So What's Bill Up To?

What's Bill Up To These Days?

Teaching the Iraqis how to fly through canyons, apparently.



That's way more exciting than digging trucks out of the mud.

UPDATE: A competitor in the comments posts this video... which, actually, is also pretty cool.

Non-Current Events

Non-Current Events

Something is wrong with my brain, lately; I can't engage with current events. I thought instead I would write about some things I've been reading. First, inspired by the NPH's lovely Christmas gift of five George Eliot novels set to DVD, I began re-reading one of my favorite novels, "Middlemarch." I have a nice copy with one of those ribbons attached to the spine that can be used as a page-marker. What terrific brief portraits Eliot paints of even her secondary characters. This is Mrs. Cadwallader, the rector's wife, expostulating with her amiable but somewhat wiggly landowning neighbor, who was developing a taste for politics in the early 19th century just as Reform was gathering steam:

. . . Such a lady gave a neighbourliness to both rank and religion, and mitigated the bitterness of uncommuted tithe. A much more exemplary character with an infusion of sour dignity would not have furthered their comprehension of the Thirty-nine Articles, and would have been less socially uniting.

Mr Brooke, seeing Mrs Cadwallader's merits from a different point of view, winced a little when her name was announced in the library, where he was sitting alone.

"I see you have had our Lowick Cicero here," she said, seating herself comfortably, throwing back her wraps, and showing a thin but well-built figure. "I suspect you and he are brewing some bad politics, else you would not be seeing so much of the lively man. I shall inform against you: remember you are both suspicious characters since you took Peel's side about the Catholic Bill. I shall tell everybody that you are going to put up for Middlemarch on the Whig side when old Pinkerton resigns, and that Casaubon is going to help you in an underhand manner: going to bribe the voters with pamphlets, and throw open the public-houses to distribute them. Come, confess!"

"Nothing of the sort," said Mr Brooke, smiling and rubbing his eye-glasses, but really blushing a little at the impeachment. "Casaubon and I don't talk politics much. He doesn't care much about the philanthropic side of things; punishments, and that kind of thing. He only cares about Church questions. That is not my line of action, you know."

"Ra-a-ther too much, my friend. I have heard of your doings. Who was it that sold his bit of land to the Papists at Middlemarch? I believe you bought it on purpose. You are a perfect Guy Faux. See if you are not burnt in effigy this 5th of November coming. Humphrey would not come to quarrel with you about it, so I am come."

"Very good. I was prepared to be persecuted for not persecuting -- not persecuting, you know."

"There you go! That is a piece of clap-trap you have got ready for the hustings. Now, do not let them lure you to the hustings, my dear Mr Brooke. A man always makes a fool of himself, speechifying: there's no excuse but being on the right side, so that you can ask a blessing on your humming and hawing. You will lose youself, I forewarn you. You will make a Saturday pie of all parties' opinions, and be pelted by everybody."

"That is what I expect, you know," said Mr Brooke, not wishing to betray how little he enjoyed this prophetic sketch -- "what I expect as an independent man. As to the Whigs, a man who goes with the thinkers is not likely to be hooked on by any party. He may go with them up to a certain point -- up to a certain point, you know. But that is what you ladies never understand."

"Where your certain point is? No. I should like to be told how a man can have any certain point when he belongs to no party -- leading a roving life, and never letting his friends know his address. 'Nobody knows where Brooke will be -- there's no counting on Brooke' -- that is what people say of you, to be quite frank. Now, do turn respectable. How will you like going to Sessions with everybody looking shy on you, and you with a bad conscience and an empty pocket?"

"I don't pretend to argue with a lady on politics," said Mr Brooke, with an air of smiling indifference, but feeling rather unpleasantly conscious that this attack of Mrs Cadwallader's had opened the defensive campaign to which certain rash steps had exposed him. "Your sex are not thinkers, you know -- varium et mutabile semper -- that kind of thing. You don't know Virgil. I knew" -- Mr Brooke reflected in time that he had not had the personal acquaintance of the Augustan poet -- "I was going to say, poor Stoddart, you know. That was what he said. You ladies are always against an independent attitude -- a man's caring for nothing but truth, and that sort of thing. And there is no part of the county where opinion is narrower than it is here -- I don't mean to throw stones, you know, but somebody is wanted to take the independent line; and if I don't take it, who will?"

"Who? Why, any upstart who has got neither blood nor position. People of standing should consume their independent nonsense at home, not hawk it about. And you! who are going to marry your niece, as good as your daughter, to one of our best men. Sir James would be cruelly annoyed: it will be too hard on him if you turn round now and make yourself a Whig signboard."

I usually like to have an upstairs book and a downstairs book. I've just finished a book I've been meaning to read since someone here recommended Matt Ridley, oh, a year or so ago. The recommendation actually was for his newest book, which I haven't read yet, but I picked up two earlier ones first: "Genome," which was quite good, and this one, "The Origins of Virtue." Many books treating human ethics from the perspective of evolutionary biology drive me crazy, but I did enjoy this one. Ridley covers developments in game theory that I know you've all heard about elsewhere, and often here, such as the wrinkles on the Prisoner's Dilemma and modifications such as "tit-for-tat" and "tit-for-tat-with-forgiveness." What he added that I hadn't run into before was attention to game theory experiments in which the players were allowed to play repeatedly and develop reputations, coupled with the freedom to agree or refuse to play with certain players. He ends with a theory of what cooperative characteristics are peculiar to humankind. Not specialization and the division of labor, because insects do that, too. Not the ability to form coalitions and use cooperation as a weapon in social relations, including the defense of territory or assets by a group, because chimpanzees do that. Not even the use of alliances between groups to combat third groups, because bottlenose dolphins do that. What he thinks only humans do is exploit the law of comparative advantage between groups: that is, specialize at the group level, and engage in trade between groups. For him, therefore, the free market is the essence of humanity, which makes him a man after my own heart.

Here's a book I've been slowly reading for a very long time: "Power, Sex, Suicide," by Nick Lane, subtitled "Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life." Power, because mitochondria, which started life as separate bacteria-like organisms that were engulfed and internally "farmed" by other bacteria, are today the powerhouses of our own cells, pumping protons tirelessly across membranes. Sex, because of something that I haven't understood yet about the need to avoid recombination of mitochondrial DNA from our own DNA, which has led to the concentration of mitochondria in the egg and its strict exclusion from the sperm, which is the biological essence of gender distinctions. Suicide, because mitochondria brought with them the mechanism for orderly cell death that is crucial to the welfare of a multicellular organism if each cell is not constantly to attempt a selfish coup d'etat in the form of cancer. You can't go wrong with a popularized science work by Nick Lane. He's a fine writer who knows how to organize his ideas.

But I think I'm going to set all these aside for a while and read a couple of romps that just came in the mail. One is "War in Heaven," by Charles Williams, a Holy-Grail Brit whodunnit from the 1960s that is the anti-Da Vinci Code, and the other is "Night of Thunder," by Steven Hunter, a Nascar-sniper mashup. I recently read about both of these on Lars's excellent site, Brandywine Books.

Warm Weather

Warm Weather:

The stuff has me thinking of spring. I spent the afternoon digging a truck out of the mud -- it got hung up on a tree stump at the bottom of a muddy hill, so I had to take the tire off and cut the stump with a chainsaw. Then the truck slipped back, so the drum and axle went into the mud. Once I got that jacked up, it still wasn't enough to let me put the tire back on, so I had to get a shovel and dig it all out.

Bit of a pain. It was warm, though, even into the early evening.

So I am thinking of spring, and that means St. Patrick's Day. To me that means Kevin Barry's Pub down Savannah way; and good old Harry who sings thereabouts.

