A disgruntled employee made a suicide run against his workplace today, killing two people and wounding more before shooting himself. The shooter's identity was known while he was presumably still alive in the building. The news media have noted his participation in a class-action lawsuit accusing the company pension fund of leeching off employees' savings with exorbitant fees and other charges. Whether this ongoing issue provoked today's rampage is unclear. Neighbors knew the shooter as a hunter but otherwise a quiet family man. It all makes one wonder. The people who argue against any regulation of gun ownership often claim that, given man's propensity for violence, that denying people guns will not prevent violence but would only force them to use other weapons to express their rage or malice. But how many mass shootings can be categorized as crimes of passion or sudden impulse? Many seem to be intensely premeditated. Many if not most are acts of revenge against society. Is it wrong to ask whether gun ownership encourages some people to believe that they have the right as well as the power to take law -- or war-- into their own hands, to act as judge and executioner against an enemy bigger than an individual? Individuals often have grudges against each other that result in simple violence: stabbings, bludgeonings, strangulation, etc. But the individual who sees some group (or "the group") as the enemy has recourse only to the gun or the bomb if he hopes to make a difference. So is there some correlation between gun ownership and a mental or moral capacity to kill or simply strike at many people at once? Like I said, all the news makes you wonder sometimes.
Update: A third victim of the shooter has died, and another question has occurred to me. Given the public's hysterical reaction when a would-be terrorist failed to kill anyone on Christmas, shouldn't we hear people clamoring for the President to take more decisive action to stop Americans from strolling into places and shooting their fellow citizens? Is today's amoklauf somehow more tolerable than a thwarted suicide-bombing on an airplane? Or is it only bad when foreigners kill Americans? It all makes you wonder.
07 January 2010
06 January 2010
A Pathetic Fallacy
In literary criticism, the "pathetic fallacy" is the attribution of sentience to inanimate objects. In the newest issue of The New Yorker, editor Hendrick Hertzberg plays literary critic with progressive critics of President Obama and the Democratic party. By blaming weak, dishonest or corrupt Democratic leadership for the compromised form of the present health-care reform legislature, Hertzberg argues, progressives (not to mention "the nether regions of the left blogosphere) are guilty of the pathetic fallacy because they attribute conscious will (and worse, the will of Democratic leaders) to the inertia of a gridlocked legislative system where blame (if blame is even allowed) properly lies.
As far as Hertzberg is concerned, progressives should content themselves with legislation which Hertzberg himself acknowledges to be flawed and incomplete. They should rejoice because Paul Krugman and other academics and editors say that the bill is great, a milestone that establishes the principle of universal health care coverage even if the practice proves initially imperfect. Hertzberg appeals to a history of incremental reforms, hoping to remind progressives not to expect or demand complete reform in one radical stroke. But he protests too much against criticism of Democrats. Here's the key paragraph:
I don't know if there's a literary term for the opposite of the pathetic fallacy, but there should be one to describe what Hertzberg does here. He wants us to blame a "system" that may as well be an inanimate object, given how unwilling he is to attribute its inertia to the people who, at this particular moment, constitute the system. He'd have us believe, in effect, that the Democrats could not help but deliver a compromised bill because of circumstances beyond their control. I'm not saying that Obama, Reid, Pelosi et al are perfidious, but "weak," "incompetent" or "compromised" may come closer to the truth.
Given the timing of his editorial at the start of a congressional election year, I can't help suspecting Hertzberg of a larger agenda. The moral of it is instantly recognizable, even though he never utters the magic formula himself: he's warning progressives against "making the perfect the enemy of the good." This is one of the most popular arguments of apologists for the American Bipolarchy, and closely related to the "lesser evil" principle that empowers Democrats (or Republicans) to do as little as possible of what their constituents actually want. The reasoning is: if you hold out for the perfect against the merely good, you'll end up with the bad. A system founded on such reasoning is one in which no incentive exists for politicians to strive for the perfect, since no one will pressure them to do so. This system has a conscious mind, and it has little but contempt for radicals of any philosophical heritage. History may prove Hertzberg right in his belief that the reform legislation is a crucial step in the right direction, but he is almost certainly wrong to claim that this was the best that could be done, and he is morally wrong if he means to argue that progressives shouldn't demand something better or blame our nation's leaders for failing to deliver. When he appeals to objectivity, history will judge Hertzberg's argument. To the extent that he demands acquiescence in self-interested Democratic incrementalism, he reveals himself as part of the system -- not the one he deplores in print, but the one he sustains in practice.
As far as Hertzberg is concerned, progressives should content themselves with legislation which Hertzberg himself acknowledges to be flawed and incomplete. They should rejoice because Paul Krugman and other academics and editors say that the bill is great, a milestone that establishes the principle of universal health care coverage even if the practice proves initially imperfect. Hertzberg appeals to a history of incremental reforms, hoping to remind progressives not to expect or demand complete reform in one radical stroke. But he protests too much against criticism of Democrats. Here's the key paragraph:
The left-wing critics are right about the conspicuous flaws of the pending health-care reform—its lack of even a weak “public option,” its too meagre subsidies, its windfalls for Big Pharma, its capitulation on abortion coverage, its reliance on private insurance. And there are surely senators and representatives whose motives are base or, broadly speaking, corrupt. But it is nonsense to attribute the less than fully satisfactory result to the alleged perfidy of the President or “the Democrats.” The critics’ indignation would be better directed at what an earlier generation of malcontents called “the system”—starting, perhaps, with the Senate’s filibuster rule, an inanimate object if there ever was one.
I don't know if there's a literary term for the opposite of the pathetic fallacy, but there should be one to describe what Hertzberg does here. He wants us to blame a "system" that may as well be an inanimate object, given how unwilling he is to attribute its inertia to the people who, at this particular moment, constitute the system. He'd have us believe, in effect, that the Democrats could not help but deliver a compromised bill because of circumstances beyond their control. I'm not saying that Obama, Reid, Pelosi et al are perfidious, but "weak," "incompetent" or "compromised" may come closer to the truth.
Given the timing of his editorial at the start of a congressional election year, I can't help suspecting Hertzberg of a larger agenda. The moral of it is instantly recognizable, even though he never utters the magic formula himself: he's warning progressives against "making the perfect the enemy of the good." This is one of the most popular arguments of apologists for the American Bipolarchy, and closely related to the "lesser evil" principle that empowers Democrats (or Republicans) to do as little as possible of what their constituents actually want. The reasoning is: if you hold out for the perfect against the merely good, you'll end up with the bad. A system founded on such reasoning is one in which no incentive exists for politicians to strive for the perfect, since no one will pressure them to do so. This system has a conscious mind, and it has little but contempt for radicals of any philosophical heritage. History may prove Hertzberg right in his belief that the reform legislation is a crucial step in the right direction, but he is almost certainly wrong to claim that this was the best that could be done, and he is morally wrong if he means to argue that progressives shouldn't demand something better or blame our nation's leaders for failing to deliver. When he appeals to objectivity, history will judge Hertzberg's argument. To the extent that he demands acquiescence in self-interested Democratic incrementalism, he reveals himself as part of the system -- not the one he deplores in print, but the one he sustains in practice.
05 January 2010
The Addict
Nothing political this time; just a true story from today...
It was about ten minutes before the bus would arrive. It was blustery and flurrying out and I was grateful to have a shelter on this corner. In a lot of places you have to wait in the wind by the bus stop sign. Inside this shelter was an old man, coughing and spitting on the pavement.
"You waiting for the bus?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"It should be here about ten minutes," he said.
"Thanks."
"You don't smoke, do you?"
"No, I don't."
"Okay," he coughed.
A car pulled up to the curb near the stop. The old man was up from the bench and out of the bus shelter by the time the driver got out of the car.
"You don't have a cigarette, do you?"
"No."
"Thanks anyway."
The man from the car walked into a building on the corner, glaring for a moment at the old man who came shuffling back inside the shelter. At our feet were cigarette butts, most of them just filters. The old man tried his luck, picking a butt up and lighting it up. He coughed and spat and threw the butt back on the pavement.
"Can you watch my bags?" he asked me. He had a couple of black convenience store shopping bags on the bench beside him.
"Sure."
He stepped out of the shelter. He'd seen a woman walking down the block across the street.
"Miss? Miss?" he called to her, waving his arms. She heard him and turned to look his way. He mimed smoking, extending his left arm, bending it toward his mouth and extending it again.
"You don't smoke, do you?"
I couldn't hear if she answered. She kept on walking, and he came back into the shelter.
"Cold day," he said, "That bus should be here soon."
In a few minutes it was.
It was about ten minutes before the bus would arrive. It was blustery and flurrying out and I was grateful to have a shelter on this corner. In a lot of places you have to wait in the wind by the bus stop sign. Inside this shelter was an old man, coughing and spitting on the pavement.
"You waiting for the bus?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"It should be here about ten minutes," he said.
"Thanks."
"You don't smoke, do you?"
"No, I don't."
"Okay," he coughed.
A car pulled up to the curb near the stop. The old man was up from the bench and out of the bus shelter by the time the driver got out of the car.
