Today is Father's Day. I want to tell you about a man I know, a friend of mine who is a very good father. He is also a Commander in the US Navy Reserves, an officer and a gentleman.
He and his wife have two children who are both special-needs. The bills associated with them, even with the kind of insurance and help that you get as a member of the military, have run to over a million dollars. Though an officer in the US Navy is reasonably well-paid, he is not nearly so well-paid as to have a million dollars in savings. So he signed whatever he had to sign to take care of his kids, and took the debt -- as well as the responsibility for their future care -- onto his shoulders.
He already knows how he will be spending the rest of his life: working hard to try to earn enough to pay off what he owes, so that when he dies the banks can seize and sell off the rest. No matter how hard he works, he will likely never accumulate enough to pay off the debt for his children.
We talk about people walking away from their mortgages -- or their families, or their kids -- in pursuit of personal pleasure or advantage. It's worth remembering just what the cost is for the man who does it right. It is a life of hard work, responsibility, and self-sacrifice, in return for nothing except the smiles of your children and the sense of having done what was right.
I am proud to call this man my friend, but there is a reason we don't see more of him. Our world, with its abundant pleasures, has accepted pleasure as the rule: the unlimited sexualization of our public space has driven all objections to its continual march aside; marriage is to be valued chiefly as a contract between two parties seeking pleasure from it, to be dissolved as soon as it is no longer pleasurable; children are to be welcomed only when they are wanted and without special needs, otherwise tidily aborted. All of this makes it possible to live a very easy life, filled with pleasures, each responsibility shrugged off as soon as it becomes noisome.
The good father does otherwise. His life is harder and filled with far less of this pleasure that rules other lives. What he gets in return is hard to say; but it is clearly true that rational man, economic man, would not make the choice. It is honor -- for honor is sacrifice -- that commands it.
Thus we owe good fathers a very great deal of honor. I doubt most of them get it. A nation that has forgotten how to pay every other kind of debt is likely to forget this one too. Nevertheless, gentlemen, I salute you.
Father's Day
Gun & Garden
Via The Sage of Knoxville, a 14-round pump-action bullpup shotgun for home defense.
OK, as far as it goes. It doesn't go far enough, however...
Now you're talking.
Siege fo Beauvais
In this week in 1472, Charles of Burgundy was advancing upon the town of Beauvais in France. She was a proud Medieval city, and even at this late date -- technically just after the Hundred Years War -- her garrison was feudal rather than composed of professional mercenary companies. These are her arms:
The few knights raised by the feudal system were extraordinary strategists, but too small in number to defend the walls against what was then a modern army -- one that boasted not only mercenaries in ranks, but a professional artillery unit that kept up a day and night barrage on the gates of the town. The walls indeed were breached, but in the words of historian Geoffrey Hindley (Medieval Sieges & Siegecraft, Skyhorse Publishing 2009, pp. 125-6):
[Although one gate] was badly holed by artillery fire, his men were fought back by citizens supported by women and even children, bringing up arrows and crossbow bolts and flaming torches to hurl in the faces of the attackers. Many women in fact plunged into the bloody hand-to-hand mêlée, hurling torches on their own account and helping ensure that the enemy could not force entry through what had now become an inferno.The New York Times piece we read earlier this week mentioned "in 1433, officials in Florence charged with regulating women’s dress and behavior[.]" Regulations were meant not only to deal with possible sexual immorality (as the quote suggested), but also to enforce social class structure on an urban middle class that was increasingly competing with the old nobility in wealth and status.
It is therefore worth noting that the King -- who issued a charter for a municipal corporation for the city following the heroic defense -- also took the step of erasing the sumptuary laws for the city's women. "At a time when sumptuary legislation regulated dress according to social rank," the historian notes, "any citizeness of Beauvais might wear what she pleased; and the annual procession inaugurated to commemorate the victory was to be led by the women."
One of these women was Jeanne Laisné, who was better known afterwards as "Jeanne Hachette" -- roughly, "Joan the Hatchet." This is a fair nickname for anyone to bear, provided it was earned honestly; as good as Judas Maccabeaus, i.e., "Judas the Hammer."
Weapons of Less Than Mass Destruction
Carole Anne Bond, a married but infertile resident of Pennsylvania, stole an unidentified "caustic chemical" from her employer and placed it on the door handles and mailbox of her sexual rival, causing minor burns. The State of Pennsylvania previously had convicted Ms. Bond on charges of criminal harassment of the same woman (who was bearing her husband's love child), but when Ms. Bond turned to chemical tactics, her unhappy victim took her complaint to the feds. They obligingly charged Ms. Bond under a federal law intended to enforce a global treaty to prevent nations from spreading the use of chemical weapons. The law in question, sections 229(a) and 229F of Title 18 of the United States Code, forbids knowing possession or use of any chemical that “can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm to humans or animals” where not intended for a “peaceful purpose.” It was enacted as part of the Chemical Weapons Convention Implementation Act of 1998, which implements provisions of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction, a treaty the United States ratified in 1997.
Far be it from me to excuse Ms. Bond's reaction to being cuckolded -- the sense of the Hall may be that she underreacted -- but surely this is a case for state rather than federal authorities? Must domestic disputes be drawn up into the august machinery for regulating international warfare?
Constitutional scholars and limited-government types alike will be interested to hear that the United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously yesterday that Ms. Bond has standing to challenge the federal law under which she is being prosecuted as an infringement of power reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment. On the other hand, the Court also expressly disavowed taking any view on the merits of the challenge to the federal law; it ruled only that Ms. Bond had standing to challenge it. It will be interesting to see whether the courts below, having failed to see why she had standing to complain of the constitutionality of the law, will grasp the substance of her argument any more readily.
The Old Rolling Skies
The Old Rolling SkiesWhat's more beautiful than a thunderstorm on the water? Especially if you get to see it in time-lapse. There's a persistent weather pattern off the coast of Australia that produces a nearly constant thunderstorm, called "Hector." This clip is about ten minutes long and is worth watching to the sunset at the end. I love the way the color and smoothness of the water change. It makes you want to go look at some Turner paintings.
Lo, what a glorious sight appears
To our believing eyes!
The earth and seas are passed away
And the old rolling skies
I'm enjoying many of the videos on the site my neighbor sent me to, the source of this post and the one about golf-carts.
And Now for Something Completely Different
And Now for Something Completely DifferentMy neighbor, who knows that we feel socially inadequate because we lack a golf-cart, has sent me this video. Carts are popular on our small, low-traffic peninsula and are often tricked out for the annual parade. Across the bridge in the city limits, the city fathers have seen fit to pass ordinances requiring them to be licensed and outfitted with various safety devices before they can be driven on the streets. Who needs that? But I do wish my neighbors would emulate some of these über-carts, which feature upgrades with more social utility. These could inspire me to join the cart-culture at last.
