Jonah Goldberg's new book is not of any more interest to me than was his last book, but I saw via Instapundit that he had posted an excerpt on the Crusades. That is a subject that interests me, so I read through what he had to say.
His general point is that the Crusades should be thought of as a kind of defensive war, rather than a kind of proto-imperialism. Further, he adds, rather than an affront to Islam they represent one of Islam's minor victories.
Let me offer you a different way of thinking about the Crusades.
Most of what you'll see written on the subject in popular sources will focus on either the First Crusade (characterized by its mystical vision of St. George, and apparently miraculous success in recapturing Jerusalem), or the Third Crusade (with the irresistible characters of Richard the Lionheart and Saladin). What we call "the First Crusade," though, wasn't really the first one at all.
If by "Crusade" we mean a war undertaken by Western fighting men who fought to capture land from Muslims in return for a spiritual promise from the Church that their sins would be expiated by the violence, we should look to 1063. The Pope at that time was Alexander II, who sent a bull to clerics in France to encourage French knights to join in fighting against the Muslims in what is now Spain. This is thirty years before the "First Crusade," but it was followed by several more.
The Papacy held that the Iberian peninsula was the actual property of St. Peter, and therefore belonged to the Church: a series of Popes from Alexander to the famous Urban encouraged one crusade after another to recapture the land and restore it to the dominion of the Pope. The kings of the Spanish kingdoms began to enjoy significant success, but of course they didn't wish to accept the domination of the Pope once they had captured the land. The Church eventually settled its claims in return for properties, chiefly granted to the new Crusader orders -- the Templars and the Hospitallers, that is. Less well known, though, were a whole series of Crusader knightly orders that were particular to the Spanish crusades, set up by the kings along the same lines as the more famous orders to fight in Spain.
The popes even went so far as to issue an order forbidding Spanish knights from going to the Crusades in the east, because they were needed to fight at home.
Now, if you factor in the Spanish crusade with the Eastern ones, the question of whether 'the Crusades' represent an Islamic victory looks a bit different. The Muslims eventually recaptured Jerusalem, and indeed Constantinople; however, they lost Spain entirely. Furthermore, the structures set up to conquer in Spain were largely transferable to the New World in 1492 -- that is, the year when the last Islamic lands fell in Spain, while Columbus opened the way west. The effect of the Spanish crusades was thus the conquest and conversion of the entire population of South and Central America; it would have been the conversion of the whole of the Americas if not for the religious wars that split the Christian faith.
In addition, to get a full appreciation of the Crusades you have to look at the ones internal to Europe, where they were about enforcing discipline and putting down dangerous heresies. The success of these was mixed -- indeed, the religious wars just mentioned could be seen as the final failure -- but they are also an important part of the picture.
Seen as a whole, the Crusades become a different picture. They were far more than an attempt to recapture lands from Islam, and far more successful than at first may appear. They didn't win everywhere, or for all time, but the strength and size of Christianity even today is directly related to their prosecution.
By the way, if you want to read a book on the Spanish Crusades, an excellent one is Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain by Joseph F. O'Callaghan. His writing on medieval military organization and financing is somewhat general, but he puts together the history of events very well.
Croatia
Now here's a video that's probably worth your time. It's an adaptation of the "Ode to Joy" from Beethoven's 9th to a tourism video for Croatia. The result is, for the most part, remarkable.
Of course, the architecture and a few cultural icons aside, what really carries it is Beethoven. And that reminds me, again, of a problem we have often considered. The beauty of the music that came out of Europe from the 1700s to the late 1800s was unrivaled in human history; Croatia has a claim to it because Croatia is European, and indeed a central part of the same romantic movement in Europe that inspired Beethoven.
If the music of that era is unequaled, though, it is we ourselves who fail to equal it. The lady who performs here is a fine cellist; she replicates her part well. Who writes for her now, as once he did?
Of course, the architecture and a few cultural icons aside, what really carries it is Beethoven. And that reminds me, again, of a problem we have often considered. The beauty of the music that came out of Europe from the 1700s to the late 1800s was unrivaled in human history; Croatia has a claim to it because Croatia is European, and indeed a central part of the same romantic movement in Europe that inspired Beethoven.
If the music of that era is unequaled, though, it is we ourselves who fail to equal it. The lady who performs here is a fine cellist; she replicates her part well. Who writes for her now, as once he did?
Practicing chaos
H/t Ace. Naturally I can't find confirmation of any of these quotations, but I did find another unprovable one: Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop is said to have tried to get a rise out of Winston Churchill before WWII by predicting that, if it came to war, the Italians would side with Germany. Churchill replied, "It seems only fair. We had them last time."
Cradle To Grave
Wow.
Give the man credit: he's standing up for cradle-to-grave government support, at least for women. The focus on how women benefit from cradle-to-grave government wardship is an interesting one.
To some degree this is a practical fact of the kind of welfare state we've put together. We tend to make transfer payments to the poor and the old. Women make up the bulk of the one category because they tend to be the child-rearing parent in divorced families. They make up the bulk of the other category because they live substantially longer.
Thus the split is an organic one, sort of: it grows naturally out of supporting the poor and the old through government transfer payments. The Obama administration is just doubling down on it, and trying to think of many ways to craft additional woman-specific payments and benefits.
Still, time was that accusing someone of being in favor of "cradle-to-grave" government involvement in our lives was a pretty serious charge. Apparently the Obama administration thinks that, at least for women, the time has come to embrace it.
Give the man credit: he's standing up for cradle-to-grave government support, at least for women. The focus on how women benefit from cradle-to-grave government wardship is an interesting one.
To some degree this is a practical fact of the kind of welfare state we've put together. We tend to make transfer payments to the poor and the old. Women make up the bulk of the one category because they tend to be the child-rearing parent in divorced families. They make up the bulk of the other category because they live substantially longer.
Thus the split is an organic one, sort of: it grows naturally out of supporting the poor and the old through government transfer payments. The Obama administration is just doubling down on it, and trying to think of many ways to craft additional woman-specific payments and benefits.
Still, time was that accusing someone of being in favor of "cradle-to-grave" government involvement in our lives was a pretty serious charge. Apparently the Obama administration thinks that, at least for women, the time has come to embrace it.
"Composite" Girlfriends & Literary Allusions
There seems to be a lot of talk today about the President's admission that the girlfriend in one of his autobiographies is a "composite." That's an interesting thing to have done.
On the one hand, I can appreciate how it would be a decent act to keep the real girlfriends of one's past out of the glare of the public eye. If you were writing an autobiography for the purpose of presenting yourself as a public figure, with the intent of trying to push yourself off in politics, it might be kind to leave real names out -- especially when you were talking about sensitive matters of the heart.
On the other hand, a "composite"? Could you make a composite of two or three people you cared about deeply? Wouldn't it rather be the case that you can't help but see such people as the individuals that they are?
Consider the letter making the rounds today:
I cannot recall ever hearing the President speak this way, though. He's given a lot of speeches, but literary references are rare within them, and essentially absent from his off-the-cuff remarks.
Now it could be that the private, girlfriend-seeking Barack Obama is just a very different man from the public speaker; apparently Nixon was that way (as Cassandra recently pointed out). Still, Nixon was also a lot less public as a public figure: the times allowed a President to be different in private than in public in a way that they don't seem to do now.
So it strikes me as odd. Either the literature is deeply embedded in the thought process, or it is not. I've seen no evidence of it outside the book. What to make of that?
On the one hand, I can appreciate how it would be a decent act to keep the real girlfriends of one's past out of the glare of the public eye. If you were writing an autobiography for the purpose of presenting yourself as a public figure, with the intent of trying to push yourself off in politics, it might be kind to leave real names out -- especially when you were talking about sensitive matters of the heart.
On the other hand, a "composite"? Could you make a composite of two or three people you cared about deeply? Wouldn't it rather be the case that you can't help but see such people as the individuals that they are?
Consider the letter making the rounds today:
“Remember how I said there’s a certain kind of conservatism which I respect more than bourgeois liberalism — [T.S.] Eliot is of this type,” Obama wrote in one letter to McNear. “Of course, the dichotomy he maintains is reactionary, but it’s due to a deep fatalism, not ignorance. And this fatalism is born out of the relation between fertility and death, which I touched on in my last letter — life feeds on itself. A fatalism I share with the western tradition at times. You seem surprised at Eliot’s irreconcilable ambivalence; don’t you share this ambivalence yourself, Alex?”This indicates that the speaker thinks of himself as outside "the western tradition," which ought to be problematic enough for the President's defenders. What strikes me, though, is the way that the literary figures are completely interwoven with the thoughts. This is common among people who have spent their lives immersed in literature.
I cannot recall ever hearing the President speak this way, though. He's given a lot of speeches, but literary references are rare within them, and essentially absent from his off-the-cuff remarks.
Now it could be that the private, girlfriend-seeking Barack Obama is just a very different man from the public speaker; apparently Nixon was that way (as Cassandra recently pointed out). Still, Nixon was also a lot less public as a public figure: the times allowed a President to be different in private than in public in a way that they don't seem to do now.
So it strikes me as odd. Either the literature is deeply embedded in the thought process, or it is not. I've seen no evidence of it outside the book. What to make of that?
What Do You Mean By "Compassion"?
So, there's this study that says that atheists are more motivated by compassion than believers. Now, if you are like me, you read this and you think, "Wow -- that's surprising. So, if you're a random guy who needs help, you're better off looking for help with atheists than with nuns? That's not what I'd have expected."
It's also not what the study proves, as it turns out.
That's not shocking at all. It's just what you'd expect.
It's also not what the study proves, as it turns out.
"Overall, we find that for less religious people, the strength of their emotional connection to another person is critical to whether they will help that person or not," study co-author and University of California, Berkeley social psychologist Robb Willer said in a statement. "The more religious, on the other hand, may ground their generosity less in emotion, and more in other factors such as doctrine, a communal identity, or reputational concerns."So, in other words, religion performs the expected function after all: it drives people to help out that random guy. Without it, you're likely to help if and only if you have an existing emotional connection with the individual who wants help.
That's not shocking at all. It's just what you'd expect.
Outlaws!
I have to say I find this really, really funny.
Some black bloc man bigger than me with bandana tried to take my camera from me violently fuck that! Smash the state not my cameraIt's one thing to be an outlaw if you're prepared to live outside the law. But if you smash the state, dear lady, who's going to protect your camera? Twitter?