"You don't have a cigarette, do you?"
"No."
"Thanks anyway."
The man from the car walked into a building on the corner, glaring for a moment at the old man who came shuffling back inside the shelter. At our feet were cigarette butts, most of them just filters. The old man tried his luck, picking a butt up and lighting it up. He coughed and spat and threw the butt back on the pavement.
"Can you watch my bags?" he asked me. He had a couple of black convenience store shopping bags on the bench beside him.
"Sure."
He stepped out of the shelter. He'd seen a woman walking down the block across the street.
"Miss? Miss?" he called to her, waving his arms. She heard him and turned to look his way. He mimed smoking, extending his left arm, bending it toward his mouth and extending it again.
"You don't smoke, do you?"
I couldn't hear if she answered. She kept on walking, and he came back into the shelter.
"Cold day," he said, "That bus should be here soon."
In a few minutes it was.
Is Criticism of Capitalism Bigotry?
Jonah Goldberg posed a rhetorical question in his most recent column:
In Goldberg's opinion, people are practising, in his implication, a similar sort of bigotry, when they summarize a "recap of the worst financial and corporate scandals of the decade" as "the decade in capitalism." "Reducing capitalism to its alleged sins," Goldberg argues by analogy, is just as bigoted as declaring disgraced athletes of representatives of "black America" or Bernie Madoff as the embodiment of American Jews.
In capitalism's defense, Goldberg cites several samples of super-philanthropy from the likes of Warren Buffet. If bad capitalists can be considered expressions of the essence of capitalism, he suggests, can't we just as well argue that good capitalists express a more benign essence of the thing? "Capitalism doesn't just create generous wealthy people, but generous poor people, too," he notes.
Goldberg thinks it unfair that "Every good thing capitalism helps produce -- from singing careers to cures for diseases to staggering charity -- is credited to some other sphere of our lives [while] every problem with capitalism, meanwhile, is laid at her feet." It's unfair, he argues, because "the problems with capitalism -- greed, theft, etc. -- aren't capitalism's fault, they're humanity's. Socialist countries have greedy thieves, too."
That last bit is a valid point, as history proves. But Goldberg doesn't quite prove his case because he never really attempts to define what he considers the essence of capitalism. The closest he comes is an implicit equation of capitalism with "free markets" which are themselves in disrepute "particularly by the people running Washington." Goldberg may not have thought it necessary to spell out the definition of capitalism in an opinion column, but more likely he buys into notion that capitalism is synonymous with "freedom" and can thus be defined negatively by the absence of onerous laws and regulations. He worries that more laws and regulations "won't cure what allegedly ails capitalism -- people will still steal and lie -- but they will impede everything that makes capitalism great." Again, he's right that capitalism didn't invent theft and lies. But using that truth to argue against regulating capitalism is like people arguing against gun control on the ground that people will always be violent. We can grant the point about human nature without conceding that it's therefore okay for people to own assault rifles. Likewise, the fact that people are often inclined to steal or lie should actually make us more determined to ensure that such people don't get their hands on the tools that will let them do the greatest damage to society. If Goldberg worries that that can't be done without crippling capitalism's good tendencies, his apprehension only throws the moral essence of capitalism further into question.
Imagine if I were to collect the most infamous deeds of African Americans over the last decade — say, Michael Vick’s dog-fighting scandal and O. J. Simpson’s most recent criminal exploit — and then put a bow on it with the phrase “the decade in black America.” What if I did the same thing with Jews? Bernie Madoff, the face of Jewish America!
In Goldberg's opinion, people are practising, in his implication, a similar sort of bigotry, when they summarize a "recap of the worst financial and corporate scandals of the decade" as "the decade in capitalism." "Reducing capitalism to its alleged sins," Goldberg argues by analogy, is just as bigoted as declaring disgraced athletes of representatives of "black America" or Bernie Madoff as the embodiment of American Jews.
In capitalism's defense, Goldberg cites several samples of super-philanthropy from the likes of Warren Buffet. If bad capitalists can be considered expressions of the essence of capitalism, he suggests, can't we just as well argue that good capitalists express a more benign essence of the thing? "Capitalism doesn't just create generous wealthy people, but generous poor people, too," he notes.
Goldberg thinks it unfair that "Every good thing capitalism helps produce -- from singing careers to cures for diseases to staggering charity -- is credited to some other sphere of our lives [while] every problem with capitalism, meanwhile, is laid at her feet." It's unfair, he argues, because "the problems with capitalism -- greed, theft, etc. -- aren't capitalism's fault, they're humanity's. Socialist countries have greedy thieves, too."
That last bit is a valid point, as history proves. But Goldberg doesn't quite prove his case because he never really attempts to define what he considers the essence of capitalism. The closest he comes is an implicit equation of capitalism with "free markets" which are themselves in disrepute "particularly by the people running Washington." Goldberg may not have thought it necessary to spell out the definition of capitalism in an opinion column, but more likely he buys into notion that capitalism is synonymous with "freedom" and can thus be defined negatively by the absence of onerous laws and regulations. He worries that more laws and regulations "won't cure what allegedly ails capitalism -- people will still steal and lie -- but they will impede everything that makes capitalism great." Again, he's right that capitalism didn't invent theft and lies. But using that truth to argue against regulating capitalism is like people arguing against gun control on the ground that people will always be violent. We can grant the point about human nature without conceding that it's therefore okay for people to own assault rifles. Likewise, the fact that people are often inclined to steal or lie should actually make us more determined to ensure that such people don't get their hands on the tools that will let them do the greatest damage to society. If Goldberg worries that that can't be done without crippling capitalism's good tendencies, his apprehension only throws the moral essence of capitalism further into question.
04 January 2010
The Poverty of Republicanism?
A Newsweek blogger notes a surprising fundraising gap between Democrats and Republicans, with the GOP trailing by a big margin despite increasingly optimistic expectations of reclaiming the House of Representatives this November. The writer suggests that this reflects some trouble the Republicans are having sealing the deal with the Tea Partiers. This is plausible if the partiers are disgruntled Republicans who have not yet forgiven or forgotten despite their hatred for the Democrats. In such cases former donors may be holding back until the GOP shows more convincing proof that it has changed its Bushite ways.
On the other hand, Republican flirtation with the avowedly populist Tea Party movement may be spooking bigger donors. The big-money people may be willing to tolerate Democratic regulation and taxation as long as they can keep anyone who seriously threatens ending the bailout culture out of power. That's an understandable apprehension for those who think that allowing those entities that are "too big to fail" to fail will drag the whole American economy down. What may be going on here is 21st century capitalism placing its bets against the people who claim to be its most ardent defenders.
Since Republicans, arguing against any regulation or limitation of campaign donations, claim that money does not decide elections or influence candidates, they shouldn't worry about the current fundraising gap. The gap is not as gaping as it might seem in purely numerical terms, in any event, since radio talkers can be depended upon to help out with free promotion when Republican candidates can't afford advertising. Still, its intriguing to think that there are plenty of past donors out there waiting to find something else to spend their money on. This will be an interesting storyline to follow as the year goes on.
On the other hand, Republican flirtation with the avowedly populist Tea Party movement may be spooking bigger donors. The big-money people may be willing to tolerate Democratic regulation and taxation as long as they can keep anyone who seriously threatens ending the bailout culture out of power. That's an understandable apprehension for those who think that allowing those entities that are "too big to fail" to fail will drag the whole American economy down. What may be going on here is 21st century capitalism placing its bets against the people who claim to be its most ardent defenders.
Since Republicans, arguing against any regulation or limitation of campaign donations, claim that money does not decide elections or influence candidates, they shouldn't worry about the current fundraising gap. The gap is not as gaping as it might seem in purely numerical terms, in any event, since radio talkers can be depended upon to help out with free promotion when Republican candidates can't afford advertising. Still, its intriguing to think that there are plenty of past donors out there waiting to find something else to spend their money on. This will be an interesting storyline to follow as the year goes on.
Global Warming: Skepticism, Conspiracy Theory and Bipolarchy
The question of whether human industry bears responsibility for a significant enough part of recent global warming that human action is required to ameliorate it should not divide people along partisan or ideological lines. In the United States it seems to do so. As the debate is portrayed in the media, "liberals" are more inclined to believe that irresponsible capitalism is at fault and that government and international action is imperative, while "conservatives" either dispute predictions of further warming or deny human culpability. This seems to be an instance when the partisan polarization of American culture has compelled many people to take sides without judging the facts or projections objectively. Many people see anyone who questions the present consensus as a hireling of corporations or a fatuous ideologue. People on the other side see those who uphold the consensus and call for international action as conspiratorial liars, perpetrators of a hoax designed to bring them power and/or wealth. It's hard to find a genuine skeptic on the subject, since I don't count conspiracy theorists as skeptics. But the psychology of conspiracy theory sometimes cuts across partisan or ideological loyalties.
