There are many soft-liberals for precisely that reason. Because a soft-liberalism -- a vague and gauzy feel-goodery, a brainless parroting of "nice" sentiments, an adherence to political correctness -- causes you few if any problems in social situations or work. It gets you a little cheaply-earned assent and praise, because so many other people are apathetic and soft-liberal and are similarly disposed to agreeing with nonsense.You don't have time to read all 200 comments, but you might, you might. Ace has clever commenters, harsher than he is. Sample, in a sub-discussion about what should Newsweek do going forward: #16 "They should just rename it Barry! and be done with it."
And meanwhile, departing from that soft-liberal line takes not only work -- you have to read up a bit on the conventional wisdom if you wish to dispute it, while it takes no reading at all to merely repeat the conventional wisdom -- but exposes you to social penalties, too. No one has to really "choose" to be a soft-liberal; it's the default setting, as it were, the industry standard for people who really don't care all that much.
Choosing to be a communist is Decision. And, similarly, choosing to be a conservative is a Decision. Choosing to be a strident, partisan liberal ideologue is also a decision (but an easier one, too, because it's only a few degrees removed from soft-liberal feel-goodery).
But choosing to be a soft-liberal and mouth empty platitudes? Easy as pie, and not one in 20 people is going to bother challenging you on those platitudes.
Saturday, May 08, 2010
Why Newsweek Failed
Ace of Spades celebrates the collapse of Newsweek in a long but enjoyable essay. I have certainly complained about it here, especially in my Cultural Tribes comments. AoS is harsher, and thus more entertaining than I am.
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Unclear Battlespace
I have verged on this idea previously, but it never came quite clear to me until this morning. Many of our most heated Left-Right battles are actually Communitarian-Libertarian questions. Nothing new there, but there is a kicker that tells me that the questions are essentially unresolvable unless they are reframed. As a society and as individuals, we assent to both communitarian and libertarian values, and we want it both ways.
Libertarian organizations are fond of a quick two-axis political test which purports to illustrate the interaction of these scales, giving examples of famous political figures and where they stand on the left-right and statist-individual scales taken together. There is a bit of a bias in word-choice there, using “statist” instead of something more attractive-sounding, but the test is good as far as it goes. It at least opens up the idea that there is an extra dimension to our political categories.
Here’s where it goes wrong. Many people do not fall along a continuum of communitarian-libertarian (for brevity, C-L), as the scale would suggest. They have completely independent pockets. This blows up the scale.
All this by way of introduction.
L’s want individual rights enforced by government. C’s want community norms enforced by government. To insist that each society should be able to define marriage as it chooses, or where life begins as it chooses, is a communitarian argument. The battle is fought along the entirely libertarian field of individual rights, but I think that both sides consider the communitarian battle more important. The phrases “what does this say about us as a society?” and “what message does this send?” are dead giveaways that a C argument is being put forward.
Anti-abortion people speak in terms of the individual rights of the child, because that’s the only place it can come to enforcement, given our legal structures. Pro-choice people speak about the woman’s individual rights, because that’s the only place that they can get enforcement given our legal structures. But both sides care deeply – I wonder if much more deeply – about the communitarian side. What does this say about how we view women? Doesn’t it fit it with all that history of treating them as unimportant/unreliable decision-makers? Versus: What does this say about the compassion of a society that won’t protect the weak? Doesn’t it say that we are selfish and uncaring?
Similarly, on gay marriage. It is fought out on the grounds of individual rights to marry and individual rights to not accept that. But even a rapid increase in rights of civil unions, domestic partnerships, and marriage – the issue was not even on the radar twenty-five years ago – has not proved satisfying to gay-rights advocates. They want the culture to accept them, not just the law. And opponents want the culture to be able to at least roughly define sexual mores.
Building a wall along the Mexican border – the questions what message does this send to Hispanics versus what message does this send to lawbreakers arise almost immediately in any discussion. (To see how close I came to understanding this 4 years ago, see my humorous take on this here.) Not law, but message, as if the culture itself were a human character communicating with other groups. Foreign policy questions quickly turn on whether we should send a message that we wish to be friends versus a message of we will not be trifled with. Gitmo discussions move rapidly from questions of individual rights to guessing what message other countries will receive about us. Sex education. Drug legalization. Welfare reform. Availability of health care. What message we shall send is what we really care about – but we disagree about it. Therefore we contest in the unclear battlespace of individual rights.
We all want it both ways on law versus custom; and none of us can have it, so we continue to fight on grounds we don’t prefer. When we agree on the C of something, we have usually worked out the L a long time ago. When we disagree, we fight about the L. And we will never resolve it – not because we are stupid, but because the thing is necessarily impossible – until we resolve the C.
A culture war tactic is to get something passed into law, to at least get one side to shut up until, over time, that side changes its cultural view. There is the hope that custom will eventually follow law if given enough time. Maybe so. There seems to be some success on that with racial relations. But regarding abortion, the cultural division seems to be greater now. (My own speculation is that people were disapproving, but not very exercised about abortions taking place when they knew there was no official message of approval being sent. The other side of that was women feeling that the message being sent to them – that we will allow this tacitly but still call you bad - was unfair.)
The more traditional method is that law eventually follows custom – smoking marijuana is a good example. Yet this is also unreliable, as some practices become unremarkable but remain technically illegal and occasionally enforced.
We sometimes regard culture warriors as being difficult people who get everyone stirred up and arguing when we could have gotten along just fine if people would just pipe down a bit. Culture warriors who are always relating individual political and legal disputes back to the C-battles are often regarded that way in comments threads. We sigh, and wish they hadn’t brought it up, so that we could go on with our more precise legal or political question. We are hoping, in those cases, that the tactic of custom eventually following law will work.
But it’s not likely to. Culture has no way to fight back against individual rights in our legal system. Disapprovals and social sanctions are all that can be mustered. The libertarian approach is the enemy of retention of culture – it is necessarily so. (Further discussion of this, including the fondness for individual rights being itself a part of our culture, are in this recent post.) At each specific point, we see the advantage of granting the individual right. But in the aggregate, we believe that if we have no culture, if we are not part of some larger social entity, individual rights matter little. Few of us want to live isolated, able to do as we please but without boon-companions. And voluntary association with the like-minded, not only allowed but encouraged under L-thought, has not yet proved to be enough social identity for most people. We want a shared culture.
Libertarian organizations are fond of a quick two-axis political test which purports to illustrate the interaction of these scales, giving examples of famous political figures and where they stand on the left-right and statist-individual scales taken together. There is a bit of a bias in word-choice there, using “statist” instead of something more attractive-sounding, but the test is good as far as it goes. It at least opens up the idea that there is an extra dimension to our political categories.
Here’s where it goes wrong. Many people do not fall along a continuum of communitarian-libertarian (for brevity, C-L), as the scale would suggest. They have completely independent pockets. This blows up the scale.
All this by way of introduction.
L’s want individual rights enforced by government. C’s want community norms enforced by government. To insist that each society should be able to define marriage as it chooses, or where life begins as it chooses, is a communitarian argument. The battle is fought along the entirely libertarian field of individual rights, but I think that both sides consider the communitarian battle more important. The phrases “what does this say about us as a society?” and “what message does this send?” are dead giveaways that a C argument is being put forward.
Anti-abortion people speak in terms of the individual rights of the child, because that’s the only place it can come to enforcement, given our legal structures. Pro-choice people speak about the woman’s individual rights, because that’s the only place that they can get enforcement given our legal structures. But both sides care deeply – I wonder if much more deeply – about the communitarian side. What does this say about how we view women? Doesn’t it fit it with all that history of treating them as unimportant/unreliable decision-makers? Versus: What does this say about the compassion of a society that won’t protect the weak? Doesn’t it say that we are selfish and uncaring?
Similarly, on gay marriage. It is fought out on the grounds of individual rights to marry and individual rights to not accept that. But even a rapid increase in rights of civil unions, domestic partnerships, and marriage – the issue was not even on the radar twenty-five years ago – has not proved satisfying to gay-rights advocates. They want the culture to accept them, not just the law. And opponents want the culture to be able to at least roughly define sexual mores.
