatives of his day. He was one of the cadre of public intellectuals of the 1950s, like Richard Hofstadter, and intellectual politicians, like Adlai Stevenson, who offered a seemingly sophisticated alternative to Ike's military mien and prayer breakfasts.Ouch.
But while "The Affluent Society" reflects American society in the 1950s, it was quite detached from postwar trends in economics, which is why Galbraith has rarely been embraced by economists.
Megan McArdle dispels some Myths of the Market, including
Item Three: Being on the gold standard would also not have prevented this mess
There are a lot of hucksters out there writing books and newsletters telling people that a gold standard (or some other commodity currency) is the cure for all their worries. The way they tell it, "hard" currency is a sort of broad-spectrum economic snake-oil, the ginseng of the financial markets. Only adopt their plan, they beseech, and America will no longer be plagued by exchange rate fluctuations, government profligacy, trade deficits, inflation, speculative mania, financial panics, or indigestion. This is triple-distilled balderdash.
Breath of the Beast wonders Why Good People Believe Bad Things in the context of Israel and the Middle East.
Maggie's Farm unearths an interesting observation by Orwell,
Suppose in 1940 you had taken a Gallup poll, in England, on the question ‘Will Germany win the war?’ You would have found, curiously enough, that the group answering ‘Yes’ contained a far higher percentage of intelligent people – people with IQ of over 120, shall we say – than the group answering ‘No’. The same would have held good in the middle of 1942. . .
The English intelligentsia, on the whole, were more defeatist than the mass of the people – and some of them went on being defeatist at a time when the war was quite plainly won – partly because they were better able to visualize the dreary years of warfare that lay ahead. Their morale was worse because their imaginations were stronger. The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it, and if one finds the prospect of a long war intolerable, it is natural to disbelieve in the possibility of victory.
Carl over at No Oil For Pacifists deserves congratulations on a legal outcome he had much to do with.
Neco Draconis has Latin poetry for Easter. C'mon, don't be a sissy; there's a translation.
There are childish insults on both sides caught on this political video, but the conclusion is against er, progressive stereotypes.
Thomas Sowell makes an impressive generalization about argument in general which discussing Obama's Audacity.
Since all things are the same, except for the differences, and different except for the similarities, it is always possible to make things look similar verbally, however different they are in the real world.And finally, Greg Lukianoff has some direct difficulties with bias at Wikipedia. Don't accuse honest progressives of being conservative shills, or you might hear
What makes this case somewhat different and more troubling, however, is that the critic in question is an editor on FIRE's Wikipedia page, and, therefore, has had a disproportionate effect on how FIRE is represented on the Internet. As many have lamented, the problem with Wikipedia is that it empowers the Internet-obsessive, those with personal axes to grind, and the unswervingly ideological to define e-reality. (emphasis mine).
Context Is EveryThing, Eh?
So, why is this funny when she does it, but if the kid on the skateboard did it we'd be infuriated?
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Giddings, Texas
On the way from Houston to Austin on 290 (my son Ben details some of the problems of the trip here), we kept seeing signs for Giddings. No signs for Austin, which is the capital, after all, but signs for Brenham, Prairie View, and always Giddings. I had never heard of Giddings, and wondered why it was so important that the Texas Highway Dept needed to mention it every few miles, yet were willing to let us just hope we were on the right road to the state capital.
At the Giddings border, we were informed it has about 5,000 people - hard to see how that would impress while in the environs of Houston, eh? The road was lined with gas stations and car dealers for two miles, with blank emptiness behind them. Giddings proper was a nice little town, actually, though at 11pm it was hard to imagine it at its best. As we approached the train tracks we heard the whistle - alarmingly close, actually. I took my foot off the gas, expecting the RR lights to start flashing and the little gate to come down to stop us. Nope.
As we crossed the tracks, Ben and I looked right to see how close this train was. In memories of crisis and surprise things seem more alarming, so the blinding light above the track probably wasn't actually 20 yards away, but more like 50. Still, at the 30mph I expected that a train would be running through town that would be, oh, 3 seconds away. Alarming. Clearing the tracks without incident, I looked in the rearview for the flashing lights. It was quite some time before they started and the gates came down. The train crawled through at about 5mph - ah, the locals would likely know that. Guests from NH - or Romania - would assume wrongly.
