I introduced one line of thought in my previous post, How Do You Splint a Broken Paradigm?, that needs a bit more filling out.
While I wrote almost exclusively about the fall of my anti-religious world view in that post, that event coincided with a number of other worldview issues.
My faith in the academic world was taken down several notches by a list of things: The discoveries that I talked about in my earlier post that historians had repeatedly affirmed falsehoods for more than a century, my increasing awareness of just how politically uniform Western historians and academics in general are, and my occasional run-ins with histories and other academic work written with what seemed to be ideologically-driven (instead of fact-driven) methods.
My faith in journalism, never particularly high, was lowered further by the abysmal coverage of the war during the Bush presidency and increasing evidence that the field of journalism was as politically monolithic as the academy.
Finally, once I realized that the realm of information, both the academy and journalism, were almost completely in the sway of a single ideology, I understood the course of events in America differently. America has flirted with technocracy from the mid-nineteenth century, at least, and we may have finally reached it. Whether we have or not, the university is the high ground; whoever holds it determines the direction of American culture.
The combination of blows to what I thought I knew and the sources that before had seemed more trustworthy really produced severe doubts about what could be known about anything going on in the world. The political domination of the academy and, through it, other institutions, made me doubt that there were very many who would even try to tell the truth if it conflicted with their socio-political goals. (It's quite possible they couldn't see it as the truth; paradigms guide us, but they also give us blind spots.)
Thomas Kuhn, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, wrote that a group of people, such as the members of a scientific community, cannot discard a paradigm, no matter how flawed, until they have a new one to replace it with. Without a guiding paradigm there is no way to accomplish anything, and we can always say we're working out the flaws, even if what we're really doing is changing paradigms entirely.
I'm not sure what new paradigm is shaping up here, but it is one that is far more politically aware, and one that views things through the lens of progressive domination of the university and all of the institutions that rely on it. It is obviously far more skeptical.
Something it isn't is belief in a conspiracy, or a belief that all or most journalists or academics are bad. I believe most of them are just people doing their best in a flawed world. In some ways that makes things easier, but in others harder. But, that is a post for another day.
Another Historian Discovers Aristotle
One reason I decided I had to study Aristotle was that he kept popping up in my research in early US history. Hence, it was a happy surprise to see that the author of a couple of excellent books on US history made a similar discovery.
I'm slowly reading my way through Walter A. McDougall's Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era 1828-1877 and, in an endnote on American political rhetoric, ran across the acknowledgement: "I am indebted to David Eisenhower for steering me, at this late date in life, to Aristotle" (p. 620, note 19).
Although McDougall doesn't say much more about it, the history of ancient Greece and Rome were familiar to many in the early American colonies and early republic, and a lot of social and political rhetoric not only followed Aristotle's Rhetoric, but used allusions to those two cultures to make their points.
I'm slowly reading my way through Walter A. McDougall's Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era 1828-1877 and, in an endnote on American political rhetoric, ran across the acknowledgement: "I am indebted to David Eisenhower for steering me, at this late date in life, to Aristotle" (p. 620, note 19).
Although McDougall doesn't say much more about it, the history of ancient Greece and Rome were familiar to many in the early American colonies and early republic, and a lot of social and political rhetoric not only followed Aristotle's Rhetoric, but used allusions to those two cultures to make their points.
The Glories of the Freed Market
A few weeks ago Tex and I were discussing the question of whether it is correct to talk about libertarians on the left. Tonight I came across two groups that describe themselves as just that: the Center for a Stateless Society, and the Distro of the Libertarian Left.
It makes for interesting reading. Sometimes they really do sound just like Tex, except for an odd tic of using the term "freed" market instead of "free" market. (Apparently this has to do with a distinction they want to make between markets, which they think are good for just the reasons Tex does, and capitalism, by which they mean something like government/corporate cronyism. A "freed" market is a market restored to the glories of which it is capable before all the rent-seekers and bureaucrats got involved in carving out sinecures for themselves.)
Here, though, is a good example of them sounding much like our friend and companion:
It makes for interesting reading. Sometimes they really do sound just like Tex, except for an odd tic of using the term "freed" market instead of "free" market. (Apparently this has to do with a distinction they want to make between markets, which they think are good for just the reasons Tex does, and capitalism, by which they mean something like government/corporate cronyism. A "freed" market is a market restored to the glories of which it is capable before all the rent-seekers and bureaucrats got involved in carving out sinecures for themselves.)
Here, though, is a good example of them sounding much like our friend and companion:
Most people take it for granted — because they’ve heard it so many times from politicians and pundits — that they must trade some privacy for security in this dangerous world. The challenge, we’re told, is to find the right “balance.” Let’s examine this.So there really are left-libertarians! Although they sometimes seem to prefer to call themselves "anarchists," they also use the identification.
On its face the idea seems reasonable. I can imagine hiring a firm to look after some aspect of my security. To do its job the firm may need some information about me that I don’t readily give out. It’s up to me to decide if I like the trade-off. Nothing wrong there. In a freed market, firms would compete for my business, and competition would pressure firms to ask only for information required for their services. As a result, a minimum amount of information would be requested. If I thought even that was too much, I would be free to choose to look after my security myself. If I did business with a firm that violated the terms of our contract, I would have recourse. At the very least I could terminate the relationship and strike up another or none at all.
In other words, in the freed market I would find the right “balance” for myself, and you would do the same. One size wouldn’t be deemed to fit all. The market would cater to people with a range of security/privacy concerns, striking the “balance” differently for different people. That’s as it should be.
Actually, we can say that there would be no trade-off between privacy and security at all, because the information would be voluntarily disclosed by each individual on mutually acceptable terms. Under those circumstances, it wouldn’t be right to call what the firm does an “intrusion.”
But that sort of situation is not what Barack Obama, Mike Rogers, Peter King, and their ilk mean when they tell us that “we” need to find the right balance between security and privacy. They mean they will dictate to us what the alleged balance will be. We will have no real say in the matter, and they can be counted on to find the balance on the “security” side of the spectrum as suits their interests. That’s how these things work. (See “NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year, audit finds.”) Unlike in a freed market, what the government does is intrusive, because it is done without our consent and often without our knowledge.
Gathering up Some Threads
I had to go searching for these today for the next Aristotle post, so I thought I'd put the links all in one convenient spot.
Formal Logic, Part I
Formal Logic, Part II
Formal Logic, Part III
Aristotle's Categories
Negative Capability
More on Negative Capability
Although at this point it may not seem related: Rick Santorum on Art
Because it looks like an interesting tool: Quora.com
Anything else I should add on Aristotle or The Knowledge Problem?
Formal Logic, Part I
Formal Logic, Part II
Formal Logic, Part III
Aristotle's Categories
Negative Capability
More on Negative Capability
Although at this point it may not seem related: Rick Santorum on Art
Because it looks like an interesting tool: Quora.com
Anything else I should add on Aristotle or The Knowledge Problem?
How Do You Splint a Broken Paradigm?
Stories are powerful delivery systems for ways of looking at and interpreting the world. A while ago, Grim posted Terry Jones's explanation that the medievals never believed the earth was flat and that Columbus never proved it was round. What a powerful story that had been; many still believe it. Jones drew heavily on the work of Prof. Jeffrey Burton Russell, whose book Inventing the Flat Earth shattered that myth for me. But Russell went beyond a simple explanation of how the story got started and why we shouldn't believe it today. His real question was why, even though the flat earth myth was repeatedly debunked by a number of historians, it persisted for a century and a half.
Part of the answer is that it was too good a story; it fit too well with what many Americans wanted to believe. There are two aspects to that, religion and progress. From the beginning, the English colonists in the Americas were staunchly anti-Catholic. The flat earth myth catered to this by portraying the Catholic hierarchy as idiots. Similarly, from the beginning the colonists believed in progress, expansion, making things better, what some call "the improvement ethic". From that standpoint, the flat earth myth powerfully differentiated the modern man from the medieval one, not just in knowledge (we know more), but in attitude (we are open to discovery, so we can make progress; they were not, so they couldn't). For many, of course, both of these aspects were useful in maintaining their world view. Now we know that it was all a big lie.
I was in graduate school in history when I discovered this. I started looking into other anti-religion, anti-faith stories from the past. Galileo and the Scopes Monkey Trial quickly fell; the details of both support very different conclusions than the common anti-religious stories tell. Religion vs. reason? One of the chief charges of the Renaissance humanists against the Roman Catholic Church was that it relied too much on logic. Aristotelian logic was one of the chief epistemological tools of the medieval Church for centuries. Any university-educated medieval bishop could out-logic most modern scientists, I believe. Additionally, most of the famous scientists up into the 19th century were sincerely religious: Kepler, Newton, and many others went so far as to believe science a way of learning about God and saw their scientific discoveries as evidence for God. For them, the practice of science was a religious exercise.
Learning all this initiated a paradigmatic crisis for me. The world obviously did not work the way I thought it did -- religion TOO reasoning? Science and faith supporting each other? All the stories that carried my belief in the science-religion dichotomies clearly lies? I had made some important decisions based on those myths.
It was a kind of insanity, but the evidence was all there. At some point, my world view fell off its shelf and fractured. So far, all of the king's horses and all of the king's men haven't been able to put it together again, not in any coherent form.
I tried out philosophy, but no matter what epistemology I found, it was always flawed. There are some very good systems out there, but at some point you have to step out on faith. In logic, there is that first unreasoned premise. In science, the unprovable premises of ubiquity and parsimony (not to mention scientific naturalism), and of course many scientists reject logic as a method of discovering knowledge. In religion, well, it starts for me with metaphysics.
So here I am, pondering the pieces, nursing my psychological fractures and a Bushmills, neat, wondering, what now?
I hope to flesh out the problem some more as well as make way toward some answers in future posts. Maybe you've had a similar experience, or know something that would help?
Part of the answer is that it was too good a story; it fit too well with what many Americans wanted to believe. There are two aspects to that, religion and progress. From the beginning, the English colonists in the Americas were staunchly anti-Catholic. The flat earth myth catered to this by portraying the Catholic hierarchy as idiots. Similarly, from the beginning the colonists believed in progress, expansion, making things better, what some call "the improvement ethic". From that standpoint, the flat earth myth powerfully differentiated the modern man from the medieval one, not just in knowledge (we know more), but in attitude (we are open to discovery, so we can make progress; they were not, so they couldn't). For many, of course, both of these aspects were useful in maintaining their world view. Now we know that it was all a big lie.
I was in graduate school in history when I discovered this. I started looking into other anti-religion, anti-faith stories from the past. Galileo and the Scopes Monkey Trial quickly fell; the details of both support very different conclusions than the common anti-religious stories tell. Religion vs. reason? One of the chief charges of the Renaissance humanists against the Roman Catholic Church was that it relied too much on logic. Aristotelian logic was one of the chief epistemological tools of the medieval Church for centuries. Any university-educated medieval bishop could out-logic most modern scientists, I believe. Additionally, most of the famous scientists up into the 19th century were sincerely religious: Kepler, Newton, and many others went so far as to believe science a way of learning about God and saw their scientific discoveries as evidence for God. For them, the practice of science was a religious exercise.
Learning all this initiated a paradigmatic crisis for me. The world obviously did not work the way I thought it did -- religion TOO reasoning? Science and faith supporting each other? All the stories that carried my belief in the science-religion dichotomies clearly lies? I had made some important decisions based on those myths.