Might have to make a trip down there this year. Anybody want to come?

Bwahaha

Lessons in Reality:

Greyhawk notes a small collision.

Off they went to see Bradley, bringing a petition with 42,000 signatures demanding he be released from solitary confinement. But then...The Guardian:

...the pair were stopped by military police and Hamsher's car impounded after guards found the vehicle's license plates had expired and Hamsher was unable to produce insurance papers.

The Washington Post:

Quantico spokesman Col. Thomas V. Johnson says the car was towed after the pair could not provide proof of insurance and guards found the vehicle's license plates had expired.

This reminds me of that reporter in Iraq who was so put out by having the Ugandan guards demand his ID. I always liked the Ugandans, but even though they normally saw me twice a day every day, if I had shown up without my CAC card for identification they would not have let me in -- not to the DFAC, not to the PX, not to anything they were assigned to guard.

(In fact, shortly after coming back from Iraq, I went into WalMart and had a moment of panic when I saw the greeter standing there at the door. Where's my CAC card??? She won't let me in!)

Of course, I wasn't delivering pizza important signatures expressing support for a suspected traitor, either. That kind of business is too important to get bogged down with little things like paying your tax-and-tag taxes, or keeping up with the automobile-insurance mandate you'd so eagerly like to extend to my health-insurance bills.

Ten Bucks

When You've Got Ten Bucks that You Can Blow...

We're getting close to the State of the Union, which is the right time for this political warning about incivility.

Names

The Names of Things:

There is some law at work in Georgia that requires names of places to worsen over time. I don't know if it works the same way elsewhere, but a student of history quickly learns that Georgia used to have interesting and descriptive place names, and now has bland and uninteresting names. For example, one of the modest-sized cities in Georgia used to be called "Mule Camp Springs," as it lay at the first good springs for mule trains making the trek over the mountains on the way north; it is now known as "Gainesville."

I was reminded of this on a trip to Fort Yargo.



I mean, come on: "Jug Tavern"? "Groaning Rock"? Those are much better names. You'd want to live in a place called "Jug Tavern."

Here's the old fort, by the way:



Doesn't seem like much, does it? Apparently it was enough.

Confucious

Confucius:

This is the most interesting thing from China in quite a while, from my perspective.

In a ritual equal only to that of the church, last week China placed a statue of Confucius in its political heart, Tiananmen Square, before Mao Zedong's portrait and near the modern obelisk to the People's Heroes, two symbols that materially defined China's national identity for 60 years.

This is a political statement, not a celebration of art, and it reshapes the country's ideological mission.

That's certainly right. It also represents a significant retreat from Maoism -- not so far as to repudiate him, but as far as one can go without repudiating him. Whereas the mission of the Maoists was to undo traditional society and radically alter it in new directions, the elevation of Confucius is a restatement of the importance of his teachings as a foundation of Chinese society. If China is now looking for the middle way between radical rejection of the lessons of the past, and adherence to strong traditions with a positive heritage, it is doing something very different from what Mao wanted to do. It is also doing something better.

Gender Equality

Gender Equality

I don't feel I've been holding up my end lately on the gender war discussions. I derived new inspiration from Megan McArdle's latest post, which started out as something incomprehensible about the First Lady, pedestrian deaths, and those smug high-fructose-corn-syrup ads about how it's "natural, and fine in moderation," but quickly shifted in the comments to a useful discussion about gender roles:

Why, just this morning as I was enjoying one of the blueberry muffins my wife had made, I remarked about how glad I was to be having her home-cooked food, b/c it's blessedly free of high-fructose corn syrup, transfatty acids, & other commonly maligned bogeymen of our foody-age. Well, she came right back at me with all of the facts & figures that she had dug up last night during one of her regular exhaustive visits to the Corn Refiners Association website. I gotta tell you, it really opened my eyes about a few things . . . Mostly it made me question why I had ever thought marrying such a pedantic bore might be a good idea. Well, at least there's the blueberry muffins, I suppose.

A commenter responded:

It's appalling to witness such rigid gender role assignment in this day and age. Shame on you (in a self-esteem promoting way, of course) for not holding a family meeting to discuss a less discriminatory and more unisex arrangement. For starters, consider banishing such outdated strictures as "wife" and "husband" in favor of "Spouse 1" and "Spouse A."

To which came the reply:

That is an excellent suggestion. I particularly like "Spouse 1 & Spouse A" even though it perpetuates the long-held discrimination in favor of the allegedly 'first' numbers & letters. In that respect, "Spouse 67Q and Spouse %6y" might be even better, though perhaps a bit unwieldy in everyday usage.

Regardless, my Spouse 67Q is a perhaps unenlightened, old-fashioned sort. She even changed her name after we got married. She changed it to "Rogers" rather than mine, but still, it's the thought that counts.

End Times

End Times

Doesn't this photograph evoke Judgment Day? This shot of a Montana supercell, which is today's home page for the Bing search engine, is part of a series of photographs from a National Geographic 2010 contest, which you can find here.

The NOAA explains that most supercells will produce some ugly weather, but only about a third will mature into a tornado. This kind of impressive rotation is associated with the head-on collision of cold air and warm air along a front, which results in a kind of breaking-wave effect, as shown in this graphic:

Nonviolence

Nonviolence:

Advocated by the paper in Richmond.

Republicans and Democrats have lamented the frequency of violent rhetoric in politics. Fewer seem to have regrets about the actual use of violence itself....

But what about violence by the state? Liberals and conservatives alike often embrace it as a means to an end they desire.

Government, as Max Weber famously put it, is distinguished from other social organizations by its claim to a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. A church or club might invite you to join, but cannot conscript you as government can. A developer cannot take your property by eminent domain; only government can. Acme might try to persuade you to buy widgets through advertising. A gay-rights group might try to coerce Acme to adopt gay-friendly personnel policies by organizing a boycott of Acme's products. But Acme cannot make you buy widgets at the point of a gun, and gay-rights groups cannot change Acme's employee policies by kidnapping the CEO's daughter.

Acme must rely on your consenting however grudgingly to buy its widgets, and the rights group must rely on other people consenting to join their boycott. Only the government can make you buy its products on pain of imprisonment. (Just ask actor Wesley Snipes, currently doing a three-year stretch for tax evasion.) Only government can force you to "boycott" products it declares off-limits, such as heroin, and arrest you if you don't.

The debate over the size and scope of government, then, is an argument over when to use violence to change things and circumstances consensual activity cannot.

I would contest the claim of government to a monopoly on the use of force; either that, or recognize that all citizens end up having a role to play, as citizens, in the governance of the nation. Nevertheless, there is broadly speaking a good point to be made here.

Don't Give Me That

Alexander the Great Conquered Afghanistan:

Not in his own lifetime... by proxy:

Though Alexander the Great could not totally conquer this rugged northeastern flank of the Persian Empire in the fourth century B.C., he is credited with leaving behind the drug that ultimately would. Actual cultivation of poppy shows up in Afghanistan's recorded history about 300 years ago. It was a crop well suited to the loamy soils of Badakhshan and the eastern province of Nangarhar, where it was first grown—requiring little fertilization and rainfall, a short growing season, and about as much expertise as it takes to hand-scatter seeds and cut slits in a bulb. Poppy occupied a benign niche in the country's agrarian culture throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, even as India's stranglehold over the opium trade later gave way to Turkey and then to the highlands of Southeast Asia, thanks to the growing market for heroin in Europe and the United States.

Only in the middle of the 20th century did Afghanistan become an opium exporter. At the request of the United Nations, which Afghanistan joined in 1946, King Mohammad Zahir Shah temporarily halted cultivation. The subsistence poppy farmers of Badakhshan and Nangarhar persuaded him to reverse his decision. In the meantime the crops for which Afghan farmers achieved renown were pistachios, almonds, pomegranates, cotton, and grapes.