Well, no harm done, I guess. But I wondered what was so special about Giddings, to make it such a focus, for no obvious reason.
Golly, it's the county seat. Settled in the late 1800's, and Lutherans, German Lutherans, moved in pretty quickly after. It was actually Wendish Germans - the sort of odd bit of geographic and linguistic information which I keep track of - and they were Missouri Synod Lutherans - the type of odd denominational information I keep track of. The town has a Wendish festival every year. Had I only known.
It was an oil-boom town in the 1980's, which was likely when all the signs went up telling people how close they are to Giddings, but it's shrunk back down again. Hilton Smith, one of my all-time favorite Negro League pitchers, was from Giddings, though I hadn't known that until I looked it up. He is best known for helping Satchel Paige pad his victory statistics: Paige would pitch the first three innings and get credit for the victory, Smith would pitch the final six and get squat.
The Southern Pacific Railroad still goes through Giddings, though. I'm a witness.
At the Giddings border, we were informed it has about 5,000 people - hard to see how that would impress while in the environs of Houston, eh? The road was lined with gas stations and car dealers for two miles, with blank emptiness behind them. Giddings proper was a nice little town, actually, though at 11pm it was hard to imagine it at its best. As we approached the train tracks we heard the whistle - alarmingly close, actually. I took my foot off the gas, expecting the RR lights to start flashing and the little gate to come down to stop us. Nope.
As we crossed the tracks, Ben and I looked right to see how close this train was. In memories of crisis and surprise things seem more alarming, so the blinding light above the track probably wasn't actually 20 yards away, but more like 50. Still, at the 30mph I expected that a train would be running through town that would be, oh, 3 seconds away. Alarming. Clearing the tracks without incident, I looked in the rearview for the flashing lights. It was quite some time before they started and the gates came down. The train crawled through at about 5mph - ah, the locals would likely know that. Guests from NH - or Romania - would assume wrongly.
Well, no harm done, I guess. But I wondered what was so special about Giddings, to make it such a focus, for no obvious reason.
Golly, it's the county seat. Settled in the late 1800's, and Lutherans, German Lutherans, moved in pretty quickly after. It was actually Wendish Germans - the sort of odd bit of geographic and linguistic information which I keep track of - and they were Missouri Synod Lutherans - the type of odd denominational information I keep track of. The town has a Wendish festival every year. Had I only known.
It was an oil-boom town in the 1980's, which was likely when all the signs went up telling people how close they are to Giddings, but it's shrunk back down again. Hilton Smith, one of my all-time favorite Negro League pitchers, was from Giddings, though I hadn't known that until I looked it up. He is best known for helping Satchel Paige pad his victory statistics: Paige would pitch the first three innings and get credit for the victory, Smith would pitch the final six and get squat.
The Southern Pacific Railroad still goes through Giddings, though. I'm a witness.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Dave Burge's Gimp
Iowahawk is running for president, and has an important message of unity.
I have to admit I had second thoughts once we arrived back in America because the gimp would soon confront this country's shameful legacy of anti-Dutch bigotry, even from my own grandmother. I remembered as a child Grandma warning me not to eat gouda and to stay away from dikes, oblivious to the fact that my mother -- her very own son's wife -- was a full-blooded Vandenbriink from Pella.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Branding
Political campaigns are about establishing your brand, I'm told. Brands are stand-ins for serious ideas. At best, they're synedoches. More usually, they're just lies. Let's have some fun with this.
Obama is definitely a Prius, right? Hillary claims to be a minivan, but is maybe a Volvo or Mercedes.
And McCain - not a Hummer...A Jeep, maybe? Or maybe he used to drive a Jeep but now a Lincoln. A restored Camaro? I'm not reading these brands as well as I'd like. Ron Paul is a 56 Chevy because you can repair the thing yourself, dammit, and you should. Mike Huckabee a "used" pickup truck that turns out to be a 2007 Dodge Ram 3500 diesel. But biodiesel, and with a fish on it.
