Honne and Tatemae

Edward Luttwak, who describes himself as "historian and rancher," rather famously the former, offers an historical parallel to the present difficulties. I will not refer to the political issues of the day other than to note that this is what he is really talking about, but will explore his historical parallel in light of a Japanese (and Chinese) moral standard that Americans usually reject as a moral duty. 

The advantage of turning to the historical example is that the facts are clear. JFK used the Chicago machine, as well as fraud in Texas, to elevate himself to the Presidency. Nixon refused legal remedies, but accepted the result in what Luttwak describes as a patriotic spirit. 

One might ask whether patriotism can really require one to accept being cheated, or what to make of a government whose stability depends upon one side periodically refusing to mention that the other side cheats. On the other hand, this was during a dark period of the Cold War, when accepting being cheated may well have seemed preferable to weakening the United States government in the face of the USSR. JFK was a veteran and a patriot in his way; however corrupt, Nixon (himself not completely lacking in corruption) could reason that he wouldn't hand things over to the Communists.

The Japanese concept at work here is one called Tatemae and Honne, or, 'the façade' and 'the true sound.' There is a parallel concept in China, in which one is expected to maintain an outward façade of happiness and pleasure whatever one feels inside. This is considered an important moral duty to others, because it maintains their happiness and social harmony. It is considered very rude to be honest in ways that are upsetting to others, even if your feelings are grounded on true facts.

I have long thought that an important reason the American system does not (yet) admit of Chinese-style tyranny is that we generally reject this as a duty. We might suggest something like it for Thanksgiving, when people of all political opinions are at the table; but it is less about pretending that the divisions don't exist than about not raising them for a while. 

Likewise, I have suggested in this space that people who are disagreeable in the psychological sense serve a very important social purpose too: they are the ones who will point out when there is a problem everyone else might like to ignore, just because it is more comfortable and agreeable not to mention it. This can permit progress when otherwise progress might never occur. 

The more formal the meeting or the more public the situation, the more codified it will be and the more the tatemae will be displayed and the honne pushed down and repressed. Public and private are separated so ruthlessly in Japanese society that one rarely mixes with the other: sharing your recent family issues with your colleagues is as unthinkable as your wife coming to visit you at work. Should you decide to burden everyone with your worries and negative emotions, you would drop in the esteem of all Japanese around you for disturbing the positive effects of the tatemae.

For although it may take a hard toll on the individual, forbidden from speaking out his distress for fear of troubling his listener, it does create a harmonious atmosphere as all do their best to be cordial and outwardly friendly.

Taking on a burden to protect others is honorable, and doubtless this seems like a way of maintaining honor to the Japanese. Luttwak thinks it was patriotic to pretend in this way, and to avoid making a scene. Returning America to a harmonious atmosphere might be as simple as going along with the façade. Certainly everyone would be happier if we had a more harmonious nation, would they not?

I'm raising the issue for discussion, not to declare judgment on it. My own positions are well known and established, but it's worth talking over -- again, in the historical context rather than the present one, and as a question about whether this is indeed properly entailed in one's moral duties.

"Chinese Vision of Freedom" Redux

State propaganda outlet China Daily assures you that the rapid decline in Uighur birthrates is not at all due to forced sterilization, international studies notwithstanding. No, it's due to 'liberation of women'!

Decreases in the birthrate and natural population growth rate in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in 2018 resulted from the eradication of religious extremism, [an official PRC] report released on Thursday said....

The changes were not caused by "forced sterilization" of the Uygur population, as repeatedly claimed by some Western scholars and politicians, it said.

In a research report released last year, Adrian Zenz, a German scholar, said there had been a significant drop in the natural population growth rate in southern Xinjiang in 2018 and claimed that proved China was trying to control the size of the Uygur population....

In the process of eradicating extremism, the minds of Uygur women were emancipated and gender equality and reproductive health were promoted, making them no long baby-making machines, it said. Women have since been striving to become healthy, confident and independent.

Yes, of course. Also, it's hard to get pregnant while you and your husband are in separate re-education camps.