So it was, until the Soviet invasion of December 1979 upended Afghanistan's landscape.

King Mohammad Zahir Shah was clearly the bright spot of recent Afghan history. Every good word anyone has to say about its history seems to center on his reign.

Anti-War

The Anti-War Movement:

We have long known that the core of the anti-war movement was naive college students who haven't yet learned how reality works, led by a very few hard-core radicals. Some of these radicals are good people, like the Quaker groups, which are mostly made up of northeastern mothers who just hate the idea of violence. Some are terrible, like the Stalinist group ANSWER, which serves as an apologist for states like the DPRK. Regardless of which, however, there are very few people genuinely committed to the movement. There aren't many Stalinists because the ideology has been slowly exposed as the totalitarian evil that it is. There aren't many Quakers for the reasons explored by the excellent John Wayne film Angel & the Badman (currently available on Hulu, by the way).

The use of the movement by the broader left during the Bush administration made it seem larger than it ever really was. A new video clarifies just how great the falloff has been since the election of a left-wing president. The temporary swell wasn't made up of committed anti-warriors at all. It was made up of some combination of Democratic party partisans, and people who kind of thought the 1960s were cool and were sorry they had missed it. Wouldn't it be fun to go out and protest a war, man?

This is too bad, because the anti-war movement -- at least that good-hearted part of it -- really does serve an important function.

An American-led military unit pulverized an Afghan village in Kandahar’s Arghandab River Valley in October, after it became overrun with Taliban insurgents. It’s hard to understand how turning an entire village into dust fits into America’s counterinsurgency strategy — which supposedly prizes the local people’s loyalty above all else.

The pictures are, and ought to be, stunning. It is surely an object lesson on why it is a bad idea to get crosswise with a Field Artillery unit. Perhaps it is also a lesson on the limits of asking an artillery unit to function as a counterinsurgency unit, although such units have functioned very well in Iraq and elsewhere. This response is not out of character for a redleg unit, that is to say; but that is not to say that they haven't operated with restraint up to this point.

Now, I'm not suggesting that the unit in question did anything wrong. The commander will have been advised by a lawyer on his staff; clearly the action was passed for approval all the way up to General Petraeus, given the presence of his biographer in the pre-planned media response 'fires.' Therefore, we can assume that the action was considered by various Staff Judge Advocates and others of their kind, and found to be in accord with military law and the laws of war.

Still, it is the proper function of the anti-war movement -- the good hearted, loyal opposition sort -- to insist on that explanation being made plainly and loudly. This kind of action has to be justified on pretty demanding grounds, including St. Thomas Aquinas' doctrine of double effect.

The 1-320th is clearly doing at least some of the right things from a COIN standpoint, such as holding shuras with the popular leadership to arrange for compensation and rebuilding. That said:

Flynn has held “reconstruction shuras” with the villagers and begun compensating villagers for their property losses, but so far the reconstruction has barely begun, three months after the destruction.

“Sure they are pissed about the loss of their mud huts,” Broadwell wrote on Facebook, “but that is why the BUILD story is important here.”

Broadwell writes that the operation is ultimately a success, quoting Flynn as saying “As of today, more of the local population talks to us and the government than talk to the Taliban.” That appears to be good enough for higher command. Petraeus, having visited the village and allowing Flynn to personally approve reconstruction projects worth up to $1 million, told his commanders in the south to “take a similar approach to what 1-320th was doing on a grander scale as it applies to the districts north of Arghandab.”

It is not shocking to learn that reconstruction takes more than three months in Afghanistan, given its noted logistical problems. What bothers me -- a man who has, I think it is fair to say, a warrior spirit -- is to learn that this story made no appearance whatever three months ago when it happened. (What was going on three months ago that might have drowned the story, by the way? Let's see... January, December, November.... that would put this right before the elections. Oh, right.)

That the military has the mechanisms to do the right thing I do not doubt. That it is surely going through the process I do not doubt. It is nevertheless part of the moral health of our society to have the explanations made carefully and as part of the public debate. The anti-war movement should be the ones insisting on that; but warriors have a duty to hold each other to the laws of war as well. It is, after all, the souls of our brothers that are at stake.

In demanding such an explanation I do not mean to cast doubt upon the military officers who serve as their lawyers, or even the ones who serve as their chaplains. It is simply a duty that we have to perform.

A Hero

A Hero in Germany:

I mentioned below that I was reading Eichmann in Jerusalem earlier this week. One of the issues raised by the book is nonviolent resistance to the Nazis' plans for extermination of the Jews in occupied Europe, which author Hannah Arendt showed to be more common than is often realized, and generally effective where practiced. She is particularly clear in her praise of the Danish people.

Of course, given time, it is quite likely that the Nazis would have overcome these obstacles. There was likewise the necessity of physical force to stop the Nazi regime. One of the attempts famously came from the German military itself. Arendt is somewhat dismissive of it.

What had sparked their opposition had been not the Jewish question but the fact that Hitler was preparing war, and the endless conflicts and crises of conscience under which they labored hinged almost exclusively on the problem of high treason and the violation of their loyalty oath.... To the last, their greatest concern was how it would be possible to prevent chaos and to ward off the danger of civil war. (Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem (New York: Penguin Books, 1994), 98.)

Now, these are from my perspective highly proper concerns for military men to hold in their hearts. Violation of an oath must be very carefully considered; treason is no matter for a man of honor to take lightly. The danger of a civil war is a severe one under the best of circumstances, which do not include having the Red Army advancing on your position.

Nevertheless, one can appreciate the objection that their concerns were patriotic, and not motivated by a human feeling for Jews as such. For that reason, I found this essay by Alan Wolfe both surprising and fascinating.

Bonhoeffer believed that states were necessary to secure conditions of social order. But when a state violated the prior order established by God, as the Nazis had clearly done, what should a Christian do? Bonhoeffer expressed his answer in an essay called “The Church and the Jewish Question” in 1933, which he wrote out of his disgust with the German Christians and their worship of naked power. Without Judaism, he declared, there could be no such thing as Christianity. Christians therefore had to stand in opposition to such explicitly anti-Semitic policies as the Aryan Paragraph. But Bonhoeffer went further. Christians, he continued, were under a positive duty “not just to bandage the victims under the wheel, but to put a spoke in the wheel itself.” Any church that allied itself with an evil regime was not a church, and could not therefore speak for God. “What is at stake,” Bonhoeffer insisted, “is by no means whether our German members of congregations can still tolerate church fellowship with the Jews. It is rather the task of Christian preaching to say: here is the church, where Jew and German stand together under the Word of God; here is the proof of whether a church is still the church or not.”

The implications of Bonhoeffer’s thinking became obvious in May 1934, at the meeting that produced the famous Barmen Declaration and the birth of the Confessing Church. “If you find that we are speaking contrary to Scripture,” the Declaration proclaimed, “then do not listen to us! But if you find that we are taking our stand upon Scripture, then let no fear or temptation keep you from treading with us the path of faith and obedience to the Word of God.”

Bonhoeffer was a crucial member of the conspiracy, one who spoke openly but also worked as a secret agent for the benefit of the Jews. He is clearly someone that Arendt leaves out of her calculation that 'to the last' the conspirators were chiefly worried about worldly things.

Wolfe is somewhat bothered by this.

As admirable as Bonhoeffer’s actions were, there nonetheless remains something disturbing—we should be candid about this—in his willingness to jettison so many centuries of moral and ethical reflection on the good life and how it should be led. “Principles are only tools in the hands of God,” he wrote. “They will soon be thrown away when they are no longer useful.” But it is precisely because we recognize the fragility of ethical principles that we work to preserve and protect them when they are under attack. If all men were Bonhoeffers, ethics might be dispensable. But they are not, and so we need Kant and his successors....