Help me out here. Have fun with it. Kucinich? Romney?
Obama is definitely a Prius, right? Hillary claims to be a minivan, but is maybe a Volvo or Mercedes.
And McCain - not a Hummer...A Jeep, maybe? Or maybe he used to drive a Jeep but now a Lincoln. A restored Camaro? I'm not reading these brands as well as I'd like. Ron Paul is a 56 Chevy because you can repair the thing yourself, dammit, and you should. Mike Huckabee a "used" pickup truck that turns out to be a 2007 Dodge Ram 3500 diesel. But biodiesel, and with a fish on it.
Help me out here. Have fun with it. Kucinich? Romney?
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Focus of Attention
Dean Debnam, president of Public Policy Polling makes an odd observation
I thought the point of campaigning was to get people to focus on you and your ideas. If the point of running for the Democratic nomination this year is to get everyone to focus on one's opponent, that seems a powerful commentary.
"There is plenty of time for Obama to make a recovery in Pennsylvania,” said Debnam. “But he’s definitely a victim of the 24 hour news cycle right now. He needs to get the spotlight turned back on Clinton quick.”
I thought the point of campaigning was to get people to focus on you and your ideas. If the point of running for the Democratic nomination this year is to get everyone to focus on one's opponent, that seems a powerful commentary.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Gay Friends
I am posting from Texas at the moment. Should I use a larger font?
Stuff White People Like has a recent posting Having Gay Friends, the contemplation of which leads to some interesting conclusions about the types of communication I have in various settings. I doubt I am unique in my difference of emphasis in different environments, leading to different associations.
Half of my gay friends are at work, the other half online. I have no current gay friends that I know of in my lively social circle. One can draw conclusions of my personal bigotry against gay people from that if one wishes, but my narrowness is actually far worse than that. We have a fairly large sweep of people we are friendly with, but our close friends are much like us. They are Christian, somewhat close to us in age and thus with older children, above average intelligence, married (a few divorced) – I’m sure I could find more similarities if I pushed it. A second circle is our children’s friends and our friends’ children, a group only slightly more diverse. (I do consider generation-crossing to be as difficult or more than religious or racial diversity, and not to be despised in the multi-culti indices of tolerance. At work, online, and in stranger-situations, I find age a much greater barrier than racial or social divisions. I approach people of my own generation most naturally.) This is what happens to families. If we see someone socially we both have to pretty much like both of them. Any children present have interactive needs as well, and putting them repeatedly in boring or difficult situations has high emotional cost.
This is considered shameful in some Christian circles and most secular ones, a mark of close-minded uptightnesses and/or unwillingness to move out of our comfort zone. Perhaps. But we don’t even see these people anywhere near as much as we’d like. We neglect nearly all of them if one measures interest in their lives and emotional support offered. Heck, we can’t even get into our comfort zone, never mind out of it.
My gay friends at work are all close to me in age, above-average intelligence, like-minded about work issues…even my different friends are the same. As a theater major and occasional dancer, I had more gay friends in college. In college, you will note, people are about the same age as you, above-average intelligence, with common interests.
My online community, more recently developed, looks more diverse from a government checklist perspective, because it no longer matters whether spouses or children are in their comfort zones when “visiting.” Having something sensible for me to read matters much more, and the blogs I frequent written by gay people are a dead giveaway by their titles: Gay Patriot, Classical Values, Gay Conservative. I think they are mostly about my age and above-average intelligence, now that I think of it. Among the most sensible and observant people I read in a week.
Looking over the rest of my list of oft-visited sites, I have a largish category of bloggers who work in psych but are more conservative (politically or religiously) than most people in that very liberal field. They are about my age and… well, you get it.
It isn’t surprising that an assistant village idiot, focused on keeping the obvious ever before me, should find common ground with those who do not think like others in their “category.” Such people usually spend a lot of energy pointing out obvious things their fellows don’t wish to accept. They (we) spend a lot of time trying to persuade, hammering sense into people who have picked up silly thoughts from environments we are all too familiar with. We have not so much changed our minds as seen through previous errors, and we know something of the social and emotional forces that prevent one from seeing through convenient beliefs.