Coors Beer and Bootlegging

It occurred to me, in a discussion of nostalgia and freedom at AVI's place, that I couldn't think of any reason why it should have been a Federal crime to move Coors Beer east of the Mississippi. It turns out the reason was that the beer wasn't pasteurized. 

It also turns out that bootlegging Coors was not just the business of truckers, but of Presidents and celebrities. There's an interesting story, as often there is with bootlegging. 

Laws VI, 4

This will be the last part of Laws VI, at which point we are halfway through the larger work. Those of you who are getting tired of this can breathe a sigh of relief, or else groan as you realize that there's still just as much to go as we've hit so far.

The closing section has more on marriage, and the proper regulation of recently-married couples to ensure they are properly prolific. Plato views this as a kind of moral duty, so that if you're doing your job and having lots of kids, man and wife can be treated as an honorable member of the community; if not, they need to be taken in hand by a band of elder ladies, and watched over carefully to make sure they're getting the job done. If it doesn't work out after ten years, they're to be divorced by the state and reassigned. Women are meant to marry the first time between 16 and 20, so ten years will give them a plausible second shot if they were married to an impotent husband. Marriage is meant to be for the good of the state, and not for individual happiness, so an unproductive marriage is to be dissolved even if the two partners were happy with each other.

There's also more on urban defense, cached in a discussion about the physical layout of a city. The upshot of this section is that the Athenian is against having city walls, because they make people lazy by making them feel safe. By leaving the city exposed, vigor in defending the city from all suspicious approaches will be maintained -- and thus, a more virtuous citizenry. "Walls ought to be of bronze and iron, and not of earth."

There are also two more important sections on female equality as regards defense. The Athenian is pro-conscription of all, men and women, for service. Women may not be assigned the same duties as men -- this is a time when the major weapons were heavy bronze armor and violent physical combat -- but they should be assigned duties and expected to serve in them. They do get off earlier, at age 50 rather than 60, but there is here too a kind of proportionate equality being maintained.

The other section has to do with public meals, which you may remember from way back in the beginning of the work. Public meals came about because of a necessity of defense, so that the city took to providing regular meals for the fighting men so they wouldn't have to worry about any of their fighters being too hungry to be effective. The Athenian spends a lot of time talking up this practice, and very hesitantly suggesting that he has an idea for improvement that he's very nervous about mentioning to his companions. After a long time, it turns out the idea is that women should be made to come and eat at public meals too -- the effects on communal spirit and public morale are so great that women as well as men should be required to appear, and take their food at the public mess.

Why is he so nervous about suggesting this? Not because of the men! He's worried about an outcry from the women, who will be so outraged at having their eating habits exposed in public that no legislator could hope to withstand them. 

Ath. The careful consideration of this matter, and the arranging and ordering on a common principle of all our institutions relating both to men and women, greatly conduces to the happiness of the state. But at present, such is the unfortunate condition of mankind, that no man of sense will even venture to speak of common tables in places and cities in which they have never been established at all; and how can any one avoid being utterly ridiculous, who attempts to compel women to show in public how much they eat and drink? There is nothing at which the sex is more likely to take offence. For women are accustomed to creep into dark places, and when dragged out into the light they will exert their utmost powers of resistance, and be far too much for the legislator. 

Even the godlike legislator of the Laws quails before women who don't want to be told what to do, or be seen to be eating too much by their society. 

All of this is interesting, but the real pearl in this final section of Book VI is the discussion of slavery. Though we reject slavery, I think rightly, as you shall see the discussion remains important because it generalizes to power relations of all kinds. It is fairly short, so I will quote it liberally. 

Ath. There is no difficulty either in understanding or acquiring most kinds of property, but there is great difficulty in what relates to slaves. And the reason is that we speak about them in a way which is right and which is not right; for what we say about our slaves is consistent and also inconsistent with our practice about them.

Megillus. I do not understand, Stranger, what you mean.