In the past I've cited Alexander Cockburn, the Nation columnist and editor of the Counterpunch website, as a lonely voice of skepticism about global warming from the "left." Cockburn demonstrates his contrariness in the new issue, one which boasts as its cover an alarmist map of a significantly overflooded Europe. While other writers report from the Copenhagen summit with certainty about the menace of warming, Cockburn calls the "global warming jamboree" the "most outlandish foray into intellectual fantasizing since the fourth-century Christian bishops assembled in 325 AD for the Council of Nicaea to debate whether God the Father was supreme or had to share equal status in the pecking order of eternity with his Son and the Holy Ghost."
Cockburn is inspired, like many self-styled skeptics, by the leaked e-mails that appear to implicate promulgators of the "anthropogenic global warming" (AGW) scenario in suppressing facts that might throw the prevailing theories into dispute. The consensus seems to be that the e-mails themselves nor the data allegedly suppressed do nothing to refute the consensus model on warming. For Cockburn, as for many on the "right," they prove a conspiratorial attitude among global-warming scholars.
The challenge for conspiracy theories is to discover motive for a conspiracy that supposedly disregards inconvenient truths. For most "skeptics" the answer is to presume a leftist, anti-capitalist motive, the presumption being that the "left" will use a global warming crisis as a pretext to destroy capitalism, the American way of life, institute a cult of nature worship, and so on. Since Cockburn is a man of the "left," he simply follows the money.
Cockburn moves on to repeat points he's made in the past against the AGW scenario. He cites the website climate4you.com for proof that the oceans have been cooling over the past decade, and repeats the argument that the AGW theory violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics. "Greenhouse gases in the cold upper atmosphere cannot possibly transfer heat to the warmer earth, and in fact radiate their absorbed heat into outer space," he writes.
When any writer combines skepticism with conspiracy theory, critics are obliged to answer in kind. I can't help asking whether Cockburn disputes AGW because of his expertise in science or because he sees an academic-industrial complex that offends his socialist sensibilities looming behind the warming-science community. If the latter, then he's all too typical of our time, when the whole notion of objectivity remains under assault from partisanship and postmodernism. Too many people respond to the appearance of a controversial thesis by asking, in one way or another, which side it takes, or which side the theorists are on. That tendency has colored the response to both global-warming theory and any objective criticism of it. Cockburn is idiosyncratic because we expect his ideology to bias him in favor of the warming consensus, because we in turn identify the consensus, rightly or wrongly, with a global "left." But his idiosyncrasy doesn't make him objective; his resort to follow-the-money conspiracy theory disqualifies him almost at once. That doesn't mean objective criticism of prevailing warming or AGW models is impossible, but we clearly need to relearn both what objective criticism looks like and how to respond with the same objectivity. We can't be objective, however, if we divide academia and the world itself into antagonistic, irreconcilable sides. The emergence of a global bipolarchy divided over the global warming question might well doom the planet -- though not necessarily in the way some of you think.
In the past I've cited Alexander Cockburn, the Nation columnist and editor of the Counterpunch website, as a lonely voice of skepticism about global warming from the "left." Cockburn demonstrates his contrariness in the new issue, one which boasts as its cover an alarmist map of a significantly overflooded Europe. While other writers report from the Copenhagen summit with certainty about the menace of warming, Cockburn calls the "global warming jamboree" the "most outlandish foray into intellectual fantasizing since the fourth-century Christian bishops assembled in 325 AD for the Council of Nicaea to debate whether God the Father was supreme or had to share equal status in the pecking order of eternity with his Son and the Holy Ghost."
Cockburn is inspired, like many self-styled skeptics, by the leaked e-mails that appear to implicate promulgators of the "anthropogenic global warming" (AGW) scenario in suppressing facts that might throw the prevailing theories into dispute. The consensus seems to be that the e-mails themselves nor the data allegedly suppressed do nothing to refute the consensus model on warming. For Cockburn, as for many on the "right," they prove a conspiratorial attitude among global-warming scholars.
The challenge for conspiracy theories is to discover motive for a conspiracy that supposedly disregards inconvenient truths. For most "skeptics" the answer is to presume a leftist, anti-capitalist motive, the presumption being that the "left" will use a global warming crisis as a pretext to destroy capitalism, the American way of life, institute a cult of nature worship, and so on. Since Cockburn is a man of the "left," he simply follows the money.
It has been the standard ploy of the Warmers [a Cockburn coinage, as far as I know, meant to equate believers with "Truthers" or "Birthers] to revile the skeptics as whores of the energy industry, swaddled in munificent grants and with large personal stakes in discrediting AGW. Actually, the precise opposite is true. Billions in funding and research grants sluice into the big climate-modeling enterprises and a vast archipelago of research departments and "institutes of climate change" across academia. It's where the money is. Skepticism, particularly for a young climatologist or atmospheric physicist, can be a career breaker.
Cockburn moves on to repeat points he's made in the past against the AGW scenario. He cites the website climate4you.com for proof that the oceans have been cooling over the past decade, and repeats the argument that the AGW theory violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics. "Greenhouse gases in the cold upper atmosphere cannot possibly transfer heat to the warmer earth, and in fact radiate their absorbed heat into outer space," he writes.
When any writer combines skepticism with conspiracy theory, critics are obliged to answer in kind. I can't help asking whether Cockburn disputes AGW because of his expertise in science or because he sees an academic-industrial complex that offends his socialist sensibilities looming behind the warming-science community. If the latter, then he's all too typical of our time, when the whole notion of objectivity remains under assault from partisanship and postmodernism. Too many people respond to the appearance of a controversial thesis by asking, in one way or another, which side it takes, or which side the theorists are on. That tendency has colored the response to both global-warming theory and any objective criticism of it. Cockburn is idiosyncratic because we expect his ideology to bias him in favor of the warming consensus, because we in turn identify the consensus, rightly or wrongly, with a global "left." But his idiosyncrasy doesn't make him objective; his resort to follow-the-money conspiracy theory disqualifies him almost at once. That doesn't mean objective criticism of prevailing warming or AGW models is impossible, but we clearly need to relearn both what objective criticism looks like and how to respond with the same objectivity. We can't be objective, however, if we divide academia and the world itself into antagonistic, irreconcilable sides. The emergence of a global bipolarchy divided over the global warming question might well doom the planet -- though not necessarily in the way some of you think.
03 January 2010
Resolution
New Yorkers will elect a governor and both U.S. Senators, along with all their Representatives, in 2010. With that in mind, I intend to repeat what I did during the presidential election year of 2008 and report on independent candidates for the biggest elections. While my survey of presidential aspirants revealed a lot of cranks and clowns, I hope that exercises like these will inspire other people to look beyond the Democratic and Republican parties for answers to the important questions of our time.
At the same time, I worry that these surveys only cater to a consumerist mentality among voters who are tempted to treat elections like they do their shopping chores, comparing pre-packaged products as much on the basis of advertising as on any objective comparison of candidates. In simpler terms, voters are stuck choosing from what's available when elections should be about voters stating what they want. When American politics was first democratized, as more people got the right to vote and no longer deferred to their betters, the ideal was somewhat different. People were supposed to get together, put together their own platforms or simply state their own principles, and invite someone to run as their candidate by endorsing those principles. Practice rarely lived up to this ideal, but we ought to consider returning to it. The American people need to get together and reach some agreement (i.e. some compromise) on their priorities. They need to do so as communities and neighborhoods. We have to insist on some geographic organizing principle because we need to bring together all the people who've been brainwashed into believing that their ideologies are irreconcilable. We cannot concede that the United States has become two nations -- liberal and conservative -- as tempting as that may be to people on both sides who would rather be rid of each other. As much as we need to challenge the perpetual usurpation practised by the American Bipolarchy, we need to challenge the ideological bipolarchy that has both fueled and fed off the partisan bipolarchy. We have to expose the artifice of "liberalism" and "conservatism." How many people really believe everything that a "liberal" or a "conservative" is supposed or reputed to believe? My hope is that once most Americans face each other honestly, once they find a way to communicate with each other without slogans or buzzwords, they'll no longer look like bogeymen or enemies to each other. Everything depends on a realization of common interest, a willingness to compromise and a recognition that any irrepressible conflict between "liberals" and "conservatives" only plays into the hands of a handful of party hacks and media demagogues. Those types want to keep us apart. The last thing they want is Americans discovering, with apologies to Thomas Jefferson, that "we are all liberals, we are all conservatives." But Americans can't wait for some leader to tell them that. They need to figure it out for themselves, soon, before they repeat the Bipolarchy Cycle and replace the present bunglers with the bunglers of four years ago. If they can figure it out, maybe they won't need a leader but someone who will really represent the will of the people.