Stephanie Keith (@Steffikeith) May 1, 2012
Source: @Steffikeith
Eastward, ho
The problem with federalism is that sometimes the states run experiments whose results are hard to discount. This week has seen a flood of California-is-boned articles, summed up for us in a handy way here, but this short set of statistics stood out for me:
From the mid-1980s to 2005, California’s population grew by 10 million, while Medicaid recipients soared by seven million; tax filers paying income taxes rose by just 150,000; and the prison population swelled by 115,000.California also ranked in the top five or ten in a number of troubling contests, from most-taxed to most-regulated. It typically shares honors with New York, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia.
Rationalizing markets
A healthcare blog makes the tongue-in-cheek suggestion that we treat legal fees like medical costs:
Nevertheless, it puzzles me why people imagine the government can substitute for their own role in virtually all long-term planning. As Glenn Reynolds said recently, liberalism includes the belief that the voters aren't capable of planning for their own retirement, but they're capable of planning for mine.
It makes one think: If the lawyers are designing the health-care system, shouldn’t they be forced to operate under regulations similar to those they’re imposing? How, for example, do lawyers get paid? Today, they negotiate fees with clients. That hardly seems fair. In health care, doctors don’t negotiate fees with patients, they get paid according to an opaque schedule determined by health plans. Lawyers should do the same. The solution is “legal insurance.” After all, who amongst us knows when we’ll need a lawyer? It is often an unpredictable expense, and yet the “market” seems to have failed to provide such insurance. Government must intervene.The sad truth, of course, is that we do something very much like this in all fee-shifting cases in the legal field, and it works about as well there as is does in the healthcare field. It's a good point, though. Why don't we imagine that we can apply the lessons of healthcare to every critical need in life? Why do we trust people to supply themselves with their own food and shelter, for instance? It's true that healthcare often demands more foresight than our other daily needs. There aren't many people who are so disorganized that they can't be trusted to plan for satisfying their daily hunger, but many people will fail to plan now for a statistically likely medical bill in ten or twenty years. Similarly, some people make a concerted effort to save up for their children's college tuition well ahead of time, while others look around one day in shock and realize their eldest is 18 and needs to do something about it next month. Now where is that student loan application? And by the way, I'm 55 and would like to retire soon. Who's been saving up for me?
Nevertheless, it puzzles me why people imagine the government can substitute for their own role in virtually all long-term planning. As Glenn Reynolds said recently, liberalism includes the belief that the voters aren't capable of planning for their own retirement, but they're capable of planning for mine.
May Day
Today we enter the Cathedral of May, that month when the fullest beauty of spring gives way to the richness of summer.
Though the whitest branches of Georgia's spring come earlier in the year, the mountain laurel are like this now. Here is a branch from the shoulders of the Oconee.
The greenwood in May always brings to my mind the old stories of Robin Hood, who was always happiest in the Maytime. Eight years ago I quoted part of a ballad of Robin Hood in May: today I realize that ballad can be sung to the tune of the May Day Carol, given above. Here's the first few lines: try it and see!
But how many months be in the year? There are thirteen, I say; The midsummer moon is the merryest of all Next to the merry month of May.
I
IN summer time, when leaves grow green,
And flowers are fresh and gay, Robin Hood and his merry men Were [all] disposed to play.
II
Then some would leap, and some would run, And some use artillery:
‘Which of you can a good bow draw, A good archer to be?
III
‘Which of you can kill a buck? Or who can kill a doe? Or who can kill a hart of grease,
Five hundred foot him fro?’
IV
Will Scadlock he kill’d a buck, And Midge he kill’d a doe, And Little John kill’d a hart of grease, Five hundred foot him fro.
Though the whitest branches of Georgia's spring come earlier in the year, the mountain laurel are like this now. Here is a branch from the shoulders of the Oconee.
The greenwood in May always brings to my mind the old stories of Robin Hood, who was always happiest in the Maytime. Eight years ago I quoted part of a ballad of Robin Hood in May: today I realize that ballad can be sung to the tune of the May Day Carol, given above. Here's the first few lines: try it and see!
I
IN summer time, when leaves grow green,
And flowers are fresh and gay, Robin Hood and his merry men Were [all] disposed to play.
II
Then some would leap, and some would run, And some use artillery:
‘Which of you can a good bow draw, A good archer to be?
III
‘Which of you can kill a buck? Or who can kill a doe? Or who can kill a hart of grease,
Five hundred foot him fro?’
IV
Will Scadlock he kill’d a buck, And Midge he kill’d a doe, And Little John kill’d a hart of grease, Five hundred foot him fro.
The Elizabeth Warren Affirmative Action Dust-Up
Pictured: a wild-eyed savage delighting in the destruction of the civilization of the West; and a Cherokee warrior, ca. 1836
AceOfSpadesHQ is having fun with Harvard's alleged use of Elizabeth Warren's citing of perhaps spurious Cherokee ancestry to demonstrate its commitment to minority hiring. As usual, the humorous point wins me over completely, but Ace loses me when he suggests that Warren might not have landed her cushy job at Harvard without this maneuver. Warren was my bankruptcy law professor when she was but a professor at the lowly University of Houston law school, back in the Pleistocene. She was a fine teacher and a very, very bright woman with an organized mind, not at all given to partisan harangues. In the decades since, she's remained in the public eye -- public in the context of bankruptcy lawyers -- publishing a number of quantitative papers about the results of real bankruptcy cases. She seems a perfect match for the Harvard Law milieu. I don't agree with her politics, but there's nothing wrong with her professional achievements.
The perils of brunch
"No, I don't want a bloody mary with pickled brussels sprouts and beets. I'm not interested in octopus salad with pearl onions. I'm a prey animal. I just want to freeze."
A Question of Scale, and a Question of Proportion
So Dan Rather has a report today -- I had thought he was retired -- on the horror of how our grandparents used to deal with unwanted pregnancy.
The CDC estimates that the number of abortions in America since 1973 is about 50 million.
Even allowing for the existence of a certain number of illegal abortions in the 50s-1973, it's clear that the loss of the social stigma has vastly increased the scale of the problem. Unintended pregnancies are now much more common than they were.
That's the question of scale; but there's also a question of proportion. Is it proportionate to traumatize a young woman with social stigma when she has done something so reckless as to create a life she cannot support? Possibly; it's harsh, but it need not be cruel. Sometimes a harsh solution is necessary, though cruelty never is.
Is it proportionate to kill a child for the crime of being unwanted? Of course it is not.
Likewise, there's a question of proportion in terms of addressing the injustice that results. Insofar as it was wrong to force these young women to give up their children, many of these children can now be located in time for them to share a part of their lives with the mothers who now wish to contact them. Some will have lived and died, but most should be able to connect even now. A child killed in the womb, by contrast, can never be recovered: the injustice to the child cannot even be ameliorated, let alone put right. Should the mother change her mind, years later, she will find no recourse in the courts.
It appears, then, that our new solution has (a) made the problem far more common and also (b) morally worse. Our grandparents, so often mocked as oppressive haters of women, may have had the better solution.
Yet if our way is practically worse, and also morally worse, it is superior in one respect: it takes better care of the feelings of the adults involved. The women who make the choice feel that at least society respects them enough not to interfere, however much they may still regret the choice they make; and the rest of us are never forced to deal with anyone who is aggrieved, as these mothers were by the forced adoptions, because the aggrieved party is helpfully dead. If the standard for judging the policy is how careful it is of the feelings of everyone within our social circle, then this policy is a far better.
In the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s, being an unwed mother carried a significant stigma in America. It’s now called the “baby scoop” era and during this time young women -- usually in their teens -- were either hidden at home, sent to live with distant relatives or quietly dispatched to maternity homes to give birth.
Estimates are as many as 1.5 million young mothers who say they were forced -- some just minutes after delivery -- to hand over their babies for adoption during this period. It was a decision that they seldom made on their own.It's easy to sympathize with the mothers here, for whom this must have been a traumatic and upsetting experience. However, note the scale: 1.5 million over a period of thirty years.
The CDC estimates that the number of abortions in America since 1973 is about 50 million.
Even allowing for the existence of a certain number of illegal abortions in the 50s-1973, it's clear that the loss of the social stigma has vastly increased the scale of the problem. Unintended pregnancies are now much more common than they were.
That's the question of scale; but there's also a question of proportion. Is it proportionate to traumatize a young woman with social stigma when she has done something so reckless as to create a life she cannot support? Possibly; it's harsh, but it need not be cruel. Sometimes a harsh solution is necessary, though cruelty never is.
Is it proportionate to kill a child for the crime of being unwanted? Of course it is not.
Likewise, there's a question of proportion in terms of addressing the injustice that results. Insofar as it was wrong to force these young women to give up their children, many of these children can now be located in time for them to share a part of their lives with the mothers who now wish to contact them. Some will have lived and died, but most should be able to connect even now. A child killed in the womb, by contrast, can never be recovered: the injustice to the child cannot even be ameliorated, let alone put right. Should the mother change her mind, years later, she will find no recourse in the courts.
It appears, then, that our new solution has (a) made the problem far more common and also (b) morally worse. Our grandparents, so often mocked as oppressive haters of women, may have had the better solution.
Yet if our way is practically worse, and also morally worse, it is superior in one respect: it takes better care of the feelings of the adults involved. The women who make the choice feel that at least society respects them enough not to interfere, however much they may still regret the choice they make; and the rest of us are never forced to deal with anyone who is aggrieved, as these mothers were by the forced adoptions, because the aggrieved party is helpfully dead. If the standard for judging the policy is how careful it is of the feelings of everyone within our social circle, then this policy is a far better.
Romney Challenges Genghis Khan for "Furthest Right"
Oh, my. Besen of MSNBC shares some alarming intelligence with The New York Daily News:
Romney has actually become the most far-right major party nominee in generations, eager to make the Reagan and Bush presidencies look almost liberal by comparison.Apparently Romney has made it clear he'll dismantle the fabric of American society and re-write the social contract. In fact, the author of this article uses language that I could swear is a verbatim copy from what I was reading four years ago about another candidate:
The man has spent a year showing the American electorate a road map, pointing at a distant, radical destination. Only the deliberately blind could miss the signals, and only a fool would assume he’ll change direction once he’s in power.I feel his pain.