It was a kind of insanity, but the evidence was all there. At some point, my world view fell off its shelf and fractured. So far, all of the king's horses and all of the king's men haven't been able to put it together again, not in any coherent form.
I tried out philosophy, but no matter what epistemology I found, it was always flawed. There are some very good systems out there, but at some point you have to step out on faith. In logic, there is that first unreasoned premise. In science, the unprovable premises of ubiquity and parsimony (not to mention scientific naturalism), and of course many scientists reject logic as a method of discovering knowledge. In religion, well, it starts for me with metaphysics.
So here I am, pondering the pieces, nursing my psychological fractures and a Bushmills, neat, wondering, what now?
I hope to flesh out the problem some more as well as make way toward some answers in future posts. Maybe you've had a similar experience, or know something that would help?
Love and Dying Summer
We've had the first cool weather of the year. The hummingbirds are hiding from the cold rain, but they have managed to drain the feeders again. We dug out our warmer covers for the first time since May.
If it would only stop raining, and yet stay cool, it would be perfect. But even with the rain, heart and mind turn to that perfection that lies in the Otherworld. We glimpse it twice a year, in spring and autumn, but especially in the cool that comes at the end of the year. In the first bloom you see the promise, but only in the last hours comes understanding.
If it would only stop raining, and yet stay cool, it would be perfect. But even with the rain, heart and mind turn to that perfection that lies in the Otherworld. We glimpse it twice a year, in spring and autumn, but especially in the cool that comes at the end of the year. In the first bloom you see the promise, but only in the last hours comes understanding.
Sea Storms and Fate
An article on the 717 siege of Constantinople raises a theme that occurs again and again in history:
Still, the Muslims’ troubles were far from over. Nature was not through with them. A terrible sea-storm is said to have all but annihilated the retreating ships, so that, of the 2,560 ships embarking back to Damascus and Alexandria, only ten remained — and of these, half were captured by the Byzantines, leaving only five to make it back to the caliphate and report the calamities that had befallen them (which may be both why the Arab chroniclers are curiously silent about the particulars of these events, and why it would be centuries before Constantinople would be similarly attacked again).How many such storms, so severe as to thrash a navy or an army traveling by sea, have convinced people of a divine hand at work? Salamis, Artemisium, Constantinople, the Spanish Armada, the kamikaze that broke up Kubla Khan's fleets...
This sea-storm also led to the popular belief that divine providence had intervened on behalf of Christendom, with historians referring to August 15 as an “ecumenical date.”
Alleged Retired Marine Colonel: We're Building a Domestic Army, While Shrinking the Military
Any good reason to think he's not for real?
A Variation on "Suspicion-less Searches"
So we just finished talking about the New York City Police's use of baseless searches. How about having the TSA do them nationwide?
The best part of the story is that these things are called "VIPR Teams." When you learn what the acronym stands for, you'll understand how far they were stretching to give themselves a scary, scary name.
Does that change anything for anyone from our previous discussion?
The best part of the story is that these things are called "VIPR Teams." When you learn what the acronym stands for, you'll understand how far they were stretching to give themselves a scary, scary name.
The TSA sends out its Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) teams to set up unannounced checkpoints used to “Dominate, Intimidate, & Control” American travelers. The purpose of VIPR teams is to maintain a presence in public areas and force travelers to submit to searches, including opening up bags and being patted down.... TSA records show that the teams ran more than 8,800 unannounced checkpoints outside of airports last year alone. These included searches at train stations, bus stations, the Indianapolis 500, the Superbowl, the Democratic and Republican national conventions, political speeches, and sports stadiums, more. CBS Los Angeles reported that TSA conduct an estimated 9,300 “suspicionless” spot searches of travelers in 2011.("Dominate. Intimidate. Control." is apparently the motto posted at the TSA's Air Marshal training center.)
Does that change anything for anyone from our previous discussion?
Fool Me Twice
I understand how accidental 'unlawful command influence' can happen from the mouth of a President who is completely ignorant of the military, its law and its culture. But how does it happen from his Secretary of Defense, just a few months after the President had demonstrated the consequences by (bad) example?
Stop talking about it. Let the process work. You've done enough damage to the military justice system.
Stop talking about it. Let the process work. You've done enough damage to the military justice system.
The Perils of Democracy
...are illustrated in a lighthearted way. Type "define literally" into Google, and see what you get.
Even mighty Oxford has fallen.
Even mighty Oxford has fallen.
Quora
The other day I mentioned a site called quora.com that crowd-sources questions of all sorts. I joined up and have been enjoying the occasional email alerting me to new posts. Here's a link to a collection of suggestions for handy tips. I can't quite make out whether you'll be able to access it without joining the site, but if not, I recommend joining. The article is entitled "What’s something a reasonably smart person likely doesn't know but would find incredibly useful?" The first answer is a list of Google search tools. A couple of items down is a short video showing how to separate an egg yolk from the white by slurping it up with a squeezed-and-released plastic soda bottle. Later on there are instructions for creating an amplifier for your smartphone/music player out of a toilet-paper roll and a couple of push-pins. Or you can recharge your computer in a hotel room by plugging it into the USB port on the room's TV set.
Law and order
Or should I say, lawlessness and orderlessness? In a three-branch system of government, how do we resolve disputes among the branches? The Obama administration increasingly refuses to comply with laws that don't satisfy its lofty standards. But courts are rousing themselves. Will the next spectacle be the administration's flouting of the judicial decrees enforcing the laws?
Hey, That Seems Reasonable...
...because it's not like there's anything sacred about the union of man and wife, right? I mean, isn't it important that we live in a secular society? Thank God! Oh, wait, no, we can't do that. But thank... something!
Water & Stone
August in Georgia is the month of greatest heat. The mornings are clear and humid, hot by ten, with clouds that mount all day until they are mountains of white and grey.
But in the heat, even the worst heat, there remains water and stone.
Walls
There is no fundamental difference between the NSA’s data mining and eavesdropping operations and a live in agent listening to all your conversations and downloading your browser history. We are all harboring a governmental presence in our homes, without our consent, in what I believe to be a direct violation of the Third Amendment; if our founders were here today I believe they would agree.The obvious objection is that you have consented to bringing in the internet into your home, by taking the positive action of purchasing services to do so. You've agreed to impossible-to-read Terms of Service that may even say, "...and we'll spy on you relentlessly and sell your secrets to the government," for all you know because no one actually reads those things. On the other hand, nobody can prove it was you who clicked "OK," which makes it pretty dodgy as a contract.
Or maybe they can, since they can track your cellphone in real time to the room in which the "OK" box was clicked...
I don't know that there's a straight Third Amendment claim that can fix this, though I laud them for the attempt. But we do need walls. We need to think about just where and how to build them. The government is always more dangerous to us than our enemies are. It has already all the power over us that they only dream of winning at the conclusion of a long and painful war.
It's not a "defeat" defeat
Mark Steyn on the extended spectacle of the prosecution of the Fort Hood shooter:
Major Hasan says he’s a soldier for the Taliban. Maybe if the Pentagon were to reclassify the entire Afghan theater as an unusually prolonged outburst of “workplace violence,” we wouldn’t have to worry about obsolescent concepts such as “victory” and “defeat.” The important thing is that the U.S. Army’s “workplace violence” is diverse. After Major Hasan’s pre-post-traumatic workplace wobbly, General George W. Casey Jr., the Army’s chief of staff, was at pains to assure us that it could have been a whole lot worse: “What happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty.” And you can’t get much more diverse than letting your military personnel pick which side of the war they want to be on.
* * *
Unlike the Zimmerman trial, Major Hasan’s has not excited the attention of the media. Yet it is far more symbolic of the state of America than the Trayvon Martin case, in which superannuated race hucksters attempted to impose a half-century-old moth-eaten Klan hood on a guy who’s a virtual one-man melting pot. The response to Nidal Hasan helps explain why, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, this war is being lost — because it cannot be won because, increasingly, it cannot even be acknowledged. Which helps explain why it now takes the U.S. military longer to prosecute a case of “workplace violence” than it did to win World War Two.
Rick Santorum on Art
Rick Santorum speaks on art and America.
Santorum quoted the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, reminding the audience that he once said, “Give me the storytellers and I will control the nation and a generation.”You've heard much the same thing here. He's quite right about it.
“For us to sit here and think we’re going to win the country back politically when the culture continues to show your children when they watch that people like them are weird, people that hold your values are bigoted or hateful, it’s no wonder young people overwhelmingly are supporting the other side because they don’t know the truth,” Santorum said.
Santorum admitted that Christian-themed films and art were often times “inferior productions” even though they reflected traditional values.
As recently appointed CEO of EchoLight Studios, Santorum said his new mission was to go out and make “faith and family films” to affirm social values.
“I say to you: Can’t we make God beautiful?” he asked as the crowd applauded. “Why can’t we tell the truth the good and the beautiful in a way that’s compelling and entertaining and inspiring?”
Santorum said he would stay involved in politics but that true success would come from something outside of the political battle.
'Stop And Frisk' Partially Stopped
I remember being taught in school about the "Stop and Frisk" concept, also known as the "Terry Stop," although in my entire life I've never actually encountered or witnessed it. It is chiefly practiced in big cities of the type I don't especially enjoy beyond the briefest of visits, where it is alleged to be necessary.
It would need to be necessary to be acceptable, because it sounds pretty dodgy on the surface, at least as I was taught to think about it. Apparently your 4th Amendment rights weren't being violated by being physically stopped and physically searched, including having the police order you into a humiliating stance and pat you down. This was supposed to be true even though the standard for such a search -- supposedly not a "search" for 4th Amendment purposes -- was not probable cause or a warrant, as the 4th requires. It was a lesser standard called a "reasonable suspicion."
New York took it a step further, to hold that police could stop and frisk you without any cause at all. Sounds like a Federal judge has decided she doesn't buy the expansion.
It would need to be necessary to be acceptable, because it sounds pretty dodgy on the surface, at least as I was taught to think about it. Apparently your 4th Amendment rights weren't being violated by being physically stopped and physically searched, including having the police order you into a humiliating stance and pat you down. This was supposed to be true even though the standard for such a search -- supposedly not a "search" for 4th Amendment purposes -- was not probable cause or a warrant, as the 4th requires. It was a lesser standard called a "reasonable suspicion."
New York took it a step further, to hold that police could stop and frisk you without any cause at all. Sounds like a Federal judge has decided she doesn't buy the expansion.
During the trial, Judge Scheindlin indicated her thinking when she noted that the majority of stops result in officers finding no wrong doing.It's good to see the expansion rolled back, at least.
“A lot of people are being frisked or searched on suspicion of having a gun and nobody has a gun,” she said. Only 0.14 percent of stops have led to police finding guns. “So the point is suspicion turns out to be wrong in most cases.”
Medieval Women in (Criminal) Court
The Medieval Feminist Forum (a peer-reviewed journal located at the University of Iowa) has an article that I hope will be the first in a series, as it is highly entertaining as well as enlightening. (H/t: Medievalists.net.)
Unfortunately it is in a PDF format, but it's an engaging piece by a young scholar who is captivated by her subject.
UPDATE: Apparently this is crime and punishment day (week?) at Medievalists.net. Here's an article on forgery, and another one on more severe crimes in early Irish law.
The police blotter always makes for interesting reading, now as a thousand years ago.
Unfortunately it is in a PDF format, but it's an engaging piece by a young scholar who is captivated by her subject.