Ath. I am not surprised, Megillus, for the state of the Helots among the Lacedaemonians is of all Hellenic forms of slavery the most controverted and disputed about, some approving and some condemning it; there is less dispute about the slavery which exists among the Heracleots, who have subjugated the Mariandynians, and about the Thessalian Penestae. Looking at these and the like examples, what ought we to do concerning property in slaves? I made a remark, in passing, which naturally elicited a question about my meaning from you. It was this:-We know that all would agree that we should have the best and most attached slaves whom we can get. For many a man has found his slaves better in every way than brethren or sons, and many times they have saved the lives and property of their masters and their whole house-such tales are well known.

Meg. To be sure.

Ath. But may we not also say that the soul of the slave is utterly corrupt, and that no man of sense ought to trust them? And the wisest of our poets, speaking of Zeus, says:

"Far-seeing Zeus takes away half the understanding of men whom the day of slavery subdues." [This is from the Odyssey --Grim]

Different persons have got these two different notions of slaves in their minds-some of them utterly distrust their servants, and, as if they were wild beasts, chastise them with goads and whips, and make their souls three times, or rather many times, as slavish as they were before;-and others do just the opposite.... man is a troublesome animal, and therefore he is not very manageable, nor likely to become so, when you attempt to introduce the necessary division, slave, and freeman, and master.

Cle. That is obvious.

Ath. He is a troublesome piece of goods, as has been often shown by the frequent revolts of the Messenians, and the great mischiefs which happen in states having many slaves who speak the same language, and the numerous robberies and lawless life of the Italian banditti, as they are called. A man who considers all this is fairly at a loss. Two remedies alone remain to us-not to have the slaves of the same country, nor if possible, speaking the same language; in this way they will more easily be held in subjection: secondly, we should tend them carefully, not only out of regard to them, but yet more out of respect to ourselves. And the right treatment of slaves is to behave properly to them, and to do to them, if possible, even more justice than to those who are our equals; for he who naturally and genuinely reverences justice, and hates injustice, is discovered in his dealings with any class of men to whom he can easily be unjust. And he who in regard to the natures and actions of his slaves is undefiled by impiety and injustice, will best sow the seeds of virtue in them; and this may be truly said of every master, and tyrant, and of every other having authority in relation to his inferiors. Slaves ought to be punished as they deserve, and not admonished as if they were freemen, which will only make them conceited. The language used to a servant ought always to be that of a command, and we ought not to jest with them, whether they are males or females-this is a foolish way which many people have of setting up their slaves, and making the life of servitude more disagreeable both for them and for their masters.

Ancient Greek slavery as depicted in Homer was especially of women, as was common throughout the ancient and medieval world. Women were skilled at textile production, weaving and dyeing, and this produced highly valuable and portable trade goods. Women were also generally less likely to revolt successfully and kill their masters; and so, when Troy falls to the Achaeans, like usual they kill all the men and older boys, and enslave all the women and girls. 

Yet the Helots are a major exception, which gets mentioned in this passage here. Perhaps the whole of Sparta's famous warlike nature arises from the Spartans' domination of a whole population of people called the Helots. Because they ruled over this whole tribe of people as lords over slaves, Spartans were constantly afraid of revolt and murder, and thus they organized their whole society to be eternally prepared for war in the ways that have made them so famous even today. 

The banditti of Italy, also mentioned, are escaped slaves who wage war against their former masters (and anyone else, perhaps feeling that it is only just for them to enslave others as they were once themselves enslaved). 

So there are big problems with slavery, and two basic approaches to dealing with it that the Athenian proposes. One is to keep the slaves divided, as by not keeping a lot of one tribe of people together -- better still if they can't speak to each other, because they are from different nations with different languages. Yet even then you have to recognize that attempting domination with the lash only multiplies your difficulties as a master:  the slaves get worse, more dangerous, more distant from you the more force you use to compel their obedience.

The second approach, then, is to adopt a moral view of slavery:  "... to do to them, if possible, even more justice than to those who are our equals; for he who naturally and genuinely reverences justice, and hates injustice, is discovered in his dealings with any class of men to whom he can easily be unjust."