Building a wall along the Mexican border – the questions what message does this send to Hispanics versus what message does this send to lawbreakers arise almost immediately in any discussion. (To see how close I came to understanding this 4 years ago, see my humorous take on this here.) Not law, but message, as if the culture itself were a human character communicating with other groups. Foreign policy questions quickly turn on whether we should send a message that we wish to be friends versus a message of we will not be trifled with. Gitmo discussions move rapidly from questions of individual rights to guessing what message other countries will receive about us. Sex education. Drug legalization. Welfare reform. Availability of health care. What message we shall send is what we really care about – but we disagree about it. Therefore we contest in the unclear battlespace of individual rights.
We all want it both ways on law versus custom; and none of us can have it, so we continue to fight on grounds we don’t prefer. When we agree on the C of something, we have usually worked out the L a long time ago. When we disagree, we fight about the L. And we will never resolve it – not because we are stupid, but because the thing is necessarily impossible – until we resolve the C.
A culture war tactic is to get something passed into law, to at least get one side to shut up until, over time, that side changes its cultural view. There is the hope that custom will eventually follow law if given enough time. Maybe so. There seems to be some success on that with racial relations. But regarding abortion, the cultural division seems to be greater now. (My own speculation is that people were disapproving, but not very exercised about abortions taking place when they knew there was no official message of approval being sent. The other side of that was women feeling that the message being sent to them – that we will allow this tacitly but still call you bad - was unfair.)
The more traditional method is that law eventually follows custom – smoking marijuana is a good example. Yet this is also unreliable, as some practices become unremarkable but remain technically illegal and occasionally enforced.
We sometimes regard culture warriors as being difficult people who get everyone stirred up and arguing when we could have gotten along just fine if people would just pipe down a bit. Culture warriors who are always relating individual political and legal disputes back to the C-battles are often regarded that way in comments threads. We sigh, and wish they hadn’t brought it up, so that we could go on with our more precise legal or political question. We are hoping, in those cases, that the tactic of custom eventually following law will work.
But it’s not likely to. Culture has no way to fight back against individual rights in our legal system. Disapprovals and social sanctions are all that can be mustered. The libertarian approach is the enemy of retention of culture – it is necessarily so. (Further discussion of this, including the fondness for individual rights being itself a part of our culture, are in this recent post.) At each specific point, we see the advantage of granting the individual right. But in the aggregate, we believe that if we have no culture, if we are not part of some larger social entity, individual rights matter little. Few of us want to live isolated, able to do as we please but without boon-companions. And voluntary association with the like-minded, not only allowed but encouraged under L-thought, has not yet proved to be enough social identity for most people. We want a shared culture.
Bureaucratese of the Day
"Cost-allocate out to the appropriate funding streams." It took me a minute to figure out. It means to bill the right agency.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
John Waters on the Pope
The Anchoress over at First Things linked to this article about the Roman Catholic Church moving beyond its scandals. It focuses on the Irish writer John Waters and his observations on the papacy and the current pope.
“They’ll tell you ‘Oh, I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual.’ Now, I want to get people thinking, to ask if they see themselves as they really are, to see life as something extraordinary, to ask why we are here and where we are going.”It's been that way for years. I remember as far back as the election of John Paul II in the 1970's that all the news anchors seemed to be able to talk about was whether he was going to change the RC Church's stand on abortion and the ordination of women. In all the run-up, discussion, and analysis, no one seemed the least interested in what he had to say about truth, the importance of the family, or relationship with Christ.
He’s not doing this at any easy time: “When you are invited on to a radio programme, all they want to talk about is sex abuse,” he said. And the Pope – whose writings on beauty, truth, on the nature of man, on Christ, he finds absolutely gripping and of huge importance – is caught up in a drama where no one really listens to what he has to say or takes any notice when it is explained to them.
“They’ll just repeat what they are told – that the Pope insulted Muslims or whatever, and they don’t want to know any more."
It is because they do not understand these things and have no interest in them, except as they fit into their own previously-held opinions.
Libertarianism, Communitarianism, and Culture
Update below:
No group, local or national, can define itself in the presence of libertariansim. This is its great strength and weakness. We cannot define for ourselves what marriage is, or when life begins, or celebrate commonly-held virtues as if they are universals. If you and your like-minded pals decide to go off and have it your own way in an area, the next people who move in don't have to go along. Often, they can even legally force things out of the culture they have just entered. Yet in a country with individual rights of great importance, no one can forbid them from moving in. Similarly, those who grow up in a culture but decide they no longer like parts of it don't have to move, they can force change upon the others.
There's a lot of good in this. Local and national cultures have often been founded on some pretty unattractive and damaging ideas, majority ideas forced on minorities. The southern states resented the federal government changing their culture as regards black people, both in the 1860's and the 1960's. We now consider disallowing of that local culture to be a good thing. We remain more resentful of the religious aspects of our national history being removed from any government sponsored istitution. This shows up especially at Christmas, where a remembered tradition of Christmas carols at school events and nativity scenes on public property are now forbidden. Interestingly, those very items were a force for tolerance in the eras that were still divisively ethnic but generally Christian. Those carols and creches were a point of unity among Poles, Italians, blacks, Lebanese, and founding British culture. We have many differences but we have much in common. It created the kind of cultural unity that communitarians now approve of.
But it left out the Jews and was an implied slap. It left out the nonbelievers, who resented having to fork over tax money for this. Those were able to force - and I think rightly - cessation of "community" expressions that didn't express everyone in the community. Excluding them from the culture (and making them pay for the honor), was deemed to be an infringement of their individual rights.
I think it was right. I don't see any fair way around it. But the cost was enormous. The whole idea of an American culture weakens.
It is not replaced by anything. A tradition of individuality can certainly be a cultural distinctive, but only the few - those who most desire to be separate - consider it to be the entirety of their culture. To step outside ourselves and look at this from a perspective we know but do not share, consider the Brits. The soldier in WWII was not fighting for empire, whatever accusation were leveled at him by those who prefer the dark side. He was fighting for cups of tea, and songs known in common. There were great overlapping ideas of what the culture back home was all about. That no two soldiers had precisely the same definition did not change the fact that there was a strongly-shared culture worth dying for.
There have always been competing versions of what American culture is made of, with each group considering its experience to be the heart of America. Those who grew up in the large cities point to the mixing of groups; those who went to the various frontiers of our history consider self-reliance and remaking oneself as the American distinctive; country music has its own vision of what being an American is, a vision founded in a region but recognised as similar by many other regions. We had shared entertainments, though everyone opted out of some and had specializations. Somehow we had a balance between those ideas and had an American culture we felt we agreed on. It was tied together by a civil religion that owed a great deal to Christianity and a trading attitude that owed a great deal to Adam Smith. All were free to sell or by. All were free to worship as they chose. This was part of how we defined ourselves.
But worship just a bit farther afield, atomizing entertainments, and a free market less free, have caused us to seek redefinitions.
Let me step back from that - it's oversimple. National unity was founded on a dozen other factors that are less true now. I don't wish to limit the list.
Culture always changes, and people have always seemed to adjust, so perhaps there is no real worry here, just uncertainty. The communitarians certainly believe we can forge a new culture based on ideas that are outgrowths of the old ones. But their vision for all of us sounds suspiciously like their own current culture, to the exclusion of other groups. It's one more version of "well, we all believe this, right?" when we don't.
An example, not to prove a point but simply to illustrate. When someone says they are a Red Sox fan, they may not quite mean what another fan means. Yet we have some idea what they mean - there are overlapping definitions. A high-minded person who comes up and says "But to be a true Red Sox fan you should care more about the good of the game of baseball itself than your individual team." We suspiciously grant some sense in that. If baseball is ruined, the Red Sox will not be far behind, so yes, we should care more deeply about the noble enterprise of baseball itself.