We have a local golf course, but that's not what the carts are for. The course's owners have been trying to sell it for years with no takers. It's not officially open for business any more, so a handful of locals still go out and mow it now and then and play on it anyway. Last New Year's Day, one of the fire department captains took his airboat up and down the course. Anyway, the golf carts are for roaming the neighborhood and saying hello, typically at happy hour. Sometimes they congregate at the boat ramp and cook barbecue.
I say this very thing every day, but I didn't expect to read it in the New York Times.
But in the face of recent headlines I find myself less inclined to analyze or excuse current mores than to echo medieval ones.Cassandra will like this piece, I suspect.
Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor, may you rest in peace.
On the outbreak of war Leigh Fermor first joined the Irish Guards but was then transferred to the Intelligence Corps due to his knowledge of the Balkans. He was initially attached as a liaison officer to the Greek forces fighting the Italians in Albania, then – having survived the fall of Crete in 1941 – was sent back to the island by SOE to command extremely hazardous guerrilla operations against the occupying Nazis.We are all instructed by those who went before. Here was one who went.
For a year and a half Leigh Fermor, disguised as a Cretan shepherd (albeit one with a taste for waistcoats embroidered with black arabesques and scarlet silk linings) endured a perilous existence, living in freezing mountain caves while harassing German troops. Other dangers were less foreseeable. While checking his rifle Leigh Fermor accidentally shot a trusted guide who subsequently died of the wound.
His occasional bouts of leave were spent in Cairo, at Tara, the rowdy household presided over by a Polish countess, Sophie Tarnowska. It was on a steamy bathroom window in the house that Leigh Fermor and another of Tara's residents, Bill Stanley Moss, conceived a remarkable operation that they subsequently executed with great dash on Crete in April 1944.
Dressed as German police corporals, the pair stopped the car belonging to General Karl Kreipe, the island's commander, while he was returning one evening to his villa near Knossos. The chauffeur disposed of, Leigh Fermor donned the general's hat and, with Moss driving the car, they bluffed their way through the centre of Heraklion and a further 22 checkpoints. Kreipe, meanwhile, was hidden under the back seat and sat on by three hefty andartes, or Cretan partisans.
For three weeks the group evaded German search parties, finally marching the general over the top of Mount Ida, the mythical birthplace of Zeus. It was here that occurred one of the most celebrated incidents in the Leigh Fermor legend.
Gazing up at the snowy peak, Kreipe recited the first line of Horace's ode Ad Thaliarchum – "Vides ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte" (See how Soracte stands white with snow on high). Leigh Fermor immediately continued the poem to its end. The two men realised that they had "drunk at the same fountains" before the war, as Leigh Fermor put it, and things between them were very different from then on.
Kreipe was eventually taken off Crete by motorboat to Cairo.
Predictions
Let's say that a brain scan can identify children who are 75% likely to have criminal records before they turn 30. The question The Chronicle of Higher Education asks is, would you as a parent want to know? Perhaps a better question: given that the state will insist upon knowing, what protections should we put into place to ensure that these children are not pre-emptively stripped of their rights? To what degree does a 3-in-4 chance that you will do wrong (assuming that the estimate were accurate, instead of pie-in-the-sky untestable twaddle) alter your standing as a free citizen?
Another question that interests me: what if we find out these bad traits are also necessary for good qualities? Psychopathy seems to be linked to creativity; alcoholism is strongly correlated with artistic brilliance.
Good Start
Looks like Rep. Bachmann is off and running.
The congresswoman used her bluntness and charm to overshadow the men at the GOP debate—announcing her presidential bid and passionately defending the Tea Party....Well, Johnny Cash, obviously. Not that Elvis wasn't the man, in his day.In fact, Bachmann equivocated only once, when she couldn’t choose between Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash.
Arendt, August., evil
I find myself challenged by a claim that I found in Dr. David Grumett's "Arendt, Augustine and Evil" from Heythrop Journal XLI (2000), p. 154–169. His essential argument is that Hannah Arendt got her conception of evil from St. Augustine (on whose idea of love she wrote her doctoral thesis). The part that I find counterintuitive is this part:
The solace of"C" in this case is the Confession, which is available here.
friends was a source of repair and restoration for Augustine in his early
dissolute life and – this is the key point – a substitute for God. ‘This was
a vast myth and a long lie’ because the flattery of this kind of friendship
is corrupting (C 4.7§13 and 9.8§18).
I'm wondering if this isn't an incorrect reading of Augustine. But rather than say why I think it isn't, I'd rather hear what you think about the proposition: is it correct as a reading of Augustine?
Perhaps more importantly, if it were correct would it be right? Confer Chesterton's Femina Contra Mundus:
The sun was black with judgment, and the moonHere we have a case of lust -- deeply sinful and overwhelming -- that nevertheless begins to be a step in the right direction. I had read Augustine as saying something more like this: that the love of friends is a good thing, but "If souls please you, let them be loved in God; for they also are mutable, but in Him are they firmly established."
Blood: but between
I saw a man stand, saying: 'To me at least
The grass is green.
'There was no star that I forgot to fear
With love and wonder.
The birds have loved me'; but no answer came --
Only the thunder.
Once more the man stood, saying: 'A cottage door,
Wherethrough I gazed
That instant as I turned -- yea, I am vile;
Yet my eyes blazed.
'For I had weighed the mountains in a balance,
And the skies in a scale,
I come to sell the stars -- old lamps for new --
Old stars for sale.'
Then a calm voice fell all the thunder through,
A tone less rough:
'Thou hast begun to love one of my works
Almost enough.'
What do you think? Is it possible for sin to be a step in the right direction? Is friendship necessarily, then, 'a sin in the right direction'?
Why Should I?
I call your attention to a post and comment thread at Megan McArdle's site on The Atlantic. For a week or more, she's been discussing why and when student loans should be discharged. Gradually, the discussion has sorted out participants in terms of whether they can see any reason why people should pay their debts unless they're forced to. After all, the law provides for remedies upon default, so doesn't that mean it's purely a question of legal strategy whether to pay a debt? There's a lot of confusion, as well, about whether it's possible to have a moral obligation to a corporation.
Is this new, or have there always been as high a proportion of Americans as this who don't know where their personal obligations come from?
Megan could use some help fighting the good fight. I was pleased to see her notice the same phenomenon C.S. Lewis does in "The Abolition of Man": people still have a strong and instinctive understanding of moral obligations when it comes to the breach of those obligations to themselves:
[W]henever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking on to him he will be complaining 'It's not fair' before you can say Jack Robinson.
The Dentist Is Your Friend
The Dentist Is Your FriendI've had my first experience with endodontic therapy this morning. That's a root canal to us non-dentist types. My husband having had several in recent years, I didn't worry too much about all the horror stories I'd heard growing up. Sure enough, it was quick and painless.
In 1725, Lazare Riviere introduced the use of oil of cloves for its sedative properties.
In 1746, Pierre Fauchard described the removal of pulp tissue.
All these advances came to an abrupt halt early in the 20th century, when many experts concluded that they posed an unreasonable risk of trapping bacterial infections below gold caps. For nearly forty years, therefore, the treatment of choice for an infected tooth pulp once again was extraction. Around 1950, endodontics got back on track and has brought us to our current enviable condition.In 1820, Leonard Koecker cauterized exposed pulp with a heated instrument and protected it with lead foil.