At the same time, I worry that these surveys only cater to a consumerist mentality among voters who are tempted to treat elections like they do their shopping chores, comparing pre-packaged products as much on the basis of advertising as on any objective comparison of candidates. In simpler terms, voters are stuck choosing from what's available when elections should be about voters stating what they want. When American politics was first democratized, as more people got the right to vote and no longer deferred to their betters, the ideal was somewhat different. People were supposed to get together, put together their own platforms or simply state their own principles, and invite someone to run as their candidate by endorsing those principles. Practice rarely lived up to this ideal, but we ought to consider returning to it. The American people need to get together and reach some agreement (i.e. some compromise) on their priorities. They need to do so as communities and neighborhoods. We have to insist on some geographic organizing principle because we need to bring together all the people who've been brainwashed into believing that their ideologies are irreconcilable. We cannot concede that the United States has become two nations -- liberal and conservative -- as tempting as that may be to people on both sides who would rather be rid of each other. As much as we need to challenge the perpetual usurpation practised by the American Bipolarchy, we need to challenge the ideological bipolarchy that has both fueled and fed off the partisan bipolarchy. We have to expose the artifice of "liberalism" and "conservatism." How many people really believe everything that a "liberal" or a "conservative" is supposed or reputed to believe? My hope is that once most Americans face each other honestly, once they find a way to communicate with each other without slogans or buzzwords, they'll no longer look like bogeymen or enemies to each other. Everything depends on a realization of common interest, a willingness to compromise and a recognition that any irrepressible conflict between "liberals" and "conservatives" only plays into the hands of a handful of party hacks and media demagogues. Those types want to keep us apart. The last thing they want is Americans discovering, with apologies to Thomas Jefferson, that "we are all liberals, we are all conservatives." But Americans can't wait for some leader to tell them that. They need to figure it out for themselves, soon, before they repeat the Bipolarchy Cycle and replace the present bunglers with the bunglers of four years ago. If they can figure it out, maybe they won't need a leader but someone who will really represent the will of the people.
30 December 2009
Partisanship and Security
Another year nears its end, but some things don't change. It appears on any objective analysis that the U.S. national-security apparatus screwed up again in failing to put the Nigerian gentleman who tried to blow up an airliner last week on a no-fly list. The error may seem more obvious in retrospect but the evidence has mounted showing that Americans were aware that some Nigerian coming out of Yemen meant trouble around Christmastime. The guy's name was known because his father had denounced him, so it seems like he could have been separated from the general air-travel population without having to profile anyone else. The President appears to realize that something's wrong with this picture, but such is the nature of the American Bipolarchy that many people will insist that nothing new needs to be done because the Republicans are insisting otherwise. Make no mistake: when Dick Cheney makes any public criticism of the present President he does so with partisan advantage in mind. Had he some higher interest in the matter, he could probably call on the President and make known his concerns and reservations. Instead, he openly questions whether the President even realizes that the country is at war with terrorists, and the only object of such commentary is to turn more voters Republican. But it's one thing to question the President's competence or fitness to lead, as Cheney does constantly, and another to admit the obvious: that something is wrong with the system as it currently functions. My fear is that Democratic partisans and people in general who hate Republicans will deny the obvious in order to spite the domestic enemy. My point is not to say that we need to become even more of a police state, since I question the policies that perpetually provoke Muslims against the U.S. But this is a time when Americans need to have an objective conversation about what to do to prevent another attempt like the Christmas stunt, and the tendency of the Bipolarchy is to make such conversations impossible.
Avatar and Fantasies of Harmony
Two weeks after its release I'm still pondering whether to take a look at Avatar, James Cameron's new wonder film. I've seen reviews that praise it as a visionary, genuinely artistic film with pictorial qualities that transcend many admitted cliches in its story of a modern (or futuristic) technological man going native to protect an idyllic world and its noble culture from exploitation and conquest. Cameron's fantasy, according to these reports, presents a world that takes the harmony of nature and living things to almost icky new levels of literal-mindedness. The creatures of the planet appear to be equipped with biological plugs and jacks so that they can physically link and commune with each other. The dominant species, the Na'vi, are idealized aboriginals of the sort that many moviegoers may find insufferable. I'm not sure how I'll react to them, but the commentary inspired by the film so far is increasing my interest in seeing the thing for myself.
In the current New Yorker David Denby anticipates some of my own reservations about the idealization of aboriginal or "noble savage" life. While generally praising Avatar as "the most beautiful film I've seen in years," he figuratively rolls his eyes a bit at the "whiff of nineteen-sixties counterculture" detected in comparison of Na'vi and future-human culture.
"Well, actually, life among the Na'vi, for all its physical glories, looks a little dull. True, there's no reality TV or fast food, but there's no tennis or Raymond Chandler or Ella Fitzgerald, either," Denby comments. In other words, Denby misses what he regards as high culture. I can sympathize with his attitude, but not without questioning both his attitude and my own. There's something condescending about such comments, which remind me of the novelist Saul Bellow's query, rejecting the equality of all cultures, on where he might find the Tolstoy of the Zulus. To ask such a rhetorical question, or to prepare a checklist like Denby's, should beg the question of whether the Zulus need a Tolstoy or the Na'vi a Chandler. The fact that some cultures may not need what individuals in others think they need isn't necessarily a point for or against either culture. But it does tell us something about our own culture, or people in it, that explains a dubious reaction to aboriginal fantasies like Avatar, Dances With Wolves, etc. People who partake of American or western high culture (or pop culture) seem to feel some anxiety over the apparent absence in actual or imagined aboriginal cultures of space for private, individual experience and enjoyment. They've experienced an anxious recognition of a crucial facet of utopian thought. If we want to imagine a utopia based on the collective good, the well being of all people rather than the maximum flourishing of the best, and reject the accumulation of material wealth by which individuals distinguish themselves in inegalitarian societies, we have to face the necessity of finding our own individual fulfillment not in acquiring stuff but in fellowship with our fellow humans. At least we assume that aboriginal peoples found fulfillment in fellowship, and so it must be with the more ascetic or puritanical utopians of our own day who think we can all be happy without "having it all" or even having what we think we want. But fellowship as the utopian condition bugs some people who see it carrying the baggage of conformity, superstition, rigid traditionalism and so forth. On the other hand, for those who believe in harmony with nature, and thus in harmony among all human beings, a utopian condition that individualists would find alarming would probably cause no alarm at all.
Meanwhile, Jonah Goldberg reports that some of his fellow conservatives are attacking Avatar because they see it as a kind of pagan or pantheistic film. The Na'vi, apparently, are not monotheists, and for all I know neither are the future-humans in the movie. Goldberg himself has a point when he says that Avatar would be a really controversial film if "the good guys accepted Jesus Christ in their hearts," but he likes the film better than his colleagues and he thinks they miss a more important point while complaining about the film's fictional belief system.
"What I find interesting about the film is how what is 'pleasing to most people' is so unapologetically religious," Goldberg writes. Avatar isn't something out of H.G. Wells or even Gene Roddenberry in which the future witnesses the triumph of reason over superstition. Instead it seems to be like the decadent Star Trek of the Deep Space Nine era in which the Bajoran religion, for instance, is shown to be essentially true. Goldberg suggests that the film reflects a growing understanding that "humans are hard-wired to believe in the transcendental," and a belief that religions may have been essential to human evolution by encouraging altruistic behaviors in the interest of group survival. An environmentalist bent to Na'vi culture in the film reminds Goldberg of appeals to spirituality or holism by present-day environmentalists on Earth.
Neither Goldberg nor Denby makes clear whether Cameron's future-humans are believers themselves or rationalists. Until I understand that better, I can't even speculate as to whether Avatar is intended as an affirmation of spirituality against materialism. I suspect not because the story depends on the special circumstances of the Na'vi planet and thus has limited relevance to the real world. But Goldberg is on to something by pointing out how religiosity pervades the film that most people will call the biggest "science fiction" movie of the closing year. That brings me back to the question of harmony and fellowship: do they depend on everyone believing in something "transcendent" or bigger than themselves? In our own context, most conservatives seem to think so, and Goldberg suggests that more liberals and leftists are thinking along similar lines. The difference seems to be that conservatives look to something above and outside themselves -- God -- while the left may be leaning toward something they can claim is within us, call it Nature or what you will. It's probably a significant difference, but it makes me wonder whether there's still room for an approach different from both, the now old fashioned-seeming Enlightenment commitment to enlightened self-interest and its corollary, enlightened mutual interest. Can we achieve a harmonious culture with neither biological assistance or a mandatory endorsement of some "noble lie?" Can we even imagine doing so now? If someone can, then that's the movie I'd really like to see.
In the current New Yorker David Denby anticipates some of my own reservations about the idealization of aboriginal or "noble savage" life. While generally praising Avatar as "the most beautiful film I've seen in years," he figuratively rolls his eyes a bit at the "whiff of nineteen-sixties counterculture" detected in comparison of Na'vi and future-human culture.