How not to fight over politics
Miss Manners, as usual, has fine advice for avoiding rude, unpleasant conversational gambits without resorting oneself to rudeness or unpleasantness. A reader reports that she is well known in her community for espousing a particular controversial cause. She prefers not to discuss it 100% of the time, however, particularly at parties. When someone buttonholes her at a social event and wants to chew her out on the subject, Miss Manners suggests:
Not all readers could get the message. One wrote:
Try assuming an interested look, and without responding to the attack on your issue, say, “Tell me about your favorite cause. Besides this, what do you think is our most important question of the day?”Her readers add even more useful advice (sometimes even WaPo readers can get a clue). One suggests calling over to a notorious motormouth nearby: "Oh, Catherine dear, I have someone I want you to meet. Do come over and tell us about your weekend in the Hamptons" -- then escape and leave them to each other. Another proposes explaining that she remembers better what she reads than what she hears, so would the antagonized person mind writing her a letter? Better yet, invite him to attend her next scheduled public appearance and discuss the matter there, because if he had really wanted a serious discussion he would have already done one or the other. Another suggests the all-purpose: "I'm so sorry my opinion upsets you. Will you excuse me, please?"
This doesn’t just change the subject, if it works. It challenges such a person to show whether he has ideas of his own, or just goes around attacking others. Miss Manners realizes there are risks. He could be tempted to say, “Stopping wrongheaded people like you,” although personal insults at a party would only mark him as even ruder than the confrontation, which might be passed off as conversation. The real risk is that you will then attack his ideas, and it will be a draw. The way to win is to listen intently, say pleasantly, “Hmmm, interesting you should think that,” and excuse yourself to get a drink.
Not all readers could get the message. One wrote:
Yeah but that is kind of hard to do when the person has been advocating taking away your marriage rights for instance and then you find yourself sitting next to the blowhard at a dinner party. I would take delight in making them as uncomfortable as they have made me in my private life. He should get no pass because he wants down time from his hateful positions. Maybe he should rethink his stand on this issue if so many people are in vehement disagreement with him on it.Fun dinner guest, I imagine. It was interesting that quite a few commenters got hung up trying to guess what the unpopular cause was, as if they couldn't decide whether Mr. Let's-Fight-at-a-Party was rude until they knew whether they agreed with him on the controversial issue.
A Bourbon Interlude
Although of course we all know Tocqueville, I had not been aware of the political backstory to his famous American tour.
They're subject to an additional complaint, which is that they were probably worse forms of torture than the ones they replaced. Prisoners were forced to remain silent twenty-four hours a day, and kept in solitary confinement when they weren't working in gangs: they were also lashed regularly. The stated point was to "break down their sense of self," so they would be easy to reform. It's roughly the idea later mocked by A Clockwork Orange, but before the advent of psychoactive drugs.
So it turns out that Tocqueville came to learn about something we did poorly but were reputed to do well, and ended up learning about (and writing about) something we did well in fact. That shows a good judgment.
The Revolution of 1830 overthrew the Bourbon king Charles X and put the Orléanist Louis-Philippe on the throne. Tocqueville reluctantly took a loyalty oath to keep his job. This placed him in a difficult position with his pro-Bourbon family and relatives, who thought his actions treasonous. But his oath did nothing to allay the regime's mistrust of him. This suspicion was not unwarranted; in 1832 some of Tocqueville's relatives would be involved in a plot to overthrow Louis-Philippe. Beaumont fell under suspicion for similar reasons. He and Tocqueville therefore sought a pretext to leave the country for a while.
Fortunately for them, a shift was taking place, not only in politics but also in penal practices: torture and public executions were being replaced by efforts to rehabilitate criminals. The United States was seen as a vast social laboratory, in which prison experiments were being conducted that might profit France. Tocqueville and Beaumont were therefore able to convince their supervisors to grant them a leave of absence to travel to the United States to study American prisons.It's interesting that was his reason for coming. The shift to rehabilitation is something we've discussed from time to time; it turned out to be based on theories of psychology that hold no water at all. Sadly, if anyone followed the American model of prisons, they made a detour into an expensive new way of failing to solve the problem.
They're subject to an additional complaint, which is that they were probably worse forms of torture than the ones they replaced. Prisoners were forced to remain silent twenty-four hours a day, and kept in solitary confinement when they weren't working in gangs: they were also lashed regularly. The stated point was to "break down their sense of self," so they would be easy to reform. It's roughly the idea later mocked by A Clockwork Orange, but before the advent of psychoactive drugs.
So it turns out that Tocqueville came to learn about something we did poorly but were reputed to do well, and ended up learning about (and writing about) something we did well in fact. That shows a good judgment.
Ice Cream
I went into the kitchen a while ago, and poking around in the freezer I found a container of ice cream that I didn't know we had. It's been a rather warm day, so I took it to my wife and asked her if she would like some. "No," she said, "but you enjoy yourself."
So I stuck the container against her bare shoulder, which caused her to kick and scream until she could get away. This took a moment as she was trapped against a countertop at the time. "What?" I said. "You told me to enjoy myself. Can you think of anything I could have done with the ice cream that I would have enjoyed more?"
And do you know, she went red in the face, turned on her heels, and fled running out of the room!
Women. Who can understand them?
So I stuck the container against her bare shoulder, which caused her to kick and scream until she could get away. This took a moment as she was trapped against a countertop at the time. "What?" I said. "You told me to enjoy myself. Can you think of anything I could have done with the ice cream that I would have enjoyed more?"
And do you know, she went red in the face, turned on her heels, and fled running out of the room!
Women. Who can understand them?
When communication makes you feel further away
A Maggie's link led me to a shrink site I'd never seen before, which emphasizes judgment over feelings. Not pretending feelings aren't there, just remembering that we have other cognitive functions, too, to keep our lives in order and avoid repetitive disasters. His advice for the lovelorn: feelings are exciting, but next time work on finding someone with good character before you dive deep into the great emotional rush. Also: "Before we discovered communication as the solution to family conflict and misunderstanding, we knew better. Back then, people thought before they spoke."
Dr. Lastname offers sensible advice to a mother who worries that she's trapped in an endless cycle of post-binge feeling-fests with her adult son, when what she really needs to do is send him to AA:
Dr. Lastname offers sensible advice to a mother who worries that she's trapped in an endless cycle of post-binge feeling-fests with her adult son, when what she really needs to do is send him to AA:
Tell him he has to find strength in himself by thinking hard about what he wants for himself and what drug and alcohol abuse does to him. He’ll need to get a lot stronger before he can stop and stay stopped, and talking to others about addiction and hearing their stories can give him the strength. Still, he’ll have to work hard every day, and the part of him that wants to use is pretty strong and will never go away.
No, you’re not discouraging him — false hope yields false courage — you’re telling him that life and his own feelings have totally discouraged him and he’s going to have to learn how to think differently in order to get his courage back. You’re not telling him anything he won’t learn from AA, but they’re the lessons that will help him take back his life.
The immediate response may well be negative; he may claim you’re letting him down and making him feel worse, and may openly regret talking to you. Instead of getting defensive, tell him you see a positive way forward and that your vision differs from his. Then stand pat, don’t argue, and stand ready to help him whenever he takes a positive step. It may be awhile before you feel close again, but, if and when you do, it will be the real thing. Until then, you can talk all the time, but every conversation will make you feel further away.He also offers excellent practical advice for dealing with intrusive nags:
If your mother is needy and believes that intimacy is a matter of sharing spontaneous feelings, it’s natural for her to try to get close by asking you direct, intrusive questions and then sharing her honest response. Anyone who does that is, however, is just somebody who has never figured out that this method never works (and probably never will). She gets an A for expressing her feelings, and you know what grade she gets from me.
Don’t make the same mistake by assuming that sharing your honest objections (to her honest questions) will lead to improvement; she might never learn her lesson, but you should know better. If your goal was to see whether confronting her negative behavior works, now you know. No need to repeat the experiment, the results will always be the same (and awful).
So put aside your disappointment and consider other approaches, like steering the conversation to pleasant topics of common interest, or politely refusing to talk about personal topics. The more you stifle your own need for intimacy, the more likely you are to steer the dinner table agenda towards topics that work and come away appreciating the desert and not hating the conversation.
Asymmetrical deafness
More support for Jonathan Haidt's thesis that conservatives have a clue what progressives think, but progressives cannot return the favor. Frank Luntz managed to get the WaPo editorial page to print a short piece exposing five major myths that the left believes about the right:
Update: It's occurred to me that a point about asymmetry depends on showing that the same thing doesn't happen all the time in reverse. I've been hunting for some "Top 10 Stupid Things Conservatives Believe About Liberals" articles, published in conservative venues, that elicited purely conservative backlashes along the lines of: "We don't believe you espouse any such benign motives behind your revolting slogans. Our caricatures were actually quite accurate. Everyone knows the root of your insane liberal beliefs is that you're paid Communist operatives. The author of this piece is a smelly hippie." I haven't been able to find any, but maybe some of you can link to them in the comments. I did find some "Top 10 Dumb Conservative Beliefs" posts, but no comparable reader response. Mostly they were explanations that liberals don't really hate America or the troops or family values, and don't intend to encourage personal irresponsibility, etc., with reader responses that were mild or mixed. I admit that I have participated in more than one argument among conservatives that degenerated into the blanket explanation that all liberal initiatives were Alinsky-style tactics intended to destroy the country. I just haven't seen that approach adopted unanimously in the comments section of a major newspaper in response to an "olive branch" style of op-ed piece.
- Conservatives want to smother government in its crib. Luntz believes polls are beginning to show that conservatives are less concerned about "large government, small citizens" theory than about practical measures to ensure increased accountability, so that whatever is spent on government will give demonstrable bang for the buck.
- Conservatives want to drive all illegal immigrants to the border and dump them in the desert. Polling suggests widespread Republican support for "tall fences and wide gates," and for some kind of path to citizenship for immigrants who have demonstrated good citizenship in various ways, including military service.
- Conservatives believe Wall Street can do no wrong. Liberals are confusing Wall Street with Main Street. Conservatives are more enamored of the free market than of abstract "capitalism," and would happily see some of the miscreants in the housing market scandal strung up by their thumbs (though they may disagree about who the miscreants are).
- Conservatives want to smother Social Security and Medicare in their cribs. In fact, most conservatives want to preserve them, but believe they'll collapse altogether without reform. Conservatives are also much more likely to believe that reforms based on individual choice and market competition will be broadly benign in their results.
- Conservatives don't care about inequality. Actually, conservatives differ from liberals in their beliefs about the best way to combat inequality, and are much more focused on opportunity than result.