In 1836, Shearjashub Spooner recommended arsenic trioxide for pulp devitalization.
In 1838, Edwin Maynard of Washington, D.C. introduced the first root canal instrument, which he created by filing a watch spring.
In 1847, Edwin Truman introduced gutta-percha as a filling material.
In 1867, Bowman used gutta-percha cones as the sole material for obturating root canals.
In 1891, the German dentist Otto Walkhoff introduced the use of camphorated chlorophenol as a medication to sterilize root canals.
In 1895, . . . the scientist Konrad Wilhelm von Roentgen accidentally discovered a new form of energy that had the ability to penetrate solid material. Because of their unknown nature, he decided to call these rays “X”.
A few weeks later Otto Walkhoff, a dentist in Brunswick, Germany, took the first dental radiograph, making a contribution to dentistry that almost equaled Roentgen’s to medicine.
In 1908, Dr. Meyer L. Rhein, a physician and dentist in New York, introduced a technique for determining canal length and level of obturation.
Now that my lips and tongue are no longer numb, I think I'll go have lunch using my newly pain-free tooth.
Did QE2 Prop up European Banks?
Zero Hedge is kind of a wild site, somewhere they're not afraid to explore conspiracy theories, so I'm not sure how much to make of this article, which has now been linked by Business Insider. But it's an interesting and detailed argument that, in monetizing debt, the Fed was not bailing out our own banks but U.S.-based branches of European ones, to the tune of $600 billion. Zero Hedge claims this explains why U.S. banks still find themselves not only unwilling but unable to lend out their reserves.
Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man?
Or rather, per the New York Times, why are we lucky enough that they aren't? To date, at least, female politicians have lagged in the competition for the most humiliating sex scandals. Are women who get their hands on the levers of power somehow naturally less reckless? Are they still so sensitive to the double standard that they police themselves more rigorously? Are they naturally less inclined to cheat, particularly in a way that will make them look utterly ridiculous?
Today is the feast of Pentecost. Pentecost was the greatest feast at Camelot, when Arthur would take no meat until he had seen a wonder. I have not read that he ever went hungry.
In Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'arthur, Pentecost is the date of the beginning of the quest for the Holy Grail.
Then anon they heard cracking and crying of thunder, that them thought the place should all to-drive. In the midst of this blast entered a sunbeam more clearer by seven times than ever they saw day, and all they were alighted of the grace of the Holy Ghost. Then began every knight to behold other, and either saw other, by their seeming, fairer than ever they saw afore. Not for then there was no knight might speak one word a great while, and so they looked every man on other as they had been dumb. Then there entered into the hall the Holy Grail covered with white samite, but there was none might see it, nor who bare it. And there was all the hall fulfilled with good odours, and every knight had such meats and drinks as he best loved in this world. And when the Holy Grail had been borne through the hall, then the holy vessel departed suddenly, that they wist not where it became: then had they all breath to speak.This is the third time the Holy Grail has appeared in the book. On both of the previous occasions it is accompanied by a white dove, who carries a censer in its mouth that is the source of the good odors.
And anon there came in a dove at a window, and in her mouth there seemed a little censer of gold. And herewithal there was such a savour as all the spicery of the world had been there...The dove appears another time, not with the grail, but with the other item from the Crucifixion that was alleged to have made its way to Britain in King Arthur's time.
---
And so came in a white dove, and she bare a little censer of gold in her mouth, and there was all manner of meats and drinks; and a maiden bare that Sangreal, and she said openly: Wit you well, Sir Bors, that this child is Galahad, that shall sit in the Siege Perilous, and achieve the Sangreal, and he shall be much better than ever was Sir Launcelot du Lake, that is his own father. And then they kneeled down and made their devotions, and there was such a savour as all the spicery in the world had been there. And when the dove took her flight, the maiden vanished with the Sangreal as she came.
And then Sir Bors seemed that there came the whitest dove with a little golden censer in her mouth. And anon therewithal the tempest ceased and passed, that afore was marvellous to hear. So was all that court full of good savours. Then Sir Bors saw four children bearing four fair tapers, and an old man in the midst of the children with a censer in his own hand, and a spear in his other hand, and that spear was called the Spear of Vengeance.The dove motif belongs to the original context, though not obviously. The Holy Spirit is supposed to have descended upon the disciples in the form of tongues of fire; but the Holy Spirit is also regularly symbolized by a dove. Here is a design by an artist who is using the dove to symbolize the Holy Spirit in the context of Pentecost:
We have talked about Pentecost previously, in 2007, and 2010. I hope you had a fine feast.
Criminal Libel?
How many of you knew there even was such a thing? (I didn't.)
From the interesting site Popehat, which I've just stumbled upon, comes this story of a professor who calls the cops on one of his students for a satire. The story has a happy ending.
A student blogger published a tongue-in-cheek forum ostensibly edited by "Junius Puke," featuring a masthead photo of one Junius Peake, an economics professor at the University of Northern Colorado, that had been altered by adding Kiss-makeup and a protruding tongue. The professor, not one to let insulting ridicule pass, managed to persuade a local deputy DA to get a warrant to search the blogger's home and computers for evidence of criminal libel under Colorado state law. Per The Fire:
Shockingly, under Colorado law, criminal libel is committed when people "knowingly publish or disseminate, either by written instrument, sign, pictures, or the like, any statement or object tending to ... impeach the honesty, integrity, virtue, or reputation or expose the natural defect of one who is alive, and thereby to expose him to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule." That law is so overbroad as to already violate the First Amendment. [The blogger] argued as much, especially because the truth is no defense to the charge that a publisher/writer exposed the natural defects of someone. See C.R.S. §18-13-105. However, the Tenth Circuit ultimately held that [the blogger] lacked standing to challenge the statute as a whole, and, to this day, a violation of Colorado's criminal libel statute carries a penalty of 12 to 18 months.Still, the Tenth Circuit did uphold the blogger's right to sue for individual damage, overturning the federal district court's finding that the deputy DA was entitled to immunity from prosecution, because no reasonable law enforcement officer could have found that there was probable cause for the search warrant. Under established Tenth Circuit precedent, "parody and rhetorical hyperbole, which cannot reasonably be taken as stating actual fact, enjoys the full protection of the First Amendment and therefore cannot constitute the crime of criminal libel for purposes of a probable cause determination." On remand, the district court recently granted a summary judgment for personal liability against the deputy DA.
The professor was not named in the suit, but he no longer teaches at UNC, and we can only hope that this story follows him wherever he goes.
Here is a list of states, not including my own beloved Texas, with criminal libel statutes. Many of them include some element of a defamation so shocking as to provoke a breach of the peace.
Apparently the ancient Romans used to play this game. There was an interruption in the tradition, so the rules may not be precisely the same -- in spite of what the video suggests, there are at least three rules.
1) No kicking the head.
2) No sucker punches.