"Well, actually, life among the Na'vi, for all its physical glories, looks a little dull. True, there's no reality TV or fast food, but there's no tennis or Raymond Chandler or Ella Fitzgerald, either," Denby comments. In other words, Denby misses what he regards as high culture. I can sympathize with his attitude, but not without questioning both his attitude and my own. There's something condescending about such comments, which remind me of the novelist Saul Bellow's query, rejecting the equality of all cultures, on where he might find the Tolstoy of the Zulus. To ask such a rhetorical question, or to prepare a checklist like Denby's, should beg the question of whether the Zulus need a Tolstoy or the Na'vi a Chandler. The fact that some cultures may not need what individuals in others think they need isn't necessarily a point for or against either culture. But it does tell us something about our own culture, or people in it, that explains a dubious reaction to aboriginal fantasies like Avatar, Dances With Wolves, etc. People who partake of American or western high culture (or pop culture) seem to feel some anxiety over the apparent absence in actual or imagined aboriginal cultures of space for private, individual experience and enjoyment. They've experienced an anxious recognition of a crucial facet of utopian thought. If we want to imagine a utopia based on the collective good, the well being of all people rather than the maximum flourishing of the best, and reject the accumulation of material wealth by which individuals distinguish themselves in inegalitarian societies, we have to face the necessity of finding our own individual fulfillment not in acquiring stuff but in fellowship with our fellow humans. At least we assume that aboriginal peoples found fulfillment in fellowship, and so it must be with the more ascetic or puritanical utopians of our own day who think we can all be happy without "having it all" or even having what we think we want. But fellowship as the utopian condition bugs some people who see it carrying the baggage of conformity, superstition, rigid traditionalism and so forth. On the other hand, for those who believe in harmony with nature, and thus in harmony among all human beings, a utopian condition that individualists would find alarming would probably cause no alarm at all.
Meanwhile, Jonah Goldberg reports that some of his fellow conservatives are attacking Avatar because they see it as a kind of pagan or pantheistic film. The Na'vi, apparently, are not monotheists, and for all I know neither are the future-humans in the movie. Goldberg himself has a point when he says that Avatar would be a really controversial film if "the good guys accepted Jesus Christ in their hearts," but he likes the film better than his colleagues and he thinks they miss a more important point while complaining about the film's fictional belief system.
"What I find interesting about the film is how what is 'pleasing to most people' is so unapologetically religious," Goldberg writes. Avatar isn't something out of H.G. Wells or even Gene Roddenberry in which the future witnesses the triumph of reason over superstition. Instead it seems to be like the decadent Star Trek of the Deep Space Nine era in which the Bajoran religion, for instance, is shown to be essentially true. Goldberg suggests that the film reflects a growing understanding that "humans are hard-wired to believe in the transcendental," and a belief that religions may have been essential to human evolution by encouraging altruistic behaviors in the interest of group survival. An environmentalist bent to Na'vi culture in the film reminds Goldberg of appeals to spirituality or holism by present-day environmentalists on Earth.
Neither Goldberg nor Denby makes clear whether Cameron's future-humans are believers themselves or rationalists. Until I understand that better, I can't even speculate as to whether Avatar is intended as an affirmation of spirituality against materialism. I suspect not because the story depends on the special circumstances of the Na'vi planet and thus has limited relevance to the real world. But Goldberg is on to something by pointing out how religiosity pervades the film that most people will call the biggest "science fiction" movie of the closing year. That brings me back to the question of harmony and fellowship: do they depend on everyone believing in something "transcendent" or bigger than themselves? In our own context, most conservatives seem to think so, and Goldberg suggests that more liberals and leftists are thinking along similar lines. The difference seems to be that conservatives look to something above and outside themselves -- God -- while the left may be leaning toward something they can claim is within us, call it Nature or what you will. It's probably a significant difference, but it makes me wonder whether there's still room for an approach different from both, the now old fashioned-seeming Enlightenment commitment to enlightened self-interest and its corollary, enlightened mutual interest. Can we achieve a harmonious culture with neither biological assistance or a mandatory endorsement of some "noble lie?" Can we even imagine doing so now? If someone can, then that's the movie I'd really like to see.
29 December 2009
The "Preppers": Fatalism vs. Preventive Survivalism
Newsweek has tried hard and somewhat convincingly to tell us that the people called "preppers" and described in this article as a historic third wave of American survivalists are not like the more menacing survivalists of the popular imagination. But the article still alarms me. I'll concede the point that many preppers are not the apocalyptic types who might actually welcome the breakdown of civilization. I'll even call it admirable that they feel inspired to learn skills for self-reliance in the event of adversity. The thing that worries me is something that looks like fatalism in their attitude, a tendency to take for granted that society and government will break down. The article hints that many preppers have been put into alarmist mode by the naysaying and doom-preaching of cable news or talk radio, from which they might also learn that government will avail them not when the crisis comes. Others are simply alarmed by the recent recession or the nation's now-obvious vulnerability to terrorism and natural disasters. But whatever the cause, preppers seem to act on the assumption that a time may come soon when they will have to save themselves. The fatalistic part of this is their apparent inability or unwillingness to believe that they, as individuals or as part of an aroused community, can take action to prevent societal breakdown. Whether because they distrust government, distrust all institutions, or distrust their fellow men and women, it seems like they've already made the decision to save themselves first, even while there's presumably still a chance to save their neighborhood or their nation. So while preppers may not be the sort of people who long for the return of the wilderness, the kind who are even now fantasizing about being the alpha males and patriarchs of Mad Max Land, the preppers' implicit fatalism has the same self-fulfilling-prophecy quality about it as the oldschool survivalists' stockpile building. Their attitude is a symptom of the very societal breakdown that they hope to survive.
28 December 2009
Iran for Dummies
It looks like another round of Gestapo tactics on the streets of Teheran as the Ahmadinejad administration and the Khamenei government hope to beat the still-disgruntled opposition into more complete submission. Ever since the disputed election, every time we see demonstrations and violent reactions from the authorities we hear Americans deploring the President's failure to denounce the Iranian regime more strongly. We even see a few people urge the adoption by the U.S. of a "regime change" policy toward Iran. That's the only way to help those poor dissidents, we're told, or the only way to prevent the country from perfecting nuclear weapons. The dissidents clearly have a hard road ahead of them, but they've impressed me as a courageous and not easily deterred lot of people. So far I see them protesting and not attempting to bring down the government. I definitely don't hear them saying, "America, come liberate us with your bombs!" They have enough troubles with their government reflexively accusing all dissidents of being American stooges anyway. So, for the dummies: all your regime-change rhetoric is only going to make things worse for the people you want to help. And here's another problem: you have no right to help them. You can cheer them on as private citizens, and to the extent that I believe that Ahmadinejad stole the election I'd cheer on the dissidents, too. But some of the people most loudly cheering them on now, who take on faith that the election was stolen, had no tolerance whatsoever for Americans who believed that the presidential election of 2000 was stolen. I can't help wondering how much tolerance they'd show for demonstrators shouting "Death to Bush" before calling the riot squad. Hypocrisy, however, is not the real issue here. The real issue is individuals conspiring to make the overthrow of any government a matter of explicit American policy. In my mind that's morally equivalent to a declaration of war, and as far as I'm concerned, if someone is out in public saying that the U.S. should change the Iranian regime, then no matter how despicable Ahmadinejad and Khamenei may be as people or as politicians, they'd be within their rights to have that agitator killed. I'm not saying that such people should be killed or that I'd approve of their deaths. I'm just reminding people that the Islamic Republic as the recognized sovereign of the country has as much right to defend itself from foreign menaces, pre-emptively if necessary, as any other nation claims for itself. If that sounds to anyone like "moral equivalence," then too bad for you.
27 December 2009
Repression in Defense of Religion: It Can Happen Here
An Illinois politician got some publicity for himself this weekend by trying to take down a display of atheist sentiments that had been put up, presumably with permission, in a public building. The sign's assertion that "there are no gods" was taken by this man to be a vicious and hurtful denigration of religion; as such, in his view, it did not belong in a public place. By that standard, of course, he disqualifies all religious signs or symbols from public display, since the affirmation of deity must, by likewise definition, be a denigration of those atheists who supposedly enjoy equal protection under American law. But sophistry aside, something is wrong with the picture when the mere assertion of one principle opposed to another is taken as an insult to the other. That sounds like Islamic extremism or, depending on context, Bipolarchy thinking. Too many Americans, secular or not, bring an all-or-nothing, victory-or-death mentality to discussions that almost always require compromise solutions. Like violent Islamists, we act as if the failure to get our way in all things is an unendurable "humiliation" that justifies a backlash. In some extreme or absurd cases (the present one falling into the latter category) hypersensitive sorts can't stand to hear or see their beliefs contradicted in any way. It may be that the more public space is eroded and we retreat into virtual communities of affinity as opposed to communities of necessity, the less tolerant of compromise, or of tolerance itself, we become. A public building is bound to become a contested zone, and the expression of minority opinions becomes our canary in the metaphorical mineshaft. It it becomes intolerable to easily offended people and gets expelled, then all of us have less breathing space left than we think.