This basic moral principle applies, as he notes, to all other power relations. This raises an interesting question, though, which I will leave open in the hope of encouraging debate.  Can you "be even more just" to someone you keep as a slave?  More broadly, and thus more importantly, how can you be 'even more just' to someone while exercising power over them?  

There's another problem: on Plato's model, what is supposed to justify exercising power is possession of virtue. At least some slaves are noted in the passage as being more virtuous than their masters (this made me think of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, where Pompey is not a slave but is a servant who adopts slave-like behaviors, yet is clearly the moral superior to the Wayne character and is completely and wisely trusted by him). This model clearly is only realizable in the case where some sort of justice, and not the lash, is used by the master; yet it still seems as if even this best model of slavery represents an inversion of Plato's moral ideal that power justly resides with virtue. 

So with that I will leave it open.

On Violence and Today

Donald Trump, a buffoon who stumbled into the Presidency and nevertheless did much more good there than I might have expected, was unwise to call for today's march. Having tens of thousands -- hundreds of thousands -- of angry people outside Congress while they counted the Electoral College votes was bound to result in an attempted incursion. The failure of the police and the military to take this seriously is almost unaccountable, but the President should have known it would happen too. It was wrong to call for such a thing unless he was intending to lead it in an actual revolutionary attempt to overthrow and replace the government.

This is a moral claim presented as a material conditional. I believe that no true son of the American revolution can ever reject political violence per se. How could you vote for a successor of George Washington, who crossed the Delaware and killed sleeping soldiers on Christmas morning? How could you honor the Founders at all, or what they built? Revolutionary violence is at least sometimes called for in human history, and when it is, it is. 

What is never called for is endangering lives when you don't mean to follow-through. Trump was just attempting some political theater, the obvious consequences of which he didn't bother to understand. The military I criticize in the post below for failing to do the obvious thing too. The DC police apparently opened the barricades and let the mob though. 

After a year of watching mobs storm police stations and Federal buildings, or attempt to set them on fire (often with police inside!), it should have been obvious that this was going to happen. Apparently almost no steps were taken to prevent it.

Now we will be told, in the interest of unity and calming the waters, that we should give up all our grievances and admit that there was no truth in them. There was, though.

The elections really were illegitimate and stolen, and it really has been proven: Pennsylvania blatantly violated its state constitution. Wisconsin violated its laws. Georgia violated its laws both in the 3 November election and again in the run up to yesterday's.  For example, Georgia allowed Stacey Abrams to continue to register new voters even though Georgia law specifically forbids voting in a runoff if you didn't vote in the general. 

There still remain important matters that haven't been proven in court, such as the ballots-in-suitcases that were pulled out in Fulton County after the poll watchers and media were dismissed from the building, then counted for hours. Even if every one of those turned out to have an innocent explanation, though, it's clear that this election was illegally conducted in ways designed to give Democrats an advantage.

That being true, it is right and proper to say that it is true. The fact that there are weak-minded people out there who might engage in bad actions if they get excited doesn't excuse us from the duty to speak the truth. This is especially binding when we are speaking a truth that those in power would very much like suppressed. Right now the whole of the media and the Democratic party -- which is about to assume all three elected parts of the government, having promised to pack the fourth one to their satisfaction -- wants you to quietly pretend that they won fair and square.

They would also like you to be ashamed to have been associated with any of this, so you won't push back on what they do with their newfound power. 'Wouldn't that be giving encouragement to crazies, like your friend in the buffalo hat and Viking tattoos? You shouldn't encourage them. We won fair and square. Say it again. Everything we're doing is legitimate and justified, because we won fairly and you are bad people.' 

We do have to decide on basic question of what is to be done. Elise asks, in one of the Plato posts below, what we do if the government falls into wickedness and also there is nowhere else to go. That's a good question. There's nowhere else to go.

Does that justify revolution? Maybe. At this point, I'm inclined to be stoic in the literal sense -- to return to philosophy, accept what can't be changed, and to hope that the Biden crew of Establishmentarians won't get too crazy. I'm going to try, in other words, to obey the constitutional order and do what a citizen ought to do. 