I would be less than honest if I did not admit that bringing this man—and his intransigence on all the important questions of our time—so vividly to life raises awkward questions for the liberalism in which I put my own faith. How, precisely, would a Rawlsian have acted in those dark times? Must we not move beyond this-worldly conceptions of politics as a struggle for power to other-worldly concerns with repentance and days of judgment, if we are to grasp how the Nazis were able to combine their own rational plans to kill millions with satanically inspired ideas about a Thousand Year Reich, and also how some people were able to resist those plans? Is it possible to face death with courage without knowing that a better life awaits? Can one be loyal to one’s collaborators in the resistance without being loyal to some higher power? Can faith help overcome torture? Lurking behind all such questions is the major one: if the problem of evil is not one that humans can solve, have we no choice but to rely on God for help? Does Bonhoeffer’s greatness prove his rightness?

We can see the problem clearly if we return to Arendt for a moment. She was plainly a Kantian -- her final argument for the execution of Eichmann in spite of all legal difficulties pertaining to the case is essentially drawn from Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Her final writing at the end of her life was on Kant's practical and political philosophy.

She also notes, however, that Eichmann claimed to be a Kantian.

[Eichmann] declared and with great emphasis that he had lived his whole life according to Kant's moral precepts, and especially according to a Kantian definition of duty.... "And, to the surprise of everybody, Eichmann came up with an approximately correct definition of the categorical imperative. 'I meant by my remark about Kant that the principle of my will must always be such that it can become the principle of general laws'.... Upon further questioning, he added that he had read Kant's Critique of Practical Reason.... Whatever Kant's role in the formation of 'the little man's' mentality in Germany may have been, there is not the slightest doubt that in one respect Eichmann did indeed follow Kant's precepts: a law was a law, there could be no exceptions. (Arendt, 135-7)

I'm not quoting her strident and plain objection to Eichmann's application of Kant's principles. She also noted that Eichmann himself admitted that he was failing Kant when he agreed to work on the Final Solution.

However, the Final Solution followed two previous 'solutions' -- forced emigration and concentration camps. Apparently both of these were in line with Eichmann's formulation and understanding of the categorical imperative. That's not quite as unreasonable as it sounds: the conflict in the will in 'formulating a maxim' that people be killed is that, if it were universalized, you would also be killed and thus unable to will. Since that is a logical contradiction, the maxim cannot be approved by Kant's mechanism. There's no similar contradiction in a universal maxim that people should be expelled from their homes. However uncomfortable, it doesn't stop me from willing.

This is really the problem with Kant's practical philosophy. His clear idea (which becomes much more explicit in the "Doctrine of Virtue," in his later Metaphysics of Morals) was to prove that Christian morality was capable of being generated by pure practical reason. There are good arguments that he failed to do this; in fact, there are a lot of good arguments, too many to address fairly even in sketch.

Even if he had come up with a mechanism that would let a Christian legislate for himself the principles of the faith, however, it is really a problem for the model that Eichmann could reasonably claim to be relying on it for his own earlier 'solutions.'

Probably a lot of people in Nazi Germany had read Kant: doubtless he was a point of Aryan pride if even Eichmann got around to it. Ultimately, it does not appear that his model inspired anyone to do from reason what Bonhoeffer did for God.

Maoism

Self Criticism:

(Image courtesy of Foreign Policy, whose article on Chinese humor is well worth reading on its own merits!)

An important part of Maoist practice, not obvious in Communist practice in general, is the art of self-criticism. Apparently, this practice is spreading.

Here, there is no conceivable way in which, in my judgment, her presence on the national stage can improve our discourse, help solve our problems or improve public life. But that does not forbid one from noting the great example she has shown in rearing a child with Down Syndrome, whatever his provenance, or noting her effectiveness as a demagogue, or from admiring her father's genuineness or her skill in exploiting new media. I've consistently tried to do this without undercutting my still-raw amazement that an advanced democratic society could even contemplate putting such an unstable and irresponsible person in a position of any real power.

His approach to the new civility, he says, will be "generous anger: a classically Orwellian term." The idea is "to make strong and lively points without demonization."

I noticed Mr. Yglesias doing this the other day. It's an odd conceit: 'How shall we be more civil, as our righteous leader instructs, given the evil of our opponents?'

Generous anger! It's a little weak, honestly, compared with caritas. Of course, I stand accused (by RCL) of taking a 'sadistic pleasure' in that; so perhaps I shouldn't speak to the matter.

Upgrade

Upgrade:

Walter Russel Mead has an interesting challenge that appeals to me. He is speaking of the need to move past what he calls the 'blue model' of liberalism, or 'Liberalism 4.0' and change to a 'Liberalism 5.0.'

Now, he's playing off the idea that 'liberalism' has altered its meaning several times: a very early meaning was what we now call 'classical liberalism,' which was (roughly) the ideology of the Founders. By the 'blue model' he is thinking of the FDR sort of liberalism (what is sometimes called 'reform liberalism').

Setting aside the terminology, though, there's something useful being said about the American project. After describing elements of the 'blue model' that are not optimal -- say, massive commutes to the factory; having to work in a factory -- he talks about some future improvements that we can imagine. For example, we can imagine not commuting to the factory, but working from home. Or commuting not to a central office, but to a smaller, local office.

If we can imagine that much, what else?

In my posts late last year about 5.0 liberalism I was beginning to get at the need for a new political imagination that could take us beyond the world of 4.0 liberalism and its blue social model.... It’s not just a question of bulldozing the bureaucratic structures of the 4.0 world (though in some cases bulldozers are called for).

For 4.0 liberals, who genuinely believe that the old social system was the only good way to organize society, life is full of gloom and doom. For 5.0s, this is a time of adventure, innovation and of unlimited possibility.

Adventure is my trade, of course, so I'm pleased to hear the call. We're talking about a movement away from the FDR-type of systems; and what shall replace them?

We might start by asking what kind of life we want. If we object to the trekking to factories, and working in factories, what do we want to do? And who shall work in the factories? Not only robots! This was a problem that Marx had to wrestle with, even, for he believed that capitalist systems were necessary to produce the wealth that could inspire a revolution. Thus, even when the revolution came, someone was still going to have to turn up at the factories -- everyone takes a shift, so that everyone can also have a shift at literary criticism, or politics, or philosophy?

Well, let's start with the last question, because it's the easiest one. Most visions of the good life include the liberal arts, the humanities. They are pursuits of the True and the Beautiful, as we often say. Good. This requires study, and study is expensive. Therefore, we shall have to make study less expensive.

Public education is already "free." Shall we expand the model to, say, graduate school?

It is clear that we cannot do so. Indeed, it is not clear that we can afford to continue with free education to the high school level, if it is to be governed by teachers' unions and mandatory benefits that must be paid before the state budget can proceed to new expenses.

That seems like a problem out of the gate. But we already have (so we have heard) a glut of Ph.D.'s. They are outside of the system, and therefore have no stake in it -- they can be used, and would probably love to find work in their field.

An easy answer should lie here. What is it, friends?

Bankruptcy for States?

Bankruptcy for States?

This WSJ article proposes an amendment to the federal bankruptcy law expressly extending to states the right (which municipalities already have) to declare bankruptcy. The idea is that several of our state governments are in such dire straits that the only other options are a chaotic default or a federal bailout, because the states' constitutions may prohibit them from making the deep cuts to public pension and bond obligations that would be required to avert a crisis.