But why stop there? The next person, even more high-minded, will declare that the true fan wants Sport to be a healthy enterprise, a force for unity and uplift rather than a cultural drag. Hmm, perhaps. Then follows another. The True Fan, she says, should care about all our entertainments and enthusiasms and how they affect our youth and our future. The one after that thinks we should not merely limit ourselves to entertainments, but to all the pieces of culture, that they be forces for good and not evil. But why stop at America, says the next higher-minded person. Shouldn't all of our actions be directed toward the highest good of all people? Political and religious questions begin to infiltrate.
These all may be fine things, far more worthy than following a local team. But notice, we have made the phrase "Red Sox fan," which had some cultural value we could all relate to (even if in disapproval), completely meaningless. The True Fan idea turns out add nothing to the shared culture. It becomes merely another synonym for one's philosophical outlook. CS Lewis noted that this had happened to the words gentleman and Christian. That latter is less true in a culture where a shared Christianity can no longer be assumed. It is no longer a word of vague, general approval, as it did in my youth. It retains some of that, but is returning to some specificity.
Akafred sent this link from Christianity Today International Leadership Journal: Ed Reed's The End of Wanderlust. An interesting counterpoint to the above.
No group, local or national, can define itself in the presence of libertariansim. This is its great strength and weakness. We cannot define for ourselves what marriage is, or when life begins, or celebrate commonly-held virtues as if they are universals. If you and your like-minded pals decide to go off and have it your own way in an area, the next people who move in don't have to go along. Often, they can even legally force things out of the culture they have just entered. Yet in a country with individual rights of great importance, no one can forbid them from moving in. Similarly, those who grow up in a culture but decide they no longer like parts of it don't have to move, they can force change upon the others.
There's a lot of good in this. Local and national cultures have often been founded on some pretty unattractive and damaging ideas, majority ideas forced on minorities. The southern states resented the federal government changing their culture as regards black people, both in the 1860's and the 1960's. We now consider disallowing of that local culture to be a good thing. We remain more resentful of the religious aspects of our national history being removed from any government sponsored istitution. This shows up especially at Christmas, where a remembered tradition of Christmas carols at school events and nativity scenes on public property are now forbidden. Interestingly, those very items were a force for tolerance in the eras that were still divisively ethnic but generally Christian. Those carols and creches were a point of unity among Poles, Italians, blacks, Lebanese, and founding British culture. We have many differences but we have much in common. It created the kind of cultural unity that communitarians now approve of.
But it left out the Jews and was an implied slap. It left out the nonbelievers, who resented having to fork over tax money for this. Those were able to force - and I think rightly - cessation of "community" expressions that didn't express everyone in the community. Excluding them from the culture (and making them pay for the honor), was deemed to be an infringement of their individual rights.
I think it was right. I don't see any fair way around it. But the cost was enormous. The whole idea of an American culture weakens.
It is not replaced by anything. A tradition of individuality can certainly be a cultural distinctive, but only the few - those who most desire to be separate - consider it to be the entirety of their culture. To step outside ourselves and look at this from a perspective we know but do not share, consider the Brits. The soldier in WWII was not fighting for empire, whatever accusation were leveled at him by those who prefer the dark side. He was fighting for cups of tea, and songs known in common. There were great overlapping ideas of what the culture back home was all about. That no two soldiers had precisely the same definition did not change the fact that there was a strongly-shared culture worth dying for.
There have always been competing versions of what American culture is made of, with each group considering its experience to be the heart of America. Those who grew up in the large cities point to the mixing of groups; those who went to the various frontiers of our history consider self-reliance and remaking oneself as the American distinctive; country music has its own vision of what being an American is, a vision founded in a region but recognised as similar by many other regions. We had shared entertainments, though everyone opted out of some and had specializations. Somehow we had a balance between those ideas and had an American culture we felt we agreed on. It was tied together by a civil religion that owed a great deal to Christianity and a trading attitude that owed a great deal to Adam Smith. All were free to sell or by. All were free to worship as they chose. This was part of how we defined ourselves.
But worship just a bit farther afield, atomizing entertainments, and a free market less free, have caused us to seek redefinitions.
Let me step back from that - it's oversimple. National unity was founded on a dozen other factors that are less true now. I don't wish to limit the list.
Culture always changes, and people have always seemed to adjust, so perhaps there is no real worry here, just uncertainty. The communitarians certainly believe we can forge a new culture based on ideas that are outgrowths of the old ones. But their vision for all of us sounds suspiciously like their own current culture, to the exclusion of other groups. It's one more version of "well, we all believe this, right?" when we don't.
An example, not to prove a point but simply to illustrate. When someone says they are a Red Sox fan, they may not quite mean what another fan means. Yet we have some idea what they mean - there are overlapping definitions. A high-minded person who comes up and says "But to be a true Red Sox fan you should care more about the good of the game of baseball itself than your individual team." We suspiciously grant some sense in that. If baseball is ruined, the Red Sox will not be far behind, so yes, we should care more deeply about the noble enterprise of baseball itself.
But why stop there? The next person, even more high-minded, will declare that the true fan wants Sport to be a healthy enterprise, a force for unity and uplift rather than a cultural drag. Hmm, perhaps. Then follows another. The True Fan, she says, should care about all our entertainments and enthusiasms and how they affect our youth and our future. The one after that thinks we should not merely limit ourselves to entertainments, but to all the pieces of culture, that they be forces for good and not evil. But why stop at America, says the next higher-minded person. Shouldn't all of our actions be directed toward the highest good of all people? Political and religious questions begin to infiltrate.
These all may be fine things, far more worthy than following a local team. But notice, we have made the phrase "Red Sox fan," which had some cultural value we could all relate to (even if in disapproval), completely meaningless. The True Fan idea turns out add nothing to the shared culture. It becomes merely another synonym for one's philosophical outlook. CS Lewis noted that this had happened to the words gentleman and Christian. That latter is less true in a culture where a shared Christianity can no longer be assumed. It is no longer a word of vague, general approval, as it did in my youth. It retains some of that, but is returning to some specificity.
Akafred sent this link from Christianity Today International Leadership Journal: Ed Reed's The End of Wanderlust. An interesting counterpoint to the above.
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
The Axe of the Opossums
Family devotions in our household were a strange affair. We tried to mix it up with nonstandard evangelical devotions, such as driving up the mountain to pray over the city, skits, or wild dances. I recollected today a particular low point - low for me, that is. It was a high point for the children. We did Bible charades, and Dad had to act this one out. "Axe" was fairly straightforward, but "opossums" took some time, and the boys were in rolling hysterics over Dad miming three syllables...Tails, hanging by...small animal...furry animal. I was wild-eyed and furious by the end, certain that my stupid children were simply not THINKING. The AXE of the OPOSSUMS (dammit!). They were too busy laughing.
I concluded a few days later that they must have actually guessed it but found sending their father into a frenzy worth playing dumb for.
I am absolutely certain of that now.
I concluded a few days later that they must have actually guessed it but found sending their father into a frenzy worth playing dumb for.
I am absolutely certain of that now.
Change Is Difficult
At work, whenever we start hearing that "change is difficult," I know we are cooked. Perhaps we just do it more in human services, where everyone is into process, involving all the stakeholders, and being an agent of change. Yet I suspect this phenomenon is not unknown to the rest of you.
It's an evasion. Those who are insisting on the change do this to take the focus off whether this is a good idea or not. If people aren't happy or it doesn't work, it is because change is difficult, not because it was a pumpkinheaded decision. The problem is no longer the change itself, but the people who have to do the changing. It sounds so understanding and sympathetic to take those po' folk into account, and all the frustration they experience because Change Is Difficult.
This is always accompanied by a series of meetings beforehand getting "input," moving on to discussions of "coping" with change, and after instituted, followup with everyone to see how the change is "affecting" them. Through all this charade, no one ever says "is this a good change or a bad change?"
I don't mind the change, it's the charade that bothers me. If the new boss is determined that everyone is going to stop making their calls left-handed and will now make them right-handed, fine. Stupid, but the least of my worries. Changing what I do - I'm sorry, dealing with the change - will take a few minutes. Having to repeatedly meet to discuss it over months not only wastes my time, it annoys me.