That said, I absolutely do embrace political violence on those occasions in human history when it is truly called for and necessary. I do not reject it as an option. I just intend to try to live peacefully, and see if that works. Even the mighty Declaration of Independence says:

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience has shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

So we'll try that first.

"The Chinese Vision of Freedom"

The entire democracy movement of Hong Kong was just arrested; I imagine they have a different 'vision of freedom' than this author, and they're Chinese too.

Half of this article's claims require taking official statistics from Beijing as if they were plausibly related to the truth; the other half is an argument that we should give up our ideas of freedom in favor of the PRC's. Tell it to the Uighur, or the Tibetans, or the Taiwanese. 

The Blue Flu

Military more than political, really. 

I had read that the DC guard was going to be deployed today. If I were handling the deployment, I would have put them around the Capitol as the OBVIOUS place that would be in danger, since that's where the Electoral College votes were being counted today. The only way even a very large protest could have disrupted that would be to penetrate the building; so, job one would be to prevent that from happening.

Turns out the Pentagon "rejected the request" from the civilian government to secure their own national capitol against an obvious risk at a critical moment.  Just like the police who have been letting rioters carry on nationwide, the military decided it didn't want the bad press of having to enforce order against political protests that spin into violence.

National Guard units are activating now, at the President's order, to enforce the mayor's 6 PM curfew which could have been avoided if everyone had done their job in the first place. The Capitol should never have been left unsecured today.

This failure of professionalism and discipline by our officers' corps will have profound and negative consequences. 

A Brief Political Post

Vice President Mike Pence, ex officio President of the Senate, has decided not to use any powers to choose alternative slates of electors. As the link notes, Pence is wrong about the history here; both John Adams and especially Thomas Jefferson used exactly the power he is disavowing. 

Nevertheless, the matter is decided. Even under the understanding that the President of the Senate could choose which slate to prefer, Mike Pence has made his choice. He is the constitutional officer assigned with the duty, and he has decided what that duty entails. No one else has the right to gainsay this decision, including any of us.

As such, the electoral college results will -- after some Congressional theater -- produce a Biden presidency. Regardless of whether the popular elections that selected the electors were constitutional, legal, or fraudulent, the electors have sent their votes and the President of the Senate will accept them. Congress will count them, and Biden will win. There will be no legally legitimate grounds for further contests. 

Vice President Pence has acted according to his own best judgment, in the most consequential decision of his tenure. He has the right and power to make this decision, and so the matter is settled.

Plato's Laws VI, 3

Of the modification of the laws over time, the Athenian admits its necessity but is clearly greatly bothered by it. In fact, he can barely bring himself to speak of it; almost the whole section that is supposed to be about letting future generations alter the laws turns out to be a long discourse on the importance of good courtship and marriage rituals. 

The initial argument for accepting that modification should be permitted is a metaphor, or analogy, to a painter who wishes not just to perfect a painting but to keep it looking good through the ages.

Ath. Suppose that some one had a mind to paint a figure in the most beautiful manner, in the hope that his work instead of losing would always improve as time went on-do you not see that being a mortal, unless he leaves some one to succeed him who will correct the flaws which time may introduce, and be able to add what is left imperfect through the defect of the artist, and who will further brighten up and improve the picture, all his great labour will last but a short time?

Cle. True.

Ath. And is not the aim of the legislator similar? First, he desires that his laws should be written down with all possible exactness; in the second place, as time goes on and he has made an actual trial of his decrees, will he not find omissions? Do you imagine that there ever was a legislator so foolish as not to know that many things are necessarily omitted, which some one coming after him must correct, if the constitution and the order of government is not to deteriorate, but to improve in the state which he has established?

Cle. Assuredly, that is the sort of thing which every one would desire...

Ath. As we are about to legislate and have chosen our guardians of the law, and are ourselves in the evening of life, and they as compared with us are young men, we ought not only to legislate for them, but to endeavour to make them not only guardians of the law but legislators themselves, as far as this is possible.