Update: It's occurred to me that a point about asymmetry depends on showing that the same thing doesn't happen all the time in reverse. I've been hunting for some "Top 10 Stupid Things Conservatives Believe About Liberals" articles, published in conservative venues, that elicited purely conservative backlashes along the lines of: "We don't believe you espouse any such benign motives behind your revolting slogans. Our caricatures were actually quite accurate. Everyone knows the root of your insane liberal beliefs is that you're paid Communist operatives. The author of this piece is a smelly hippie." I haven't been able to find any, but maybe some of you can link to them in the comments. I did find some "Top 10 Dumb Conservative Beliefs" posts, but no comparable reader response. Mostly they were explanations that liberals don't really hate America or the troops or family values, and don't intend to encourage personal irresponsibility, etc., with reader responses that were mild or mixed. I admit that I have participated in more than one argument among conservatives that degenerated into the blanket explanation that all liberal initiatives were Alinsky-style tactics intended to destroy the country. I just haven't seen that approach adopted unanimously in the comments section of a major newspaper in response to an "olive branch" style of op-ed piece.
New things are fun only if you're a predator
From Nicole Cliff at The Hairpin, via Never Yet Melted via Maggie's Farm:
If you haven't spent a lot of time around horses, you may have the idea that they are like dogs and cats (really big, dangerous dogs and cats). This is untrue. YOU are like dogs and cats, in that you are a predator. . . . [I]f someone says to you "hey, let's try this new brunch place that has amazing cocktails," there's a decent chance you'll say "great, meet you there." Your dog feels similarly. New things are fun! That is because you are a predator. . . . If you try to take your horse to a new brunch place, you need to convince them that a) you've been there before, b) there are no cave trolls at the brunch place, c) there will be other horses at the brunch place, and d) you will be a royal pain in their ass until they quit dicking around and agree to go to the brunch place.Husbands can be similar.
Outlaw!
He has spent eight years churning out hundreds of thousands of copies of “The Hangover,” “Gran Torino” and other first-run movies from his small Long Island apartment to ship overseas. “Big Hy” — his handle among many loyal customers — would almost certainly be cast as Hollywood Enemy No. 1 but for a few details. He is actually Hyman Strachman, a 92-year-old, 5-foot-5 World War II veteran trying to stay busy after the death of his wife. And he has sent every one of his copied DVDs, almost 4,000 boxes of them to date, free to American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan....
“It’s not the right thing to do, but I did it,” Mr. Strachman said, acknowledging that his actions violated copyright law.
“If I were younger,” he added, “maybe I’d be spending time in the hoosegow.”Well, you know, even if you were younger they'd have to get it past a jury.
Fun with nomenclature
"Warming Hole Delayed Climate Change Over Eastern United States," declares the headline at Science Daily, describing the results of new studies from the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). It seems that particulate pollution in the late 20th century created a regional "warming hole," a/k/a a cold patch, a/k/a a place where the global warming model was an abject failure for many decades.
It seems to me you could as easily say "we found a large area where global warming didn't happen, thus confounding our expectations and making us question our causation theory." Or you might say "particulate pollution appears to be a stronger driver of climate change than the oft-reviled CO2, and in the opposite direction, so now we're really confused about that positive-feedback assumption on which most of our alarming predictions are based." You might even say "particulate pollution paradoxically acts as a benign umbrella to protect industrialized regions from global warming," but what fun would that be? A "Warming Hole" sounds a lot scarier and more interesting. Who wants to crucify industry barons who are only spreading a lovely parasol? And what respectable science journal wants to run a story about counter-evidence for global warming causation theories?
Like most of the announcements in this area, the new report is based on re-jiggered models, in this case a "combination of two complex models of Earth systems." That's terrific. The only thing that inspires more confidence than a complex model is two of them jammed together.
It seems to me you could as easily say "we found a large area where global warming didn't happen, thus confounding our expectations and making us question our causation theory." Or you might say "particulate pollution appears to be a stronger driver of climate change than the oft-reviled CO2, and in the opposite direction, so now we're really confused about that positive-feedback assumption on which most of our alarming predictions are based." You might even say "particulate pollution paradoxically acts as a benign umbrella to protect industrialized regions from global warming," but what fun would that be? A "Warming Hole" sounds a lot scarier and more interesting. Who wants to crucify industry barons who are only spreading a lovely parasol? And what respectable science journal wants to run a story about counter-evidence for global warming causation theories?
Like most of the announcements in this area, the new report is based on re-jiggered models, in this case a "combination of two complex models of Earth systems." That's terrific. The only thing that inspires more confidence than a complex model is two of them jammed together.
In Washington, It's Always 1945
Another good American Enterprise Institute review, courtesy of Maggie's Farm (which by the way is also the source of my last two posts). Nick interviews Jim Manzi about his book "Uncontrolled: The Surprising Payoff of Trial and Error for Business, Politics, and Society," in which he laments public policy that has not been subjected to controlled experiments. Manzi argues that our political leaders can't shake the mindset they acquired after World War II, when the U.S. had half the world's GDP:
Our almost casual disregard for the erosion of the foundations of our political economy — endless talk but little successful action on internationally uncompetitive K-12 educational results; a widely touted university system that produces more visual and performing arts graduates than math, biology, or engineering graduates; an immigration policy that all but ignores the need to upgrade our human capital; underinvestment in certain kinds of infrastructure, science, and technology; the relentlessly rising tide of social dysfunction among the majority of the American population that does not graduate from college; somehow convincing ourselves that we are uniquely responsible for maintaining global order, when we represent only about 25 percent of global economic output; a continuous trade deficit for more than 30 years; federal government debt of 70 percent of GDP, without any real prospect of achieving fiscal balance, never mind running the budget surpluses that would be required to pay it down, and so on — is shocking and profligate. . . . The United States can thrive in this new world, but is not destined to do so.Manzi doesn't oppose reform; he merely advocates federalism:
My argument is not that we should avoid reforms. To the contrary, it is that we should attempt many more potential reforms by trying them out on a small scale to see how they really work.
Cash Now!
The problem, of course, is that it's not your money. It's not even money. It doesn't exist at all. So on that basis, heck, I'd take 10 cents on the dollar and feel like a successful bandit.
The limits of scientism
John Gray, emeritus professor of European thought at the London School of Economics, has an interesting review of Jonathan Haidt's "The Righteous Mind" in The New Republic. He admires the book in many ways, but argues that Haidt suffers from provincialism (he's hung up on American notions of the left/right split in politics) and from the usual limitations of a faith in scientism. In Gray's view, Haidt's newest work is a sophisticated example of "attractively simple theories that [are believed to be] invested with the power of overcoming moral and political difficulties that have so far proved intractable."
Gray gives Haidt credit for overcoming the recently voguish "primitive type of rationalism" that so often ignores the strength and value of our irrational or extra-rational nature; he acknowledges that the conscious mind is like a rider on a strong, beautiful animal. Still, he faults Haidt for his emphasis on group morality:
Gray gives Haidt credit for overcoming the recently voguish "primitive type of rationalism" that so often ignores the strength and value of our irrational or extra-rational nature; he acknowledges that the conscious mind is like a rider on a strong, beautiful animal. Still, he faults Haidt for his emphasis on group morality:
Understanding morality as a group phenomenon neglects the fact that human groups are complex, historically shifting, and internally conflicted. Tribes and nations are not natural kinds of things like genes and blood types. They are historical constructions whose existence depends on human recognition. Human beings rarely, if ever, belong to only one group. One of the tasks of morality is to arbitrate the clashing loyalties that regularly arise from the many group identities that human beings possess. In some cases, morality may lead people to put aside group loyalties altogether.Gray also argues that Haidt's functionalist definition of morality leaves him in a number of unresolved difficulties:
There is a slippage from “is” to “ought” in nearly all evolutionary theorizing, with arguments about natural behavior sliding into claims about the human good. It may be true—though any account of how precisely this occurred can at present be little more than speculation—that much of what we see as morality evolved in a process of natural selection. That does not mean that the results must be benign.Gray cautions against Haidt's naive confidence that evolutionary psychology can resolve the conflict between utilitarianism and pluralism:
Issues such as abortion and gay marriage are not bitterly disputed because legislators have failed to apply a utilitarian calculus. They are bitterly disputed because a substantial part of the population rejects utilitarian ethics. . . . . Haidt appears not to grasp the importance of the fact that intuitionism and utilitarianism are rivals, and not only in moral philosophy. They are also at odds in practice. Making public policies on a basis of utilitarian reasoning requires a high degree of convergence, not diversity, in moral intuitions. Such policies will not be accepted as legitimate if they violate deep-seated and widely held intuitions regarding, for example, sexuality and the sanctity of human life. . . . Once again seemingly unaware of the depth of the problems he is addressing, Haidt tells us that such conflicts will not arise, or else they will be soon overcome, as long as people are brought together in the right way.A good review should either warn you not to waste your time, or inspire you to acquire the book and spend time ploughing through it. This review is tipping me toward the investment of time and effort.
An Article for Eric Blair
Via Arts & Letters Daily, a review of a new book on Rome. As always, I'll defer to Eric for a read on the quality of the thing; Rome is his bailiwick.
"The Better Half"
Here's a cheerful song about finding the good in a hard life, built around friendly lyrics and a playful arrangement.
"Suicide Doors"
Popular Mechanics has a delightful article called "The 13 Most Dangerous Car Interiors in History." Runner up is the Lincoln Continental with suicide doors.
"Suicide doors" got their name for a reason. Many early cars didn't have locking doors, door latches opened by pressing downward, and a downward-opening latch often served as an armrest. It was a recipe for catastrophe. Without a seatbelt, anyone chilling in the back of a car with rear-swinging doors could easily fall out, especially since the wind would catch the door and blow it open. The gorgeous 1961 Lincoln Continental had suicide rear doors, harking back to a much earlier era of coachbuilt luxury cars of the 1920s.That happens to be the subject of a pretty great rockabilly song by the Reverend Horton Heat.
Women & World Peace
Foreign Policy has an article that claims that the best predictor of a state's stability is how it treats its women.
Stability as such isn't much of a goal, if what is being stabilized is injustice. Thus, to some degree, you would think it would be a good thing to see that states that are fundamentally unjust were also unstable: that's just what we might think we would want to see.
On the other hand, growing instability doesn't seem to improve the situation for women much: in fact, it seems to worsen it.