Stuff White People Like has a recent posting Having Gay Friends, the contemplation of which leads to some interesting conclusions about the types of communication I have in various settings. I doubt I am unique in my difference of emphasis in different environments, leading to different associations.
Half of my gay friends are at work, the other half online. I have no current gay friends that I know of in my lively social circle. One can draw conclusions of my personal bigotry against gay people from that if one wishes, but my narrowness is actually far worse than that. We have a fairly large sweep of people we are friendly with, but our close friends are much like us. They are Christian, somewhat close to us in age and thus with older children, above average intelligence, married (a few divorced) – I’m sure I could find more similarities if I pushed it. A second circle is our children’s friends and our friends’ children, a group only slightly more diverse. (I do consider generation-crossing to be as difficult or more than religious or racial diversity, and not to be despised in the multi-culti indices of tolerance. At work, online, and in stranger-situations, I find age a much greater barrier than racial or social divisions. I approach people of my own generation most naturally.) This is what happens to families. If we see someone socially we both have to pretty much like both of them. Any children present have interactive needs as well, and putting them repeatedly in boring or difficult situations has high emotional cost.
This is considered shameful in some Christian circles and most secular ones, a mark of close-minded uptightnesses and/or unwillingness to move out of our comfort zone. Perhaps. But we don’t even see these people anywhere near as much as we’d like. We neglect nearly all of them if one measures interest in their lives and emotional support offered. Heck, we can’t even get into our comfort zone, never mind out of it.
My gay friends at work are all close to me in age, above-average intelligence, like-minded about work issues…even my different friends are the same. As a theater major and occasional dancer, I had more gay friends in college. In college, you will note, people are about the same age as you, above-average intelligence, with common interests.
My online community, more recently developed, looks more diverse from a government checklist perspective, because it no longer matters whether spouses or children are in their comfort zones when “visiting.” Having something sensible for me to read matters much more, and the blogs I frequent written by gay people are a dead giveaway by their titles: Gay Patriot, Classical Values, Gay Conservative. I think they are mostly about my age and above-average intelligence, now that I think of it. Among the most sensible and observant people I read in a week.
Looking over the rest of my list of oft-visited sites, I have a largish category of bloggers who work in psych but are more conservative (politically or religiously) than most people in that very liberal field. They are about my age and… well, you get it.
It isn’t surprising that an assistant village idiot, focused on keeping the obvious ever before me, should find common ground with those who do not think like others in their “category.” Such people usually spend a lot of energy pointing out obvious things their fellows don’t wish to accept. They (we) spend a lot of time trying to persuade, hammering sense into people who have picked up silly thoughts from environments we are all too familiar with. We have not so much changed our minds as seen through previous errors, and we know something of the social and emotional forces that prevent one from seeing through convenient beliefs.
It takes…a mind debauched by learning to carry the process of making the natural seem strange. William James
Fools And Idiots
Though we use the terms interchangeably, fools and idiots are opposites. “Simpleton” would be a more accurate term than “idiot” in this context, but Village Simpleton doesn’t have the same history and literary resonance as Village Idiot, and I would rapidly grow tired of having to explain what I meant if my title were Assistant Village Simpleton.
Fools believe they are wise. They search for the abstruse or esoteric, whose very mention brands them as someone in the know, much like poseur ordering wine, or everyone talking about the theater. Full of themselves and impressed with their own deep thoughts, they make just enough sense to be irritating. Simpletons aren’t sure whether their comments are intelligent or not, they just go with what seems sensible. Fools order a Syrah because it’s from the Northern Rhone Valley, simpletons order the Shiraz because they had it once at someone’s house and liked it. It’s the same grape, grown in a different place. Many people claim to know the difference. I don’t know if they do or not. I don’t. I don’t remember whether I liked shiraz or not, which any idiot would do, and why I’m still only the assistant.