Another option, I suppose, would be amendments to the state constitutions to give them the power to do what they need to do. That would have the advantage of not requiring the federal government to interfere in the state's duty to clean up their own houses. If it seems unrealistic to expect a state's leaders to take such a drastic step regarding its own constitution, what makes us think it's realistic to expect a state to take the step of declaring bankruptcy under a new law? One commenter to the piece pointed out that existing bankruptcy law provides for both voluntary and involuntary bankruptcy. Under certain conditions, that is, creditors can force a company into bankruptcy against its will. A similar right might be extended to a state's voters via a referendum. These are the same voters, however, who keep electing the governors and legislators who won't face up to the need to limit the appetite of government.

Other commenters objected that a state bankruptcy would resemble the GM chapter 11 case, in which bondholders took greater hits than were strictly compatible with what we had previously understood to be settled bankruptcy law, while unions were coddled. Still others suggested that it was inconsistent to turn a cold eye on the pitiable prospect of public union retirees for whom it was too late to build up other security for their old age, unless we were willing to treat military pensioners the same way. That argument gives me pause, because my natural sympathy for the military and antipathy to public sector unions lays me open the temptation of invidious distinctions. On reflection, though, I'm not impressed. Only a few public union employees, such as police and firemen, can make any claim to special treatment as a result of having risked life and limb. The military justifiably is extended special treatment in all sorts of ways. Also, I'm not aware of any mechanism by which the military leadership extorts money from its ranks to fund lobbying efforts to increase military benefits, or otherwise abuses its public position to alter public policy towards its own members.

Finally, a number of commenters expressed a wish to force the national experiment to its logical conclusion, in which the states with bloated budgets would fail and, by so doing, expose the intellectual bankruptcy of their ideologies. That's a good reason for opposing a federal bailout, but I suppose either bankruptcy or chaotic default would equally serve to expose the results of electing generations of local leaders who could neither face facts nor stand up to pressure from public sector unions.

Horse Post

A Horse Post:

RCL writes to complain that we haven't had a good horse post in too long, and he's been saving up for you. You should have said something sooner!

This first video he sends is an extraordinary example of Spanish horsemanship. Look at the collection of this hot-blooded beast, while it plays around with a rider and a lance. (Technically, the pole is called a garrocha.) And on a loose rein!



Another bullfighter. The horse is just playing with that bull. Good collection in the middle sections, but on a tighter rein.



Now, how about an Aussie cowboy?



Hat tip, I am told, to Irreverent Buckaroo.

UPDATE: By the way, did you ever wonder what a bullfight would look like if it were just for play? Behold:



The owner of this bull, and horse, is Jesus Morales -- the rider featured in the first video, above.

Both

Union:

Ross Douthat is charged by Dr. Althouse with something... she asks you to choose what.

Why does it feel like a marriage to Ross Douthat? I'll offer 2 possible answers. See if you get it right:

1. Because Sarah Palin is a woman.

2. Because Sarah Palin is a conservative.

The correct answer is #2. If Sarah Palin were a liberal, using the marriage analogy to talk about a female politician would have been recognized as too sexist.

Logically, the answer can't be #2, but "both." After all, it is the union of these categories that is the sufficient condition for his claim. She has to be both a woman and a conservative for it not to 'be recognized as too sexist' to make the analogy. If she were a man, it not only wouldn't be 'recognized,' it wouldn't be sexist at all: it would be perfectly fair, given the way female politicians are treated!

This, though, is something we've always known. The same rules don't apply to conservative women. The question I would ask is: Should we want them to apply? Mr. Douthat's piece is so obviously bad not because it is sexist, but because of the strength of Mrs. Palin's actual marriage. The clash between the literary analogy and the actual fact is so strong that it makes the piece absurd.

That's a strength of the lady; it's good, for her, to have the comparison raised.

Now, there's another way in which Mr. Douthat has a valuable point that is lost in the failure of his analogy: the interaction between the media and Mrs. Palin has not covered the media in glory, but neither has it always been positive for her. That is a problem if she has serious political ambitions. It is just as possible that she is serving as a stalking horse, though, while getting rich off the media's hyperventilation.

If that is her intention, the mechanism is all to the good from her perspective.

The Primera

The Primera:

We usually hear Diego Ortiz's segunda. But here is the first one:



If you've forgotten the segunda for some reason, here it is. (And of course we can all count at least as far in Spanish as the segunda from reading Louis L'amour; he used the term in its common meaning of 'second in command,' to show the degree of crossover among Spanish and American cattle ranchers in the southwest.)



You can see why the second was more famous. Still, the first should not be forgotten.

The Bold

The Bold Shall Inherit:

There is also something to be said for bulling your way through.

The Meek

The Meek Shall Inherit:

Via Cassandra, a quote from C. S. Lewis:

What, you may ask, is the relevance of this idea to the modern world? It is terribly relevant. It may or may not be practicable--the Middle Ages notoriously failed to obey it--but it is certainly practical; practical as the fact that men in a desert must find water or die.[...]

The medieval ideal brought together two things which have no natural tendency to gravitate towards one another. It brought them together for that very reason. It taught humility and forbearance to the great warrior because everyone knew by experience how much he usually needed that lesson. It demanded valour of the urbane and modest man because everyone knew that he was as likely as not to be a milksop.

In so doing, the Middle Ages fixed on the one hope of the world. It may or may not be possible to produce by the thousand men who combine the two sides of Launcelot's character. But if it is not possible, then all talk of any lasting happiness or dignity in human society is pure moonshine.

Due Process

Due Process:

A note from your psychologist doesn't really count as a medical diagnosis, let alone adequate due process for stripping someone of civil rights.

Two high-profile politicians today called for sweeping reforms to the nation’s mental health system that would prevent individuals deemed ill from legally purchasing firearms.

"Deemed" ill? Is that somewhat like "deem-and-pass"?

Giuliani said among the problems that led to the shooting spree, which left six dead and 19 injured, is the nation’s “inability to deal with mental illness.” He urged policy “adjustments” that balance things like an individual’s constitutional right to own firearms with keeping guns out of the hands of unstable people.

Better: but just how do we balance these issues? What is the due process that could work here? The diagnosis process, as I understand it, is largely an Occam's razor process -- that is, you look at reported symptoms and determine what is most likely. There's no lab test. No one can be sure the diagnosis is right.

There's also no meaningful appeal. Presumably, since the diagnosis has no force, you could simply get a second opinion. However, why would anyone give you one? They can't be any more certain of their diagnosis than the original doctor. That puts them in particular legal jeopardy if they give you the 'all clear': if they say you're good and they're wrong, they are personally liable for the harm you do. If they concur, or give a report that is noncommittal, they're safe. Why would they take the risk?

You might answer: "Because they believe in individual liberty." In that case, though, how can we rely on their clearance? Let us say that the ACLU were to set up a shop of psychologists who took it as their duty to clear everyone possible, in the interest of civil liberty. (Or say it was the NRA; whoever.) Now you really do need due process, to decide between the competing reports.

On what basis, though, would a court decide? Something as sentimental as the judge's personal sense of whether or not you 'seem normal'? A jury's? Shall we pursue a foundation for our fundamental liberties no more certain than that?

All of this suggests to me that we're far better off absorbing the occasional shooting -- and preparing ourselves, as individual citizens, to resist it -- than accepting this kind of restriction on basic liberty.

Yes, it's terrible. The responsibility to be prepared to stop such a thing is our own, though: it cannot reasonably be delegated to the state.

Gone

Gone

I had to help him go in the end, after all. We buried him where we're going to plant a new apple tree.

Guest

Lady Charlotte Guest:

I knew her, as you probably do as well, as the translator of the Mabinogion, which brought us the old Welsh tales of King Arthur. It turns out she was also an industrialist, first as a partner to her husband and later as a widow; and a knitter of wool comforters for the cab drivers who were, in those days, exposed to the weather. She apparently also built a shelter for them near her home, thus ensuring their comfort and her easy access to a cab if she needed one.