3) You score by throwing the ball over the enemy's wall.
Otherwise, boys, go to it and good luck. Head-butts, biting, choking, and eye-gouging are perfectly legal.
H/t: Our brothers at the BSBFB, of course. It reminds me of another thing 'those ancient Romans' used to do:
Yo!
I want one of these
A hoverbike that can reach 10,000 feet and 173 MPH. It can do this, if the claim is accurate, with an engine substantially smaller than my motorcycle's.
The expected introductory price is $40,000 -- a lot for a car, but not all that much for a private aircraft!
Bachmann
The Wall Street Journal believes she is running, and so do I; for some time her fundraising emails have clearly intimated the intention to run. Sarah Palin has been running an obvious stalking horse "campaign" for some time, which means that she's been trying to draw fire from someone else: I suspect that Bachmann is that someone else. The recent sniping between a Bachmann advisor and Ms. Palin's camp is the sort of thing we'd expect to see with a stalking horse; the point of the action is to strategically communicate distance -- and suggest disagreement -- with the dark horse your stalking horse is protecting.
The importance of this approach to Rep. Bachmann's chances is the extraordinary success that opponents had in defining Sarah Palin. Rep. Bachmann will need nothing more than to avoid falling prey to the same systems of thought and rhetoric that were used to destroy Ms. Palin's chances. Today's interview with the WSJ shows her taking on the expected thrust directly.
Ms. Bachmann is best known for her conservative activism on issues like abortion, but what I want to talk about today is economics. When I ask who she reads on the subject, she responds that she admires the late Milton Friedman as well as Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams. "I'm also an Art Laffer fiend—we're very close," she adds. "And [Ludwig] von Mises. I love von Mises," getting excited and rattling off some of his classics like "Human Action" and "Bureaucracy." "When I go on vacation and I lay on the beach, I bring von Mises."If you wanted to caricature the portrayal of Ms. Palin that was so effective in the media, you might say that it was 'three parts dumb to one part evil.' Rep. Bachmann, expecting to be portrayed as Sarah Palin II, is thus asserting an intellectual streak combined with a biography that is strongly pro-family and filled with acts of charity.
...
Her political opponents on the left portray her as a "she-devil," in her words, a caricature at odds with her life accomplishments. She's a mother of five, and she and her husband helped raise 23 teenage foster children in their home, as many as four at a time. They succeeded in getting all 23 through high school and later founded a charter school.
What to make of her choice of von Mises? My own favorite economist is Schumpeter, but von Mises will surely be reassuring to many of you. Here's the summation of "Bureaucracy":
[I]t would be a fateful error for the citizens to leave concern with economic studies to the professionals as their exclusive domain. As the main issues of present-day politics are essentially economic, such a resignation would amount to a complete abdication of the citizens for the benefit of the professionals. If the voters or the members of a parliament are faced with the problems raised by a bill concerning the prevention of cattle diseases or the construction of an office building, they may leave the discussion of the details to the experts. Such veterinarian and engineering problems do not interfere with the fundamentals of social and political life. They are important but not primary and vital. But if not only the masses but even the greater part of their elected representatives declare: “These monetary problems can only be comprehended by specialists; we do not have the inclination to study them; in this matter we must trust the experts,” they are virtually renouncing their sovereignty to the professionals. It does not matter whether or not they formally delegate their powers to legislate or not. At any rate the specialists outstrip them. The bureaucrats carry on.Several of you could have written that (and, indeed, have written in my comments section minor variations of it at least several dozen times).
The plain citizens are mistaken in complaining that the bureaucrats have arrogated powers; they themselves and their mandatories have abandoned their sovereignty. Their ignorance of fundamental problems of economics has made the professional specialists supreme. All technical and juridical details of legislation can and must be left to the experts. But democracy becomes impracticable if the eminent citizens, the intellectual leaders of the community, are not in a position to form their own opinion on the basic social, economic, and political principles of policies. If the citizens are under the intellectual hegemony of the bureaucratic professionals, society breaks up into two castes: the ruling professionals, the Brahmins, and the gullible citizenry. Then despotism emerges, whatever the wording of constitutions and laws may be.
I haven't seen anything from the candidacy so far that I felt the least inclined to support; but I think that I shall back Rep. Bachmann in her run. I have disagreements with her on foreign policy (for example, I supported, and still do support, the Libya adventure). We have come far enough down the road that foreign policy is no longer the chief concern.
True
We all have different impulses competing for dominance, and a voice of reason trying to govern them -- or at least to prioritize and set means for obtaining those desired ends. How do we know which of these is our true self?
Yet, though there is a great deal of consensus on the importance of this ideal, there is far less agreement about what it actually tells us to do in any concrete situation. Consider again the case of Mark Pierpont. One person might look at his predicament and say: “Deep down, he has always wanted to be with another man, but he somehow picked up from society the idea that this desire was immoral or forbidden. If he could only escape the shackles of his religious beliefs, he would be able to fully express the person he really is.”The author points out that the philosophical tradition (which includes the Western religious tradition, here) is clear on the answer: and that most of humanity would really prefer the other answer.
But then another person could look at exactly the same case and arrive at the very opposite conclusion: “Fundamentally, Pierpont is a Christian who is struggling to pursue a Christian life, but these desires he has make it difficult for him to live by his own values. If he ever gives in to them and chooses to sleep with another man, he will be betraying what was is most essential to the person he really is.”
If we look to the philosophical tradition, we find a relatively straightforward answer to this question. This answer, endorsed by numerous different philosophers in different ways, says that what is most distinctive and essential to a human being is the capacity for rational reflection. A person might find herself having various urges, whims or fleeting emotions, but these are not who she most fundamentally is. If you want to know who she truly is, you would have to look to the moments when she stops to reflect and think about her deepest values. Take the person fighting an addiction to heroin. She might have a continual craving for another fix, but if she just gives in to this craving, it would be absurd to say that she is thereby “being true to herself” or “expressing the person she really is.” On the contrary, she is betraying herself and giving up what she values most. This sort of approach gives us a straightforward answer in a case like Mark Pierpont’s. It says that his sexual desires are not the real him. If he loses control and gives in to these desires, he will be betraying his true self.>In vino veritas!
But when I mention this view to people outside the world of philosophy, they often seem stunned that anyone could ever believe it. They are immediately drawn to the very opposite view. The true self, they suggest, lies precisely in our suppressed urges and unacknowledged emotions, while our ability to reflect is just a hindrance that gets in the way of this true self’s expression. To find a moment when a person’s true self comes out, they think, one needs to look at the times when people are so drunk or overcome by passion that they are unable to suppress what is deep within them. This view, too, yields a straightforward verdict in a case like Pierpont’s. It says that his sexual desires are what is most fundamental to him, and to the extent that he is restraining them, he is not revealing the person he really is.
There's an interesting discussion in the comments between advocates of the primal urge school, and advocates of having principles.
Libya rapes
He said there were reports of hundreds of women attacked in some areas of Libya, which is in the grip of a months-long internal rebellion.Agence France Presse, "Kadhafi 'ordered mass rapes' in Libya: ICC," June 9th, 2011.