UPDATE: Apparently this is crime and punishment day (week?) at Medievalists.net. Here's an article on forgery, and another one on more severe crimes in early Irish law.
The police blotter always makes for interesting reading, now as a thousand years ago.
A City of Two Tales
Don't get too supercilious about Detroit, warns the Huffington Post--the same thing could happen to your city. Pretty much like "we're all Trayvon," if you can't identify anything about his behavior that fateful night that might have contributed to his problems. Detroit was just doing what a city's gotta do. Which is true enough, if you believe that a city's gotta have a unionized workforce that votes for more pension benefits than the city can possibly fund out of a combination of local taxes and sky-high borrowing.
Chicago is facing the same problem, so no doubt the refrain will soon become that you shouldn't get too supercilious about either Detroit or Chicago, because the same thing could happen to your city. It might be a good time to look into what cities are doing to bring fiscal disaster on themselves and stop doing that. Because one thing is true enough: nearly all of them are flirting with fiscal disaster. The thing is, flirting with disaster doesn't just "happen." There's no natural law that forces cities to pretend they can borrow indefinitely to fund more services than their taxpayers can or will pay.
In a sign of the opening of one of the seven seals of the Apocalypse, Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel is proposing that his city should give its unionized workers the option of a 401(k) instead of a pension. The big difference between the two is that a 401(k) amounts to a "defined contribution" plan instead of a "defined benefits" plan. "Defined benefits" pensions are roughly a synonym for "a plan in which we promise to contribute some funds later even though you know and we know that we're lying through our teeth and couldn't do it even if we wanted to, which we don't very much, as long as you're falling for it."
We've got competing narratives for why certain cities implode. Detroit's apologists have been trying out the narrative that includes a string of bad luck that no one could have foreseen. It will be interesting to see Chicago try it on for size, too.
Chicago is facing the same problem, so no doubt the refrain will soon become that you shouldn't get too supercilious about either Detroit or Chicago, because the same thing could happen to your city. It might be a good time to look into what cities are doing to bring fiscal disaster on themselves and stop doing that. Because one thing is true enough: nearly all of them are flirting with fiscal disaster. The thing is, flirting with disaster doesn't just "happen." There's no natural law that forces cities to pretend they can borrow indefinitely to fund more services than their taxpayers can or will pay.
In a sign of the opening of one of the seven seals of the Apocalypse, Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel is proposing that his city should give its unionized workers the option of a 401(k) instead of a pension. The big difference between the two is that a 401(k) amounts to a "defined contribution" plan instead of a "defined benefits" plan. "Defined benefits" pensions are roughly a synonym for "a plan in which we promise to contribute some funds later even though you know and we know that we're lying through our teeth and couldn't do it even if we wanted to, which we don't very much, as long as you're falling for it."
We've got competing narratives for why certain cities implode. Detroit's apologists have been trying out the narrative that includes a string of bad luck that no one could have foreseen. It will be interesting to see Chicago try it on for size, too.
Attack of the Perseids
The Perseid shower peaks tonight. The Perseid meteors are debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle. The best viewing will be after midnight, especially just before dawn, coming out of Cassiopeia. (Really out of nearby Perseus, but I couldn't pick Perseus out of the night sky if my life depended on it. It's just north of Cassiopeia.) Cassiopeia is in the Milky Way, on the far end from Saggitarius (the Teapot), which in turn is right next to where the tail of Scorpio intersects the southern end of the Milky Way. Cassiopeia and Perseus are just above the horizon in the northeast right now (10 p.m. Central), but will be near the horizon just before dawn, a bit south of west.
The moon is near dark tonight, so it should be a good show. You can expect to see a flash about every 45 seconds near dawn.
Be sure and secure your triffids before you turn in for the night.
The moon is near dark tonight, so it should be a good show. You can expect to see a flash about every 45 seconds near dawn.
Be sure and secure your triffids before you turn in for the night.
Good News!
Soon, things like this won't be a problem anymore.
We were recently talking about how biotechnology struck me as a possible driver of jobs and wealth on a large scale, provided we could overcome the problem of ensuring that the elderly (and near-elderly) continued to be able to consume new biotech products and services at a rate that would justify heavy and continual investment. Now socialized medicine is one way that we might be able to ensure that, although hopefully not the only nor the best way.
If we were going to accept some sort of government-led health care system, then, it should be more like Bush II's "Medicare Part D expansion," and less like Obama's system of rationing care -- targeted at the elderly and near-elderly, and designed to enable them to consume the products of biotechnological innovation. The young would pay higher costs for this in taxes, but they'd at least have jobs out of which to afford these higher costs -- unlike with the current system, which is destroying jobs rather than encouraging investment in new jobs. As a kind of side benefit, the young would also get to use the advances in medicine themselves when they are older.
What we'll get instead is death panels, higher costs, fewer jobs, and a system designed not to enable but to limit the consumption that would lead to greater innovation and investment.
In other words, as usual with this crowd, we'll get the worst of both worlds: everything we didn't want, in exchange for nothing we might have wanted.
Former president George W. Bush, widely regarded as a model of physical fitness, received a coronary artery stent on Tuesday. Few facts are known about the case, but what is known suggests the procedure was unnecessary....We'll make sure nobody gets more care than they "need," as determined at a distance by experts like the author.
Although this may seem like an issue important only to the former president, consider the following: Although the price of excessive screening of so-called VIPs is usually paid for privately, follow-up tests, only “necessary” because of the initial unnecessary screening test, are usually paid for by Medicare, further stressing our health-care system. The media coverage of interventions like Mr. Bush’s also leads patients to pressure their own doctors for unwarranted and excessive care.
We were recently talking about how biotechnology struck me as a possible driver of jobs and wealth on a large scale, provided we could overcome the problem of ensuring that the elderly (and near-elderly) continued to be able to consume new biotech products and services at a rate that would justify heavy and continual investment. Now socialized medicine is one way that we might be able to ensure that, although hopefully not the only nor the best way.
If we were going to accept some sort of government-led health care system, then, it should be more like Bush II's "Medicare Part D expansion," and less like Obama's system of rationing care -- targeted at the elderly and near-elderly, and designed to enable them to consume the products of biotechnological innovation. The young would pay higher costs for this in taxes, but they'd at least have jobs out of which to afford these higher costs -- unlike with the current system, which is destroying jobs rather than encouraging investment in new jobs. As a kind of side benefit, the young would also get to use the advances in medicine themselves when they are older.
What we'll get instead is death panels, higher costs, fewer jobs, and a system designed not to enable but to limit the consumption that would lead to greater innovation and investment.
In other words, as usual with this crowd, we'll get the worst of both worlds: everything we didn't want, in exchange for nothing we might have wanted.
More unreasoning hostility to insects
I do like insects, mostly. Just not leafcutter ants and malaria-carrying mosquitos. Dr. Stephen Hoffman of Rockville, Maryland, has developed the first really promising malaria vaccine, which with luck will be in production in four years or so. It suffers from the disadvantage that it requires five intravenous doses and must be refrigerated in transit, but it's a lot better than the nothing we had before. While we're on the subject, here is some amazing video of a mosquito's "needle" rooting around for a blood vessel under the skin.
Like AIDS for chocolate
We try not to use pesticides here at Texan99 Farms, but we draw the line when we get an outbreak of leafcutter ants, which can strip a citrus tree overnight and kill it. Hands off the grapefruit crop, you six-footed marauders! For that, we deploy the dreaded broad-spectrum pesticide Orthene, because we've tried everything else and it's the only thing that seems to work.
A similar scorched-earth policy seems called for when parasites threaten the world's chocolate crop. That's just picking a fight the ants are going to wish they hadn't picked, or at least I hope so. This post from Ed Yong (who writes Not Exactly Rocket Science) examines the troubling state of the globe's plant pathology field, with a special focus on the imperiled African cocoa crop. Since one of the few things that grab my interest as tightly as chocolate is the technique of crowdsourcing, I was drawn to this paragraph about the plant pathogens that continue to challenge modern farmers:
A similar scorched-earth policy seems called for when parasites threaten the world's chocolate crop. That's just picking a fight the ants are going to wish they hadn't picked, or at least I hope so. This post from Ed Yong (who writes Not Exactly Rocket Science) examines the troubling state of the globe's plant pathology field, with a special focus on the imperiled African cocoa crop. Since one of the few things that grab my interest as tightly as chocolate is the technique of crowdsourcing, I was drawn to this paragraph about the plant pathogens that continue to challenge modern farmers:
"Farming has always been a community affair but, in the modern era, we’ve lost those connections and knowledge is held by a few," [said David Hughes, an ant-loving evolutionary biologist from Pennsylvania State University]. To rebuild these links, he teamed up with his Penn State colleague Marcel Salathé, a computer scientist who studies the spread of behaviour through social networks. Earlier this year, the duo launched plantvillage.com, an open-access website where people can ask each other for help with agricultural problems. Users vote the answers up and down, and accumulate points depending on how helpful they are. It’s like Quora for gardeners. "We’ll never invest in people like [Harry Marshall Ward, a 19th-century plant pathologist] again," Hughes said. "The second-best solution is to rely on the crowd."
* * *
It’s an approach that could have been lifted from an ant’s playbook. Individual ants are hardly great strategists [or are they?], but through their interactions, they can achieve incredible feats of swarm intelligence. Some successfully rear bugs, and build tents to defend them from threats. Others grow a delectable fungus by feeding it chopped up leaves, while killing off other moulds with antibiotic-secreting bacteria. For millions of years, ants have raised crops, herded livestock and weeded their gardens, all by working together as a large connected society. Humans could learn a thing or two from that approach.
Interest is evil anyway
More strategies for cratering capital markets: Venezuela thinks it's a good idea to default on $74 million in interest payments on bond debt because someone else ran up that bill anyway, so it's only fair. Of course, the debt was run up by the former owners of the steel business that Venezuela nationalized a few years ago, but the economic geniuses in charge of that country don't see the connection or the probable impact on their future access to the capital markets, which figures heavily in their national economic plans. No problem: they'll just explain that they really need the money, and the world's financiers will no doubt forgive all.
Welcome spooks
ZeroHedge has a suggestion for swamping the data banks of our surveillance overlords.
The Oseberg Ship
Fascinating news on the subject of the famous Oseberg ship. Like Lars Walker, I had always understood it was thought to be a coastal vessel. Turns out, the reconstruction of the hull got some things wrong... a fact known for a few years, which is only now beginning to filter out even to Viking-age enthusiasts.
Eminent domain or money grab?
Ever since the Supreme Court issued its astoundingly bad decision in Kelo v. City of New London, local governments have been encouraged to use eminent domain schemes to grab private property for the commercial benefit of their well-connected cronies -- all in the name of public welfare. The schemes are getting more sophisticated now. An enterprising company called Mortgage Resolution LLC has put together a package that's tempting a number of municipalities, especially in the law-free zone known as California, though nibbles of interest are coming in from Seattle and Newark as well. The gambit is to identify home mortgages that are underwater but current on their payments. Mortgage Resolution LLC puts together a local package of these mortgages whose borrowers pass a credit test, then persuades the local government to "condemn" the mortgages at a price equal to 80% of the home's fair market value. The lenders (typically owners of mortgage-backed securities pools) take a hit equal to the excess of the mortgage balance over the home's value, plus 20% of the home's value. Mortgage Resolution LLC then refinances the homes through the FHA and pays the local government a percentage of its profits. It's like a tax on highway robbery: the more we rob, the more the city collects in taxes! And the people we rob mostly live out of state, anyway, so who cares?