I Stand Corrected

I Stand Corrected:

How many spaces go after a period?

Every modern typographer agrees on the one-space rule. It's one of the canonical rules of the profession, in the same way that waiters know that the salad fork goes to the left of the dinner fork and fashion designers know to put men's shirt buttons on the right and women's on the left. Every major style guide—including the Modern Language Association Style Manual and the Chicago Manual of Style—prescribes a single space after a period. (The Publications Manual of the American Psychological Association, used widely in the social sciences, allows for two spaces in draft manuscripts but recommends one space in published work.) Most ordinary people would know the one-space rule, too, if it weren't for a quirk of history. In the middle of the last century, a now-outmoded technology—the manual typewriter—invaded the American workplace.

I was of the last class of my high school to take "Typing" instead of "keyboarding" as an elective. For that cause, I was taught that two spaces were proper after every period. I'm sure every single post on Grim's Hall adheres to that rule.

Oops?

Gut old Hans

Good Old Hans:

Talhoffer, that is. National Geographic has been working on a story regarding his fightbook. They've re-enacted certain scenes from it, including the ones we've discussed here that involve women fighters taking on men in judicial combat.

The photo series is here.

Metaphysics

Metaphysics:

Via xkcd.

There is an additional comment, if you leave your mouse hanging over the original, which reads: "Eäendil will patrol the walls of night only until the sun reaches red giant stage, engulfing the Morning Star on his brow. Light and high beauty are passing things as well."

This is why physics is incomplete without metaphysics. Physics tells you what the rules are; metaphysics is the study of why the rules are as they are. Without philosophy, therefore, physics doesn't understand its own lessons.

Consider this, which suggests that the universe has gone through multiple big-bang events, dying and being reborn. Yet each time, there is less entropy. That is to say, in every subsequent rebirth, there is less chaos and more order.

That's sort of interesting, if you're a physicist. If you're a philosopher, it's hard not to think of the Timaeus.

The universe, he proposes, is the product of rational, purposive, and beneficent agency. It is the handiwork of a divine Craftsman (“Demiurge,” dêmiourgos, 28a6), who, imitating an unchanging and eternal model, imposes mathematical order on a preexistent chaos to generate the ordered universe (kosmos).

We could go forward and note the importance of the Timeaus to neoplatonic, Christian, Jewish and Islamic thinking; we could explore the question of which of these models is most promising. It might be enough, for an internet comment, to note it in Plato: and ask the question, "If this is the rule -- that there is more order and less chaos, on a cosmic scale and across the lives of universes -- why is this the rule?"

It may not be a passing thing at all.

Scott Roots Chivalry Marriage

Sir Walter Scott on the Roots of Chivalry's Attitude to Women:

One of the less-well-read works of Scott's is his long-form essay on chivalry. There are reasons why it is not as well read as his books. For one thing, you can learn more about his actual attitude toward the thing by reading his books. In the essay he is careful to criticize, as a scholar should, but the evenhandedness of the essay often gives the impression that there is just as much to be said in blame as in praise. That clearly was not his real sentiment, as his books show us so plainly.

You will also learn more to his credit from the books than from the essay. In his books he is usually generous even to his villains, with only a few of them being without redeeming qualities. In the essay he is more clearly prejudiced, in the just the way one would expect a Scottish Tory of his age to be: for example against the Spanish (who are 'Oriental' in character, he says, and better at feeling than thinking) and Catholics generally (the faith is lowered in quality by superstition, such as reverence for saints and the Virgin Mary).

Nevertheless, it's an interesting essay for those of you who might have time to spend on it. One particular passage that struck me was his writings on how the Germanic nations had a kind of proto-chivalry toward women in their attitude toward polygamy and chastity.

[T]he opinion that it was dishonorable to hold sexual intercourse until the twentieth year was attained... must have contributed greatly to place their females in that dignified and respectable rank which they held in society. Nothing tends so much to blunt the feelings, to harden the heart, and to destroy the imagination as the worship of the Vagus Venus in early youth. Wherever women have been considered as the early, willing, and accomodating slaves of the voluptuousness of the other sex, their character has become degraded, and they have sunk into domestic drudges and bondswomen among the poor -- the captives of a harem among the more wealthy....

Hence polygamy, and all its brutalizing consequences, which were happily unknown among our Gothic ancestors. The virtuous and manly restraints imposed upon their youth were highly calculated to exalt the character of both sexes, and especially to raise the females in their own eyes and those of their lovers.

Scott is relying on Tacitus here. I think it is fair to say that he is slightly overstating the case on polygamy, as we will see; but if anything he understates Tacitus' remarks on the exaltation of women in Germanic marriage. Compared with the Roman or the Greek conception, the barbarians are much closer to our own view about the relationship between husband and wife.

Almost alone among barbarians they are content with one wife, except a very few among them, and these not from sensuality, but because their noble birth procures for them many offers of alliance. The wife does not bring a dower to the husband, but the husband to the wife. The parents and relatives are present, and pass judgment on the marriage-gifts, gifts not meant to suit a woman's taste, nor such as a bride would deck herself with, but oxen, a caparisoned steed, a shield, a lance, and a sword. With these presents the wife is espoused, and she herself in her turn brings her husband a gift of arms. This they count their strongest bond of union, these their sacred mysteries, these their gods of marriage. Lest the woman should think herself to stand apart from aspirations after noble deeds and from the perils of war, she is reminded by the ceremony which inaugurates marriage that she is her husband's partner in toil and danger, destined to suffer and to dare with him alike both in in war. The yoked oxen, the harnessed steed, the gift of arms proclaim this fact.

Lars Walker has occasionally written against the proposition that Tacitus put forward; rather than excerpt his argument, I'll let him forward it himself. Tacitus is clearly writing with influencing his Roman audience in mind, more than he is trying to present a perfectly accurate picture.

There's a lot here that is highly relevant to many discussions we are having about our own society today. I'll stop with this, for now, and see what you think.

Good Post

Mr. Brooks on Civility:

In all the recent fulminating about civility, I haven't seen anything of worth until today. Mr. Brooks' column is a good one.

Civility is a tree with deep roots, and without the roots, it can’t last. So what are those roots? They are failure, sin, weakness and ignorance.

Civility on this model is an expression of humility; and that is surely part of the answer. There is surely a positive quality to it as well. It isn't just that we recognize our own weakness, and are kind to others who are as weak (or weaker).

However, we also know that bullies are very often people who are keenly aware of their personal weakness. Their violence against others is also a reaction to that awareness, just as much a response to this dynamic as the civility Mr. Brooks advocates. It is also directed against those as weak, or weaker, than themselves.

What causes us to get the one and not the other? More and more I feel inclined to pose these questions rather than answer them: I already know what I think about it, after all. What do you think?

Congress Doesn't Care

Congress Doesn't Care:

How well do you know the Constitution? Presumably, most of you will join me in scoring 100% on this embarrassingly easy test. But:

When the Republican House leadership decided to start the 112th Congress with a reading of the U.S. Constitution, the decision raised complaints in some quarters that it was little more than a political stunt. The New York Times even called it a "presumptuous and self-righteous act."

That might be true, if you could be sure that elected officials actually know something about the Constitution. But it turns out that many don't.... those elected officials who took the test scored an average 5 percentage points lower than the national average (49 percent vs. 54 percent), with ordinary citizens outscoring these elected officials on each constitutional question.