Fools believe they are wise. They search for the abstruse or esoteric, whose very mention brands them as someone in the know, much like poseur ordering wine, or everyone talking about the theater. Full of themselves and impressed with their own deep thoughts, they make just enough sense to be irritating. Simpletons aren’t sure whether their comments are intelligent or not, they just go with what seems sensible. Fools order a Syrah because it’s from the Northern Rhone Valley, simpletons order the Shiraz because they had it once at someone’s house and liked it. It’s the same grape, grown in a different place. Many people claim to know the difference. I don’t know if they do or not. I don’t. I don’t remember whether I liked shiraz or not, which any idiot would do, and why I’m still only the assistant.
Children Imitating Us
If children learn all these subtle sexist and racist prejudices from adults who are trying to disguise and deny them, why don’t children pick up all those things we do want them to imitate, like sitting still and being polite?
Humorous, yes, but with a serious point. The civilizations of the west are routinely accused of perpetrating these terrible prejudices and dangerous values on the rest of humanity. But the sappy righteousness of “South Pacific” has it exactly backward. The terrible prejudices and dangerous values are the lot of all humankind, everywhere. We don’t have to be carefully taught prejudice. It comes absolutely naturally and unbidden – it is tolerance that has to be carefully taught. Occasionally we rise above the misery because of western – usually Christian – values. Even that, not so often as we’d like.
Humorous, yes, but with a serious point. The civilizations of the west are routinely accused of perpetrating these terrible prejudices and dangerous values on the rest of humanity. But the sappy righteousness of “South Pacific” has it exactly backward. The terrible prejudices and dangerous values are the lot of all humankind, everywhere. We don’t have to be carefully taught prejudice. It comes absolutely naturally and unbidden – it is tolerance that has to be carefully taught. Occasionally we rise above the misery because of western – usually Christian – values. Even that, not so often as we’d like.
Morality Under Pressure. Update: Great Minds, etc.
Update: Bird Dog over at Maggie's Farm has posted on a very similar topic today, based on a marvelous essay of GK Chesterton's.
Few things tick off the non-religious more quickly than any hint of a suggestion that one can’t be moral without religious beliefs. I don’t think religious people make that accusation anywhere near as often as claimed, and it would be easy to conclude that there is some defensiveness and oversensitivity on the issue, but it is certainly true that some religious people, particularly Christians in this culture, do make that claim. Mostly, those people make the claim automatically – something they’ve heard but haven’t thought out. Dostoyevsky’s comment without God all things are permitted is often trotted out.
As with most arguments generating more heat than light, each side is speaking of something different, hence shouting.
Insofar as people are claiming that atheists or other shades of non-religious people are incapable of being generous, or kind, or honest, they are simply fools. I can’t imagine what limited powers of observation would allow a person to come to such a conclusion.
If we state it another way, however, there is something to it. Put morality under pressure and it reveals itself as either religious or empty. I have to use a broad definition of “religious” to get to such an outrageous statement, but given that, I believe it holds.
Most human beings in civilized places are trained in a mild social morality, adequate for the day-to-day interactions of waiting one’s turn, not grabbing things off the shelves and stuffing them in your pockets, greeting others pleasantly. This minimum is so expected that we are significantly annoyed when rude drivers or arrogant pricks offend against it, even in small, unimportant things.
At the other extreme is morality under extreme pressure, when we are fearful, at risk of impoverishment – when consequences are dire; or complementarily, when reward is high and risk of being caught is low.
Most of morality takes place in the great in-between. Objectivists maintain that altruism is an illusion. We get something back for our good behavior, whether in terms of goodwill from others or warm feelings about ourselves. As a result, objectivists and similar Randian types are among the most contemptuous of religion. Whatever we say is a decision based on our moral code, they will counter is based in the selfishness of that return. We like ourselves better, or others like us better, or we believe we have contributed to some overall improvement in the world that we will benefit from.