Boston law firm Ropes & Gray has filed a lawsuit challenging the scheme on constitutional grounds. At issue is the horrendously confused law of eminent domain and "public use" in the wake of the Kelo decision. That case left open the possibility of relief for eminent domain schemes in which the seizure of property was a mere "pretext" rather than a good-faith pursuit of the public welfare. Later courts, however, have struggled to develop a workable definition of "pretext."
The Kelo decision spurred action in many state legislatures to curb the power of local government to grab any property they thought might be convenient for the visionary real estate development schemes of their cronies. These legal fixes evidently hadn't much teeth in California, Washington, or New Jersey. In any event, the idea of grabbing and reselling mortgages rather than homes is a fresh and exciting abuse that offers up the possibility of ensuring that the loss lands on faceless profit-grubbing lenders instead of photogenic local homeowners. It still amounts to theft, however, and in the long run it won't help homeowners ensure access to a reasonable mortgage market.
Boston law firm Ropes & Gray has filed a lawsuit challenging the scheme on constitutional grounds. At issue is the horrendously confused law of eminent domain and "public use" in the wake of the Kelo decision. That case left open the possibility of relief for eminent domain schemes in which the seizure of property was a mere "pretext" rather than a good-faith pursuit of the public welfare. Later courts, however, have struggled to develop a workable definition of "pretext."
The Kelo decision spurred action in many state legislatures to curb the power of local government to grab any property they thought might be convenient for the visionary real estate development schemes of their cronies. These legal fixes evidently hadn't much teeth in California, Washington, or New Jersey. In any event, the idea of grabbing and reselling mortgages rather than homes is a fresh and exciting abuse that offers up the possibility of ensuring that the loss lands on faceless profit-grubbing lenders instead of photogenic local homeowners. It still amounts to theft, however, and in the long run it won't help homeowners ensure access to a reasonable mortgage market.
Tactical!
Reader AW from LuckyGunner sends the following ad for Blackhawk Tactical goggles, which has an amusing video showing the many 'tactical' day to day uses to which you might put them. I think he likes one of them particularly because he is expecting a baby in just a few months!
The day-to-day-tactical is played for laughs, but as I was telling him by email, I actually do wear my old tactical goggles on the motorcycle. They were designed to protect the eyes and face from IED shrapnel, so they're good to go for most of the stuff that you might encounter on the highway. As the ad says, "These goggles offer great wind and dust protection thanks to their foam dust filters in the ventilation system." That's just what a biker needs, too.
Of course, like everything designed for the tactical market, "tactical" goggles do cost more than regular biker goggles. But the protection level is higher, and the eyes are worth protecting.
The day-to-day-tactical is played for laughs, but as I was telling him by email, I actually do wear my old tactical goggles on the motorcycle. They were designed to protect the eyes and face from IED shrapnel, so they're good to go for most of the stuff that you might encounter on the highway. As the ad says, "These goggles offer great wind and dust protection thanks to their foam dust filters in the ventilation system." That's just what a biker needs, too.
Of course, like everything designed for the tactical market, "tactical" goggles do cost more than regular biker goggles. But the protection level is higher, and the eyes are worth protecting.
Historical Fiction as Thesis
I'm not sure where the affection for the Cathar heresy comes from, but I can't remember the last time I saw an academic paper that didn't treat it as some sort of wrongly-suppressed, righteous and wonderful movement. If only our ancestors had embraced its complete rejection of reproduction!
This one goes so far as to construct a "historical thesis" that is really a piece of imaginative narrative fiction. If one can get a Master's degree for writing historical fiction, Lars Walker should have a Ph.D.
This one goes so far as to construct a "historical thesis" that is really a piece of imaginative narrative fiction. If one can get a Master's degree for writing historical fiction, Lars Walker should have a Ph.D.
Weddings back in style
The U.S. military has been struggling with its policy on dependent benefits. On the one hand, any large, complex organization would like to have a simple rule for who qualifies as a dependent, so it can exert some predictable control over a very large fraction of the cost of its wage packages. The easiest rule, by far, is to let the bright line of marriage define the family. On the other hand, the trend also has been to avoid discriminating against gay partners, and requiring marriage is a cruel trick to play if marriage isn't available.
Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that gay marriages must be acknowledged, the military evidently is reverting to the assumption that people who want coverage for their partners had better go ahead and marry them. It's going to be interesting to see how this trend plays out against the countervailing trend, which is against letting the Man make rules about who's a family and who's not. Can common-law gay marriages be far away? Will there be shotgun marriages for gays who want to adopt?
Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that gay marriages must be acknowledged, the military evidently is reverting to the assumption that people who want coverage for their partners had better go ahead and marry them. It's going to be interesting to see how this trend plays out against the countervailing trend, which is against letting the Man make rules about who's a family and who's not. Can common-law gay marriages be far away? Will there be shotgun marriages for gays who want to adopt?
Beautiful Crusader Hospital Found in Jerusalem
The pictures are lovely. One of the sorrows of the war in Syria is watching old and beautiful sites like Krak des Chevaliers being damaged by the war. Of course they were made for war, and the region is long troubled.
But how nice that, in Jerusalem, there is enough peace that this site can instead be renovated for happier purposes:
But how nice that, in Jerusalem, there is enough peace that this site can instead be renovated for happier purposes:
Monser Shwieki, the project manager, explained “The magnificent building will be integrated in a restaurant slated to be constructed there, and its patrons will be impressed by the enchanting atmosphere of the Middle Ages that prevails there”.I expect it will be a very pleasant place.
How To Raise a Daughter: Two Parallel Views
A lady I know, for whom I have the greatest respect though we often do not agree, sends this video with an approving comment. "My kind of girl!"
The lady in question did raise a daughter, actually, and I'm quite sure she wouldn't have accepted such an attitude from her own daughter. But she wants to indicate that she approves of female self-assertiveness, I suppose.
I have a hard time not viewing this as a kind of child abuse. The child is at an age when she is learning how to treat others, and whether she learns to treat her elders with respect or with a kind of royal disdain is really going to be a question of the sort of feedback she receives. The family has her in a kind of isolation, so that the feedback she gets will initially be contained to what they elect to give her. If they giggle and laugh approvingly at her imperious dictates, she won't be wrong in committing to those habits as demonstrably successful.
When she gets out in the world, however... well.
Naturally I thought of this article from the NYT's parenting section, which I'm sure we all read last week. That child did not learn to spew hate tinged with explicit sexual terminology at the age of ten on her own.
Fate has not given me a daughter, so I can't say how I would raise one with certainty. It's a very difficult problem. I honor those, like my late father-and-mother-in-law, who managed it with grace.
The lady in question did raise a daughter, actually, and I'm quite sure she wouldn't have accepted such an attitude from her own daughter. But she wants to indicate that she approves of female self-assertiveness, I suppose.
I have a hard time not viewing this as a kind of child abuse. The child is at an age when she is learning how to treat others, and whether she learns to treat her elders with respect or with a kind of royal disdain is really going to be a question of the sort of feedback she receives. The family has her in a kind of isolation, so that the feedback she gets will initially be contained to what they elect to give her. If they giggle and laugh approvingly at her imperious dictates, she won't be wrong in committing to those habits as demonstrably successful.
When she gets out in the world, however... well.
Naturally I thought of this article from the NYT's parenting section, which I'm sure we all read last week. That child did not learn to spew hate tinged with explicit sexual terminology at the age of ten on her own.
Fate has not given me a daughter, so I can't say how I would raise one with certainty. It's a very difficult problem. I honor those, like my late father-and-mother-in-law, who managed it with grace.
Social Harmony, Illustrated
A post of enduring popularity has been "Social Harmony," from way back in 2004.
I was reading an article the other day, in the local newspaper, about an elderly Korean gentleman who has moved into town and opened a martial arts studio. He chastened the reporter who had come to interview him not to suggest that the martial arts were 'all about fighting.' "No!" he said. "The purpose is social harmony."It's always nice to encounter a strong example that illustrates your point.
That is exactly right. The secret of social harmony is simple: Old men must be dangerous.
Formal Logic, Part III
Today I'm going to depart from the textbook for a moment, and work out some consequences of what you've seen in the first two parts. There's something very significant lurking here, and students of logic usually pass over it without forcing it out into the light.
In the last part we worked on the concept of logical equivalence, which is when two forms of an argument have exactly the same truth values in every case. This has an important consequence: because the two forms preserve each other's truth, you can substitute one for the other. Just as in mathematics, you can treat equalities as interchangable. If it is helpful in getting where you need to go in algebra, for example, you can divide both sides of an equation by two, or multiply them both by two. The truth of the equation is preserved:
ab=2
2(ab)=4
0.5(ab)=1
Likewise:
J ≡ M
M ≡ J
Once we get past the foundations of formal logic, and into advanced logic, this mathematical assumption becomes more and more important. Logical deductive systems have strict rules governing substitutions that are supposed to be truth-preserving. Various operators have different rules, so it is often important to be able to substitute one set of operators for another in order to reach the final result you are seeking.
Here is an example. In modal logic, the following two propositions are thought to be readily exchangable:
◊p ("Possibly p," or proposition p is possible)
~□~p ("Not-necessarily-not p," or, p is not necessarily forbidden -- and is, therefore, possible)
You can do the same thing with "necessarily P" and "not-possibly-not p."
Why does that matter? One reason is that there are rules for handling the box of necessity (□) that differ from the not-operator (~). You can only derive possibility from possibility (◊), but if you can switch to the not-necessarily-not and eliminate the first "not," you can then derive a necessary truth using the box forms.
Because all of these forms are thought to be proven to preserve truth, this means that you can use these advanced logical forms to move from a proposition known to be true to another very different proposition that you can treat as necessarily true also.
This is why, for more than a hundred years, this kind of logical philosophy has had pride of place in the Anglo-American world. It believes it is bringing something very much like mathematical precision to the wider world of human knowledge. If you also believe that, it is a very exciting field even today.
Nothing like this is true for Aristotle's philosophy. That is not to say that he didn't see a relationship between the mathematics of his day, and the logic of his day. He also saw a relationship between the logic of his day and the practical human problems of his day. However, he explicitly rejected the idea that you could create a deductive logic that applies directly to practical human problems. As he says in Nicomachean Ethics I.3:
However, there are counterexamples. The poet Sydney Lanier, during his time as a Confederate officer aiding British blockade runners as a pilot, behaved courageously and honestly in refusing to disguise himself as British when overhauled by a Union naval vessel. As a result, he caught tuberculosis while interned as a prisoner of war and died before he was forty. His virtues caused him to produce some remarkable works of literature and music, but they also killed him.
Now a proper defense of contemporary logic might suggest that they have an out here. Truth-preserving forms can only preserve as much truth as was in the original proposition. Thus, if the original proposition you are starting from is -- as Aristotle says -- not necessarily true but only probably true, your conclusion can only be taken to be probably true as well.
But I think Aristotle's point is stronger than that. He's very much in favor of applying "a sort of syllogism" to the problems of everyday life, but he's also clear that there is a kind of double analogy at work. First of all, the earlier practical problem you are taking as an example is an analogy, and analogies are always a little imprecise. If we say "our current situation is like Washington at Valley Forge," we don't really mean that it's exactly like Washington's situation. There's an imprecision.