26 December 2009
Terror Returns
While the would-be suicide bomber arrested at a Detroit airport failed in his immediate task he can console himself with the thought of some success in the form of inconveniences imposed on American air travelers at one of the busiest times of the year. Whether there will be political consequences remains to be seen. I suppose some people will try to blame the Obama administration for this man being able to board planes in foreign countries. On the other hand, I can imagine some fringites imagining that the happy-ending scenario was contrived by the Obama administration, either to reinforce its case for escalation in Afghanistan or to distract Americans from the President's alleged domestic failures. The extremes I can predict. How the rest will react I don't know. The most surprising reaction might just be a collective shrug and a return of everyone to his or her business. That would reflect an acceptance of incidents like Friday's as sort of normal. That might be regrettable, though realistic, but it would still be a preferable alternative to any hysteria that demands radical new measures after every episode of would-be terrorism. In any event, here is proof that some radical Islamists still want to kill American civilians in reprisal for Muslim suffering. It is terrorism if it's meant toward some political end, but if revenge is an end in itself that really limits our options. If terrorism is a means toward an end, then victory in a war on terror might come if the enemy is convinced that killing civilians won't advance their goals. But it these attacks are motivated purely by vengefulness, the only way to end them is to extinguish that impulse. Planes can't be made terrorist-proof unless you want to put everyone to sleep as they board and lock them in compartments for the duration of the flight. No one will stand for that, so they'll accept the risk that exists now or they'll demand a final solution, literal or figurative, to the Muslim problem. This may be one of the first questions the new year will answer.
23 December 2009
The Nebraska Compromise: the Criminalization of Politics?
The so-called "Nebraska Compromise" that appears to be essential to the passage of health-care reform legislation in the U.S. Senate sounds like a dirty deal. Senator Nelson of that state, a Democrat, apparently held out for a special provision exempting Nebraska from Medicaid contributions. Understandably, some other states are indignant. A number of states attorneys general are reportedly investigating the legislation toward the end of making a constitutional challenge to it. News reports are dramatizing the story by describing the attorneys general as "prosecutors," as if they were planning criminal action against Nelson or Sen. Reid. I could understand why they'd want to, but it looks like all they can do is to go to court against the bill or induce a citizen to do so.
For the record, all the attorneys general involved in the pending investigation are Republicans, and the apparent instigator of the investigation, the attorney general of South Carolina, launched his investigation at the request of that state's two Republican Senators. At this point many people would be happy to end the discussion, dismissing all the complaints as partisan. Let's concede that charge for the sake of arguments and perhaps assume that some of these prosecutors, at least, might not be troubled had a Republican Senator, or one from one of their own states, had cut a deal like Nelson's. Neither their partisanship nor their possible hypocrisy changes the fact that they're doing the right thing right now. The Nebraska Compromise is unfair by any objective standard, whether it proves to be constitutional or not. Legislation of this sort ought to undergo constitutional scrutiny before it's passed, and it's arguably a flaw in the American political system that there seems to be no provision for such a process. Why should we suffer under laws that can only be proven unconstitutional after the fact of their passage? You might argue that the separation of powers dictates it, or that the Framers, not anticipating judicial review on the Marbury v. Madison model, expected Congressmen to be adequate judges of the constitutionality of their own legislation. The history of judicial review proves that expectation to be an unjustified assumption. Whether there can be constitutional scrutiny of legislation prior to passage that would not be as partisan as the legislation itself is a fair question, but if we can't assume anyone to be capable of acting independent of partisanship this country is finished. If Democrats see no cause for complaint in the Nebraska Compromise, they're wearing partisan blinders. If Republicans are complaining for partisan reasons only we can at least encourage them to set a precedent for everyone else.
For the record, all the attorneys general involved in the pending investigation are Republicans, and the apparent instigator of the investigation, the attorney general of South Carolina, launched his investigation at the request of that state's two Republican Senators. At this point many people would be happy to end the discussion, dismissing all the complaints as partisan. Let's concede that charge for the sake of arguments and perhaps assume that some of these prosecutors, at least, might not be troubled had a Republican Senator, or one from one of their own states, had cut a deal like Nelson's. Neither their partisanship nor their possible hypocrisy changes the fact that they're doing the right thing right now. The Nebraska Compromise is unfair by any objective standard, whether it proves to be constitutional or not. Legislation of this sort ought to undergo constitutional scrutiny before it's passed, and it's arguably a flaw in the American political system that there seems to be no provision for such a process. Why should we suffer under laws that can only be proven unconstitutional after the fact of their passage? You might argue that the separation of powers dictates it, or that the Framers, not anticipating judicial review on the Marbury v. Madison model, expected Congressmen to be adequate judges of the constitutionality of their own legislation. The history of judicial review proves that expectation to be an unjustified assumption. Whether there can be constitutional scrutiny of legislation prior to passage that would not be as partisan as the legislation itself is a fair question, but if we can't assume anyone to be capable of acting independent of partisanship this country is finished. If Democrats see no cause for complaint in the Nebraska Compromise, they're wearing partisan blinders. If Republicans are complaining for partisan reasons only we can at least encourage them to set a precedent for everyone else.
22 December 2009
Giuliani and his Understudies
Rudolph Giuliani did not retire from public life today, as I thought he might, and that's a problem for Republicans in New York State. Expected to be a favorite had he run either for Governor or Senator, the former mayor of New York renounced political ambitions for next year only, citing "pretty significant commitments." He then endorsed Rick Lazio for the Republican senatorial nomination as a challenger to Sen. Gillibrand. Lazio was the second-string Republican back in 2000, when Giuliani withdrew from the race against the present Sen. Clinton for health reasons. It's possible that health concerns are in back of his vague official excuse this time, but he may feel that his consulting business has higher priority right now, and his disastrous campaign for the presidential nomination last year may have spooked him off of politics for years to come. But as long as he doesn't renounce politics permanently he's still going to be considered the front-runner among Republicans for any statewide election with a Democratic incumbent. As long as that's the case, people like Lazio or whoever ends up getting the GOP gubernatorial nomination are going to look like second-stringers, second-class candidates. Whether than impression is rational or not it's bound to hurt Republican candidates. Not that I'm complaining, but looking at things objectively I have to advise the state party to pressure Giuliani to retire from politics once and for all simply so Lazio and other wannabes can step out of his shadow to be judged on their own merits, not relative to his.
Speaking for myself, I'd applaud Giuliani's permanent withdraw from the political scene. There is an unseemly authoritarian streak to the man that became most obvious when he sought an emergency extension of his final mayoral term following the September 2001 terrorist attacks on New York. He seems an unlikely representative of a party supposedly dedicated to minimal government unless his prominence and popularity among Republicans betrays their desire for a maximization of government in some areas. But even if he hasn't truly retired from politics, I don't think we really have to worry about him. To drop out at a point when Republicans can still believe that either office up for grabs next year was his for the taking should brand him for good as a gun-shy quitter. Giuliani may not have given up on politics, but New Yorkers should give up on him.
Speaking for myself, I'd applaud Giuliani's permanent withdraw from the political scene. There is an unseemly authoritarian streak to the man that became most obvious when he sought an emergency extension of his final mayoral term following the September 2001 terrorist attacks on New York. He seems an unlikely representative of a party supposedly dedicated to minimal government unless his prominence and popularity among Republicans betrays their desire for a maximization of government in some areas. But even if he hasn't truly retired from politics, I don't think we really have to worry about him. To drop out at a point when Republicans can still believe that either office up for grabs next year was his for the taking should brand him for good as a gun-shy quitter. Giuliani may not have given up on politics, but New Yorkers should give up on him.
Blue Dog Turns Red
Likely to be overshadowed by Rudy Giuliani's expected and welcome retirement from political life today is the announcement that a first-term Democratic congressman from Alabama is switching parties to become a Republican. Parker Griffith had been a state senator since 2006 before running in 2008 to replace a retiring Democratic incumbent who had held the seat since 1990. While this northern district, notable for having a Boeing plant, has been "red" for a long time, giving George W. Bush big margins both times out, the congressional seat has remained Democratic since the end of Reconstruction. Griffith was clearly a Democrat as a matter of convenience only, and inevitably became a Blue Dog with a particular hostility, as a physician, to Democratic health-care reform proposals. He was reportedly shaken by hecklers at town meetings earlier this year despite his own criticism of the reform plans. He was also irked that the government was going to be sending less money Boeing's way on various aerospace projects.
By progressive standards, as a Blue Dog Griffith was a DINO or "Democrat in name only," and for once this looks like a fair charge. The Democratic Party in northern Alabama is probably unrepresentative of the Democratic National Committee or Democratic voters as a whole. That forces the question of why Griffith or his predecessor needed to be Democrats, or why now Griffith's only option for political survival seems to be to turn Republican in defiance of already-announced challengers for his seat. Griffith's defection probably requires him to renounce no principles he ever held, and he will most likely vote in Congress exactly as he did before. From the vantage of the American Bipolarchy Griffith's switch may be a significant event, but for all practical purposes nothing has happened. Yet he may not get reelected and may not even be renominated simply because he's switched his label at an untimely moment. It will be hard to tell from my distance whether Griffith deserves his likely fate or whether he'll be a victim of partisanship on all sides. But to the extent that he's being held accountable for the policies of a party leadership he's apparently opposed consistently, his story demonstrates the absurdity of party politics in America today.