Thus the TEA Party's focus on the importance of the Constitution. The sense driving that focus has been that the government simply doesn't care to abide by the limits -- or to fulfill inconvenient responsibilities, such as actually declaring war when they want to fight a war, or actually amending the Constitution to seek new authority instead of pretending that they already have the authority they want.

Turns out, it's not that they don't care about the limits. It's that they are ignorant of the limits. There is no excuse for that, given the brevity of the document and its wide availability. In a just world, every Congressman who failed to achieve at least 80% on that test would be subject to automatic recall proceedings, and replaced with someone more fit for the office.

Arts & Sciences

Arts & Sciences:

The interaction between the arts and the sciences is sometimes noteworthy:

It was Galileo who conclusively swept away the idea that the sun revolved around the Earth, who dismantled the looming edifice of Aristotelian physics. Unlike others of the age, the Italian steadfastly refused to hammer the square pegs of discovery into the round holes of conventional wisdom. Through an unremitting dedication to observation and experiment, it was he who ushered in the age of modern science.

Given his devotion to empirical fact, it seems odd to think that Galileo’s most important ideas might have their roots not in the real world, but in a fictional one. But... one of Galileo’s crucial contributions to physics came from measuring the hell of Dante’s Inferno. Or rather, from disproving its measurements.

The description of the debates about the Inferno among Italian thinkers of the 14th century is highly amusing, but one wonders if they have any equals today. Though I have never been involved with one, I know that there are people making all sorts of virtual-world video games: do any of them have anything like the knowledge to ensure that they don't come up with impossible features? Do they care, as Galileo manifestly did care, that the rules of physics hold?

I agree with the final claim of the article, which is that such play may be highly valuable in just the way that Galileo's play bears a resemblance to the wilder play of quantum physics. "The world’s first true scientist, the professor tells us, understood that it takes a man of reason to provide the proof, but only a fantasist can truly reimagine the universe."

That's one thing we are being called to do now. We'll be well served by the man who can do it.

Time To Go Out

Time To Go Out:

Snow and ice are still on the local roads. Georgia doesn't quite know how to deal with that. All the same, I've got to head out onto the roads today. Should be fun.




...except with ice. Think I'll take the .44, just in case.

Tea Party History, Memory

The TEA Party, History, and "Memory":

Dr. Jill Lepore, historian, has written a new book scorning the TEA Party.

Throughout her book Lepore’s implicit question remains always: Don’t these Tea Party people realize how silly they are? They don’t understand history; they need to learn that time moves forward.... Following one of the several examples she cites of the cruel way the eighteenth century treated insane persons, tying them up like animals, she comments: “I don’t want to go back to that,” as if the present-day Tea Partiers do. How foolish can they be? After quoting an evangelical minister who in 1987 expressed confidence that Benjamin Franklin would not identify with the secular humanists of our own time “were he alive today,” she can’t help mocking the minister. “Alas,” she writes, Franklin “is not, in fact, alive today."...

She believes that the jurisprudential theory of originalism is all part of the “kooky” thinking of the Tea Party. “Setting aside the question of whether it makes good law, it is, generally,” she says, “lousy history.” We have all heard loose, ignorant polemics claiming the authority of the “original” intentions of the Founders. But Lepore seems to have little idea of what the interpretative doctrine of originalism really means and can only dismiss it as “historical fundamentalism, which is to history what astrology is to astronomy, what alchemy is to chemistry, what creationism is to evolution.”

The reviewer was not impressed with this last claim.

Originalism may not be good history, but it is a philosophy of legal and constitutional interpretation that has engaged some of the best minds in the country’s law schools over the past three decades or so. It is basic to the mission of the Federalist Society (an important organization of conservative and libertarian jurists, lawyers, law professors, and students), and at times it may have as many as four adherents on the Supreme Court. Justice Antonin Scalia’s book A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law (1997), which staked out an originalist position on statutory interpretation, was taken seriously enough to generate critical responses from Ronald Dworkin, Lawrence H. Tribe, Mary Ann Glendon, and myself, all published in Scalia’s book along with his replies. In other words, originalism, controversial as it may be, is a significant enough doctrine of judicial interpretation that even its most passionate opponents would not write it off as cavalierly as Lepore does in this book.

Actually, he wasn't all that impressed with the first claim.

Indeed, one implication of T.H. Breen’s impressive new book, American Insurgents, American Patriots, is that the American Revolution itself may have been an ancestor of the modern Tea Party. Far from being a movement instigated from the top down by celebrated elite leaders separated from the affairs of the common people, the Revolution, Breen contends, was a popular uprising from below against a distant imperial government that had lost its legitimacy and its representativeness. In the years leading up to the Declaration of Independence tens of thousands of colonists boycotted British goods, created committees of safety or inspection, drove Crown officials from office, and intimidated and abused their loyalist enemies.

These ordinary Americans organized their resistance without bothering to reflect on the abstract political theories of John Locke or John Adams that allegedly justified the rebellion. “Not that the insurgents did not have ideas about politics,” says Breen. “They did. But these were ideas driven by immediate passions; they were amplified through fear, fury, and resentment.” Confident of their God-given rights and driven by anger against officials of a British government that had treated them as second-class subjects, the insurgents reacted passionately, spontaneously, and mobilized their communities into action. Not unlike the Tea Partiers of the present, these common people were often way out ahead of their so-called leaders.

What really interests me is the discussion in the last third of the piece, over the distinction between what they are calling "critical history" and "popular memory." We can accept the first category, but the second one seems to me to be misidentified. He even uses the right word in the piece, but doesn't recognize the importance of it.

What is that word? I won't excerpt the last part; read the whole thing, if you would. It's an important matter for understanding how we look to the past, and why we do.

Eek!

"Eek!"

So says writer Lenore Skenazy, about men:

Gripped by pedophile panic, we jump to the very worst, even least likely, conclusion first. Then we congratulate ourselves for being so vigilant.

Consider the Iowa daycare center where Nichole Adkins works. The one male aide employed there, she told me in an interview, is not allowed to change diapers. "In fact," Ms. Adkins said, "he has been asked to leave the classroom when diapering was happening."...

A friend of mine, Eric Kozak, was working for a while as a courier. Driving around an unfamiliar neighborhood, he says, "I got lost. I saw a couple kids by the side of the road and rolled down my window to ask, 'Where is such-and-such road?' They ran off screaming."

It seems to me that a person who can't change diapers is probably not qualified to work at a day care center. We can't quite bring ourselves to say, "You're disqualified because of your sex," though, so we see idiocy like this instead.

Faces

Oh, Sure:

I see how it is:

[W]omen in their fertile phase are more likely to fantasize about masculine-looking men...

Meanwhile, a man's intelligence has no effect on the extent to which fertile, female partners fantasize about others, the researchers found. They say the lack of an observed "fertility effect" related to intelligence is puzzling

Uh-huh. It's just shocking that brains aren't the real issue.

Fortunately, I am set.

Dangerous Ideas

Dangerous Ideas

From a commenter at Ann Althouse: "Anyone else find it creepy that the new standard of what we may and may not say is: How will it affect the behavior of an obviously crazy person who may or may not hear it?"

The Virtues of Obedience

The Virtues of Obedience:

A great deal of discussion has arisen about the article "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior." Cassandra sent me an interesting response; here is another.

First of all, filial piety requires me to say that it should be obvious that Southern mothers are the most superior. I assume we all have such duties, so everyone gets to make a one-off statement of this type in the discussion below before we tackle the serious issues.

Issue number one: Does growing up under strongly directed authority limit your ability to be spontaneous as an adult? Shannon Love thinks so:

Noticeably excluded from her children’s activities is any kind of team activities. The secret of American’s collective success as a people is our ability to self-organize ourselves on both the small and large scale into highly effective teams. The relative inability to self-organize into teams is why China and some other cultures have lagged behind...