It seems probable that they have their causality exactly backwards. Good treatment for women does not cause political stability; it seems to result from it. It is in a stable atmosphere that women have often done best in human history, because it is in such an atmosphere that the traditional male advantages are minimized: size, strength, and a mental structure that evolution has shaped for war. In a stable environment, it is development of long-term relationships rather than combat that tends to shape society: and these are traditional female strengths. It's the periods of long-term prosperity and stability in which women have advanced their political and legal position.
This suggests that if you want to see women's treatment improve, you should work to stabilize society; but you will almost certainly be stabilizing an oppressive environment for the women when you do it. The goods that come for women will come from their own work and their own natural strength, over time, not because of external efforts.
Nevertheless, there are some counterexamples to the theory that occur to me. It would have been true during the height of the instability of the industrial age, for example, that women had greatest equality (if not best treatment) in the places rendered most unstable by the revolution; and likewise, in WWII, it was the instability that created the opportunity for large-scale female migration into factory work.
This set of data suggest that creating instability is a great thing to do insofar as it gives women a greater hand in the means of production, which may only be possible in industrialized or post-industrial societies. It was certainly true that many Marxist revolutions promised women this very good if they would join the revolution and help overthrow the government, which is why many third-world Marxist leaders were women. However, after the revolution the promised goods rarely materialized.
If this is the truth, though, then there's no general rule about correlation or causation to be made here. The fact that stable states are correlated with female rights is true only just now; it was not true before, and might not be true later.
The authors would like it to be true that the correlation (and even the causation) ran in their direction, because it could allow us to avoid making a value judgment between stability and freedom for women. In fact, I suspect we will often have to make such judgments: and I am as ready to strike a blow for freedom today as I ever was, though experience has made me less hopeful about how much we can actually achieve in our own historical moment.
What's more, democracies with higher levels of violence against women are as insecure and unstable as nondemocracies.
Our findings, detailed in our new book out this month, Sex and World Peace, echo those of other scholars, who have found that the larger the gender gap between the treatment of men and women in a society, the more likely a country is to be involved in intra- and interstate conflict, to be the first to resort to force in such conflicts, and to resort to higher levels of violence....
It's ironic that authors such as Steven Pinker who claim that the world is becoming much more peaceful have not recognized that violence against women in many countries is, if anything, becoming more prevalent, not less so, and dwarfs the violence produced through war and armed conflict. To say a country is at peace when its women are subject to femicide -- or to ignore violence against women while claiming, as Pinker does, that the world is now more secure -- is simply oxymoronic.Well, Pinker's argument is one I don't think much of myself (we discussed it here); nevertheless, I'm not sure what to make of this argument.
Stability as such isn't much of a goal, if what is being stabilized is injustice. Thus, to some degree, you would think it would be a good thing to see that states that are fundamentally unjust were also unstable: that's just what we might think we would want to see.
On the other hand, growing instability doesn't seem to improve the situation for women much: in fact, it seems to worsen it.
It seems probable that they have their causality exactly backwards. Good treatment for women does not cause political stability; it seems to result from it. It is in a stable atmosphere that women have often done best in human history, because it is in such an atmosphere that the traditional male advantages are minimized: size, strength, and a mental structure that evolution has shaped for war. In a stable environment, it is development of long-term relationships rather than combat that tends to shape society: and these are traditional female strengths. It's the periods of long-term prosperity and stability in which women have advanced their political and legal position.
This suggests that if you want to see women's treatment improve, you should work to stabilize society; but you will almost certainly be stabilizing an oppressive environment for the women when you do it. The goods that come for women will come from their own work and their own natural strength, over time, not because of external efforts.
Nevertheless, there are some counterexamples to the theory that occur to me. It would have been true during the height of the instability of the industrial age, for example, that women had greatest equality (if not best treatment) in the places rendered most unstable by the revolution; and likewise, in WWII, it was the instability that created the opportunity for large-scale female migration into factory work.
This set of data suggest that creating instability is a great thing to do insofar as it gives women a greater hand in the means of production, which may only be possible in industrialized or post-industrial societies. It was certainly true that many Marxist revolutions promised women this very good if they would join the revolution and help overthrow the government, which is why many third-world Marxist leaders were women. However, after the revolution the promised goods rarely materialized.
If this is the truth, though, then there's no general rule about correlation or causation to be made here. The fact that stable states are correlated with female rights is true only just now; it was not true before, and might not be true later.
The authors would like it to be true that the correlation (and even the causation) ran in their direction, because it could allow us to avoid making a value judgment between stability and freedom for women. In fact, I suspect we will often have to make such judgments: and I am as ready to strike a blow for freedom today as I ever was, though experience has made me less hopeful about how much we can actually achieve in our own historical moment.
"Counsel, do you have any other arguments?"
These are not words a lawyer wants to hear from the bench, especially if his only honest answer is, "Your Honor, I got nuthin'."
Arguments before the Supreme Court this week on the Arizona immigration law went far worse than I ever imagined they would, in part because I haven't been playing close attention to the exact position of the federal government. I did not realize, for instance, that federal law already permits local police to check the immigration status of a person they suspect of being an illegal alien. Arizona's law merely makes such a check mandatory. The purpose of the change apparently was to permit the state authorities to override local preferences for annulling the federal immigration laws; in other words, this law works out a conflict between state and municipal authorities, not between state and federal authorities.
I also did not realize that the government stipulated at the outset that it was offering no arguments about the danger of profiling. The law itself is race-neutral, so any such argument from the DOJ would have to await the implementation of the state law and the application of the usual statistical tests. There may come a day when we have to endure "disparate impact" arguments on this subject, but today is not that day.
Remarks from the Justices amply demonstrated how badly the federal government's arguments were faring, but some of the worst came from moderate Justice Kennedy, from new, presumptively liberal Justice Sotomayor, and even from obviously liberal Justice Breyer. Breyer asked how a provision that would require policemen call to check immigration status can be said to conflict with a federal rule that allows policemen to call to check immigration status. Sotomayor got the DOJ to admit that the state would merely alert the feds that they'd discovered an illegal alien; nothing Arizona is doing (or could do) would require the feds to take the aliens into custody, if they didn't feel that doing so was a high priority or worth the expense. (I'd just expect the feds to set up an automated message system that no one ever checks. "Press one if you're wasting our time with more reports of illegal aliens, you red-state poster-children for hate crimes.") Justice Kennedy's question was even more devastating: "So you're saying the government has a legitimate interest in not enforcing its laws?" And as has been so widely reported, Justice Roberts stated, "It seems to me that the Federal Government just doesn't want to know who is here illegally or not." But none of the Justices was impressed by the argument that federal pre-emption means the states are prohibited from giving the feds information they'd prefer not to know.
I don't know of any precedent for this situation, where the feds want to keep a law on the books, then claim pre-emption over the issue whether it will be enforced as written. As Justice Scalia pointed out:
Arguments before the Supreme Court this week on the Arizona immigration law went far worse than I ever imagined they would, in part because I haven't been playing close attention to the exact position of the federal government. I did not realize, for instance, that federal law already permits local police to check the immigration status of a person they suspect of being an illegal alien. Arizona's law merely makes such a check mandatory. The purpose of the change apparently was to permit the state authorities to override local preferences for annulling the federal immigration laws; in other words, this law works out a conflict between state and municipal authorities, not between state and federal authorities.
I also did not realize that the government stipulated at the outset that it was offering no arguments about the danger of profiling. The law itself is race-neutral, so any such argument from the DOJ would have to await the implementation of the state law and the application of the usual statistical tests. There may come a day when we have to endure "disparate impact" arguments on this subject, but today is not that day.
Remarks from the Justices amply demonstrated how badly the federal government's arguments were faring, but some of the worst came from moderate Justice Kennedy, from new, presumptively liberal Justice Sotomayor, and even from obviously liberal Justice Breyer. Breyer asked how a provision that would require policemen call to check immigration status can be said to conflict with a federal rule that allows policemen to call to check immigration status. Sotomayor got the DOJ to admit that the state would merely alert the feds that they'd discovered an illegal alien; nothing Arizona is doing (or could do) would require the feds to take the aliens into custody, if they didn't feel that doing so was a high priority or worth the expense. (I'd just expect the feds to set up an automated message system that no one ever checks. "Press one if you're wasting our time with more reports of illegal aliens, you red-state poster-children for hate crimes.") Justice Kennedy's question was even more devastating: "So you're saying the government has a legitimate interest in not enforcing its laws?" And as has been so widely reported, Justice Roberts stated, "It seems to me that the Federal Government just doesn't want to know who is here illegally or not." But none of the Justices was impressed by the argument that federal pre-emption means the states are prohibited from giving the feds information they'd prefer not to know.
I don't know of any precedent for this situation, where the feds want to keep a law on the books, then claim pre-emption over the issue whether it will be enforced as written. As Justice Scalia pointed out:
Anyway, what's wrong about the states enforcing Federal law? There is a Federal law against robbing Federal banks. Can it be made a state crime to rob those banks? I think it is. But does the Attorney General come in and say, you know, we might really only want to go after the professional bank robbers? If it's just an amateur bank robber, you know, we're going to let it go. And the state's interfering with our whole scheme here because it's prosecuting all these bank robbers.
Religion & Science, Together
Chemistry World discusses a new technique for recovering the original beauty of Medieval illuminations. (Hat tip: Medieval News.) This is, of course, what the relationship between science and faith ought to look like: a beautiful partnership, each seeking truth according to its discipline.
Tom Sawyer's Friend:
...the Washington, D.C. bureaucrat.
The Department of Labor is poised to put the finishing touches on a rule that would apply child-labor laws to children working on family farms, prohibiting them from performing a list of jobs on their own families’ land.
Under the rules, children under 18 could no longer work “in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials.”
That means "no milking the cows," as well as "no picking the corn," and "no carrying bales of corn that I picked," and "no going to the farmers' market on Sunday, in the hope that your smiling face might charm someone into buying our tomatoes."
It also means "No more 4-H" and "No more Future Farmers of America."
You can probably still whitewash the fence... at least until the next set of rules comes along.
Fixing Boys
Let's leave aside the question of whether there is a "war on boys" or a "war on women," or whether the system is stacked against one or the other. It's clear that, regardless of how "the system" is "stacked," boys have significant problems with school as currently structured.
A better question, then, might be: how can we structure school so that boys tend to excel?
Here are a few thoughts on structuring a program for boys, with a very small amount toward the end on how it would interact with a program for girls.