It is worthwhile for our humility to contemplate the hidden benefits of our good acts, as it prevents us from taking too much credit for what special, high-minded folks we are. But I don’t see reason for any ultimate discouragement in the face of this. Objectivism can undermine our belief in the morality of many things, but not everything. Two fairly simple points – assistant village idiot sorts of points – bring it down.
Whatever value we might place on our opinion of ourselves, we can keep inventing scenarios, increasing the rewards, increasing the consequences, reducing the risk, until we come to a place where no rational actor would say he is getting adequate recompense for his moral behavior, and only a disputant childishly unwilling to face facts would persist. But these scenarios are not just hypotheticals. However high we set the bar, some human being – many human beings – have surpassed it. I may not have proved real altruism possible with my own life, but others have.
Second, we are all aware when we are more selfish. It stands to reason that we have moments of being less selfish. We may not ever show a perfection of unselfishness, but if there is worse, there must be better, and “better” thus has some real meaning.
As pressure increases, our reasons for doing good come under stress. Financial setbacks test our generosity. Isolation tests our choice of lifestyle. Oppression tests our kindness. A virtue that has not been tested is no virtue. What keeps us going? We rely at first on “being that sort of person.” Is that obedience to our need to feel good about ourselves, or obedience to something higher? Only pressure will reveal that. As character is increasingly tested, the payback for thinking well of ourselves, or having others think well of us tops out. Beyond that we need something more or there is just no reason to keep on keepin’ on.
The idea comes to us that we must continue to do well because it’s just Right. Why it is right may be rather vague to us, connected to some obscure order of the universe – the Tao, as CS Lewis wrote, taking the term from the Buddhist idea of the fitness of certain acts. We’re not quite sure why it would be wrong to be take something from a helpless person, even if we are hungry, even if we have no danger of being caught – but we know that it is wrong. Something in the universe itself would be wounded, or all of humankind would be diminished were we to do what we know is evil.
That’s a religion. It may not be well-articulated or understood. It may not have a specific deity in mind, or seem especially like the religions of the people around you. It doesn’t have any special foods, dances, or recitations associated with it; it needn’t have any systematic theology behind it. Or going in the other direction, it may have elaborate history and commentary among the learned, so that we think of it as a philosophy rather than a religion. The major philosophies on the market today cover an enormous amount of territory, and many strive mightily to not be a religion at all. They can explain most of what happens without regard to even a vague or vestigial religion. You can go through most of your day-to-day life without ever coming up against something that isn’t covered by these philosophies. There is usually no need to resort to a religious explanation.
I expect some internal protest from readers at this point. Most people believe that their animating philosophy of life covers all important items, and are quite sure that even if they have not thought it out or researched it fully (yet), that their particular belief does have an explanation for even difficult phenomena. All bases are covered. My challenge to that, well, evasion, however well–intended, is to momentarily sidestep the lengthy discussions of whether philosophy A does indeed cover all theoretical possibilities, and direct you back to your own life as you actually live it. Are some things just right? Are there acts which are simply evil even if the provocation is enormous? Are there places where all the earthly payback (not only gratitude from others but our own satisfaction at having upheld our honor) is never going to be enough - yet we feel that a person should do the right thing anyway?
Few things tick off the non-religious more quickly than any hint of a suggestion that one can’t be moral without religious beliefs. I don’t think religious people make that accusation anywhere near as often as claimed, and it would be easy to conclude that there is some defensiveness and oversensitivity on the issue, but it is certainly true that some religious people, particularly Christians in this culture, do make that claim. Mostly, those people make the claim automatically – something they’ve heard but haven’t thought out. Dostoyevsky’s comment without God all things are permitted is often trotted out.
As with most arguments generating more heat than light, each side is speaking of something different, hence shouting.
Insofar as people are claiming that atheists or other shades of non-religious people are incapable of being generous, or kind, or honest, they are simply fools. I can’t imagine what limited powers of observation would allow a person to come to such a conclusion.
If we state it another way, however, there is something to it. Put morality under pressure and it reveals itself as either religious or empty. I have to use a broad definition of “religious” to get to such an outrageous statement, but given that, I believe it holds.