We had a survey sent out in April '09 asking how we thought process x should be changed. Among the suggestions were A, A1, and A2. People suggested B and C. People suggested no change at all. Significant problems with all the A solutions were noted. In September, we started having meetings about changing the process, and didn't everyone think some version of A was a good idea? All the budget brouhaha put a hold on it, but here we are again, with work groups being formed in March to decide what the change would be, first meetings in April to "brainstorm" ideas, then suggestions today that the eventual solution was going to look something like A.
Please. I don't mind not getting to make the decision. I mind being patronised by being told that my opinion matters when it doesn't.
It's an evasion. Those who are insisting on the change do this to take the focus off whether this is a good idea or not. If people aren't happy or it doesn't work, it is because change is difficult, not because it was a pumpkinheaded decision. The problem is no longer the change itself, but the people who have to do the changing. It sounds so understanding and sympathetic to take those po' folk into account, and all the frustration they experience because Change Is Difficult.
This is always accompanied by a series of meetings beforehand getting "input," moving on to discussions of "coping" with change, and after instituted, followup with everyone to see how the change is "affecting" them. Through all this charade, no one ever says "is this a good change or a bad change?"
I don't mind the change, it's the charade that bothers me. If the new boss is determined that everyone is going to stop making their calls left-handed and will now make them right-handed, fine. Stupid, but the least of my worries. Changing what I do - I'm sorry, dealing with the change - will take a few minutes. Having to repeatedly meet to discuss it over months not only wastes my time, it annoys me.
We had a survey sent out in April '09 asking how we thought process x should be changed. Among the suggestions were A, A1, and A2. People suggested B and C. People suggested no change at all. Significant problems with all the A solutions were noted. In September, we started having meetings about changing the process, and didn't everyone think some version of A was a good idea? All the budget brouhaha put a hold on it, but here we are again, with work groups being formed in March to decide what the change would be, first meetings in April to "brainstorm" ideas, then suggestions today that the eventual solution was going to look something like A.
Please. I don't mind not getting to make the decision. I mind being patronised by being told that my opinion matters when it doesn't.
Resentments
I posted recently on the Palestinian narrative of events, virtually unchanged from 1961 to the present, and its catalogue of resentments.
Yesterday I spoke with a patient who had a list in the same style: he had agreed to come out of the house voluntarily…he had told the police where the guns were hidden…he had agreed to start outpatient treatment Monday morning…he hadn’t done anything to hurt himself…
All of these statements were true in some sense. The problem with them was the information left out of the narrative. He had left the house voluntarily after an hour of standoff with the police. He had said he would go to treatment and then gotten evasive about it. He had threatened suicide several times in the past day, though he hadn’t done anything. But there was no breaking through into his tight circle of reasoning - he kept going angrily round and round, complaining that no one was listening to him.
In pop psychology they used to refer to “tapes” running in your head, though that was often more in the sense of old information you had originally acquired from others spinning endlessly. But the resentments above are more like vinyl records that have been scratched: grooves are skipped, the same grooves at every playing, wearing deeper and deeper into the material. Other metaphors are a gravitational model of a black hole that draws everything into it. Vivid, but I don’t think accurate.
But it is not only resentment that operates this way, but many other emotions as well – and not just for pathological people, but for all human beings.
Let me hesitate over that. I see it happening in groups outside myself, I see it happening in individuals outside myself, and I find it within myself as well. From this I concluded that it is a human universal. That may not be so. I may think more like a pathological person than a normal person; it may only occur in some percentage of the normal population; I might be equating two different mechanisms, etc. But I suspect I got it right the first time. This is how resentment works, as well as depression, affection, and joy. Emotions collect events from memory. When you experience emotion x, all the other times you experienced x are potentiated in memory. They light up, so to speak, so that the events associated are in the first harvest of memory.
The other events in memory, though they may be naturally associated by time or subject matter, don’t light up. They exist on the skipped grooves. Bringing those associated resentments to mind is self-reinforcing; they light up even hotter next time. Eventually, as the George MacDonald character explained in Lewis’s The Great Divorce, one ceases to be a person grumbling and becomes only a grumble, going on of its own accord endlessly.
One corrective is to stand outside oneself and look specifically for data that might be missing. This is where the word “confession” keeps its usual meaning only by invoking the older meaning. We see what is true and declare the truth about ourselves. Confession is not merely apologizing, it is self-honesty.
Yesterday I spoke with a patient who had a list in the same style: he had agreed to come out of the house voluntarily…he had told the police where the guns were hidden…he had agreed to start outpatient treatment Monday morning…he hadn’t done anything to hurt himself…
All of these statements were true in some sense. The problem with them was the information left out of the narrative. He had left the house voluntarily after an hour of standoff with the police. He had said he would go to treatment and then gotten evasive about it. He had threatened suicide several times in the past day, though he hadn’t done anything. But there was no breaking through into his tight circle of reasoning - he kept going angrily round and round, complaining that no one was listening to him.
In pop psychology they used to refer to “tapes” running in your head, though that was often more in the sense of old information you had originally acquired from others spinning endlessly. But the resentments above are more like vinyl records that have been scratched: grooves are skipped, the same grooves at every playing, wearing deeper and deeper into the material. Other metaphors are a gravitational model of a black hole that draws everything into it. Vivid, but I don’t think accurate.
But it is not only resentment that operates this way, but many other emotions as well – and not just for pathological people, but for all human beings.
Let me hesitate over that. I see it happening in groups outside myself, I see it happening in individuals outside myself, and I find it within myself as well. From this I concluded that it is a human universal. That may not be so. I may think more like a pathological person than a normal person; it may only occur in some percentage of the normal population; I might be equating two different mechanisms, etc. But I suspect I got it right the first time. This is how resentment works, as well as depression, affection, and joy. Emotions collect events from memory. When you experience emotion x, all the other times you experienced x are potentiated in memory. They light up, so to speak, so that the events associated are in the first harvest of memory.
The other events in memory, though they may be naturally associated by time or subject matter, don’t light up. They exist on the skipped grooves. Bringing those associated resentments to mind is self-reinforcing; they light up even hotter next time. Eventually, as the George MacDonald character explained in Lewis’s The Great Divorce, one ceases to be a person grumbling and becomes only a grumble, going on of its own accord endlessly.
One corrective is to stand outside oneself and look specifically for data that might be missing. This is where the word “confession” keeps its usual meaning only by invoking the older meaning. We see what is true and declare the truth about ourselves. Confession is not merely apologizing, it is self-honesty.
Monday, May 03, 2010
19
19 Assists. I was worried after watching the Celtics uanable to make adjustments in the 2nd half in the first game, eventually reduced to taking low-percentage 3's (started off on that by Rasheed Wallace, of course). But this was comforting.
And heck, I'm even a hockey fan for the time being. It beats following the Red Sox, who are still under .500. OTOH, the Patriots have drafted a punter from Romania, Zoltan Mesko. Your team always needs a guy named Zoltan, whatever sport you're in.
And heck, I'm even a hockey fan for the time being. It beats following the Red Sox, who are still under .500. OTOH, the Patriots have drafted a punter from Romania, Zoltan Mesko. Your team always needs a guy named Zoltan, whatever sport you're in.
Sunday, May 02, 2010
Sinatras
These videos are amazingly typical of the 60's. But being so overwhelmingly representative of an era, with all the humor that attaches to that, causes us to overlook the voice. It's a very pretty voice. Frank was known for his ability to interpret a song and impose a style on it. Nancy seems to have gotten none of that. But the limited range of "Boots," "Jackson," and "Something Stupid" - her bigger hits - fool us into thinking she really couldn't sing. The cool people rather looked down on her as some party-crasher during the British Invasion. (I mean, her hair wasn't even completely straight, so you know that she didn't quite get it as to coolness.) I scoffed, because who knows more about cool than a fourteen-year-old, right?