By progressive standards, as a Blue Dog Griffith was a DINO or "Democrat in name only," and for once this looks like a fair charge. The Democratic Party in northern Alabama is probably unrepresentative of the Democratic National Committee or Democratic voters as a whole. That forces the question of why Griffith or his predecessor needed to be Democrats, or why now Griffith's only option for political survival seems to be to turn Republican in defiance of already-announced challengers for his seat. Griffith's defection probably requires him to renounce no principles he ever held, and he will most likely vote in Congress exactly as he did before. From the vantage of the American Bipolarchy Griffith's switch may be a significant event, but for all practical purposes nothing has happened. Yet he may not get reelected and may not even be renominated simply because he's switched his label at an untimely moment. It will be hard to tell from my distance whether Griffith deserves his likely fate or whether he'll be a victim of partisanship on all sides. But to the extent that he's being held accountable for the policies of a party leadership he's apparently opposed consistently, his story demonstrates the absurdity of party politics in America today.
21 December 2009
No Society Without Government
Gordon S. Wood's Empire of Liberty arrived in my mail last week. It's a survey of U.S. history from 1789-1815 from one of the major modern historians of the period. Reading an early chapter, it occurred to me that people in the founding generation suffered from a fundamental fallacy. They made a distinction between "society" and "government." As Wood puts it: "The most liberal-minded of the eighteenth century...tended to see society as beneficent and government as malevolent." He quotes Thomas Paine: "Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness." Idealists of the age believed that society could do without government. They believed that humans had an instinct towards a harmonious society that was only disrupted by the "artificial interference of government." If people properly developed their innate moral sense, the resulting societal harmony would make government superfluous.
When most 18th century people spoke of government, they were thinking of monarchies and aristocracies that had no rational basis as far as the most liberal-minded were concerned. If you see government as a king, you might naturally think of government as parasitic. But it makes no sense to think of government as something distinct from or alien to society, as if it only comes into being through acts of violent conquest. It makes even less sense today to dispute the legitimacy or necessity of government when some people deny the existence of society itself, taking the Thatcherite view that there are only individuals and families. Nor does it make sense to appeal to some instinctual harmony when today's social ideal for many people is competition. You cannot have harmonious competition unless you believe in divine providence, "spontaneous order" or some more superstitious version of Adam Smith's "invisible hand" that somehow works everything out for the best. Government may be all too vulnerable to usurpation by the powerful or cunning, but it is the people's, or society's, defense mechanism against too much or too intense competition. It expresses the people's desire for peace and, ideally, a commitment to pool resources for collective survival. Delegating the people's collective power always involves a risk, but denying it in the name of a dubious ideal of harmony of self-interests is also risky. We might be better off unlearning 200 years of rhetoric that taught that government was something done to us and remembering that government is for us to do together.
When most 18th century people spoke of government, they were thinking of monarchies and aristocracies that had no rational basis as far as the most liberal-minded were concerned. If you see government as a king, you might naturally think of government as parasitic. But it makes no sense to think of government as something distinct from or alien to society, as if it only comes into being through acts of violent conquest. It makes even less sense today to dispute the legitimacy or necessity of government when some people deny the existence of society itself, taking the Thatcherite view that there are only individuals and families. Nor does it make sense to appeal to some instinctual harmony when today's social ideal for many people is competition. You cannot have harmonious competition unless you believe in divine providence, "spontaneous order" or some more superstitious version of Adam Smith's "invisible hand" that somehow works everything out for the best. Government may be all too vulnerable to usurpation by the powerful or cunning, but it is the people's, or society's, defense mechanism against too much or too intense competition. It expresses the people's desire for peace and, ideally, a commitment to pool resources for collective survival. Delegating the people's collective power always involves a risk, but denying it in the name of a dubious ideal of harmony of self-interests is also risky. We might be better off unlearning 200 years of rhetoric that taught that government was something done to us and remembering that government is for us to do together.
19 December 2009
Trickle-Down Obamanomics?
The President has been accused of many things this year, but for the most part, outside of the crazy basements of dead-ender racism, he hasn't been accused of giving the country to the blacks or whatever might have terrified some people about the advent of an African-American chief executive. But by doing nothing or little to provoke such fears, he has disappointed both progressives and "race men" who insist that justice requires special measures for the benefit of oppressed minorities. One such disappointed person is Derrick Z. Jackson, a columnist for the Boston Globe. One of his recent pieces appeared in a local paper this week. In it, he audaciously equates Obama's approach to social justice with Ronald Reagan's approach to economics.
There is one questionable premise and one insulting one in that excerpt. The questionable premise is that the disparity in racial unemployment rates (for men only, apparently) is based on some sort of discrimination that requires a discriminatory (or "disproportionate") government remedy. The insulting one is the assumption that policies designed to benefit "the American community, period," can only "trickle down" to African-Americans. Basically Jackson is denying that there can be a color-blind American economic policy and arguing that any policy that is not color-conscious (i.e. "disproportionately" beneficial to blacks) amounts to whites being first at the trough.
Jackson's meditation was actually inspired by the election of an open lesbian as mayor of Houston. He seems disappointed that Mayor-elect Parker did not or would not run an uncompromising gay-rights campaign, and he sees her apparent reticence as analogous to Obama's refusal to use his power to press for greater racial equality. Jackson is, to venture a guess, a radical egalitarian. From that perspective, common sense dictates that to establish equality you can't treat all people in an existing unequal society equally. We may presume that Jackson will not be satisfied until there are no discrepancies in economic statistics across racial lines, but I wonder if he'd stop there. I don't assume that he would, but I'm just curious. In any event, there remain people in this country who would not take the kind of discrepancies that offend Jackson as proofs of injustice that require state intervention. While Jackson himself notes that Obama has made small steps toward minority-conscious allocation of stimulus money, for all we know the President himself may not share the columnist's egalitarian standards. But the egalitarian must make common cause with the Democrat for now, seeing no alternative and having done nothing to create one as far as we can see.
Even though Obama is President of "all the people," he knows that the black male unemployment rate of 16.9 percent needs disproportionate remedies, compared to the 9.8 percent unemployment rate of white men. Yet he remains wedded to the trickle-down rhetoric of "The most important thing I can do for the African-American community is the same thing I can do for the American community, period, and that is getting the economy going again."...Trickle-down rhetoric did not result in a flash flood of equity under Ronald Reagan and it will not under Obama.
There is one questionable premise and one insulting one in that excerpt. The questionable premise is that the disparity in racial unemployment rates (for men only, apparently) is based on some sort of discrimination that requires a discriminatory (or "disproportionate") government remedy. The insulting one is the assumption that policies designed to benefit "the American community, period," can only "trickle down" to African-Americans. Basically Jackson is denying that there can be a color-blind American economic policy and arguing that any policy that is not color-conscious (i.e. "disproportionately" beneficial to blacks) amounts to whites being first at the trough.
Jackson's meditation was actually inspired by the election of an open lesbian as mayor of Houston. He seems disappointed that Mayor-elect Parker did not or would not run an uncompromising gay-rights campaign, and he sees her apparent reticence as analogous to Obama's refusal to use his power to press for greater racial equality. Jackson is, to venture a guess, a radical egalitarian. From that perspective, common sense dictates that to establish equality you can't treat all people in an existing unequal society equally. We may presume that Jackson will not be satisfied until there are no discrepancies in economic statistics across racial lines, but I wonder if he'd stop there. I don't assume that he would, but I'm just curious. In any event, there remain people in this country who would not take the kind of discrepancies that offend Jackson as proofs of injustice that require state intervention. While Jackson himself notes that Obama has made small steps toward minority-conscious allocation of stimulus money, for all we know the President himself may not share the columnist's egalitarian standards. But the egalitarian must make common cause with the Democrat for now, seeing no alternative and having done nothing to create one as far as we can see.
17 December 2009
Why is there no Social Democracy in the U.S.?
The scholar Tony Judt gave a talk back in October on "What is Living and What is Dead in Social Democracy" that has been published in the new holiday issue of The New York Review of Books. Judt is asking a new version of the old question once famously raised by Werner Sombart: "Why is there no socialism in the United States?" That question has received a variety of answers over the years, but for Judt the present absence of the milder option, social democracy, is more perplexing.
"Why is it that here in the United States we have such difficulty even imagining a different sort of society from the one whose dysfunctions and inequalities trouble us so?" Judt asks, "We appear to have lost the capacity to question the present, much less offer alternatives to it. Why is it so beyond us to conceive of a different set of arrangements to our common advantage?"
Judt blames the fact that "we simply do not know how to talk about these things" on "economism," a modern tendency to think of everything in economic terms and a state of mind whose advent was anticipated with dread by thinkers from the 18th century forward. Judt seems to blame the triumph of economism on a complacency brought on by the success of the 20th century welfare state in Western Europe and the U.S. that undermined people's belief in its necessity. That still leaves no rational reason why citizens in these regions should support a gradual privatization of public services that has actually brought them little benefit. Judt seems to think that this privatization has contributed to the discrediting of the welfare state, if not the state itself, instead of being a symptom of it. He may be right, however, if he means to argue that privatization has exacerbated this sense of alienation from public feeling that leads to economism if we understand economism as a concern for one's pocketbook alone.