There was evidence the Libyan authorities bought "Viagra-type" medicines and gave them to troops as part of the official rape policy, Moreno-Ocampo said... "The rape is a new aspect of the repression. That is why we had doubts at the beginning, but now we are more convinced that he decided to punish using rape," the prosecutor said.
Christian society found it necessary to transform chivalry, and in this way the knight himself was transformed into not only a defender of the Christian virtues, but into one who could be placed in the service of the defenseless, the needy, and the downtrodden.... As the Knight reads [in Ramon Lull's Book of the Order of Chivalry], we learn that God created the Order of Chivalry be cause the world was lacking in charity, loyalty, justice, and truth, for in deed, enmity, disloyalty, and injustice prevailed as well as falsehood.Antonio Disalvo, "Ramon Lull and the Language of Chivalry," Mystics Quarterly (now called The Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures), vol. 14 no. 4: 199-200.
Depletable Self-Control
"Why can't more poor people escape poverty? Psychologists have a radical new explanation," reports The New Republic. In the 1990s, studies suggested that exerting willpower in one context made it more difficult to exert it in others soon afterwards. Hungry subjects, for instance, were offered a choice between radishes and chocolate; the half who were instructed to take the radishes were found to be less able than the control group to focus on a difficult geometry problem. (Or maybe they were just too hungry?) The conclusion: exerting self-control exacts a psychic cost and leaves you weaker.
Later researchers expanded the concept to include any kind of trade-off decision, not merely a difficult resistance to temptation. Resolving conflicts among choices creates mental fatigue. Princeton psychologist Eldar Shafir then extended the theory to explain why the poor stay poor: when you lack disposable income, you can't have everything you want, but have to choose to do without an alternative almost every time you spend a dollar. As a result, the poor get tired brains and can't get ahead. But if you're rich, "deciding whether to buy the [product] only requires considering whether you want it, not what you might have to give up to get it."
I find this logic hard to follow. For one thing, the rich are if anything overwhelmed by choice, simply because they have the income to buy so many things beyond the kind of basic necessities whose purchase can be put on something like autopilot. For another, there seems to be no evidence that people who've managed to lift themselves out of poverty are mysteriously possessed of a larger store of this precious, depletable stock of willpower.
And naturally the theory lends itself to a justification of exerting additional control over the people who are unlucky enough to become the objects of our charity:
All of this suggests that we need to rethink our approaches to poverty reduction. Many of our current anti-poverty efforts focus on access to health, educational, agricultural, and financial services. Now, it seems, we need to start treating willpower as a scarce and important resource as well. . . . [M]oney itself can go a long way toward altering the dynamic that leads to willpower depletion among the poor. Government transfers of money have proven successful in Mexico and Brazil, for instance. In particular, attaching conditions to these transfers—such as requiring school attendance, regular clinic visits, and savings behavior—may allow for an end-run around the kind of willpower-based poverty traps that too frequently seem to end with the poor making unwise decisions.
H/t Maggie's Farm
The Deadbeat Dad
Deadbeat Dad Who Represents Himself Has a Fool for a ClientI guess the family court judge had had just about enough of this guy, who was rash enough to go pro se. He got $14,000 behind in his $400/month child-support payments, and must have mouthed off once too often about the things he thought he needed to spend money on that were more important. The judge ruled that he couldn't spend another dime on the following items until he got current:
- • alcoholic beverages
• cigarettes or any tobacco products
• food or drink of any kind from a restaurant, bar, or tavern
• cell phone
• television
• computer
• any electronic device, except medical equipment
• DVD, DVR, digital music or digital movie
• recreational vehicle
• recreational licenses of any kind, including hunting and fishing licenses
• movie tickets
• recreational event tickets
• airfare or train fare
• health club membership
• sporting goods of any kind
• ammunition, guns, or firearms
• fishing equipment
• camping or hiking equipment
• jewelry
• magazines
• newspapers
• cable or satellite TV service
• Internet service
• campground site
• hotel room
• any interest in real property, except his primary residence
He can still buy the following items, but only if he gets the Probation Department's prior written permission:
- • clothing
• furniture
• appliances
• motor vehicles
• household materials for renovations, except emergency repairs
• books
I wonder whether it isn't a better idea to stick to the traditional penalty of "pay up or go to jail." It's never a good idea for a judge to be this involved in the details of someone's life. On the other hand, when it comes to listening to the endless stream of necessities that people will put before their obligation to cover basic needs and obligations, I feel the judge's pain.
Law and Order
Law and OrderI've been inspired by Grim's discussions of lawlessness, as well as his friend's wake, to use this space to memorialize our small neighborhood's excellent County Commissioner, who died suddenly last week at the age of 63. Murph was a public servant of just the sort I revere: patient, responsive to his constituents, frugal, modest, and warm-hearted without being any kind of a pushover. He was methodical and patient about plowing through legal and bureaucratic complications.
Nothing in Murph's background would have made you guess he'd have taken on this kind of headache when he retired. He never attended college. After serving in the Army in Viet Nam, he lived and worked here for decades as a superlative phone installation man. Then he became the kind of public servant who makes it possible for communities to maintain order without drowning themselves in government.
Murph's district for the last nine years was our little peninsula at the northern extreme of the county, cut off from the rest of the county by Copano Bay, with nothing much between us and the northern horizon but cotton fields and the national wildlife refuge. We call it "Lamar," and Murph started the tradition a while back of calling its residents "LaMartians." It lies outside the city limits of either of the two main towns in the county, and traditionally hasn't had much truck with government, local or otherwise. At Murph's funeral last week, the County Attorney reminisced about their early collaboration on his dock on the local bay. The CA had obtained a building permit but allowed it to expire, and was having the dickens of a time getting an extension. Murph finally said, "Heck, Jim, this is Lamar. Let's just build it." The state ultimately got around to assessing a fine, but it was only half what the permit extension would have cost.
On the other hand, Murph was prepared to use the law to protect nature in the form it takes here on the Coastal Bend of Texas. His favorite projects tended to be useful and cost-effective little pocket parks or public boat ramps that made it possible for fishermen to get their boats in the water in a pleasant setting that was equally suitable for picnics. Shortly before his death, Murph got the Commissioners Court to pass a somewhat controversial ordinance restricting landowners' ability to cut down oak trees on their own property -- oak trees being one of this county's claims to fame along our otherwise fairly treeless coast. The County Attorney challenged Murph, asking whether he seriously intended the new measure to apply in lawless Lamar. "If I call you and tell you that some troublesome old oak tree on my property fell down in the night, are you going to sic the cops on me?" he asked. Murph considered, then replied, "The leaves on that tree had better be brown."
Murph had a bad ticker. Several weeks ago, the warning signs became grave. But when his doctors advocated more invasive surgery, he said, "I don't think I want that. I think I'll go on and go to Heaven."
Well done, thou good and faithful servant.