In addition, the kind of logic we can apply to these analogies isn't going to offer us truth-preservation in the same way as what Aristotle calls "strict logic." It's going to be a "sort of syllogism" we can actually bring to bear, and for a good reason: even if we should go as far as translating our problems into the mathematical language of formal logic, so we can apply a strict deduction according to rigorous forms, we will have introduced new ambiguities in the translation. That is, of course, just why Bertrand Russell and others preferred to symbolize propositions: they hoped to eliminate ambiguities of natural language. Finally, it simply cannot be done: strict logic doesn't admit of many of the elements we need to capture all the details of a real-world problem.
(A great example of this is the symbolized forms of St. Anslem's Ontological Proof for the Existence of God. It's a valid argument when symbolized... but it can't actually prove what Anslem was after, because it is necessary to formalize "best" or "better than" in a way that loses his sense of the term entirely.)
In any case, this is a major difference between the ancient and medieval understanding of logic, and the contemporary form. Whether you view the contemporary enchantment with mathematical logic a romance or a seduction depends on your view of the character of the logic itself. I believe Aristotle still has the best of this argument, even though he never got to see the development of algebra, or the subsequent similar refinements in formal logic.
In the last part we worked on the concept of logical equivalence, which is when two forms of an argument have exactly the same truth values in every case. This has an important consequence: because the two forms preserve each other's truth, you can substitute one for the other. Just as in mathematics, you can treat equalities as interchangable. If it is helpful in getting where you need to go in algebra, for example, you can divide both sides of an equation by two, or multiply them both by two. The truth of the equation is preserved:
ab=2
2(ab)=4
0.5(ab)=1
Likewise:
J ≡ M
M ≡ J
Once we get past the foundations of formal logic, and into advanced logic, this mathematical assumption becomes more and more important. Logical deductive systems have strict rules governing substitutions that are supposed to be truth-preserving. Various operators have different rules, so it is often important to be able to substitute one set of operators for another in order to reach the final result you are seeking.
Here is an example. In modal logic, the following two propositions are thought to be readily exchangable:
◊p ("Possibly p," or proposition p is possible)
~□~p ("Not-necessarily-not p," or, p is not necessarily forbidden -- and is, therefore, possible)
You can do the same thing with "necessarily P" and "not-possibly-not p."
Why does that matter? One reason is that there are rules for handling the box of necessity (□) that differ from the not-operator (~). You can only derive possibility from possibility (◊), but if you can switch to the not-necessarily-not and eliminate the first "not," you can then derive a necessary truth using the box forms.
Because all of these forms are thought to be proven to preserve truth, this means that you can use these advanced logical forms to move from a proposition known to be true to another very different proposition that you can treat as necessarily true also.
This is why, for more than a hundred years, this kind of logical philosophy has had pride of place in the Anglo-American world. It believes it is bringing something very much like mathematical precision to the wider world of human knowledge. If you also believe that, it is a very exciting field even today.
Nothing like this is true for Aristotle's philosophy. That is not to say that he didn't see a relationship between the mathematics of his day, and the logic of his day. He also saw a relationship between the logic of his day and the practical human problems of his day. However, he explicitly rejected the idea that you could create a deductive logic that applies directly to practical human problems. As he says in Nicomachean Ethics I.3:
Our discussion will be adequate if it has as much clearness as the subject-matter admits of, for precision is not to be sought for alike in all discussions, any more than in all the products of the crafts. Now fine and just actions, which political science investigates, admit of much variety and fluctuation of opinion, so that they may be thought to exist only by convention, and not by nature. And goods also give rise to a similar fluctuation because they bring harm to many people; for before now men have been undone by reason of their wealth, and others by reason of their courage. We must be content, then, in speaking of such subjects and with such premisses to indicate the truth roughly and in outline, and in speaking about things which are only for the most part true and with premisses of the same kind to reach conclusions that are no better. In the same spirit, therefore, should each type of statement be received; for it is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician scientific proofs.Likewise in the Rhetoric I.1:
Persuasion is clearly a sort of demonstration, since we are most fully persuaded when we consider a thing to have been demonstrated. The orator's demonstration is an enthymeme, and this is, in general, the most effective of the modes of persuasion. The enthymeme is a sort of syllogism, and the consideration of syllogisms of all kinds, without distinction, is the business of dialectic, either of dialectic as a whole or of one of its branches. It follows plainly, therefore, that he who is best able to see how and from what elements a syllogism is produced will also be best skilled in the enthymeme, when he has further learnt what its subject-matter is and in what respects it differs from the syllogism of strict logic. The true and the approximately true are apprehended by the same faculty; it may also be noted that men have a sufficient natural instinct for what is true, and usually do arrive at the truth. Hence the man who makes a good guess at truth is likely to make a good guess at probabilities.Aristotle preserves the idea that strict logic is closely related to practical decision-making, which is the proper subject matter of rhetoric and ethics and political science. But he explicitly rejects the idea that you can obtain a deduction, a demonstration, of the sort that contemporary analytic philosophy often seeks. His examples are on point: in general, courage is a praiseworthy quality, and most of the time it will lead you to greater success in life.
However, there are counterexamples. The poet Sydney Lanier, during his time as a Confederate officer aiding British blockade runners as a pilot, behaved courageously and honestly in refusing to disguise himself as British when overhauled by a Union naval vessel. As a result, he caught tuberculosis while interned as a prisoner of war and died before he was forty. His virtues caused him to produce some remarkable works of literature and music, but they also killed him.
Now a proper defense of contemporary logic might suggest that they have an out here. Truth-preserving forms can only preserve as much truth as was in the original proposition. Thus, if the original proposition you are starting from is -- as Aristotle says -- not necessarily true but only probably true, your conclusion can only be taken to be probably true as well.
But I think Aristotle's point is stronger than that. He's very much in favor of applying "a sort of syllogism" to the problems of everyday life, but he's also clear that there is a kind of double analogy at work. First of all, the earlier practical problem you are taking as an example is an analogy, and analogies are always a little imprecise. If we say "our current situation is like Washington at Valley Forge," we don't really mean that it's exactly like Washington's situation. There's an imprecision.
In addition, the kind of logic we can apply to these analogies isn't going to offer us truth-preservation in the same way as what Aristotle calls "strict logic." It's going to be a "sort of syllogism" we can actually bring to bear, and for a good reason: even if we should go as far as translating our problems into the mathematical language of formal logic, so we can apply a strict deduction according to rigorous forms, we will have introduced new ambiguities in the translation. That is, of course, just why Bertrand Russell and others preferred to symbolize propositions: they hoped to eliminate ambiguities of natural language. Finally, it simply cannot be done: strict logic doesn't admit of many of the elements we need to capture all the details of a real-world problem.
(A great example of this is the symbolized forms of St. Anslem's Ontological Proof for the Existence of God. It's a valid argument when symbolized... but it can't actually prove what Anslem was after, because it is necessary to formalize "best" or "better than" in a way that loses his sense of the term entirely.)
In any case, this is a major difference between the ancient and medieval understanding of logic, and the contemporary form. Whether you view the contemporary enchantment with mathematical logic a romance or a seduction depends on your view of the character of the logic itself. I believe Aristotle still has the best of this argument, even though he never got to see the development of algebra, or the subsequent similar refinements in formal logic.
Faction
At RealClearPolicy, James v. Delong writes about one of the dangers of letting government get too big: it becomes even more difficult to moderate the natural tendency of factions to use the democratic process to vote themselves public goodies.
Capture by faction has become endemic. As government has grown and budgets and regulatory empires have expanded, economic and ideological factions have carved off satrapies in the agencies and congressional subcommittees. The true greens control EPA. Unions have Labor and the NLRB. The banks have the Fed and Treasury. The energy companies used to have the Department of Energy, but now it is in the hands of the green crony capitalists. Farm policy is controlled by a coalition of agricultural interests and food-stamp advocates. HUD serves housing industry and urban constituencies. HHS and its state satellites are a tool of the health-care industry -- my state senator in Montana deals with 63 health-care lobbyists, all of them focused on one thing: more money from the state. Academia, teachers' unions, and the consulting industry control the Department of Education. Public employees have become a powerful interest group in themselves. And so on.
Conservatives keep arguing about Obama's political philosophy, but they miss the point. His strength is that he has none. He has no views on environmental or labor or health or education policy; whatever the interests that have been given that part of the government want is all right with him. His job is to assure each member of his coalition that it will indeed be given freedom of action, to mediate the occasional conflicts, and to serve as a mouthpiece when interest-group talking points are put on his teleprompter.* * *
The rise of this special-interest state was not totally without a justifying political theory. It was accompanied by a school of analysis called "interest-group liberalism," which posited that the various interest groups elbowing each other on the way to the trough would produce in the political system the self-regulating efficiencies that free-market competition produces in the economic sphere. This was always just a metaphor, not a real analysis, and it does not stand up as a serious philosophy.It's that last part that most interests me. Competition in the form of a race for the spoils doesn't work. Competition can work to increase overall prosperity if it rewards productive behavior, but scrambling for political favors doesn't reward productive behavior. It's more like announcing a police holiday and encouraging everyone to loot. The kind of competition we need is the kind that spurs people to offer something more valuable so that other free people will willingly enter into a trade with them, even though they have alternatives. In theory, you might use a democratic voting process to mediate those sorts of trades, but in practice it's far too clumsy. It can't use price signals as effectively as the fine-grained system that leaves ever producer and consumer free to bargain with equals. The spoils that each interest faction scramble for don't belong to the people who award them, so the price signals are all broken and the supply and demand can't be brought into balance.
Whose Purpose Is To Kindle
Today's sending-forth hymn omitted one of its three verses. It is sung to the Ode to Joy.
God, who still a sword delivers rather than a placid peace,
with your sharpened sword disturb us, from complacency release!
Save us now from satisfaction, when we privately are free,
yet are undisturbed in spirit by our neighbor’s misery.
Secrets and low-hanging fruit
An interesting article, by way of Assistant Village Idiot's sidebar, about ideas that already have been discovered, but never publicized.
Formal Logic, Part II
Part I is here, along with the text we're using. We'll begin today with Section 1.10, because I want to talk about logical equivalence.
Last time we talked about validity, and the difference between Aristotle's ideas of validity and modern ones. But there's another way of talking about validity in logic, which is this: an argument can be said to be valid if it is truth-preserving. That doesn't mean that it guarantees truth (see the section on "soundness"), but that a valid form will preserve whatever truth is there. If your propositions are true, a valid form will ensure that your conclusion is also true.
Truth-preservation is also why we can say that two apparently very different arguments are logically equivalent. What it means for two arguments to be logically equivalent is that the two arguments are true or false together, 100% of the time. If you go through the exercises of building truth tables, you'll see that the truth tables for the two arguments will be exactly, precisely the same in every case.
Consider one of his examples:
1) Either it is raining, or it is snowing but not raining.
2) Either it is raining or it is snowing.
Since this is the inclusive "or," if it is both raining and snowing both of these sentences are considered true (because the "either it is raining" part is true). Symbolically, (1) would be rendered (R v (S & ~R)), and (2) would be (R v S). If the "R" is satisfied, the sentence is true; if the S is satisfied, both sentences are true if it is not raining. Both sentences are false if it is neither raining nor snowing.
There's a shorthand way of saying that two logical sentences are equivalent, which is called the biconditional. It is rendered in natural language "if and only if," or in philosophical shortcut, "iff." It has several logical symbols, but where I come from we use the triple bar: ≡.