The cure for economism, Judt suggests, is to learn to "think the state" again. In plainer terms, we have to start thinking about the public or common good again. Judt worries that we're handicapped in doing this by the failure of Marx-style historical optimism about human progress and the state as its instrument. We can't be utopian anymore, or at least as long as memories of the failures of Bolshevism remain fresh. Judt would prefer a more moralistic social democracy that emphasizes itself as the right thing to do, but not as the answer to all questions or the fulfillment of all needs. Further, he offers the odd prescription of adopting "a social democracy of fear." This means bringing back history with an emphasis on what happens when "the market" fails and why the state needs to step in when it does. Social democracy, Judt seems to say, should be all about warning people about what can and most likely will happen if we let entrepreneurial ideologues complete the dismantling of the welfare/regulatory state. He argues that social democracy will be the real conservative movement of our time in the literal sense of that word, dedicated to preserving what was gained in the 20th century.
I'm not sure if economism sufficiently explains what's happened in this country. Judt himself notes that people have answered Sombart's original question by noting the heterogeneity of the U.S. as an obstacle to the social solidarity that emerged among European working classes. That same diversity probably had something to do with the loss of faith in the New Deal-Great Society order once some groups convinced themselves that others less deserving were benefiting more than they. But that doesn't get to the heart of Judt's leading question: why can't we think differently or outside the current box? Regular readers may roll their eyes at this point, but I can't help but thinking that the perpetual, self-reinforcing deadlock that characterizes the American Bipolarchy has something to do with this conceptual paralysis. The modern ideological alignment of the Bipolarchy along left-right lines forces too many people into reflexive opposition to policies that may benefit the country but don't fit into one or either program.
One of the two sides seems to argue in economist terms, but Judt may underestimate a "moral" element in that position. There are people in America who would argue that economism, or what Judt calls economism, is a moral principle. Judt notes the intellectual heritage of this belief in his lecture, but claims plausibly that few Americans today know the historical background of the ideas they take for granted or as gospel. At the same time, Judt may not appreciate fully the rise of a popular anti-state or anti-social ideology that owes relatively little to the likes of Hayek or Schumpeter, and everything to a dialectic process that generated a doctrinaire morally-absolutist individualism in opposition to all notions of collective welfare. At one point Judt proposes defining the humiliation of the poor as a social cost that we should try to minimize. As soon as I read the passage I regretted Judt's temporary naivete. Doesn't he realize that millions of Americans believe that humiliation is something that people deserve and should experience, either for their own good or as a lesson to others? Acknowledging the difficulty of this particular exercise, Judt says "unless we ask such questions, how can we hope to devise answers?" That's well said. My only complaint is that Judt himself isn't asking enough questions, but I suppose that's where the rest of us come in.
"Why is it that here in the United States we have such difficulty even imagining a different sort of society from the one whose dysfunctions and inequalities trouble us so?" Judt asks, "We appear to have lost the capacity to question the present, much less offer alternatives to it. Why is it so beyond us to conceive of a different set of arrangements to our common advantage?"
Judt blames the fact that "we simply do not know how to talk about these things" on "economism," a modern tendency to think of everything in economic terms and a state of mind whose advent was anticipated with dread by thinkers from the 18th century forward. Judt seems to blame the triumph of economism on a complacency brought on by the success of the 20th century welfare state in Western Europe and the U.S. that undermined people's belief in its necessity. That still leaves no rational reason why citizens in these regions should support a gradual privatization of public services that has actually brought them little benefit. Judt seems to think that this privatization has contributed to the discrediting of the welfare state, if not the state itself, instead of being a symptom of it. He may be right, however, if he means to argue that privatization has exacerbated this sense of alienation from public feeling that leads to economism if we understand economism as a concern for one's pocketbook alone.
The cure for economism, Judt suggests, is to learn to "think the state" again. In plainer terms, we have to start thinking about the public or common good again. Judt worries that we're handicapped in doing this by the failure of Marx-style historical optimism about human progress and the state as its instrument. We can't be utopian anymore, or at least as long as memories of the failures of Bolshevism remain fresh. Judt would prefer a more moralistic social democracy that emphasizes itself as the right thing to do, but not as the answer to all questions or the fulfillment of all needs. Further, he offers the odd prescription of adopting "a social democracy of fear." This means bringing back history with an emphasis on what happens when "the market" fails and why the state needs to step in when it does. Social democracy, Judt seems to say, should be all about warning people about what can and most likely will happen if we let entrepreneurial ideologues complete the dismantling of the welfare/regulatory state. He argues that social democracy will be the real conservative movement of our time in the literal sense of that word, dedicated to preserving what was gained in the 20th century.
I'm not sure if economism sufficiently explains what's happened in this country. Judt himself notes that people have answered Sombart's original question by noting the heterogeneity of the U.S. as an obstacle to the social solidarity that emerged among European working classes. That same diversity probably had something to do with the loss of faith in the New Deal-Great Society order once some groups convinced themselves that others less deserving were benefiting more than they. But that doesn't get to the heart of Judt's leading question: why can't we think differently or outside the current box? Regular readers may roll their eyes at this point, but I can't help but thinking that the perpetual, self-reinforcing deadlock that characterizes the American Bipolarchy has something to do with this conceptual paralysis. The modern ideological alignment of the Bipolarchy along left-right lines forces too many people into reflexive opposition to policies that may benefit the country but don't fit into one or either program.
One of the two sides seems to argue in economist terms, but Judt may underestimate a "moral" element in that position. There are people in America who would argue that economism, or what Judt calls economism, is a moral principle. Judt notes the intellectual heritage of this belief in his lecture, but claims plausibly that few Americans today know the historical background of the ideas they take for granted or as gospel. At the same time, Judt may not appreciate fully the rise of a popular anti-state or anti-social ideology that owes relatively little to the likes of Hayek or Schumpeter, and everything to a dialectic process that generated a doctrinaire morally-absolutist individualism in opposition to all notions of collective welfare. At one point Judt proposes defining the humiliation of the poor as a social cost that we should try to minimize. As soon as I read the passage I regretted Judt's temporary naivete. Doesn't he realize that millions of Americans believe that humiliation is something that people deserve and should experience, either for their own good or as a lesson to others? Acknowledging the difficulty of this particular exercise, Judt says "unless we ask such questions, how can we hope to devise answers?" That's well said. My only complaint is that Judt himself isn't asking enough questions, but I suppose that's where the rest of us come in.
15 December 2009
A "People's Convention" in New York?
A Republican legislator is holding a series of public meetings to publicize his effort to convene a "People's Convention to Reform New York" that would rewrite the state constitution. Brian Kolb hopes that public support will encourage legislation authorizing the election of delegates to such a convention, from which he hopes to exclude current elected politicians, "party bosses," lobbyists and "special interests." A report in today's Times Union suggests that this is a Republican initiative, but Kolb himself claims that it's a bipartisan measure and that the convention itself should be non-partisan in nature.
Kolb's good faith can be questioned. In planning a representative convention of New Yorkers, who has the right to define anyone else as a "special interest?" Those two words alone arguably betray a populist-reactionary bias to the plan, but that shouldn't lead people to dismiss the idea of a convention outright. Such a gathering may be the only way to get around the party-system that guarantees if not seeks out deadlocked politics and prevents real progress. If the movement for the PCRNY gathers momentum, vigilance will be our responsibility. Our job will be to make sure that the PCRNY won't be a populist-reactionary or Tea-Party "coup" designed to cripple government, and to make sure that progressive or outright leftist voices aren't excluded from the process. If 64% of New Yorkers like the idea of a convention, according to a Quinnipiac poll, then no one should reject the idea out of hand. Rather, we should make sure that the authorization (to the extent that that's really necessary) and organization of a convention are taken out of partisan or ideologically factional hands. Ideology is as much a "special interest" as anything else, and any effort to use a "people's convention" to push through an ideological agenda that can't otherwise prevail should be resisted with all our power.
Kolb's good faith can be questioned. In planning a representative convention of New Yorkers, who has the right to define anyone else as a "special interest?" Those two words alone arguably betray a populist-reactionary bias to the plan, but that shouldn't lead people to dismiss the idea of a convention outright. Such a gathering may be the only way to get around the party-system that guarantees if not seeks out deadlocked politics and prevents real progress. If the movement for the PCRNY gathers momentum, vigilance will be our responsibility. Our job will be to make sure that the PCRNY won't be a populist-reactionary or Tea-Party "coup" designed to cripple government, and to make sure that progressive or outright leftist voices aren't excluded from the process. If 64% of New Yorkers like the idea of a convention, according to a Quinnipiac poll, then no one should reject the idea out of hand. Rather, we should make sure that the authorization (to the extent that that's really necessary) and organization of a convention are taken out of partisan or ideologically factional hands. Ideology is as much a "special interest" as anything else, and any effort to use a "people's convention" to push through an ideological agenda that can't otherwise prevail should be resisted with all our power.
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