Aieeee -- a Balrog
Aieeee -- a BalrogThe Puyehue volcano in Chile:
When the System Works
I know you've probably all heard about this case by now. Someone at Bank of America authorized a foreclosure on a house that had once had a mortgage on it, but apparently had been bought for cash at a short sale, free of the lien. When the bank filed suit, the new owners pointed out that they weren't liable on the mortgage. Somehow or other, the bank didn't agree, or didn't check, and in the end the homeowners not only won the suit but got a judgment against the bank for their costs of legal defense, about $6,000. Then, continuing with its policy of not getting it together, the bank refused to answer phone calls or letters for five months. So the couple's lawyer got a judgment lien and executed on it -- by showing up at the bank branch with sheriff's deputies, and asking them to grab computers and copiers and whatever cash was in the till. Within the hour, the bank manager had figured out how to write a check for the amount of the judgment. Hey, it turns out it really is possible to resolve this dispute! No hard feelings! The bank even apologized in a letter to the Naples News:
"We apologize to Mr. Nyegres that there was a delay in receiving the funds," Christina Beyer wrote in a statement to the Naples News. "The original request went to an outside attorney who is no longer in business."
The defense lawyer was identified as Todd Allen of Collier County, Florida, and I believe this is his firm's website. Good job, Mr. Allen.
To give you an idea of why publicity over this case should give heartburn to bigwigs at BofA, my mother-in-law mentioned last night that she had heard Bank of America was about to be closed down, and she wondered if she should move her bank account.
Malaysian Club
I'd like to put this story from Malaysia before our female readers and commenters.
"Islam compels us to be obedient to our husband. Whatever he says, I must follow. It is a sin if I don't obey and make him happy," said Ummu, who wore a yellow headscarf.I love that the "Polygamy Club" is a hotbed of conservative thinking; and I'm quite sure that frank and open talk about sexuality by women, in public, isn't a throwback to Medieval times. For that matter, Islam was much better to women in Medieval times than it was in either its early period or the current one: see, for example, Catarina Belo's excellent article on the Medieval Islamic philosopher Averroes and his views on the role of women in society.
The club, founded by a fringe Islamic group known as Global Ikhwan, has been dismissed by politicians and activists as a throwback to Medieval times and an insult to modern women of Malaysia. But the group's activities, which previously included the setting up of a Polygamy Club, show that pockets of conservative Islamic ideas still thrive in Malaysia.
However -- beyond strongly encouraging you to take the time to read the Averroes article in full -- I'm not proposing to lead the discussion. We see similar proposals (minus, alas, the polygamy) from Christian groups from time to time. What's the value of them? How much is good advice, and how much is not?
Wake of the Highlander
Last weekend, we attended the wake of an old friend of the family.
He was quite a man. As the photo indicates, he was famous along two separate lines: as a grand figure at Scottish Highland games across the South, and as a biker and racer of motorcycles. In his youth, he had been a member of the Matador Motorcycle Club in Canada; one of those who spoke of him at the funeral had first met him in those days, when the speaker was a boy. "He rode up and came toward the house, all dressed in leather," the speaker said. "There was another person with him, a female, all dressed in leather, and they were coming to the door. I ran and hid in the laundry chute."
My wife and I spent a good part of our honeymoon around his fire at the Grandfather Mountain Scottish Highland Games. He was the greatest natural storyteller I ever met. His gatherings were never short of stories, or songs, or drink, or good cheer.
Bird-Cage Liners
Suppose I start a print newspaper tomorrow. I might think I’m selling excellent journalism, while my “readers” are actually using my product to line their birdcages. It might work out fine for a while. But the imbalance in this transaction would make it difficult to talk in general terms about improving the product or whether the product is worth what I’m charging. I might think I should improve my grammar and hire more reporters. My customers might want me to make the paper thicker.In the college transaction, most parents think they’re buying their kids a credential, a better job and a ticket, economically speaking at least, to the American dream. Most college professors and administrators (the good ones, anyway) see their role as producing liberally educated, well-rounded individuals with an appreciation for certain kinds of knowledge. If they get a job after graduation, well, that’s nice, too.
The students, for the most part, are not quite sure where they fit into this bargain. Some will get caught up in what they learn and decide to go on to further education. But most will see college as an opportunity to have fun and then come out the other end of the pipeline with the stamp of approval they need to make a decent salary after graduation.
So does Thiel’s offer suggest that a university diploma might be most useful lining a birdcage? Yes and no. He has certainly undermined the worth of a credential. But it is universities themselves that have undermined the worth of the education. It is to their detriment that they have done so, certainly, but it is to the detriment of students as well.
I didn't spend very much money on my education. My college tuition was free, because my father worked for the university (a great perk that was extended to all employees, provided their kids could meet the entrance requirements). My law school tuition was so cheap that it was less than the cost of the books. I lived the traditional impoverished-student lifestyle. Because I emerged into the job market with minimal student loans, I never had to agonize too much over whether the whole experience paid for itself in increased lifetime earnings.
These days, though, I can hardly flip through a morning's reading without stumbling on analyses of what a college education is for and whether it's worth it any more. It sometimes gets me to thinking what I was really learning for four years as an undergraduate, and whether it was just an absurd elitist detour that resulted in an essentially meaningless credential.
Lately I've been encountering the argument that a B.A. serves as an expensive substitute for the IQ tests that employers routinely used to impose on job applicants, but which were outlawed by the Supreme Court in the early 1970s. An undergraduate GPA is not the same as an IQ score, of course, but the idea is that there is enough of a rough correlation to make the information slightly meaningful in the absence of what employers "really" want. Maybe, but wouldn't an ACT or SAT score do as well, at less expense in time and money? Another idea is that, although employers don't delude themselves into thinking that the average liberal-arts major learned anything useful, he at least demonstrated some perseverance and ability to follow instructions.So what did I really learn in college that has made me more useful to employers? Unlike science and engineering majors, who clearly learned something useful, I mostly bounced around and took a variety of general-information courses in literature, history, art, and the most basic science and math. There's no doubt the experience was valuable to me personally, but it's not clear to me how it increased my later usefulness on the job. It expanded my horizons a good bit, of course. I think it taught me how to work really hard and pour myself into an intellectual effort rather than doing the usual high-school coast. Maybe the biggest difference between my college studies and my high-school work was the first glimmer I got of how humans put academic knowledge together in the first place. In high school, we're given knowledge in a survey form mostly as a fait accompli. College was the first time I started to see how scholars develop the knowledge in the first place. There has to be a great value in beginning to see my fellow human beings as agents and not mere subjects in the field of scholarship.
Still, when it came to earning a living, I relied on very practical post-graduate training in the profession of law, followed by more practical on-the-job training, not on my stimulating but impractical undergraduate studies.
Society v. State
A side discussion below deserves a top-line response. One of the things I've learned over the last few years is that we need to do a better job of balancing powers. We have a system of checks and balances between the executive branch, Congress and the judiciary; but, as we've often discussed here, we've largely lost the comparable balance between Federal and State authority. We need to recover a balance there.