Nice alto voice. Not dramatic or moving, but better than she was given credit for. Just one more place I was wrong. Stick around for the choreography on this next one, completely at odds with the tone of the song or it's purpose in "Oliver.". Such crazy injections of that "opening at the Copa!" style into anything on TV were going on at the same time as Jefferson Airplane and all those significant folksingers were coming along, so you might get some idea how a 60's music culture war playing out in the strangest ways.
These dancers trying to work together on a number with Jefferson Airplane. Now that would have been even weirder. To the big-time arrangers and producers in the 60's This is how it's done. What do those kids know?
The conflict - with a clear indication of who won - was never summarised better than here.
Nice alto voice. Not dramatic or moving, but better than she was given credit for. Just one more place I was wrong. Stick around for the choreography on this next one, completely at odds with the tone of the song or it's purpose in "Oliver.". Such crazy injections of that "opening at the Copa!" style into anything on TV were going on at the same time as Jefferson Airplane and all those significant folksingers were coming along, so you might get some idea how a 60's music culture war playing out in the strangest ways.
These dancers trying to work together on a number with Jefferson Airplane. Now that would have been even weirder. To the big-time arrangers and producers in the 60's This is how it's done. What do those kids know?
The conflict - with a clear indication of who won - was never summarised better than here.
Gringo's Link
In the extended Israel-Palestine discussion, which I imagine not all of you could endure, Gringo linked to an Atlantic Magazine article from 1961.
ACCORDING to Arab politicians and apologists, this is what happened, this is the authentic view, these are the facts. Doubt is treasonous. There can be only one truth, according to Arab politicians and apologists, and it belongs to them:
In 1948, war took place between five Arab nations of the Middle East and the Jews in Palestine. This war was caused by the United Nations, whose General Assembly resolved to partition Palestine into two states, one for the Palestinian Arabs, the other for the Jews. The Arab nations and the Palestinian Arabs would not accept this monstrous decision. They were obliged to protect themselves against it, with force. The United Nations operated as the tool of the Western Imperialists, notably Great Britain and the United States. The United Nations wanted the Jews to proclaim the upstart state of Israel. Because of the Western Imperialists, who favored Israel, the Arabs lost the war. By massacre, threatening broadcasts, pointed bayonets, and the murderous siege of cities, the Jews drove hundreds of thousands of Arabs out of their homeland. For thirteen years, these Arab refugees have languished in misery around the borders of Israel. The United Nations (Western branch) bears the blame for these events and must repair the damage. The condition of the refugees is a sore on the conscience of honorable men. The Israeli government refuses to welcome back to their homeland the refugees, now swollen to more than a million in number. This refusal demonstrates the brutality and dishonesty of Israel, an abnormal nation of aliens who not only forced innocent people into exile but also stole their property. There is no solution to this injustice, the greatest the world has ever seen, except to repatriate all Palestinian refugees in Palestine. Palestine is an Arab country, now infamously called Israel. Israel has no right to exist, and the Arab nations will not sign peace treaties with it but will, by every means possible, maintain the state of war.
I think I have secretly wondered most of my life Does anyone actually believe this story, or is it just maintained officially in hopes of achieving political advantage? I believe I suspected the latter was true at least among the leaders. I now doubt that strongly. The context here is that in 1961, all readers of Atlantic knew this narrative was bizarrely inaccurate. They had observed many of the events in the daily news themselves. They were not history, but memory, even if few people necessarilly paid close attention throughout. Note also, that this same narrative, virtually unchanged now, predates 1967 and 1973.
ACCORDING to Arab politicians and apologists, this is what happened, this is the authentic view, these are the facts. Doubt is treasonous. There can be only one truth, according to Arab politicians and apologists, and it belongs to them:
In 1948, war took place between five Arab nations of the Middle East and the Jews in Palestine. This war was caused by the United Nations, whose General Assembly resolved to partition Palestine into two states, one for the Palestinian Arabs, the other for the Jews. The Arab nations and the Palestinian Arabs would not accept this monstrous decision. They were obliged to protect themselves against it, with force. The United Nations operated as the tool of the Western Imperialists, notably Great Britain and the United States. The United Nations wanted the Jews to proclaim the upstart state of Israel. Because of the Western Imperialists, who favored Israel, the Arabs lost the war. By massacre, threatening broadcasts, pointed bayonets, and the murderous siege of cities, the Jews drove hundreds of thousands of Arabs out of their homeland. For thirteen years, these Arab refugees have languished in misery around the borders of Israel. The United Nations (Western branch) bears the blame for these events and must repair the damage. The condition of the refugees is a sore on the conscience of honorable men. The Israeli government refuses to welcome back to their homeland the refugees, now swollen to more than a million in number. This refusal demonstrates the brutality and dishonesty of Israel, an abnormal nation of aliens who not only forced innocent people into exile but also stole their property. There is no solution to this injustice, the greatest the world has ever seen, except to repatriate all Palestinian refugees in Palestine. Palestine is an Arab country, now infamously called Israel. Israel has no right to exist, and the Arab nations will not sign peace treaties with it but will, by every means possible, maintain the state of war.
I think I have secretly wondered most of my life Does anyone actually believe this story, or is it just maintained officially in hopes of achieving political advantage? I believe I suspected the latter was true at least among the leaders. I now doubt that strongly. The context here is that in 1961, all readers of Atlantic knew this narrative was bizarrely inaccurate. They had observed many of the events in the daily news themselves. They were not history, but memory, even if few people necessarilly paid close attention throughout. Note also, that this same narrative, virtually unchanged now, predates 1967 and 1973.
GPS God
I prefer maps. I find them fun. I have had notable difficulties from relying on maps, but others have had notable difficulties with imperfect GPS technology as well. I'm not here to argue which method is better.
But in matters of faith and obedience, our God seems to be much more a GPS God than a map God. We want to see where we're going, know in advance what to expect, estimate how long it's going to take. Yet God says "Continue on seven-point-five miles." "Turn left in 200 yards."
And when we disobey or otherwise screw up, he says "Recalculating route." I think we can get some free-will/predetermination understanding out of that.
But in matters of faith and obedience, our God seems to be much more a GPS God than a map God. We want to see where we're going, know in advance what to expect, estimate how long it's going to take. Yet God says "Continue on seven-point-five miles." "Turn left in 200 yards."
And when we disobey or otherwise screw up, he says "Recalculating route." I think we can get some free-will/predetermination understanding out of that.
Adaptability
All good qualities have value in all places. Yet some situations and indeed entire cultures promote particular values for their own continuance. This is not always conscious - virtues are called forth because they work.
There are subcultures where beauty is the main virtue. Through most of human history being hard-working was a necessary virtue. In trading societies, calculation and negotiation were prized; isolated societies depend upon trustworthiness. Righteousness or piety overarches the virtues and keeps them in their proper order. This is one of the meanings of "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God..." Courage of various flavors are usually in need.
We have been in an era in which cleverness of many sorts is the quality most desired by individuals. We have some formal definitions of intelligenc, and we have learned to measure and quantify that, enough to argue about it all day. Mechanical intelligence, verbal intelligence, mathematical intelligence, social intelligence - we have needed them all in the last 200 years or so, far more than we had before. There has always been need for intelligence, of course, but frankly, we could get by with the few. With communication as lacking as it was until historically recent times, people weren't going to be able to implement knowledge from afar all that much anyway.
I think we have seen the peak of that, or are at least near it. If enhanced intelligence is in our not-to-distant future anyway, the traditional type of intelligence as knowledge-accumulation, while still valuable, will not have the primacy it does now. I think adaptability - the ability to change jobs and locations, the ability to rebound in the face of change rather that freezing up and insisting on an outmoded schema, the ability to change narratives - will grow in importance.
Adaptability is a sort of intelligence itself, certainly. Or at least, it depends on a certain minimum of traditional intellegence.