1) It would involve longer school days, but with more and longer breaks for physical activity. Boys at the elementary school level should be getting up for a good forty-five minutes' play at least three times during the school day. At elementary levels one of these play periods can be formalized, into sports or (especially) martial arts; the others should be free. At higher levels, first two and then periods should be formalized: as boys grow into teenagers they need more structure to keep them out of trouble.
2) It should assume that boys mature more slowly, and thus focus on topics earlier in their education that require less emotional maturity. Math and science are good subjects at early ages; history and emotionally-difficult literature should be pushed back. Stories that can be read to boys, or that have shown a long history of being interesting to boys, are good at this age -- adventure tales, Robin Hood, or books without emotional content like stories about airplanes and trains. Stories that require them to confront or examine complex emotional truths are for later. The technical skills of reading and basic composition do not involve much emotional weight, but advanced composition -- because it requires a mastery of content, which comes from emotionally laden things like history and literature -- should be pushed back as well.
3) This implies that boys and girls should usually be educated separately, although the implication is not rigid; and in addition, there are substantial benefits to having boys and girls working alongside each other from early life. It would be good to break school days into class periods for each subject, and the classes taught differently, so that individual accommodations can be made. A boy who matures unusually quickly may benefit from being introduced to more emotionally complex materials, so that he might go to a class mostly filled with girls for the literary period; a girl might not develop as quickly, and go to a class filled mostly with boys. Because boys will focus more on math and science early, those classes will probably advance faster; some girls who show especial aptitude may spend part of their days in boy-heavy classes.
These are just some initial thoughts; any or all of these thoughts may be wrong. The point is to think about the problem from the perspective of trying to construct a solution that will work for the boys. What do you suggest?
A better question, then, might be: how can we structure school so that boys tend to excel?
Here are a few thoughts on structuring a program for boys, with a very small amount toward the end on how it would interact with a program for girls.
1) It would involve longer school days, but with more and longer breaks for physical activity. Boys at the elementary school level should be getting up for a good forty-five minutes' play at least three times during the school day. At elementary levels one of these play periods can be formalized, into sports or (especially) martial arts; the others should be free. At higher levels, first two and then periods should be formalized: as boys grow into teenagers they need more structure to keep them out of trouble.
2) It should assume that boys mature more slowly, and thus focus on topics earlier in their education that require less emotional maturity. Math and science are good subjects at early ages; history and emotionally-difficult literature should be pushed back. Stories that can be read to boys, or that have shown a long history of being interesting to boys, are good at this age -- adventure tales, Robin Hood, or books without emotional content like stories about airplanes and trains. Stories that require them to confront or examine complex emotional truths are for later. The technical skills of reading and basic composition do not involve much emotional weight, but advanced composition -- because it requires a mastery of content, which comes from emotionally laden things like history and literature -- should be pushed back as well.
3) This implies that boys and girls should usually be educated separately, although the implication is not rigid; and in addition, there are substantial benefits to having boys and girls working alongside each other from early life. It would be good to break school days into class periods for each subject, and the classes taught differently, so that individual accommodations can be made. A boy who matures unusually quickly may benefit from being introduced to more emotionally complex materials, so that he might go to a class mostly filled with girls for the literary period; a girl might not develop as quickly, and go to a class filled mostly with boys. Because boys will focus more on math and science early, those classes will probably advance faster; some girls who show especial aptitude may spend part of their days in boy-heavy classes.
These are just some initial thoughts; any or all of these thoughts may be wrong. The point is to think about the problem from the perspective of trying to construct a solution that will work for the boys. What do you suggest?
Once More with Feeling:
Philosophy is being made obsolete by science, claims a theorist cited by The Atlantic:
It turns out that the New York Times ran a piece that we somehow missed containing a rebuttal on just the same terms as we have been making. The author was not me, though, but a better authority: a philosopher named David Albert, who also holds a Ph.D. in theoretical physics. I am gratified to learn that he raises substantially the same point.
There is a point he's trying to make here, though, and if we are patient with him we can almost see it. He clearly misses the philosopher's point, but that's because he wasn't listening. Let's not make the same mistake. Just what is he trying to say beneath all that sneering?
In January, Lawrence Krauss, a theoretical physicist and Director of the Origins Institute at Arizona State University, published A Universe From Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing, a book that, as its title suggests, purports to explain how something---and not just any something, but the entire universe---could have emerged from nothing, the kind of nothing implicated by quantum field theory.Well, yes, "the kind of nothing." This is just how we got started, though: this "kind of nothing" isn't nothing at all. It's the potential for something.
It turns out that the New York Times ran a piece that we somehow missed containing a rebuttal on just the same terms as we have been making. The author was not me, though, but a better authority: a philosopher named David Albert, who also holds a Ph.D. in theoretical physics. I am gratified to learn that he raises substantially the same point.
"The particular, eternally persisting, elementary physical stuff of the world, according to the standard presentations of relativistic quantum field theories, consists (unsurprisingly) of relativistic quantum fields... they have nothing whatsoever to say on the subject of where those fields came from, or of why the world should have consisted of the particular kinds of fields it does, or of why it should have consisted of fields at all, or of why there should have been a world in the first place. Period. Case closed. End of story."The Atlantic decided to interview only Krauss, so you can read the rebuttal-to-the-rebuttal. However, having done so, I can't say that I find it enlightening or even interesting. He claims that philosophy doesn't advance while science does; the reviewer points out that the basis of computer science and artificial intelligence is based on recent work in philosophy of language. 'Well, I was just being provocative,' but the important areas of philosophy are being subsumed by other fields. What about the ones that continue to produce insight? 'Those will be subsumed.' Bertrand Russell? 'He was a mathematician.' (Also a philosopher! As Albert is both a philosopher and a physicist.) It would be better to read St. Augustine on physics than the people reviewing his book, who are 'morons' (with, in Albert's case, a pair of advanced degrees in quite difficult subjects).
There is a point he's trying to make here, though, and if we are patient with him we can almost see it. He clearly misses the philosopher's point, but that's because he wasn't listening. Let's not make the same mistake. Just what is he trying to say beneath all that sneering?
A modest proposal
My notion for a simultaneous attack on three problems: (1) uninsured free riders on the American healthcare system, (2) the unconstitutional individual mandate under ObamaCare, and (3) the problem of illegal immigration: limit the individual mandate to illegal immigrants, the penalty for non-compliance being immediate deportation. Check insured status automatically during all traffic stops, the same way we check auto insurance. Then abolish EMTALA for illegal immigrants.
I realize this doesn't address the problem of uninsured free riders under EMTALA who are American citizens, but at least the poorest of them are eligible for Medicaid, and they're not pouring over the borders. This proposal also assumes it's constitutional to deport illegal aliens who can't prove they have medical insurance, but since they're legally subject to deportation anyway, I don't foresee the Supreme Court objecting.
I realize this doesn't address the problem of uninsured free riders under EMTALA who are American citizens, but at least the poorest of them are eligible for Medicaid, and they're not pouring over the borders. This proposal also assumes it's constitutional to deport illegal aliens who can't prove they have medical insurance, but since they're legally subject to deportation anyway, I don't foresee the Supreme Court objecting.
A Culture of Arms
I personally believe that it is proper to carry arms openly whenever possible; the benefits of this are something we spoke of years ago, and I haven't changed my mind.
Nevertheless, for many people concealed carry is the only possible carry. The usual solution is to carry some sort of holster, but another option is to wear clothing designed for the purpose of carrying concealed weapons. The specialty industry built around this second option includes fine craftsmen like those at Coronado Leather, as well as larger-scale manufacturers like 5.11 Tactical.
Apparently, though, Woolrich has begun a line aimed at those who wish to carry a firearm in a fashionable way. Under Armor, which pitched a military-approved version of their undershirts to help soldiers and Marines stay cool in Iraq, is apparently also in this market.
Woolrich is the most interesting, though, because it's such an ordinary part of American culture. It was there nearly two hundred years ago when we were pushing West and needed warm things against frontier weather; these days, Woolrich products are available for sale in every Cracker Barrel by every interstate in the country.
It's encouraging.
Nevertheless, for many people concealed carry is the only possible carry. The usual solution is to carry some sort of holster, but another option is to wear clothing designed for the purpose of carrying concealed weapons. The specialty industry built around this second option includes fine craftsmen like those at Coronado Leather, as well as larger-scale manufacturers like 5.11 Tactical.
Apparently, though, Woolrich has begun a line aimed at those who wish to carry a firearm in a fashionable way. Under Armor, which pitched a military-approved version of their undershirts to help soldiers and Marines stay cool in Iraq, is apparently also in this market.
Woolrich is the most interesting, though, because it's such an ordinary part of American culture. It was there nearly two hundred years ago when we were pushing West and needed warm things against frontier weather; these days, Woolrich products are available for sale in every Cracker Barrel by every interstate in the country.
It's encouraging.
Shāh Māt
Shāh Māt, meaning king-kill in ancient Persian, or as we say today: checkmate. It seems the game of chess may have originated in India around the sixth century A.D., before spreading to Persia and thence to Europe via the Muslim expansion. Early on, it was called chaturaṅga, which translates as "four divisions (of the military)": infantry, cavalry, elephantry, and chariotry. (No hawks? -- and by the way, isn't it a shame that elephantry no longer figures heavily in our military traditions.) It's not too surprising that infantry and cavalry would become pawns and knights, but I wouldn't have guessed that bishops started out as elephants or rooks as chariots. The position now called a rook has been filled not only by chariots over the intervening centuries but also by boats, carts, and towers. The original pieces next to kings were viziers, but transmuted into queens by a thoroughly obscure process. Early queens, like early bishops, had much more limited moves.
The Cloisters in New York City are now featuring a traveling exposition of early chess pieces carved from walrus ivory, probably in eleventh-century Norway, which were discovered in 1831 on the Isle of Lewis off the western coast of Scotland. In this set, the rook takes a human form:
Among the warders (rooks) in the exhibition, who are represented as foot soldiers, one bites the top of his shield, barely containing his frenzied eagerness for battle. Scholars have identified such figures as berserkers (the soldiers of Odin from Norse mythology), known from the Heimskringla — the Chronicle of the Kings of Norway — of the poet Snorri Sturluson (ca. 1179–1241).H/t Maggie's Farm.