By the same token, there are three other groups that need a system of checks and balances: the state, society, and individuals. We have balanced much too far toward the state, and to some degree too far toward individuals, while society has lost almost all of its power.
One of the chief tasks ahead of us, if we are to recover a decent way of life, is to find a way of rebalancing power. Frankly, I don't think our accountability mechanisms for the police work very well at alll; dismantling the police state we've built is very important if we are to make policing honorable work again. The police as peace officers are meant to be one of the balancing functions that affords some negotiation between the interests of the state ('the lawful order') and society ('the common peace'). As law enforcement officers, they've become enforcers of the state: and, to the degree that they are that, enemies of both society and the individual.
Cassandra suggests a way of thinking about society (the brutality exercised by certain proponents of a rather impoverished version of Islam) that suggests it would be bad to let society have a say in how individuals live, or the state is ordered. That comes from the wrongful assumption that a monolithic society is necessary or desirable as a standard. I love the idea of lots of little societies which have their own standards: and we have a way of balancing that concept with the interests of the state (and the States) in the Federalist system. Provided that certain basic rights are absolutely protected, it's OK if we have different social standards here and there, and different legal orders as well.
Why should society be given a voice in how individuals live? Consider this example. From the individualist point of view, this is a great story: the guy's personal actualization has been fully supported by the state. From the state's point of view, it was following its rules, so all was well until he actually started killing and eating women.
Yet that's half the picture. The individualist standard is violated here because the women didn't want to be killed and eaten; but some people have consented to being killed and cannabilized. If individual self-actualization is the answer, we have no standard to criticize two people consenting to such a system.
The state is (supposed to) follow the law; and the law says whatever it says. If we changed the law to say that it was OK to kill and eat women, then there would be no standard for challenging his behavior.
Could a society be subject to the same complaint? If a society chose to endorse such behavior, it would vanish in a few generations. This fact points to something important about society, and the reason that we see the destruction of the West's 'Culture of Life' at the same time that we see society disempowered before the state and the individual.
All individuals die. It is a matter of complete indifference to the state as to whether it dies or lives. Societies are what live across time, and link lives together. It is only in society that we find life expressing itself as an evolutionary control on behavior and standards.
Another way of saying that is this: society is how humanity rubs up against natural law. Life-affirming values come from here, or from nowhere. The state doesn't care; it will accept whatever set of laws exist, at the convenience of its masters. Individuals may well find that death-affirming values (such as abortion) are more convenient and pleasant for them.
Only society brings us into touch with the natural law governing humanity, as opposed to a single man or woman, or the unfeeling machine of the state.
Revere
Legal Insurrection makes an observation, and then forwards a question.
In fact, as pointed out at Conservatives4Palin, Revere did in fact tell the British that the colonial militias, who had been alerted, were waiting for them. Here is the original historical text written by Revere (spelling in original, bold added):As to the question, I will answer it: the reason is that this was before the modern age of war. The modern understanding is that war is won with a combination of maneuver and concentrated firepower. The interplay of these elements has varied at times in the modern period, but the elements have remained consistent. Thus, concealing your maneuvers is a crucial part of modern warfare.I observed a Wood at a Small distance, & made for that. When I got there, out Started Six officers, on Horse back,and orderd me to dismount;-one of them, who appeared to have the command, examined me, where I came from,& what my Name Was? I told him. it was Revere, he asked if it was Paul? I told him yes He asked me if I was an express? I answered in the afirmative. He demanded what time I left Boston? I told him; and aded, that their troops had catched aground in passing the River, and that There would be five hundred Americans there in a short time, for I had alarmed the Country all the way up. He imediately rode towards those who stoppd us, when all five of them came down upon a full gallop; one of them, whom I afterwards found to be Major Mitchel, of the 5th Regiment, Clapped his pistol to my head, called me by name, & told me he was going to ask me some questions, & if I did not give him true answers, he would blow my brains out. He then asked me similar questions to those above. He then orderd me to mount my Horse, after searching me for arms.Palin's short statement on the video was less than clear; that sometimes happens but the part of the statement which has people screaming -- that Revere warned the British that the colonial militias were waiting -- appears to be true.
I've learned something new today, about Paul Revere.
The leading lights of the left-blogosphere have made fools of themselves, as have people who are not of the left-blogosphere. I presume they all will be apologizing.
Update: Aaron Worthing at Patterico has a round-up of all the hyperventilated left-blogospheric reaction, including by Think Progress, which writes:It’s hard to imagine why Revere would warn the British of anything, or why he’d do it with bells and gun shots.
That was not always true in earlier periods (or, indeed, the current period: contemporary war has been much less about maneuver and concentrated firepower, and much more about intelligence and a judicious use of force). Consider the famous chevauchee, the heavy cavalry raid that was intended to force the enemy to acknowledge your position and do something about it. This tactic, used in the Hundred Years war to force the French to abandon fortifications and come to the field, was also used by us in Iraq. Our famous "Thunder Run" into Baghdad was a heavy cavalry raid intended to force the enemy to abandon their hiding places and come into the field. It worked beautifully on the Fedayeen Saddam, as we all recall.
Some medieval mercenary armies in Italy and Germany were professional fighters who preferred on the whole to win by maneuver alone. For that reason, once a good maneuver had been achieved, it was wise to notify your enemy so that he might retire without the need for everyone getting killed. You could win the point, and the field, without losing strength by having your force damaged in battle. (Reference Sun Tzu, on the wisdom of generals who win without fighting.)
That's what Revere was doing here: telling the British they might as well give it up, because the country is already alarmed and hot. As history knows, the British didn't choose to listen.
What's the Crime Again?
I'm not a John Edwards fan, to put it mildly. But I confess I can't quite understand what crime he committed under the federal election laws. Sleazy, yes, to knock up his girlfriend while using his ostensible devotion to his dying wife to buff up his presidential image, then paying the girlfriend off to keep her quiet. I'd like to think it permanently disqualified him from success in politics. But the criminal charges arise out of money contributed by friends/donors directly to his mistress, without passing through his campaign fund. The theory is that these were disguised campaign contributions, because he wouldn't have cared about hushing up his mistress if he hadn't been running for president. Obviously that would have been part of his motive, but I should think he'd have been plenty motivated just on general grounds. Mrs. Edwards showed real restraint in letting him live, for instance.
Stating the obvious
It's always nice when a comprehensive and expensive study proves what everyone already knew.
Decline of Violence
I generally think there isn't enough of it; and perhaps I am right:
Steven Pinker is currently working on a book about the decline of violence through human history. We like to think that we are living in a very violent time, that the future looks dark. But the data says that violence has declined every millennium, every century, every decade. The reduction in cruelty is just astounding. So we should not focus too much on the violence that has marked the twentieth century. The interesting question is how we can continue that trend of decreasing violence into the future. What options are open to us to make the world more peaceful?It's far too peaceful already, if you ask me; there are plenty of rude and miserable people running around abusing others, because of the lack of a good punch in the mouth as a counterweight.