Note, though, that this kind of equivalence goes both ways. 1≡2 means 2≡1. That is not the case for every sort of sentence we would render in natural language with "only if." "He is a bachelor if and only if he is an unmarried male human" is a biconditional (as well, in this case, as a tautology) because wherever one set of things will be true, the other will, and vice versa.
The other kind of 'only if' is a material conditional. You could say "If John gets hired, then Mary will get hired." But that does not mean that the truth of John's hiring is equivalent to the truth of Mary's hiring. It means that "John will get hired only if Mary gets hired."
That's properly:
3) J -> M
Not:
4) J ≡ M
We can see they are not equivalent by building the truth table.
J M | (3) | (4)
---------------
T T | T | T
T F | F | F
F T | T | F
F F | T | T
Because the truth values of the claims do not hold together, the material conditional form of the statement is not logically equivalent to the biconditional. And while (J ≡ M) is the same as (M ≡ J), (J -> M) is not the same as (M -> J). The table for (M -> J) I will leave you to work out on your own as an exercise, if you choose, but you will see it comes apart from (J -> M).
Preserving the truth is what this is all about.
Last time we talked about validity, and the difference between Aristotle's ideas of validity and modern ones. But there's another way of talking about validity in logic, which is this: an argument can be said to be valid if it is truth-preserving. That doesn't mean that it guarantees truth (see the section on "soundness"), but that a valid form will preserve whatever truth is there. If your propositions are true, a valid form will ensure that your conclusion is also true.
Truth-preservation is also why we can say that two apparently very different arguments are logically equivalent. What it means for two arguments to be logically equivalent is that the two arguments are true or false together, 100% of the time. If you go through the exercises of building truth tables, you'll see that the truth tables for the two arguments will be exactly, precisely the same in every case.
Consider one of his examples:
1) Either it is raining, or it is snowing but not raining.
2) Either it is raining or it is snowing.
Since this is the inclusive "or," if it is both raining and snowing both of these sentences are considered true (because the "either it is raining" part is true). Symbolically, (1) would be rendered (R v (S & ~R)), and (2) would be (R v S). If the "R" is satisfied, the sentence is true; if the S is satisfied, both sentences are true if it is not raining. Both sentences are false if it is neither raining nor snowing.
There's a shorthand way of saying that two logical sentences are equivalent, which is called the biconditional. It is rendered in natural language "if and only if," or in philosophical shortcut, "iff." It has several logical symbols, but where I come from we use the triple bar: ≡.
Note, though, that this kind of equivalence goes both ways. 1≡2 means 2≡1. That is not the case for every sort of sentence we would render in natural language with "only if." "He is a bachelor if and only if he is an unmarried male human" is a biconditional (as well, in this case, as a tautology) because wherever one set of things will be true, the other will, and vice versa.
The other kind of 'only if' is a material conditional. You could say "If John gets hired, then Mary will get hired." But that does not mean that the truth of John's hiring is equivalent to the truth of Mary's hiring. It means that "John will get hired only if Mary gets hired."
That's properly:
3) J -> M
Not:
4) J ≡ M
We can see they are not equivalent by building the truth table.
J M | (3) | (4)
---------------
T T | T | T
T F | F | F
F T | T | F
F F | T | T
Because the truth values of the claims do not hold together, the material conditional form of the statement is not logically equivalent to the biconditional. And while (J ≡ M) is the same as (M ≡ J), (J -> M) is not the same as (M -> J). The table for (M -> J) I will leave you to work out on your own as an exercise, if you choose, but you will see it comes apart from (J -> M).
Preserving the truth is what this is all about.
Snakebit
September 11, 2001, was a really bad day to get a lethal snakebite in Myanmar and need an air evacuation. Now there's a new first-aid treatment for neurotoxin-type snake venom that was inspired in part by one unfortunate scientist's experience. The treatment doesn't break down the venom directly, but it helps you live with it a bit longer while you get to a hospital or your body breaks down the venom naturally:
Most neurotoxins work by attacking the neuromuscular junction – the regions between the nerves and the muscles that trigger the muscles to move when the brain signals them. They do this by blocking an essential neurotransmitter – acetylcholine – from passing from the nerve to the muscle, telling it to move. The result is paralysis, even in the crucial lung muscles. . . .
A patient in this predicament needs antivenom, a molecule that deactivates the venom directly. Neostigmine cannot do this, but can allow what little acetylcholine is able to get past the venom to move freely. And in an emergency, you need every second.Rattlesnake vaccine is good, too, though it's available only for dogs and horses, not people. It's not expensive, and most of the time it converts a real medical nightmare into a minor inconvenience.
What we know
From Maggie's Farm, this Reason article about seven common misperceptions, including the idea that markets make people mean (or poor).
"15 Minutes Prior"
Boy does this seem familiar.
H/t Mr. Sparkle, who introduced me to one of the British military humor sites.
H/t Mr. Sparkle, who introduced me to one of the British military humor sites.
...And Shove It
Taranto reports that a Tennessee news editor lost his job over a headline borrowed from an old Johnny Paycheck song.
Don't feel bad. Authority figures of a certain cut have always found that song offensive to their heightened sense of dignity.
Don't feel bad. Authority figures of a certain cut have always found that song offensive to their heightened sense of dignity.
Good News!
The Executive branch has graciously granted Congress a waiver from Obamacare. There was some real concern there that the people who passed this law might have to abide by it.
Or, as the first comment says, "Whew! You don't know what a relief it is, knowing our rulers won't have to pay some of their own personal expenses."
Or, as the first comment says, "Whew! You don't know what a relief it is, knowing our rulers won't have to pay some of their own personal expenses."
Some Help on NSA Programs
The MSM occasionally still produces helpful journalism. Here are two pieces on the NSA question that are useful in following the issue.
First, General Alexander speaks to the Black Hat hacker conference. This is what the best defense of NSA looks like, constructed for a conference of people whom the NSA knows will see through any obfuscations. So this is the upside.
Second, an analysis of similar testimony presented to Congress. This is part of what the downside looks like.
First, General Alexander speaks to the Black Hat hacker conference. This is what the best defense of NSA looks like, constructed for a conference of people whom the NSA knows will see through any obfuscations. So this is the upside.
Second, an analysis of similar testimony presented to Congress. This is part of what the downside looks like.
Could have been worse
I guess the folks in my previous post should be grateful they had only been Googling "wildlife refuges for rescued deer" instead of "pressure cooker" on one computer and "backpack" on the other. Of course, when the family in this link did the latter, it's anyone's guess exactly who those guys were who showed up to investigate. For all they can tell now, they may have been from Parks & Wildlife, too.
Too much time on their hands
Sounds like a government division in need of a force reduction. How many SWAT team members does it take to kill one contraband fawn?
Poor little fellow should have been left where he was found. Someone meant kindly, but he probably was just in hiding waiting for his mom to come back. Still, aerial surveillance and a 9-member attack force seem a bit like overkill. I hope the local community goes berserk.
Poor little fellow should have been left where he was found. Someone meant kindly, but he probably was just in hiding waiting for his mom to come back. Still, aerial surveillance and a 9-member attack force seem a bit like overkill. I hope the local community goes berserk.
What Chivalry Is
Chivalry is the quality of a man who can tame a horse and ride it to war.
That's all it is. Everything else associated with it is either a precondition for developing this quality, or a consequence of it. The core of the thing is the man and the beast.
What does it take to tame a horse? It takes courage, not recklessness, but that kind of disciplined and developed courage that comes from learning to fear being thrown, and getting on horses again. It takes self-mastery, because the horse is a prey animal that will amplify your fear. You must learn to ride through it, until even you don't really feel the fear in the same way anymore.
It takes gentleness. A horse responds to the slightest touch. You must be sensitive to its movements, its breathing, the language of its body.
What does it take to ride a horse to war? It takes trustworthiness. The horse must believe in you to charge into the smell of blood.
It takes honor. You can't ride alone. You must build relationships with other men like you, who know they can count on you while there is blood in your body. There is your self-sacrifice, even to death.
What does it build in you to do these things? Some of the things have been said. You get the virtues you practice, as Aristotle teaches in the Nicomachean Ethics. You must have some courage to begin, but you will build courage as you do. You must have some self-mastery, but you will become the master of yourself. You must be gentle, and able to understand another very different kind of living being through touch alone. You will become moreso.
The habit of keeping your word is like any other habit. After a while, it becomes part of you. The habit of honor likewise.
Can you do without chivalry? I don't know. Can you do without men like this?
--
That's what chivalry is, and that's the root of what people come to call an 'ethos' or a 'system.' But it's easy to be fooled by the accidents. What US Special Forces were doing in Afghanistan a decade ago was not different from what Charlemagne's riders were doing in this core way. It is different in other ways, accidental ways, but this is the essence of the thing.
You can see, with a little thought, how the thing we call courtesy grows naturally out of this combination of gentleness and trustworthiness, a habit of honor and a character that masters itself.
The question to ask is not whether you need chivalry, nor even whether or how to revive it where it is lost. The question you should worry about is whether you can do it without the horse. I think you can, but only if you can recapture that essence in other ways. Wherever possible, it is best to start with the horse.
That's all it is. Everything else associated with it is either a precondition for developing this quality, or a consequence of it. The core of the thing is the man and the beast.
What does it take to tame a horse? It takes courage, not recklessness, but that kind of disciplined and developed courage that comes from learning to fear being thrown, and getting on horses again. It takes self-mastery, because the horse is a prey animal that will amplify your fear. You must learn to ride through it, until even you don't really feel the fear in the same way anymore.
It takes gentleness. A horse responds to the slightest touch. You must be sensitive to its movements, its breathing, the language of its body.
What does it take to ride a horse to war? It takes trustworthiness. The horse must believe in you to charge into the smell of blood.
It takes honor. You can't ride alone. You must build relationships with other men like you, who know they can count on you while there is blood in your body. There is your self-sacrifice, even to death.
What does it build in you to do these things? Some of the things have been said. You get the virtues you practice, as Aristotle teaches in the Nicomachean Ethics. You must have some courage to begin, but you will build courage as you do. You must have some self-mastery, but you will become the master of yourself. You must be gentle, and able to understand another very different kind of living being through touch alone. You will become moreso.
The habit of keeping your word is like any other habit. After a while, it becomes part of you. The habit of honor likewise.
Can you do without chivalry? I don't know. Can you do without men like this?
--
That's what chivalry is, and that's the root of what people come to call an 'ethos' or a 'system.' But it's easy to be fooled by the accidents. What US Special Forces were doing in Afghanistan a decade ago was not different from what Charlemagne's riders were doing in this core way. It is different in other ways, accidental ways, but this is the essence of the thing.
You can see, with a little thought, how the thing we call courtesy grows naturally out of this combination of gentleness and trustworthiness, a habit of honor and a character that masters itself.
The question to ask is not whether you need chivalry, nor even whether or how to revive it where it is lost. The question you should worry about is whether you can do it without the horse. I think you can, but only if you can recapture that essence in other ways. Wherever possible, it is best to start with the horse.
What Chivalry Is Not
The New York Times has engaged the services of a number of writers to pontificate on the question of whether chivalry can or should be "resuscitated." It would have helped if they had agreed just what it is, this chivalry, that they might want to revive.
In a way it is amusing to see the Times, which has been mocking and undermining chivalry since the mid-19th Century, concerned about the question at all. But you can understand why, seeing the way that leading political figures in New York from the party allegedly on the side of women treat the women in their lives. They can see the ugliness around them, and can dimly remember a fading time when at least some men behaved better. But weren't those men the enemy of all progress?