This was the Duke of Wellington's point when he spoke of Waterloo being won "on the playing fields of Eton." Nevertheless, I'm suspicious of it as deployed against China. The Chinese seem to have an excellent structure for forming themselves up into working teams. The problem China has had over the last fifty years has not been its inability to form such teams, but that the teams that form are culturally encoded to "look up" for direction, rather than to "look around." Thus, the Red Guards could appear throughout the urban regions in short order, and function effectively; the Communist party could rather quickly spread to control all aspects of life.

What hurt China was the lack of spontaneous systems of resistance to authority. It wasn't that they couldn't form spontaneous teams: it's that the teams that formed tended to point the same direction.

That may be a problem of this style of "leadership" (insofar as domineering counts as leadership). There is another problem with top-down direction, which is this one:

I once read somewhere that American conservatories graduate over 300 pianists a year, and I would guess that the fraction of them who go on to careers in classical music, other than giving lessons to the next generation who in turn won’t enter the field, must be very low. Chua is setting her kids up for failure; and if it’s argued that music lessons are a good in themselves, which they may be, why does Chua treat them like a matter of life or death, making her kids and herself miserable over them?

The chronic cycle of shortages and price-destroying-surpluses that plagues Communist-type systems arises from this feature. You don't have to be a Communist to suffer from it, though: all you have to be is a central planner. You and I and Bob can look around the world, and we all see basically the same problems (e.g., there is not sufficient wheat being produced). Thus, we all call for basically the same solutions. Six months or six years on, those solutions are now the problem: we all directed our systems to produce wheat, and now farmers can't make a living off the price of the stuff.

The first problem was that the people were starving; the new problem is that the farmers are. So we let some of the farmers do something else, and subsidize the rest: but we all do that, so that the supply of wheat suddenly drops sharply, while residual low prices cause it to vanish. Starvation again!

None of the decisions we've made are bad. In every case we've made precisely the right decision. Centralized planning has this negative quality, even when decision making is perfect. This is true for mothers as well: if every Chinese child is raised to play the violin, the marginal value of violin-playing is going to be even lower than it already happens to be.

You might argue that violin-playing is valuable in its own right, as a way of expanding the mind and developing its faculties. Very good! I agree. Music is a wonderful skill for just that reason. So, though, is drama, an activity that the self-described Chinese mother abhors:

Her scorn for drama takes on a sinister cast when we find out that her husband, Jed Rubenfeld, studied theater in the Drama Division of the Juilliard School from 1980 through 1982.

What does drama teach? Two things, chiefly: exposure to the plays of Sophocles or Shakespeare develops a deep capacity for understanding and sympathizing with humanity; while the experience of playing a role -- or, even more, of directing several actors each trying to play a different role -- develops the faculties of understanding human emotion. You are learning to convey it, but you are also learning how to read it from others. This can make communication easier, develop your ability to understand body language, and generally improve your ability to work with and care about others.

I think we should distinguish, again, between China and this particular "Chinese mother." Obviously the Chinese do not have any problem reading body language, or understanding the intricate unspoken signals at work in a social situation. They are excelled at this set of skills only by the Japanese, and only because the Japanese have a more homogeneous culture. I think this is more an eccentricity of this particular lady than it is a quality of "the Chinese," who love drama and have several fully-developed theatrical traditions of their own.

A generalized point, which seems to underlie the whole discussion: is it important to teach children to obey authority, or to resist authority and follow their own conscience? The answer is: "Yes." The skill that really needs to be taught, though, is the skill of distinguishing which of the two responses is appropriate in a given case. That judgment can be quite difficult to make; it's really what we were discussing in the post on violence and politics, the other day.

Privacy

Privacy

A neighbor sent me an alarmed email about a new site, www.spokeo.com, where you can type in a name and get all kinds of personal information. The email was wasted on me, because I never worry about privacy. I'm sure that anyone who can figure out anything important about me is someone I can afford to trust. If I worry about anything, it's that I'm too opaque.

For grins, though, I typed in my name. My correct address and phone number popped right up, and even my husband's name, but after that the accuracy fell off. The purported satellite view of my house was off by a half-mile or so. The reported value of my house was a serious laugh -- especially since that information is easily available in the online county real estate records. For some reason, the site reported that my household includes three people, including my husband's brother. Nothing so interesting going on here.

The site thinks my major hobbies are travel and cooking. OK, I'll buy the "cooking," but "travel"? Hardly anyone hates travel more than I do. I practically never travel.

I think the programs that sort through our electronic traces to discern our identities still need some work. The things that Amazon and Netflix come up with on their "stuff you might be interested in" pages are a hoot.

I couldn't think of a good image to accompany a post on privacy, so here's a cheerful picture of the fire we just lit, enabling us to deal with our sub-Arctic weather (actually just drifting below 40 before dawn for a few days). Yes, I know, the stockings are still hanging there. I'm getting to it.

"Let's Roll"

"Let's Roll"

No one actually said that, of course, but I take some comfort in reading that three men and one woman had the presence of mind to overpower Jared Loughner physically before he could reload. One man heard the gunshots from a neighboring Walgreens and must have been moving pretty fast, because he got there in time to be useful. He and a 74-year-old retired Army colonel each grabbed an arm and wrestled the gunman to the ground, just after someone whanged him with a folding chair. A 61-year-old woman who'd hit the deck after the first shots found that the gunman was now next to her on the ground, so she grabbed the magazine he was trying to reload with, while someone else grabbed the gun. Then she helped one of the men pin Loughner's legs down while the other two pinned his head and torso.

I'd have been happier if someone had returned fire, but this was decisive action for a group of Safeway shoppers taken completely by surprise.

A young man with medical experience provided some useful first aid, too.

Snowfall

Snowfall:

It's just starting here, but I hear reports of four inches closer to Atlanta. I spent the day sawing wood -- not to lay in firewood, which I have plenty of already, but to deal with trees likely to fall on the house in an ice storm. I think we should be set to ride this out with ease, now; though if we lose power, we'll be a long way from the top of anyone's agenda.

That's OK, though. It happens that I now have even more firewood. I wonder how many people with "useless" educations like mine know how to use and maintain a chainsaw, or split wood with a double-bit axe? More, I'd guess, than most would expect.

UPDATE: Looks like about an inch so far, as of 12:40 AM.

Politics & Violence

Politics & Violence:

I have written a small thing on the subject at BLACKFIVE.

Theory & Practice

Theory & Practice:

We all saw the strange rants about grammar yesterday, from the odd mind of the shooter. Apparently there's a guy named David Miller who concocted this basic theory, along with a fake language. He claims it is actually the only true language; he also claims he is King of Hawaii.

Philosophy of language does contain some genuine puzzles, but a few minutes' review suggests that none of them are going to be solved along Mr. Miller's route. In the meanwhile, I would like to note that 100% of court cases in which people have employed his methods have failed. This is my favorite:

Lindsay, who presented himself as David-Kevin: Lindsay, argued that he was not a "person" as defined by Canada's Income Tax Act. He said he had ceased to be a person in 1996. The judge refused to let Lindsay opt out of personhood.

Sometimes things sound so good in theory, and just don't work in practice. Here's a case where the theory is bad, too!

Rep Gif

Representative Giffords:

I imagine that we all wish the Honorable Representative Giffords a speedy and complete recovery.

VCDL notes: "There were reports that at least one citizen returned fire and that the murderer was caught and held by citizens. This was first reported by an Arizona paper and the Fox News story below alludes to it as well. The armed citizen(s) stopping the criminal has not been confirmed yet[.}"

A number of statements from elected officials denounce the shootings, stating that it is never legitimate to use violence against elected officials. One is not surprised at their concern.