However, I can't believe the statistics being forwarded are accurate. It seems more likely that we are living in a remarkable moment of peace than that violence is on some sort of permanent decline.
The major military powers continue the Great Nuclear Truce (GNT) that began in the 1950s, when Russia got nuclear weapons, and suddenly realized they could not afford to use them (without risking more destruction than past foes like the Nazis or Mongols inflicted). As more major powers got nukes, the "we can't afford to use them, but they're nice to have" attitude, and the unprecedented truce, persisted. There have been wars, but not between the big players, with the largest and most destructive conventional forces. A record was broken in 1986, as there had never before (since the modern state system developed in the 16th century) been so long a period without a war between a major powers (the kind that could afford, these days, to get nukes). Since the Cold War ended, there have been fewer wars (in the traditional sense) and more low level conflicts (rebellions, civil wars). Most people are unaware of this situation, because the mass media never made a lot of the GNT, it was something that was just there and not worth reporting. Besides, "nukes (bombs, power plants, medicine) are evil" sell, if you are in the news business. Calling any incident, with a lot of gunfire and a few dead bodies, a "war" has also been misleading. The fact is, worldwide violence has been declining since the end of the Cold War (1991) and the elimination of Russian subsidies and encouragement for pro-communist rebels and terrorists.The end of the Pax Romana was the end of a similar period of peace; the end of the Pax Americana, if it comes, will bring more war and not less.
The Pax Americana is sustained by violence, but at the same time results in smaller violence than it puts out -- or, to paraphrase General McChrystal, we've killed an amazing number of people, but fewer than would have been killed otherwise. I think a similar importation of socializing violence into the system would be similarly healthy. We might have a more pleasant society if we were more empowered to deal with, say, Westboro Baptist Church in the gentle and honorable fashion that they merit.
Fun
When I was younger, I once ran down a deer until it turned to bay. It was only a baby. I let it go, of course -- I only ran it down to see if I could do it -- but the fact that I could do so in those days suggests to me that these guys are on to something.
The pronghorn is the second-fastest animal on earth, while the men are merely elite marathon runners who are trying to verify a theory about human evolution. Some scientists believe that our ancestors evolved into endurance athletes in order to hunt quadrupeds by running them to exhaustion. If the theory holds up, the antelope I'm watching will eventually tire and the men will catch it. Then they'll have to decide whether to kill it for food or let it go.Speaking of which, I hear from my sister the marathon runner -- who is staying at Grim's Hall while I am out on this little adventure -- that my dog ran down and killed a raccoon today, with the help of another dog. Well done, Buckaroo!
Unresistance
UnresistanceA book review of "Berlin 1961" (Frederick Kempe) in the Wall Street Journal describes the long-term damage that can result from callow young presidents who get in over their heads:
"Berlin 1961" revolves around the question of whether Kennedy's decision to countenance the erection of the Berlin Wall was, in Mr. Kempe's words, "a successful means of avoiding war, or . . . the unhappy result of his missing backbone." On those terms, the book is a scholarly history of the crisis that culminated on Aug. 13, 1961, when East Germany, convinced that its economic and political survival depended on stopping the hemorrhage of refugees to the West, cut the city in two with the Berlin Wall, thereby imprisoning its people for the next 26 years. Since 1945, 2.8 million, or one in every six East Germans, had fled their benighted country. . . . Mr. Kempe's point is that Kennedy's indecisiveness in the early stages of the crisis produced the wall itself, an exponential increase in East-West tension, and, in the half-century that followed, other fateful consequences that included the Cuban missile crisis — and, though Mr. Kempe doesn't say so, the Vietnam War, along with social and strategic spores that lodged in the American psyche and darkened world opinion with results yet to be revealed. It also provided, as Mr. Kempe puts it in the final sentence of this mind-shaking work of investigative history, an example "of what unfree systems can impose when free leaders fail to resist."
H/t Maggie's Farm
Scientific Tribalism
Assistant Village Idiot has linked to an article in The Week entitled "Made-Up Minds," about the distressing resistance of certain people to persuasion by facts of logic. What kind of people? Well, you know. The kind who can't be made to understand what's wrong with the free market, gun ownership, patriarchal families, restrictions on abortion, or global warming, all of whom are very similar to end-of-the-world fanatics who cling to their delusions even after the world doesn't end on the scheduled day. Although, in fairness, the problem is not 100% about them; there are also those prominent leftist believers in vaccines as the cause of autism. And now back to conservatives: aren't they funny?
Principles
Dr. H. Mansfield speaks of Harvard's:
“Adjusting to change” is now the unofficial motto of Harvard, mutabilitas instead of veritas. To adjust, the new Harvard must avoid adherence to any principle that does not change, even liberal principle. Yet in fact it has three principles: diversity, choice, and equality. To respect change, diversity must serve to overcome stereotypes, though stereotypes are necessary to diversity. How else is a Midwesterner diverse if he is not a hayseed? And diversity of opinion cannot be tolerated when it might hinder change.Things are getting better at Harvard, in spite of these remarks. It was only six years ago that they were mocking MIT for having a rifle team, having apparently disposed of their own; but these days, they have one again. The other thing they're welcoming back is ROTC.
In the same way, choice in our curriculum is displayed in a dizzying array of courses that make it easy for students to indulge their whims and protect their leisure. Choice is best when it does not produce devotion and leaves one’s options open. A devoted student makes himself unready for change. Respect for merit remains, but it wavers and yields to the conventions of flattened self-esteem in which everyone is entitled to a point of view—and, need I add, a high grade. Thus equality is prized not because equality is good, but because nothing is good. Harvard is not so great either, though it’s not so bad. Perhaps our embarrassment at being there is sincere? No, that’s unlikely.
The changing tide does not signal itself with a sudden surge.
Why should we care? For the same reason Roosevelt cared -- Teddy, I mean, the real Roosevelt. These universities have networks that ensure that a vastly disproportionate number of their graduates will occupy positions of power and authority. Their culture is therefore of great concern to us, even if we doubt their prestige is deserved. The return of ROTC -- worth noting, this Memorial Day -- will subtly but powerfully change that culture, and for the better.
Our Hearts Were Touched with Fire
Our Hearts Were Touched with FireFrom a speech by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., on Memorial Day, 1884, from which my pastor quoted this morning:
[T]he generation that carried on the [Civil War] has been set apart by its experience. Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing. While we are permitted to scorn nothing but indifference, and do not pretend to undervalue the worldly rewards of ambition, we have seen with our own eyes, beyond and above the gold fields, the snowy heights of honor, and it is for us to bear the report to those who come after us. But, above all, we have learned that whether a man accepts from Fortune her spade, and will look downward and dig, or from Aspiration her axe and cord, and will scale the ice, the one and only success which it is his to command is to bring to his work a mighty heart.
Such hearts -- ah me, how many! -- were stilled twenty years ago; and to us who remain behind is left this day of memories. Every year -- in the full tide of spring, at the height of the symphony of flowers and love and life -- there comes a pause, and through the silence we hear the lonely pipe of death.