Most human beings in civilized places are trained in a mild social morality, adequate for the day-to-day interactions of waiting one’s turn, not grabbing things off the shelves and stuffing them in your pockets, greeting others pleasantly. This minimum is so expected that we are significantly annoyed when rude drivers or arrogant pricks offend against it, even in small, unimportant things.
At the other extreme is morality under extreme pressure, when we are fearful, at risk of impoverishment – when consequences are dire; or complementarily, when reward is high and risk of being caught is low.
Most of morality takes place in the great in-between. Objectivists maintain that altruism is an illusion. We get something back for our good behavior, whether in terms of goodwill from others or warm feelings about ourselves. As a result, objectivists and similar Randian types are among the most contemptuous of religion. Whatever we say is a decision based on our moral code, they will counter is based in the selfishness of that return. We like ourselves better, or others like us better, or we believe we have contributed to some overall improvement in the world that we will benefit from.
It is worthwhile for our humility to contemplate the hidden benefits of our good acts, as it prevents us from taking too much credit for what special, high-minded folks we are. But I don’t see reason for any ultimate discouragement in the face of this. Objectivism can undermine our belief in the morality of many things, but not everything. Two fairly simple points – assistant village idiot sorts of points – bring it down.
Whatever value we might place on our opinion of ourselves, we can keep inventing scenarios, increasing the rewards, increasing the consequences, reducing the risk, until we come to a place where no rational actor would say he is getting adequate recompense for his moral behavior, and only a disputant childishly unwilling to face facts would persist. But these scenarios are not just hypotheticals. However high we set the bar, some human being – many human beings – have surpassed it. I may not have proved real altruism possible with my own life, but others have.
Second, we are all aware when we are more selfish. It stands to reason that we have moments of being less selfish. We may not ever show a perfection of unselfishness, but if there is worse, there must be better, and “better” thus has some real meaning.
As pressure increases, our reasons for doing good come under stress. Financial setbacks test our generosity. Isolation tests our choice of lifestyle. Oppression tests our kindness. A virtue that has not been tested is no virtue. What keeps us going? We rely at first on “being that sort of person.” Is that obedience to our need to feel good about ourselves, or obedience to something higher? Only pressure will reveal that. As character is increasingly tested, the payback for thinking well of ourselves, or having others think well of us tops out. Beyond that we need something more or there is just no reason to keep on keepin’ on.
The idea comes to us that we must continue to do well because it’s just Right. Why it is right may be rather vague to us, connected to some obscure order of the universe – the Tao, as CS Lewis wrote, taking the term from the Buddhist idea of the fitness of certain acts. We’re not quite sure why it would be wrong to be take something from a helpless person, even if we are hungry, even if we have no danger of being caught – but we know that it is wrong. Something in the universe itself would be wounded, or all of humankind would be diminished were we to do what we know is evil.
That’s a religion. It may not be well-articulated or understood. It may not have a specific deity in mind, or seem especially like the religions of the people around you. It doesn’t have any special foods, dances, or recitations associated with it; it needn’t have any systematic theology behind it. Or going in the other direction, it may have elaborate history and commentary among the learned, so that we think of it as a philosophy rather than a religion. The major philosophies on the market today cover an enormous amount of territory, and many strive mightily to not be a religion at all. They can explain most of what happens without regard to even a vague or vestigial religion. You can go through most of your day-to-day life without ever coming up against something that isn’t covered by these philosophies. There is usually no need to resort to a religious explanation.
I expect some internal protest from readers at this point. Most people believe that their animating philosophy of life covers all important items, and are quite sure that even if they have not thought it out or researched it fully (yet), that their particular belief does have an explanation for even difficult phenomena. All bases are covered. My challenge to that, well, evasion, however well–intended, is to momentarily sidestep the lengthy discussions of whether philosophy A does indeed cover all theoretical possibilities, and direct you back to your own life as you actually live it. Are some things just right? Are there acts which are simply evil even if the provocation is enormous? Are there places where all the earthly payback (not only gratitude from others but our own satisfaction at having upheld our honor) is never going to be enough - yet we feel that a person should do the right thing anyway?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)