First, then, let us examine what their various experts think chivalry might be, and why it is not in fact those things. Once we understand what it isn't, I will post separately a definition to explain what it is. Then, perhaps, we can usefully discuss whether it can -- or should -- be revived in Manhattan. It needs no revival here, though of course like every valuable part of civilization it must be constantly replanted and renewed in the young.
1) Emily Esfahani Smith doesn't seem to know just what kind of thing she thinks chivalry is, but she knows that she misses it. Her examples are clear enough, but the remedy is not. She variously says that it has 'kindness at its heart,' but also that 'being good -- being noble -- is at its heart' and that its 'essence is self-sacrifice,' 'whether we name that self-sacrifice chivalry or not.' She gives a nod to Dr. Mansfield's claim that chivalry is a 'manly' virtue, but says women can do it too.
So is chivalry self-sacrifice, in the spirit of kindness and nobility, in a manly way that women can do just as well? No, of course not. For one thing self-sacrifice is practiced by many who are not at all chivalrous: there is nothing of chivalry in the Buddhist monk who begs every day for his supper, yielding everything for enlightenment. Furthermore, there are things a chivalrous man ought not to sacrifice, even in the service of others, such as principles of honor and valor.
2) Brett McKay writes of chivalry as a kind of manliness, but he is writing defensively so he never defines its value. He points out that the Violence Against Women Act is an example of a similar recognition of differences between men and women; he says it need not be about the 'inferiority or lofty superiority' of women; and that one 'need not fail to appreciate strides toward equality' to recognize things like the facts of the Aurora shooting.
Bizarrely, he goes on directly from that example -- Aurora -- to say, "in a gender-neutral modern world, chivalric acts are non-onerous rituals that faintly echo our relationship to each other when all the layers of civilization are stripped away." But if Aurora is an example of chivalrous acts, it was a set of acts of the most onerous kind. They were not ritual acts, either, acts that intended to symbolize something else in a correct way. They were not symbols, but actions.
3) Abigail Collazo would like chivalry to die, because she thinks it is about "it's about viewing women as fragile, delicate creatures who require special treatment." What she wants instead is a standard of courtesy, as well as for men to recognize that women are strong and worthy of respect.
But! "This isn’t to say that women should never be granted special considerations. In a world of vast inequalities between the sexes, women are uniquely affected by..."
Yes, well.
One might be tempted to say that a genuinely strong woman ought not to need for men to think of her in the way she prefers, whether she thinks she prefers being treated as a delicate creature or an indelicate one. But let us meet one of the delicate flowers of whom the men of chivalry dreamed. This is from Norris J. Lacy's translation of the Prose Lancelot, scroll 125. The story is from the 1200s. Lancelot is traveling to a judicial duel he must fight in, when he comes across a tournament in progress. He watches for a while, but takes no part as he soon must fight for his life.
In any case, chivalry is not chiefly or principally about relations between men and women at all. Those ideas fall out of it, but are not the core of it. If you think of it chiefly in those terms, you are mistaken about it and its value.
4) A man named Keith Bernard, whose qualification to write on the question is apparently that he is 'a DJ and music producer,' appears to view chivalry as mere hypocrisy. The only thing wrong with his opinion is his complete ignorance of the subject.
5) Dr. Richard Abels, formerly of the US Naval Academy, is of the opinion that "Medieval chivalry was an aristocratic ethos designed to distinguish the military nobility of Western Europe from those whom they deemed to be their social inferiors." Well, if that is all it was, of course we don't need it any more; we no longer have that social structure to defend.
His opinion strikes me as a strange one for a man who long served an institution at which he might have met some men of chivalry. It is the opinion of a historian from the school that divides humanity into classes and explains history in terms of the struggles between them. He doesn't seem to connect the men he must have known with the ethic, which he says "promotes violence" and "has faded" as a matter of course given changes in social structures. Given what he thinks he's talking about, it's hard to argue the point. Naturally we don't need a system for propping up an aristocracy or some other category of privilege.
But that isn't what, say, Ms. Smith was talking about at all. The quality she was longing for was not one that propped up men in their privilege, but one that kept them from marching around behaving like apes. Reducing chivalry to something like the fashion of wearing powdered wigs -- to show that you could afford one -- is to miss the core of it.
6) Scott Farrell, a man who really does know something about the subject, wants to explain it chiefly in terms of service to others. In this he captures correctly one of the values of chivalry, the value of honor. He goes on to say, "Of course, there’s more to it than this. Chivalry is a complex ethical and philosophical code that includes ideals like honesty, justice, courtesy and enterprise — all of which the world could use a bit more of."
Well, yes, that's true. But it also makes it hard to see just what it is that is wanted. Do we just want the virtues? If we get honesty, justice, courtesy, self-sacrifice and perhaps one or two others like courage, do we also need chivalry? Is it nothing more than the unity of other, independent virtues?
What is it?
In a way it is amusing to see the Times, which has been mocking and undermining chivalry since the mid-19th Century, concerned about the question at all. But you can understand why, seeing the way that leading political figures in New York from the party allegedly on the side of women treat the women in their lives. They can see the ugliness around them, and can dimly remember a fading time when at least some men behaved better. But weren't those men the enemy of all progress?
First, then, let us examine what their various experts think chivalry might be, and why it is not in fact those things. Once we understand what it isn't, I will post separately a definition to explain what it is. Then, perhaps, we can usefully discuss whether it can -- or should -- be revived in Manhattan. It needs no revival here, though of course like every valuable part of civilization it must be constantly replanted and renewed in the young.
1) Emily Esfahani Smith doesn't seem to know just what kind of thing she thinks chivalry is, but she knows that she misses it. Her examples are clear enough, but the remedy is not. She variously says that it has 'kindness at its heart,' but also that 'being good -- being noble -- is at its heart' and that its 'essence is self-sacrifice,' 'whether we name that self-sacrifice chivalry or not.' She gives a nod to Dr. Mansfield's claim that chivalry is a 'manly' virtue, but says women can do it too.
So is chivalry self-sacrifice, in the spirit of kindness and nobility, in a manly way that women can do just as well? No, of course not. For one thing self-sacrifice is practiced by many who are not at all chivalrous: there is nothing of chivalry in the Buddhist monk who begs every day for his supper, yielding everything for enlightenment. Furthermore, there are things a chivalrous man ought not to sacrifice, even in the service of others, such as principles of honor and valor.
2) Brett McKay writes of chivalry as a kind of manliness, but he is writing defensively so he never defines its value. He points out that the Violence Against Women Act is an example of a similar recognition of differences between men and women; he says it need not be about the 'inferiority or lofty superiority' of women; and that one 'need not fail to appreciate strides toward equality' to recognize things like the facts of the Aurora shooting.
Bizarrely, he goes on directly from that example -- Aurora -- to say, "in a gender-neutral modern world, chivalric acts are non-onerous rituals that faintly echo our relationship to each other when all the layers of civilization are stripped away." But if Aurora is an example of chivalrous acts, it was a set of acts of the most onerous kind. They were not ritual acts, either, acts that intended to symbolize something else in a correct way. They were not symbols, but actions.
3) Abigail Collazo would like chivalry to die, because she thinks it is about "it's about viewing women as fragile, delicate creatures who require special treatment." What she wants instead is a standard of courtesy, as well as for men to recognize that women are strong and worthy of respect.
But! "This isn’t to say that women should never be granted special considerations. In a world of vast inequalities between the sexes, women are uniquely affected by..."
Yes, well.
One might be tempted to say that a genuinely strong woman ought not to need for men to think of her in the way she prefers, whether she thinks she prefers being treated as a delicate creature or an indelicate one. But let us meet one of the delicate flowers of whom the men of chivalry dreamed. This is from Norris J. Lacy's translation of the Prose Lancelot, scroll 125. The story is from the 1200s. Lancelot is traveling to a judicial duel he must fight in, when he comes across a tournament in progress. He watches for a while, but takes no part as he soon must fight for his life.
...soon a maiden appeared before Lancelot, and said, "Lord knight, lend me your shield."I imagine Ms. Collazo would have liked her ancestors better than she thinks. Her shaming of Lancelot is as effective in driving him to do her will as any feminist writer has ever been in shaming men into some alteration of conduct.
"Why, my lady?"
"Because I need it. It is not doing you any good, and I could use it well."
"How would you use it?"
"I would tie it to my horse's tail and have him led inside my stables whenever I wanted, for the love of good knights who watch tournaments and dare not fight in them."
In any case, chivalry is not chiefly or principally about relations between men and women at all. Those ideas fall out of it, but are not the core of it. If you think of it chiefly in those terms, you are mistaken about it and its value.
4) A man named Keith Bernard, whose qualification to write on the question is apparently that he is 'a DJ and music producer,' appears to view chivalry as mere hypocrisy. The only thing wrong with his opinion is his complete ignorance of the subject.
5) Dr. Richard Abels, formerly of the US Naval Academy, is of the opinion that "Medieval chivalry was an aristocratic ethos designed to distinguish the military nobility of Western Europe from those whom they deemed to be their social inferiors." Well, if that is all it was, of course we don't need it any more; we no longer have that social structure to defend.
His opinion strikes me as a strange one for a man who long served an institution at which he might have met some men of chivalry. It is the opinion of a historian from the school that divides humanity into classes and explains history in terms of the struggles between them. He doesn't seem to connect the men he must have known with the ethic, which he says "promotes violence" and "has faded" as a matter of course given changes in social structures. Given what he thinks he's talking about, it's hard to argue the point. Naturally we don't need a system for propping up an aristocracy or some other category of privilege.
But that isn't what, say, Ms. Smith was talking about at all. The quality she was longing for was not one that propped up men in their privilege, but one that kept them from marching around behaving like apes. Reducing chivalry to something like the fashion of wearing powdered wigs -- to show that you could afford one -- is to miss the core of it.
6) Scott Farrell, a man who really does know something about the subject, wants to explain it chiefly in terms of service to others. In this he captures correctly one of the values of chivalry, the value of honor. He goes on to say, "Of course, there’s more to it than this. Chivalry is a complex ethical and philosophical code that includes ideals like honesty, justice, courtesy and enterprise — all of which the world could use a bit more of."
Well, yes, that's true. But it also makes it hard to see just what it is that is wanted. Do we just want the virtues? If we get honesty, justice, courtesy, self-sacrifice and perhaps one or two others like courage, do we also need chivalry? Is it nothing more than the unity of other, independent virtues?
What is it?
Freedom of work and speech
FireDogLake is unhappy about a new federal-rights lawsuit that could accomplish what Proposition 32 did not in California, which is the elimination of a union's right to extract fees from unwilling workers and use them to promote political causes inimical to the worker:
Supporters of California's mandatory union dues are worried that a Supreme Court precedent in this case could spell doom for mandatory union dues nationwide. The CIR link above takes you straight to a donation page.
Over the years the U.S. Supreme Court has generally upheld union practices that require public-sector employees to first pay dues and then opt out if they don’t support a union’s political activities. The practice was upheld in a two-decade old case known as Abood v. Detroit Board of Education. But in an unrelated 2012 case, the Supreme Court suggested that the high court’s earlier Abood decision may have been a mistake.