Immigration confusion
PollingReport.com consolidates polling from a number of sources over time. The link takes you to a summary of public attitudes to immigration, though other issues are addressed elsewhere in the site. One of the strongest messages is that voters favor Arizona's immigration bill and think the Obama administration should butt out. On most other immigration issues, public opinion is far less clear. Americans' support for amnesty, for instance, swings over all the place depending on how the question is worded. If you throw in enough words about ensuring that a new law will take account of work history, tax payments, and ties to the community, it will be popular. Other formulations of the question, however, can elicit a lukewarm response even if they refer generally to those same considerations. Similarly, if a question sticks closely to whether immigration is the primary responsibility of the federal or the state government, opinion will be mixed. But throw in the question of whether the state should be allowed to step up if the federal government fails, and Arizona wins hands-down.
For the most part, you can find the expected divergence of opinion between Republicans and Democrats, with Independents splitting the difference. Nevertheless, I was surprised to find that both Republicans and Democrats respond well to the statement "Do you favor or oppose allowing local boards [emphasis supplied] to determine whether illegal immigrants can stay in the United States based on factors such as how long the immigrants have lived here, if they have a family, a job and are paying taxes, and have other ties to the community?" while Independents do not.
Questions about whether immigrants contribute to or detract from American prosperity yield mixed results until you throw in the concept of balancing an immigrant's contribution against his drain on public freebies.
By far the clearest division of opinion appears when the answers are separated between Latino and non-Latino. This division dwarfs the disagreements among the parties generally.
For the most part, you can find the expected divergence of opinion between Republicans and Democrats, with Independents splitting the difference. Nevertheless, I was surprised to find that both Republicans and Democrats respond well to the statement "Do you favor or oppose allowing local boards [emphasis supplied] to determine whether illegal immigrants can stay in the United States based on factors such as how long the immigrants have lived here, if they have a family, a job and are paying taxes, and have other ties to the community?" while Independents do not.
Questions about whether immigrants contribute to or detract from American prosperity yield mixed results until you throw in the concept of balancing an immigrant's contribution against his drain on public freebies.
By far the clearest division of opinion appears when the answers are separated between Latino and non-Latino. This division dwarfs the disagreements among the parties generally.
The new slavery
What should we call it when taxpayers are forced to work to support other people? If we start calling it slavery whenever someone imposes a free-rider element on the system, let alone whenever we're forced to endure the company of people we disapprove of in public places, we're going to need a new word for real slavery. By this theory, the Jim Crow laws were an admirable anti-slavery measure.
*Updated to substitute a better link for the broken one above (thanks, Valerie!).
New horizons in tech world
Not all you younguns will remember these things, so come sit by Gramma's rocker while she reminisces about 1979 with the help of these old AT+T videos. One is a recruiting spot for the Bell Labs, showing earnest young tech geeks and their bad hair talking about good places to work and good communities for their families. These cutting-edge careers involved things like computer-to-computer communications that were about to revolutionize data transport. The young technicians are cheerfully brisk about their career opportunities, without imagining that they're the center of the world.
The other video shows the happenin' new designer telephones, the kind you used to plug into a wall -- some even had a dial. The featured homes all look more like something out of Dallas or A Clockwork Orange than what I remember of homes back then, when I was a new college graduate. The phones are fun to look at, but it's the clothing that cracks me up.
The other video shows the happenin' new designer telephones, the kind you used to plug into a wall -- some even had a dial. The featured homes all look more like something out of Dallas or A Clockwork Orange than what I remember of homes back then, when I was a new college graduate. The phones are fun to look at, but it's the clothing that cracks me up.
Word sleuthing
Here's something that's been bothering me lately. (I don't have enough real trouble.) What is the root of the past participle "fraught," as in "fraught with menace"? On the analogy of "thought" and "taught," I get frink or freach, which lacked a certain something. On the analogy of "wrought," whose root I imagined to be either work or wreak, I get fork or freak. Freak seems to hold real promise: when you're freaking out, you're fraught. Somehow the word "free" seems to be involved, as well, which is how you get the contrast between "barrier-free" and "barrier-fraught" architecture, but as far as I can tell no one thinks there's a true etymological link between free and fraught.
Today I finally tried to look it up. Most sources claim the root is the same as the participle, "fraught," but they admit that nobody says "to fraught" and that, if they did, its archaic meaning would be close to what we now suggest with the word "freight." I can accept freight. A situation is metaphorically freighted with some quality just as it can be fraught with that quality. So I'm glad we cleared that up.
The experts claim, by the way, that the proper past participle of wreak is "wreaked," while "wrought" goes only with "work." Well, I don't know. I always thought you wrought havoc.
Today I finally tried to look it up. Most sources claim the root is the same as the participle, "fraught," but they admit that nobody says "to fraught" and that, if they did, its archaic meaning would be close to what we now suggest with the word "freight." I can accept freight. A situation is metaphorically freighted with some quality just as it can be fraught with that quality. So I'm glad we cleared that up.
The experts claim, by the way, that the proper past participle of wreak is "wreaked," while "wrought" goes only with "work." Well, I don't know. I always thought you wrought havoc.
Efficient laundry
High-falutin' detergents add expensive enzymes, which break up stains. They really work, but when the wash cycle is over the enzymes go down the drain along with the cheap soap and dirty water. But wait a minute -- didn't they tell us in chemistry class that the whole point of enzymes is that they facilitate reactions without being used up?
Two bright fellows, C.S. Pundir and Nidhi Chauhan, reported to the Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research that they had bound the four most common laundry enzymes to plastic surfaces (a bucket and scrub brush used in pre-washing) in a way that made the enzymes available for at least 200 re-uses over a three-month period. It's a cheaper approach, and a lot less junk in the wastewater, too. It's not commercially available yet, unfortunately.
Two bright fellows, C.S. Pundir and Nidhi Chauhan, reported to the Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research that they had bound the four most common laundry enzymes to plastic surfaces (a bucket and scrub brush used in pre-washing) in a way that made the enzymes available for at least 200 re-uses over a three-month period. It's a cheaper approach, and a lot less junk in the wastewater, too. It's not commercially available yet, unfortunately.
Just-in-Time Structures
Imagine a bridge built with this system. You really wouldn't want to lose power to the control system while traffic was on the bridge.
Back to Part I
My apologies for dropping out of this discussion here - it deserved more time than I could give it 'til now, and Grim gave me a not-at-all easy reference to look over - which I quite failed to grasp. (I've read Part II and am joining in that one separately.) I want to return to a part of Part I.
Grim was reexplaining Kant's problem in terms of a believer, like Chesterton, who claimed to have pieced together evidence from throughout his life that brought him to believe in God.
I'm not in a world like that. The evidence I get runs the other way - within limits.[1] Yes it is possible that this is all a great self-consistent illusion of the brain-in-vat variety. But, I have to say, so what? What difference does this make to anything I have to do? Why paralyze myself by claiming, "This evidence isn't perfect; it could be all wrong without my knowing, so I'll declare all my knowledge completely nonexistent, without value, not knowledge at all?" It's the only evidence I've got and I'll take it as far as it seems to get me. Any map that I carry is not the same thing as the land it represents. It's only an indirect representation, and by its nature imperfect. Do I throw it away? Declare it's no map at all?
Stephen Donaldson's Thomas Covenant - the protagonist of a few trilogies he wrote - was in a similar situation. He kept being transported to a fantasy world, which included a villain named Lord Foul, and (at least in the first two I, which I read) never seemed certain whether he was really visiting another world or dreaming the whole thing. But, he figured, whichever way it was - he was going to fight Lord Foul. I don't understand any other approach.
[1] I'm partly color-blind and accept there are things you can see that I can't; I can be fooled by optical illusions and know that what I think I'm seeing isn't always quite right.
Let's say that someone has encountered a number of phenomena that they believe demonstrate the existence of God. One counterargument to their reasoned belief in God would be to point out that they have misconstrued the causes of the phenomena...Yet he has come by his knowledge in the same way we come by knowledge of anything that is outside of ourselves in the world.Absolutely, boss. But the quality of that evidence is the thing I always want to examine. (Chesterton makes it impossible because, after a book of build-up, he won't even say what that evidence is. But that is another story.) Putting it that way blurs the distinction between evidence of different quality (per Chesterton again, between the kind of man who doubts the existence of God and the kind who doubts the existence of cows).
So your objection, and Tom's after a fashion, is that you want to say that 'well, we can't have perfect knowledge of things outside of us, but we can have approximate knowledge' -- knowledge on a scale, as Tom put it. The problem is that doesn't get off the ground. Everything you think you know about the outside world is phenomenal (Kant is arguing). Every experience, every sensation, every fact you think you know is actually just a fact about your own internal thoughts...Not so. The perceptions I get are evidence about the external world. "Direct" in the legal sense; "indirect" the way you say Kant's using it. The things I experience are consistent in such a way that they back each other up, and are evidence for each other. I see what looks like a fire; I feel the heat from it; I touch it and get burned by it; I hear and read about it. This is all evidence that such a thing as fire exists. It would be different if I lived in a world where I saw things that looked solid, but my hand passed through them when I tried to touch them; or things that looked just like fire sometimes burned and sometimes didn't for no apparent reason; or I felt my skin was crawling with bugs but everyone else said I was suffering from delusional parasitosis. Those situations would be evidence that my senses were not reliable and that the knowledge I got from them was not so useful.
I'm not in a world like that. The evidence I get runs the other way - within limits.[1] Yes it is possible that this is all a great self-consistent illusion of the brain-in-vat variety. But, I have to say, so what? What difference does this make to anything I have to do? Why paralyze myself by claiming, "This evidence isn't perfect; it could be all wrong without my knowing, so I'll declare all my knowledge completely nonexistent, without value, not knowledge at all?" It's the only evidence I've got and I'll take it as far as it seems to get me. Any map that I carry is not the same thing as the land it represents. It's only an indirect representation, and by its nature imperfect. Do I throw it away? Declare it's no map at all?
Stephen Donaldson's Thomas Covenant - the protagonist of a few trilogies he wrote - was in a similar situation. He kept being transported to a fantasy world, which included a villain named Lord Foul, and (at least in the first two I, which I read) never seemed certain whether he was really visiting another world or dreaming the whole thing. But, he figured, whichever way it was - he was going to fight Lord Foul. I don't understand any other approach.
[1] I'm partly color-blind and accept there are things you can see that I can't; I can be fooled by optical illusions and know that what I think I'm seeing isn't always quite right.
Weren't We Just Talking About This?