Interesting how this has played out in national politics. We have had presidential candidates and major figures who have a reputation for the old type of intelligence and those who were accused of lacking it. Ignore for a moment the purely political gamesmanship of all this, and whether those persons do or don't have that type of intelligence. The point is it's old - in terms of leadership it may never have been hugely important anyway - and tells us little about adaptability. The argument that people who have a lot of A will have a lot of B, or that B requires lots of A are both unpersuasive. If what we need is B, why not seek that directly and let the indirect effect of A be whatever it is? Additionally, we know from our own experience how inexactly A and B correlate. Not only do we see this in those others, who bring themselves to our attention by failing or succeeding unexpectedly - we see it in ourselves. We know internally from our own conflicts and behavior how loose the association is between Intelligence A and Adaptability B.
It is further interesting because of the culture war set off by who values A and who B.
Tom Maguire over at Neo's in a related context.
There are subcultures where beauty is the main virtue. Through most of human history being hard-working was a necessary virtue. In trading societies, calculation and negotiation were prized; isolated societies depend upon trustworthiness. Righteousness or piety overarches the virtues and keeps them in their proper order. This is one of the meanings of "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God..." Courage of various flavors are usually in need.
We have been in an era in which cleverness of many sorts is the quality most desired by individuals. We have some formal definitions of intelligenc, and we have learned to measure and quantify that, enough to argue about it all day. Mechanical intelligence, verbal intelligence, mathematical intelligence, social intelligence - we have needed them all in the last 200 years or so, far more than we had before. There has always been need for intelligence, of course, but frankly, we could get by with the few. With communication as lacking as it was until historically recent times, people weren't going to be able to implement knowledge from afar all that much anyway.
I think we have seen the peak of that, or are at least near it. If enhanced intelligence is in our not-to-distant future anyway, the traditional type of intelligence as knowledge-accumulation, while still valuable, will not have the primacy it does now. I think adaptability - the ability to change jobs and locations, the ability to rebound in the face of change rather that freezing up and insisting on an outmoded schema, the ability to change narratives - will grow in importance.
Adaptability is a sort of intelligence itself, certainly. Or at least, it depends on a certain minimum of traditional intellegence.
Interesting how this has played out in national politics. We have had presidential candidates and major figures who have a reputation for the old type of intelligence and those who were accused of lacking it. Ignore for a moment the purely political gamesmanship of all this, and whether those persons do or don't have that type of intelligence. The point is it's old - in terms of leadership it may never have been hugely important anyway - and tells us little about adaptability. The argument that people who have a lot of A will have a lot of B, or that B requires lots of A are both unpersuasive. If what we need is B, why not seek that directly and let the indirect effect of A be whatever it is? Additionally, we know from our own experience how inexactly A and B correlate. Not only do we see this in those others, who bring themselves to our attention by failing or succeeding unexpectedly - we see it in ourselves. We know internally from our own conflicts and behavior how loose the association is between Intelligence A and Adaptability B.
It is further interesting because of the culture war set off by who values A and who B.
Tom Maguire over at Neo's in a related context.
Imagine a race that is tall, athletic, handsome (the ladies are beautiful), brave, loyal, honest, energetic, hard-working, great at helping little old ladies across the street and saving kittens from trees, but ever so slightly below average in IQ tests. Who would consider that race to be inferior?
Time Square
Retriever lets me know she and her family were in Time Square last night. (With photos.) She mentioned that she had grown up in London during the IRA bomb scares.
Saturday, May 01, 2010
Train de Vie
I've never seen the movie, but I love Klezmer music, Roma music, Transylvania, and Holocaust escape stories, so this has got it all. The plot of Train of Life is contrived-heroic. Which is fine with me. These gypsies and Jews are escaping the Holocaust by disguising some of themselves as Nazis and sending a death train in the opposite direction - to Palestine.
The Roma women are a bit exaggerated - well there's a surprise in a movie - as that much cleavage and comfort with outsiders are both unlikely, but it's reasonably in culture. Gypsies consider the bottom half of the body unclean and so rigorously covered while the top half is clean, and so exposed rather freely. This has become less true in the 20th C. It is the law of Marime, purity. To Gadzo eyes they seem flaunting and immodest. Which of course no one making a movie they hope to distribute widely could pass up.
The Roma women are a bit exaggerated - well there's a surprise in a movie - as that much cleavage and comfort with outsiders are both unlikely, but it's reasonably in culture. Gypsies consider the bottom half of the body unclean and so rigorously covered while the top half is clean, and so exposed rather freely. This has become less true in the 20th C. It is the law of Marime, purity. To Gadzo eyes they seem flaunting and immodest. Which of course no one making a movie they hope to distribute widely could pass up.
Lacking Depth
I am even less deep a thinker than I was.
What depth of thought I have had is a byproduct of other characteristics of thinking. I can lay claim to some breadth, some quickness. I have had a certain obsessive quality which keeps me returning to a troubling idea. These aren't of major-league caliber, but "high minor league" might be fair.
But depth requires sustained attention, which has always been a weaker point. Philosophy and particle physics are subjects which cannot be understood in fifteen-minute turbocharged bursts. They require the sustained effort of entering into a vocabulary and mental framework and keeping other thoughts out. Perhaps once one has done the heavy lifting, those subjects may be continued with many short bursts throughout the day - I wouldn't know - but at least at the outset one must sign on for some effort. Writing fiction may require a similar intensity, and I did write a first draft of a 120,000 word novel in 23 days when I was 30, but that seems to have been a one-off event in my life. I endured one major rewrite over the next three months, but have been unable to do anything similar since. And even that may not be entirely similar to deep thinking.
Now I have fallen off from even that level, it seems. I have read half of Michael Novak's No One Sees God and liked it very much until about thirty pages ago. Since then it has been a grind, and I don't think that is Novak's failing, but mine. He has finished the part where he makes short work of the reasoning of the New Atheisits, and I rolled right along with him there. Now he is attempting to answer a less-hostile atheist, Heather MacDonald, and goes into some pretty close reasoning to do so. He starts by describing a philosophical framework for asking the right questions. He discourses on "intersubjectivity," something between the subjective and objective. He cites examples from Aristotle, Boethius, Plato - all those early HOF philosophers.
But it's no fun. There are interesting concepts worth keeping that float by: We hold that our Catholic faith does not make sense unless the Jewish faith is also true. Or Heather is not wrong to claim that often God seems to her, from watching the world as it is, criminally passive, callous, cruel, monstrous. God's self-description in the Bible often forewarns that this is the way it will seem, even to those who know and love Him. Clearly, just as Novak gets into what should be the most important stuff, I start checking out. (The Bruins are up 3-2 at the end of the 2nd period.)
I have speculated before that the swift pace of internet surfing, where stimulating, fun intellectual (and less intellectual) pursuits tempt continuously. Or it may simply be a function of aging, whether aging of humans in general, or the specific AVI version of a thinker already desultory.
There are competing versions explaining reality, social and biological evolutions which claim that every human characteristic can be traced back to some rather mechanistic survival tactic rather than the Imago Dei. Those have their attractions as well, but are also faiths. There is a trust that the currently unexplained will be explained by some appeal within that framework. Few people who believe those theories (and I grant them a fair bit of
What depth of thought I have had is a byproduct of other characteristics of thinking. I can lay claim to some breadth, some quickness. I have had a certain obsessive quality which keeps me returning to a troubling idea. These aren't of major-league caliber, but "high minor league" might be fair.
But depth requires sustained attention, which has always been a weaker point. Philosophy and particle physics are subjects which cannot be understood in fifteen-minute turbocharged bursts. They require the sustained effort of entering into a vocabulary and mental framework and keeping other thoughts out. Perhaps once one has done the heavy lifting, those subjects may be continued with many short bursts throughout the day - I wouldn't know - but at least at the outset one must sign on for some effort. Writing fiction may require a similar intensity, and I did write a first draft of a 120,000 word novel in 23 days when I was 30, but that seems to have been a one-off event in my life. I endured one major rewrite over the next three months, but have been unable to do anything similar since. And even that may not be entirely similar to deep thinking.