“Justice [Samuel Alito], writing for five justices, went out of his way to raise doubts about the Abood decision and, in effect, to invite a test case to overturn it,” wrote Peter Scheer in the Huffington Post. “The Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association lawsuit is an RSVP to that invitation.”Miss Manners assures us that RSVPs are always correct. The lawsuit's polite sponsor, the Center for Individual Rights, is a suitable invitee. It was behind the 1996 Hopwood v. Texas case, which succerssfully challenged affirmative action in the University of Texas's selection process, and LaRoque v. Holder, which challenged the same pre-clearance requirements under the Voting Rights Act that were overturned last month in Shelby County v. Holder. It was also behind California's Proposition 209, a successful 1996 anti-affirmative-action ballot initiative. CIR has defended James O’Keefe in disputes over California’s anti-tape recording statute, as well as Anita MonCrief, an ex-ACORN executive who was sued by her old group.
Supporters of California's mandatory union dues are worried that a Supreme Court precedent in this case could spell doom for mandatory union dues nationwide. The CIR link above takes you straight to a donation page.
Shadow government
Andrew McCarthy recently wrote that he wished the supporters of government surveillance programs would do a better job of defending what he thinks are essential programs. Today, Mark Steyn explains why he thinks the "national-security right" is shrinking:
But the real reason why there are fewer defenders of their programs than Andy would like is the subject he tackles in his excellent books: the ideological faintheartedness of the United States. In this struggle, our enemies hide in plain sight, but Western governments will not confront them in plain sight. As I wrote here last month:Operational secrecy probably makes sense to most Americans, but we'd like to think that they still have a voice in policy.
Because the formal, visible state has been neutered by political correctness, the dark, furtive shadow state has to expand massively to make, in secret, the judgment calls that can no longer be made in public.
Schlepping
I enjoyed this article about the adaptation of transport to the lack of paved roads, especially this photograph of windbarrows, which could move large loads on a narrow path:
Formal Logic, Part I
I told Tom I would accompany his early posts on Aristotle's logic with a companion series on formal logic as it is practiced today. It will be very introductory, and will take as its textbook Richard C. Jeffrey's Formal Logic: Its Scope and Limits.
I'm going to be attempting no more than to introduce the basic concepts, with an eye toward showing how modern logic and Aristotle's logic differ. It's mostly for Tom, because he said he was interested, but perhaps some of you may find it interesting as well. Formal logic is not my chief area of interest in philosophy, of course, so if any of you are well-versed you will probably find points of disagreement which you are free and welcome to argue. For those of you who haven't studied it, I hope I can provide a solid enough introduction to make it worth your while.
The online text is the Fourth Edition, and it has lost what I think is a helpful explanation from earlier editions -- I suppose he thought on reflection that it was too basic. The earlier piece talks about truth, and it points out two things very helpful to keep in mind when doing formal logic:
He has a second example on the other side. There exist albino crows, which means that the following statement is false:
The Fourth Edition begins with validity. That gives us a good early point of contrast with Aristotle, who had a notion of validity that I think is actually better than the one in use in modern logic. See section 3.2 of this article, and contrast with what Jeffrey says. What is the difference, exactly? Do you agree with me that Aristotle is on stronger ground, or do you disagree? What are the strengths of each approach?
I'm going to be attempting no more than to introduce the basic concepts, with an eye toward showing how modern logic and Aristotle's logic differ. It's mostly for Tom, because he said he was interested, but perhaps some of you may find it interesting as well. Formal logic is not my chief area of interest in philosophy, of course, so if any of you are well-versed you will probably find points of disagreement which you are free and welcome to argue. For those of you who haven't studied it, I hope I can provide a solid enough introduction to make it worth your while.
The online text is the Fourth Edition, and it has lost what I think is a helpful explanation from earlier editions -- I suppose he thought on reflection that it was too basic. The earlier piece talks about truth, and it points out two things very helpful to keep in mind when doing formal logic:
It is the job of pure logic to point out that if it is true to sayHe goes on to point out that in natural language we would find the second statement to be much LESS true, assuming we know for a fact that Tom stole whatever it was. Pure logic doesn't deal in greater or lesser degrees of truth. It is purely binary: a statement is true, or it is not true. Since it is true that "Tom stole it or Dick stole it," the statement evaluates as true.Tom stole it,then it is equally true to sayTom stole it or Dick stole it.
He has a second example on the other side. There exist albino crows, which means that the following statement is false:
All crows are black.But of course the next statement is true:
Nearly all crows are black.That means we'd be inclined to say that "All crows are black" is NEARLY true. But there is no 'nearly true' in pure logic, any more than there is 'less true.' It is true, or it is false. So "All crows are black" is false. (Examples are from the 1967 edition, pages 3-4.)
The Fourth Edition begins with validity. That gives us a good early point of contrast with Aristotle, who had a notion of validity that I think is actually better than the one in use in modern logic. See section 3.2 of this article, and contrast with what Jeffrey says. What is the difference, exactly? Do you agree with me that Aristotle is on stronger ground, or do you disagree? What are the strengths of each approach?
It's Exactly Alike, Except For Being The Opposite
Now here's a title guaranteed to grab the attention: "The John Kerry Republicans."
The problem wasn't that Kerry had changed his mind. People change their minds on the basis of new evidence.
The problem is that Kerry was trying to convince a crowd who favored "it" that he was their guy, because he had supported their cause before he voted against it. That argument -- "I was on your side before I voted against you" -- is really worthy of the ridicule it received.
House Republicans now are talking to voters who are increasingly, and rightly given recent revelations, suspicious that the NSA program really does have adequate oversight and limits. They're telling the voters, "We once thought this seemed reasonable, but as we have learned more we, like you, have developed concerns."
It's true that both situations involve mind-changing, but otherwise they are precise opposites.
During the 2004 presidential campaign, John Kerry was widely ridiculed when, in discussing Iraq and Afghanistan war funding, he declared, “I actually did vote for [it] before I voted against it.”The author, Marc Thiessen, goes on to claim that this represents a kind of hypocrisy. However, he misunderstands the force of the problem Kerry had in 2004.
Well, now 50 House Republicans can say the same thing about their votes on the National Security Agency’s (NSA) terrorist surveillance program.
The problem wasn't that Kerry had changed his mind. People change their minds on the basis of new evidence.
The problem is that Kerry was trying to convince a crowd who favored "it" that he was their guy, because he had supported their cause before he voted against it. That argument -- "I was on your side before I voted against you" -- is really worthy of the ridicule it received.
House Republicans now are talking to voters who are increasingly, and rightly given recent revelations, suspicious that the NSA program really does have adequate oversight and limits. They're telling the voters, "We once thought this seemed reasonable, but as we have learned more we, like you, have developed concerns."
It's true that both situations involve mind-changing, but otherwise they are precise opposites.
Aristotle’s Categories
My first reading was Paul Studtmann’s article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), “Aristotle’s Categories.” The Categories basically lays out Aristotle's ontology — what exists and what you can say about what exists. Studtmann falls prey to a very common malady in academics, an inability to write for true beginners. I supplemented my reading with a much more amenable SEP article by Robin Smith, “Aristotle’s Logic,” which, along with Grim's explanations in email, helped me understand some unexplained terms and concepts in Studtmann.
There were a couple of interesting things to me about the Categories. The lesser interesting thing is Aristotle’s ontology itself. In essence, he claims there are substances and accidents. Substances exist independently while accidents only exist in substances. For example, a human being is a substance while skin color and height are accidents. You can’t have color by itself; color only exists as a property of a substance.
Substances and accidents are further categorized into universal and particular. Sadly, I discovered that universal accidents are not what happens when God goes on vacation and forgets to turn the gravity off. Instead, universal accidents are the concepts of accidents, such as redness. Universal substances are similarly concepts of particular substances. Humanity would be a universal substance, while Steve Earle would be a particular substance.
Aristotle prioritizes particular substances, calling them first substances; all the rest depend on them for existence: humanity doesn’t exist without individual humans, redness doesn’t exist without apples and other particular things that have that color. Here, he firmly disagrees with Plato, and I agree with him.
Although they use different and somewhat less precise terms, the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation is easily explained with this set of categories. The bread and wine maintain their accidents, but their substances are transformed into the body and blood of Christ.
But that’s old news. More interestingly on this occasion, Aristotle uses the term ‘said of’ for something that only exists in something else, an interesting use of grammar to describe reality. Studtmann informs us that some philosophers have tried to argue that Aristotle was really laying out a theory of language, but too much of the Philosopher’s work treats words as referring to actual things and most philosophers take the Categories as an ontological work, not a linguistic one. Even so, the Categories basically come down to substances and things you can say about substances. The Latin for the title is even the Predicamenta, The Predicates.
Language is a fascinating and important part of philosophy, and I’ll come back to it again.
There were a couple of interesting things to me about the Categories. The lesser interesting thing is Aristotle’s ontology itself. In essence, he claims there are substances and accidents. Substances exist independently while accidents only exist in substances. For example, a human being is a substance while skin color and height are accidents. You can’t have color by itself; color only exists as a property of a substance.
Substances and accidents are further categorized into universal and particular. Sadly, I discovered that universal accidents are not what happens when God goes on vacation and forgets to turn the gravity off. Instead, universal accidents are the concepts of accidents, such as redness. Universal substances are similarly concepts of particular substances. Humanity would be a universal substance, while Steve Earle would be a particular substance.
Aristotle prioritizes particular substances, calling them first substances; all the rest depend on them for existence: humanity doesn’t exist without individual humans, redness doesn’t exist without apples and other particular things that have that color. Here, he firmly disagrees with Plato, and I agree with him.
Although they use different and somewhat less precise terms, the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation is easily explained with this set of categories. The bread and wine maintain their accidents, but their substances are transformed into the body and blood of Christ.
But that’s old news. More interestingly on this occasion, Aristotle uses the term ‘said of’ for something that only exists in something else, an interesting use of grammar to describe reality. Studtmann informs us that some philosophers have tried to argue that Aristotle was really laying out a theory of language, but too much of the Philosopher’s work treats words as referring to actual things and most philosophers take the Categories as an ontological work, not a linguistic one. Even so, the Categories basically come down to substances and things you can say about substances. The Latin for the title is even the Predicamenta, The Predicates.
Language is a fascinating and important part of philosophy, and I’ll come back to it again.
Second look at Detroit?
Maybe the Democrats who've been pointing to Detroit lately as the poster child for libertarian principles are onto something, after all. If so, there's hope even for Somalia.
In my old neighborhood in Houston, we all chipped in and bought private security to beef up our patrols. It was entirely voluntary at $100/year--well within almost anyone's budget. The ones who opted out were understood to be getting a free-rider benefit to some extent, but as long as they didn't mind forgoing perks like a special vacation watch, no one minded all that much.
Much more can be done privately that we often assume.
In my old neighborhood in Houston, we all chipped in and bought private security to beef up our patrols. It was entirely voluntary at $100/year--well within almost anyone's budget. The ones who opted out were understood to be getting a free-rider benefit to some extent, but as long as they didn't mind forgoing perks like a special vacation watch, no one minded all that much.
Much more can be done privately that we often assume.
Conversion stories
Re AGW. They're all in one direction, of course, since they come from Watts up with That. On the other hand, have you ever heard of anyone who converted from deep skepticism to firm AGW belief?
Birth of a party
My eyes popped at the three-year swing in these poll results on NSA surveillance and the proper balance between security and privacy.
As the author notes, every faction swung wildly except for moderates in both parties. A huge majority overall believe the government will use NSA surveillance data for purposes other than to fight terrorism. The author wonders whether a third party will coalesce out of the libertarians on the left and right.
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