A biologist writes about culture in terms that will seem quite familiar:
RICH AND SEEMINGLY BOUNDLESS as the creative arts seem to be, each is filtered through the narrow biological channels of human cognition. Our sensory world, what we can learn unaided about reality external to our bodies, is pitifully small.He gives a litany of examples, to which we might add: and all that's without the problems of apperception.
More on Bullies, From President Obama
Well, then-aspiring-author Obama, rather. Dr. Althouse is reading more around the dog-eating tract that has gotten so much attention.
Doubtless the President would agree with our advice, then: the way to deal with bullies is to teach them to fear your own strength, not to whine, and to learn to fight smarter and better than they do.The man pulled the blade across the bird’s neck in a single smooth motion. Blood shot out in a long, crimson ribbon. The man stood up, holding the bird far away from his body, and suddenly tossed it high into the air. It landed with a thud, then struggled to its feet, its head lolling grotesquely against its side, its legs pumping wildly in a wide, wobbly circle. I watched as the circle grew smaller, the blood trickling down to a gurgle, until finally the bird collapsed, lifeless.... Later, lying alone beneath a mosquito net canopy, I listened to the crickets chirp under the moonlight and remembered the last twitch of life that I’d witnessed a few hours before. I could barely believe my good fortune.Why does the boy — as remembered by the man — connect the killing of the bird to his own good fortune? Is it some elemental realization that simply to be alive is amazing, the bird being dead? Or is he excited to be in this new place with lots of thrilling new activities like beheading a bird and shortly thereafter eating it? Or is it the connection to the father figure, who's so eager to show the boy what life is really about and so easily overcomes the reticence of the mother? The next thing that happens in the book is that Lolo teaches him how to deal with bullies: Don't cry over the lump where he hit you with a rock; learn boxing. Lolo buys boxing gloves for him and teaches him to "keep moving, but always stay low—don’t give them a target." Good advice! And it's on the very next page that Lolo teaches him to eat dog (and snake) meat.... The point is: Life was a big adventure. And meat was part of the adventure — meat from real animals that lived and died.
Also, never to believe in clean hands.
Not your grandfather's DNA
If some science fiction writer doesn't pick up on this idea for a story about really alien forms of life, he's missing a good bet.
All life we know of on Earth depends on RNA or DNA, the long, ladder-like molecules that hold the sequences of three-letter words (each spelled with the four-base alphabet A-G-C-T) that serve as code for the 20 amino-acid building blocks of our proteins. No one knows how such a code developed in the first place, or why all earthly life uses essentially the same code. No one knows why all life strings the code along a ladder built of the sugar called ribose (the R in RNA) or its slightly altered cousin, deoxyribose (the D in DNA). Was it just the structure that fell into place first, like the QWERTY keyboard, and everyone kept using it from then on? There's no obvious reason why the ladder couldn't be built of other sugars. For that matter, there's no obvious reason why the alphabet employed by our genetic code for protein synthesis couldn't choose other letters from the unknown number of potential nucleotide bases of which our familiar A, G, C, and T comprise only four (five, if you count the U that substitutes for T in RNA). Further, there's no obvious reason why the code should limit itself to three-letter words and resulting vocabulary of 4 to the third power, or 64 words.
Obviously a 64-word vocabulary is sufficient to spell out some amazing complexity. There's no limit in principle to the sentences you can form with 64 words. You don't even need four letters to spell a lot of words, as binary computers attest. The point is, the code our DNA uses is not the only way to skin a cat. For instance, the amino acids that line up like pearls on a string to form our long-chain protein molecules number 22 in total, but of those only 20 are assigned a three-letter "code word" in our DNA. (The other two get added in by separate enzymes at a later stage in the protein synthesis process not directly controlled by a DNA transcription.) What's more, a number of other amino acids have specialized uses other than as beads in the protein string, such as for neurotransmitters or steps in metabolic pathways, but they are not assigned a three-letter DNA code word. So our genetic code has more words than it needs for the amino acids we use, but it uses up the redundancy in synonyms for some of them, while having no word for others.
So, back to the article I linked to above. The guys who fool around with this stuff are beginning to synthesize genetic molecules they call "XNA." These are still identifiable as nucleic acids, using a sugar and a phosphate for the ladder backbone and the familiar bases A, G, C, and T for the rungs, but they use different sugars from the usual ribose or D-ribose. Some of the alternative sugars turn out to be more structurally sound, standing up unusually well, for instance, under the stress of voracious enzymes and extreme pH levels.
Intrepid experimenters are even adding a couple of new bases to the usual A-G-C-T quartet, thus vastly expanding the code's vocabulary. I'll be very interested to learn how (and if) the surrounding cell mechanism learns to "read" the new words. I've never quite been able to understand even how the old words are read. Some sources I've read suggest that the shapes of the A-G-C-T code words are in some way physical cookie-cutter templates for the corresponding amino acids, but my impression is that that part is not well understood, and in any event I certainly don't understand it. It's one of my favorite mysteries.
All this work still sticks pretty close to Earth-style genetic molecules, of course, using a sugar-phosphate ladder backbone with bases for rungs. And yet sugars surely aren't the only way to construct a ladder, nor ladders the only possible structure on which to string a series of letters, nor a linear string of letters the only way to express and preserve a code. What works here needn't be what works best under different conditions. So I'm really curious to see how experiments in synthetic genetics come out. Because of my abiding interest in the origins of life, I'd love to find out more about how ordinary molecules could possibly have developed into active metabolism from dead-end equilibrium, and from there into replicating systems that take resources from the outside world and use energy to restructure them according to their own pattern. If nothing else, I'd like to see a better understanding develop of what kind of proto-molecules could possibly have developed into RNA, which, as primitive as it may be, is still an extremely complex structure and very, very far removed from the kind of chemical gunk you can generate from experiments designed to mimic primordial conditions.
I often hear casual statements to the effect that conditions on such-and-such a planet are "too extreme" to support life. I don't find a statement like that meaningful. Even on Earth in recent decades, we've found microbes thriving in extremely hot, cold, or poisonous conditions we'd confidently have called impossible until they were discovered. The assumption in the 1950s that life originated in shallow seas is giving way to the notion that it may have started in deep-sea thermal vents or in venues sporting other extremes of heat and pressure. We'd have to know considerably more about how life originated here before we could make any sensible statements about what it needs to get started universally, or about what sorts of forms life might take besides the ones we're used to.
All life we know of on Earth depends on RNA or DNA, the long, ladder-like molecules that hold the sequences of three-letter words (each spelled with the four-base alphabet A-G-C-T) that serve as code for the 20 amino-acid building blocks of our proteins. No one knows how such a code developed in the first place, or why all earthly life uses essentially the same code. No one knows why all life strings the code along a ladder built of the sugar called ribose (the R in RNA) or its slightly altered cousin, deoxyribose (the D in DNA). Was it just the structure that fell into place first, like the QWERTY keyboard, and everyone kept using it from then on? There's no obvious reason why the ladder couldn't be built of other sugars. For that matter, there's no obvious reason why the alphabet employed by our genetic code for protein synthesis couldn't choose other letters from the unknown number of potential nucleotide bases of which our familiar A, G, C, and T comprise only four (five, if you count the U that substitutes for T in RNA). Further, there's no obvious reason why the code should limit itself to three-letter words and resulting vocabulary of 4 to the third power, or 64 words.
Obviously a 64-word vocabulary is sufficient to spell out some amazing complexity. There's no limit in principle to the sentences you can form with 64 words. You don't even need four letters to spell a lot of words, as binary computers attest. The point is, the code our DNA uses is not the only way to skin a cat. For instance, the amino acids that line up like pearls on a string to form our long-chain protein molecules number 22 in total, but of those only 20 are assigned a three-letter "code word" in our DNA. (The other two get added in by separate enzymes at a later stage in the protein synthesis process not directly controlled by a DNA transcription.) What's more, a number of other amino acids have specialized uses other than as beads in the protein string, such as for neurotransmitters or steps in metabolic pathways, but they are not assigned a three-letter DNA code word. So our genetic code has more words than it needs for the amino acids we use, but it uses up the redundancy in synonyms for some of them, while having no word for others.
So, back to the article I linked to above. The guys who fool around with this stuff are beginning to synthesize genetic molecules they call "XNA." These are still identifiable as nucleic acids, using a sugar and a phosphate for the ladder backbone and the familiar bases A, G, C, and T for the rungs, but they use different sugars from the usual ribose or D-ribose. Some of the alternative sugars turn out to be more structurally sound, standing up unusually well, for instance, under the stress of voracious enzymes and extreme pH levels.
Intrepid experimenters are even adding a couple of new bases to the usual A-G-C-T quartet, thus vastly expanding the code's vocabulary. I'll be very interested to learn how (and if) the surrounding cell mechanism learns to "read" the new words. I've never quite been able to understand even how the old words are read. Some sources I've read suggest that the shapes of the A-G-C-T code words are in some way physical cookie-cutter templates for the corresponding amino acids, but my impression is that that part is not well understood, and in any event I certainly don't understand it. It's one of my favorite mysteries.
All this work still sticks pretty close to Earth-style genetic molecules, of course, using a sugar-phosphate ladder backbone with bases for rungs. And yet sugars surely aren't the only way to construct a ladder, nor ladders the only possible structure on which to string a series of letters, nor a linear string of letters the only way to express and preserve a code. What works here needn't be what works best under different conditions. So I'm really curious to see how experiments in synthetic genetics come out. Because of my abiding interest in the origins of life, I'd love to find out more about how ordinary molecules could possibly have developed into active metabolism from dead-end equilibrium, and from there into replicating systems that take resources from the outside world and use energy to restructure them according to their own pattern. If nothing else, I'd like to see a better understanding develop of what kind of proto-molecules could possibly have developed into RNA, which, as primitive as it may be, is still an extremely complex structure and very, very far removed from the kind of chemical gunk you can generate from experiments designed to mimic primordial conditions.
I often hear casual statements to the effect that conditions on such-and-such a planet are "too extreme" to support life. I don't find a statement like that meaningful. Even on Earth in recent decades, we've found microbes thriving in extremely hot, cold, or poisonous conditions we'd confidently have called impossible until they were discovered. The assumption in the 1950s that life originated in shallow seas is giving way to the notion that it may have started in deep-sea thermal vents or in venues sporting other extremes of heat and pressure. We'd have to know considerably more about how life originated here before we could make any sensible statements about what it needs to get started universally, or about what sorts of forms life might take besides the ones we're used to.
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