Now I have fallen off from even that level, it seems. I have read half of Michael Novak's No One Sees God and liked it very much until about thirty pages ago. Since then it has been a grind, and I don't think that is Novak's failing, but mine. He has finished the part where he makes short work of the reasoning of the New Atheisits, and I rolled right along with him there. Now he is attempting to answer a less-hostile atheist, Heather MacDonald, and goes into some pretty close reasoning to do so. He starts by describing a philosophical framework for asking the right questions. He discourses on "intersubjectivity," something between the subjective and objective. He cites examples from Aristotle, Boethius, Plato - all those early HOF philosophers.
But it's no fun. There are interesting concepts worth keeping that float by: We hold that our Catholic faith does not make sense unless the Jewish faith is also true. Or Heather is not wrong to claim that often God seems to her, from watching the world as it is, criminally passive, callous, cruel, monstrous. God's self-description in the Bible often forewarns that this is the way it will seem, even to those who know and love Him. Clearly, just as Novak gets into what should be the most important stuff, I start checking out. (The Bruins are up 3-2 at the end of the 2nd period.)
I have speculated before that the swift pace of internet surfing, where stimulating, fun intellectual (and less intellectual) pursuits tempt continuously. Or it may simply be a function of aging, whether aging of humans in general, or the specific AVI version of a thinker already desultory.
There are competing versions explaining reality, social and biological evolutions which claim that every human characteristic can be traced back to some rather mechanistic survival tactic rather than the Imago Dei. Those have their attractions as well, but are also faiths. There is a trust that the currently unexplained will be explained by some appeal within that framework. Few people who believe those theories (and I grant them a fair bit of
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Justification
This strikes me as an intelligent idea that hasn't been tried here: Forcing bureaucrats to justify their spending. In a court of law, which side has the burden of proof is an important advantage. The way budgeting is currently structured, the taxpayer has the burden of proof to attack a particular bit of spending and show that it is unworthy. Why not reverse that? Those who are spending our money must be prepared - not to defend against a cut of their budget, but to make a positive case for that which they wish to spend. Reverse the burden of proof. I think the really valuable government actions will rise to the top pretty quickly.
Tedious? Sure, but compared to what? Open to abuse and manipulation? Sure, but any more than the current system? Time-consuming? I call that a feature, not a bug.
Tedious? Sure, but compared to what? Open to abuse and manipulation? Sure, but any more than the current system? Time-consuming? I call that a feature, not a bug.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Israel-Palestine
I am quite pro-Israel in my sentiments, and while I don't post on the topic here very often, I get into discussions on other sites.
I always seek to simplify arguments as much as I can see my way to. The public arguments on all topics are often wading in the shallows, picking up shells and seaweed while ignoring the foundational sea. There is one foundational argument which underlies any defense of the Palestinians, and I think that argument false.
Just in case there are readers with the usual criticisms of Israel ready to hand, I should note that arguments which claim to disapprove of Hamas or the PLO but maintain that Israel is not above criticism seem to always end in the same place. While that sentiment is certainly reasonable in theory, I find that in practice such people go on to spend 95% of their energy criticising Israel. They deceive themselves that they are being open-minded. They make a mere nod to deploring the actions of the Palestinians. David Bernstein's criticism of Human Rights Watch over at Volokh brings out many commenters of this type. They protest often that of course they don't approve of the actions of the Palestinians, but they resent what they see as a blind support for Israel.
Blind support, upon examination, turns out to be any support at all.
Here is the simple argument which I believe underlies all those defenses, the ocean which enables the shells and seaweed to exist. They believe that the Palestinians are the "real" owners of the the land, so everything they do is self-defense; that Israel is an intruder, so everything they do is unwarranted agression. Few would admit that this level of prejudice motivates them - shreds of reason and evenhandedness are important to them - yet it just pours out of them. If one tries to enter into any discussion of the original UN resolution, of Balfour, of purchase of land, of continuous presence, we find that all of these things aren't really part of their discussion. All those arguments are rejected out-of-hand.
I would ask what the basis of unassailable Palestinian ownership is. Not that the Palestinians have no claim, but I wonder what is the overwhelming, slam-dunk rightness that allows their defenders to dismiss all treaties, negotiations, history, and rights of property as irrelevant? Because when one strips the other debris away, that argument, whatever it is, is the one that supports all the others. Why do people believe that the Palestinians are the "real" owners of every square inch?
There is, of course, another type of critic of Israel who simply believes that more talk, more negotiation, more concession, more niceness, is what is needed but has never been tried by Israel. I can't see any point in even addressing that
I always seek to simplify arguments as much as I can see my way to. The public arguments on all topics are often wading in the shallows, picking up shells and seaweed while ignoring the foundational sea. There is one foundational argument which underlies any defense of the Palestinians, and I think that argument false.
Just in case there are readers with the usual criticisms of Israel ready to hand, I should note that arguments which claim to disapprove of Hamas or the PLO but maintain that Israel is not above criticism seem to always end in the same place. While that sentiment is certainly reasonable in theory, I find that in practice such people go on to spend 95% of their energy criticising Israel. They deceive themselves that they are being open-minded. They make a mere nod to deploring the actions of the Palestinians. David Bernstein's criticism of Human Rights Watch over at Volokh brings out many commenters of this type. They protest often that of course they don't approve of the actions of the Palestinians, but they resent what they see as a blind support for Israel.
Blind support, upon examination, turns out to be any support at all.
Here is the simple argument which I believe underlies all those defenses, the ocean which enables the shells and seaweed to exist. They believe that the Palestinians are the "real" owners of the the land, so everything they do is self-defense; that Israel is an intruder, so everything they do is unwarranted agression. Few would admit that this level of prejudice motivates them - shreds of reason and evenhandedness are important to them - yet it just pours out of them. If one tries to enter into any discussion of the original UN resolution, of Balfour, of purchase of land, of continuous presence, we find that all of these things aren't really part of their discussion. All those arguments are rejected out-of-hand.
I would ask what the basis of unassailable Palestinian ownership is. Not that the Palestinians have no claim, but I wonder what is the overwhelming, slam-dunk rightness that allows their defenders to dismiss all treaties, negotiations, history, and rights of property as irrelevant? Because when one strips the other debris away, that argument, whatever it is, is the one that supports all the others. Why do people believe that the Palestinians are the "real" owners of every square inch?
There is, of course, another type of critic of Israel who simply believes that more talk, more negotiation, more concession, more niceness, is what is needed but has never been tried by Israel. I can't see any point in even addressing that
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Adoption Series
Nothing new here. It's the March series on adopting the boys, collected in one place in order to put it on the sidebar. Includes an excerpt from each one.
Part One
Riding on an ancient train, with all instructions written in faded Romanian, Hungarian, Russian, French, and Italian, overnight across areas of Romania I had not been before, sleeping poorly, up many times in the night to have a cigarette and look out into the dark. We would stop at occasional stations, islands of dim light with signs in a strange language, all looking like some black-and-white spy film from the 1950’s. Much of Romania still looked like the 1950’s then. For good reason. Tracy slept fitfully in the lower bunk. I don’t remember what I thought about, other than the odd, depersonalised observation of ourselves, as if looking down on the train from the sky: Here are two American people riding in the night through an almost-forbidden country, out to pick up two teenage Romanian boys who barely know us, to take them away from everything they know. Yes, it does have a certain romantic atmosphere to it when I describe it like that, but like Sam and Frodo, one finds that adventures look quite different to the people in them...
Part Two
Ben was almost 17 while we were discussing adopting in two from Romania. We had asked him to think about what his opinion was on that, as he would be greatly affected as well. Three months later he announces, out of the blue, "About adopting those kids? I think we should do that." Nothing more. Okay, then. Thanks, son...
Part Three
I first went to Romania - Transylvania, actually, that NW third of Romania which has often been separate from the other two parts - in February 1998. We landed at the old airport in Budapest, Hungary, and the more experienced members of my team marveled at how few soldiers with machine guns were patrolling the lobby. I thought there were quite a lot, myself. The whole place was populated by grim, defeated-looking Hungarians in battered and shapeless clothes. These, I was told, were the cheeriest people in Eastern Europe, except maybe the Poles, and I would find the Romanians much less friendly and generally more oppressed. This turned out to be true, but I was only able to perceive comparative Hungarian lightheartedness on my return...
Part Four
I looked at the group. Huh. These kids need parents. You know how to do that. Huh. I called Tracy, still a dollar a minute in those days, and talked for half an hour. This team traveled more widely for our village medical clinics, and I had lots of time to think while bouncing in battered Dacias or the old Vanagon. I was sick for two days and stayed away from others. The second week I kept looking at the kids and thinking Could you be my child? Are you supposed to come home with me? I tried each of them on, so to speak...
Part Five
So flying to Budapest, renting a car, and going to see the boys as their father for the first time was a great adventure. People at work asked if I was nervous about seeing the boys, which seemed a bizarre question to me. I was worried that they would be nervous, apprehensive, suspicious, uncertain, or any number of uncomfortable feelings along with the positive excitement. But I was fine. Couldn’t be better...
Part Six
The final adoption approval in Romania was scheduled for Friday, May 11. Three days after John-Adrian's 16th birthday. Somehow our agency in-country got that moved up, just to make sure. There was something about some relative(s) signing off, perhaps their aunt and uncle. Which in both cases, may imply bribery of someone, somewhere...
Adoption Photos
Return To Romania
In the summer of 2005 we all went to Romania. Chris and John-Adrian went back; Tracy and I went again; Ben, Jonathan, and Heidi went for the first time. This was just before I started this blog, so I haven't written about it much...
Various
Tourist
Photos
from
Budapest
Part One
Riding on an ancient train, with all instructions written in faded Romanian, Hungarian, Russian, French, and Italian, overnight across areas of Romania I had not been before, sleeping poorly, up many times in the night to have a cigarette and look out into the dark. We would stop at occasional stations, islands of dim light with signs in a strange language, all looking like some black-and-white spy film from the 1950’s. Much of Romania still looked like the 1950’s then. For good reason. Tracy slept fitfully in the lower bunk. I don’t remember what I thought about, other than the odd, depersonalised observation of ourselves, as if looking down on the train from the sky: Here are two American people riding in the night through an almost-forbidden country, out to pick up two teenage Romanian boys who barely know us, to take them away from everything they know. Yes, it does have a certain romantic atmosphere to it when I describe it like that, but like Sam and Frodo, one finds that adventures look quite different to the people in them...
Part Two
Ben was almost 17 while we were discussing adopting in two from Romania. We had asked him to think about what his opinion was on that, as he would be greatly affected as well. Three months later he announces, out of the blue, "About adopting those kids? I think we should do that." Nothing more. Okay, then. Thanks, son...
Part Three
I first went to Romania - Transylvania, actually, that NW third of Romania which has often been separate from the other two parts - in February 1998. We landed at the old airport in Budapest, Hungary, and the more experienced members of my team marveled at how few soldiers with machine guns were patrolling the lobby. I thought there were quite a lot, myself. The whole place was populated by grim, defeated-looking Hungarians in battered and shapeless clothes. These, I was told, were the cheeriest people in Eastern Europe, except maybe the Poles, and I would find the Romanians much less friendly and generally more oppressed. This turned out to be true, but I was only able to perceive comparative Hungarian lightheartedness on my return...
Part Four
I looked at the group. Huh. These kids need parents. You know how to do that. Huh. I called Tracy, still a dollar a minute in those days, and talked for half an hour. This team traveled more widely for our village medical clinics, and I had lots of time to think while bouncing in battered Dacias or the old Vanagon. I was sick for two days and stayed away from others. The second week I kept looking at the kids and thinking Could you be my child? Are you supposed to come home with me? I tried each of them on, so to speak...
Part Five
So flying to Budapest, renting a car, and going to see the boys as their father for the first time was a great adventure. People at work asked if I was nervous about seeing the boys, which seemed a bizarre question to me. I was worried that they would be nervous, apprehensive, suspicious, uncertain, or any number of uncomfortable feelings along with the positive excitement. But I was fine. Couldn’t be better...
Part Six
The final adoption approval in Romania was scheduled for Friday, May 11. Three days after John-Adrian's 16th birthday. Somehow our agency in-country got that moved up, just to make sure. There was something about some relative(s) signing off, perhaps their aunt and uncle. Which in both cases, may imply bribery of someone, somewhere...
Adoption Photos
Return To Romania
In the summer of 2005 we all went to Romania. Chris and John-Adrian went back; Tracy and I went again; Ben, Jonathan, and Heidi went for the first time. This was just before I started this blog, so I haven't written about it much...
Various
Tourist
Photos
from
Budapest
Monday, April 26, 2010
Kalmykia
Kalmykia is a country in Europe.
No, really. At least it's a state, a Republic in Southern Russia. I don't think I had ever heard of it before. It's in the Caucasus, one of those many obscure tribes that live there in the mountains, mostly hating their neighbors. There are a dozen dialects among the 300,000 Kalmyks, if that tells you anything about the level of fellow-feeling in the homeland.
I may have heard of it before, because it was one of those groups that Stalin internally deported in entirety to Siberia and Kazakhstan, which I did know about. But Stalin did that to lots of groups, so I may be confusing them with someone else. Kruschev allowed them back during destalinazation, but apparently clumps of them had already settled in Belgrade or Sofia (frying pan, fire) and Paterson, New Jersey (slightly better) and weren't coming back.
I thought being a tourist there, however briefly, would be quite a novelty. I mean, everyone's been to Romania these days. The Kalmykia tourism sites had pictures of two very interesting Buddhist temples, so I thought it worth exploring further. But apparently, these are the only two interesting buildings in the country, as they are the only ones mentioned, no matter how many sites you go to. Kalmykia also has a nature preserve of some sort called the Black Lands that has a unique antelope. It's on the Caspian Sea but you can't go there, as the Russians have the access guarded. The national beverages you are urged to try are a milk tea with salt, a sour horse milk, and milk vodka. I'm seeing a trend here.
You can get there from Volgograd by minivan taxi, but you have to wait until all four seats are filled before they'll go. There is a weekly flight from Moscow. The category of how to get there by car is blank. I guess if you rent a car in Calais and get on the E40 to Kazakhstan, you could take a side trip out of Astrakhan. Maybe there's a road or something. I wouldn't mention your plans at the car agency, however.
Don't ask how I stumbled on all this.
No, really. At least it's a state, a Republic in Southern Russia. I don't think I had ever heard of it before. It's in the Caucasus, one of those many obscure tribes that live there in the mountains, mostly hating their neighbors. There are a dozen dialects among the 300,000 Kalmyks, if that tells you anything about the level of fellow-feeling in the homeland.
I may have heard of it before, because it was one of those groups that Stalin internally deported in entirety to Siberia and Kazakhstan, which I did know about. But Stalin did that to lots of groups, so I may be confusing them with someone else. Kruschev allowed them back during destalinazation, but apparently clumps of them had already settled in Belgrade or Sofia (frying pan, fire) and Paterson, New Jersey (slightly better) and weren't coming back.
I thought being a tourist there, however briefly, would be quite a novelty. I mean, everyone's been to Romania these days. The Kalmykia tourism sites had pictures of two very interesting Buddhist temples, so I thought it worth exploring further. But apparently, these are the only two interesting buildings in the country, as they are the only ones mentioned, no matter how many sites you go to. Kalmykia also has a nature preserve of some sort called the Black Lands that has a unique antelope. It's on the Caspian Sea but you can't go there, as the Russians have the access guarded. The national beverages you are urged to try are a milk tea with salt, a sour horse milk, and milk vodka. I'm seeing a trend here.
You can get there from Volgograd by minivan taxi, but you have to wait until all four seats are filled before they'll go. There is a weekly flight from Moscow. The category of how to get there by car is blank. I guess if you rent a car in Calais and get on the E40 to Kazakhstan, you could take a side trip out of Astrakhan. Maybe there's a road or something. I wouldn't mention your plans at the car agency, however.
Don't ask how I stumbled on all this.
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