So they agree that the young must be taught to be guardians of the law, and the Athenian proposes a speech to try to convince the young of the importance of doing this. Yet almost at once he begins talking about marriage: how to structure society so that there is proper interaction between families, so that potential brides will be known to families into which they might marry; the importance of games and sports and dances for the youth, where they will get to know one another (including, he states, in various 'states of undress appropriate to the sport, such as modesty allows). There is a restatement of the rule that all men must be married by thirty-five, or else pay various fines and penalties; and of the bar on dowries, which is relaxed a bit (especially for the rich) provided that even more fines are paid. 

The Athenian proposes here an explicitly anti-eugenic arrangement, whereby the rich must marry the poor and the intelligent must marry the "slow." He argues that "[e]very man shall follow, not after the marriage which is most pleasing to himself, but after that which is most beneficial to the state." That principle is from the Republic, but the mode of marriage being proposed in the Laws is the exact opposite of the Republic's model. 

Presumably this is of the utmost importance in the Athenian's mind toward ensuring that there is a well-settled, disciplined population into which the adjustment of the laws might be trusted. The segue is not clearly justified, so it must be a thought that follows so naturally in the Athenian's mind -- and perhaps in Plato's, though it is important to keep their identities separate given Plato's love of irony -- that he doesn't see why anyone would need a justification for what seems to me like a significant departure. Indeed, he not only does not justify the departure, he returns to the subject for a single (rather lengthy) sentence, and then immediately dives back into marriage. 

In any case, right in the middle of this discussion of marriage he does eventually tell us what he thinks the process for amending the laws should be. It should be a ten year apprenticeship, with the original legislator working with a younger man to adjust the laws of the colony as they find the need. Once that ten years is past, the laws should be fixed in a permanent form. No adjustments should be possible except with the unanimous consent of many different people:

Ath. A ten years experience of sacrifices and dances, if extending to all particulars, will be quite sufficient; and if the legislator be alive they shall communicate with him, but if he be dead then the several officers shall refer the omissions which come under their notice to the guardians of the law, and correct them, until all is perfect; and from that time there shall be no more change, and they shall establish and use the new laws with the others which the legislator originally gave them, and of which they are never, if they can help, to change aught; or, if some necessity overtakes them, the magistrates must be called into counsel, and the whole people, and they must go to all the oracles of the Gods; and if they are all agreed, in that case they may make the change, but if they are not agreed, by no manner of means, and any one who dissents shall prevail, as the law ordains.

Now this is a city of 5,040 households, which is perhaps the size of a small town. Has anyone been to a town council where there was no dissenter on any public question of importance? 

A similar regulation affects NATO, by the way; it was brought into being in spite of significant distrust among its member states, and consequently it cannot act nor change any of its regulations except by the consent of all members. That gives each state a great deal of confidence that the alliance will not be turned into an oppressive system: every state can object to any decision, and any such objection shall rule. 

NATO was nevertheless highly functional for decades, and won the Cold War, and even today it manages joint actions in various places. Turkey's drift towards China and Iran (and Russia) suggests that the alliance may no longer be capable of achieving its original major project, though fortunately Russia is less threatening than was the USSR. 

So perhaps there is something to be said for this suggestion, since it seems to remove much of the danger of tyranny. You will have known the laws when you joined the colony, and if you get through the ten years without having reason to object to them (in which case exile or outlawry is the path of the good man), you will gain a household veto on any new laws. It will be hard to change the laws yourself, should you wish to do so, but in return you gain a measure of stability and confidence that the government will not be turned against you (as the NATO members feared the alliance might be). 

On the other hand, the system is highly non-adaptable. Our own constitution would probably not have survived a similar process, even if every state rather than every household were given the veto.  In fact the only one of our amendments to occur in the first ten years was the 11th (the Bill of Rights having been passed at the same time). 

Back on the first hand, however, Plato's colony is not intended as an expansionist project. The big compromises of the first decades of the United States were over expansion as it changed the balance of power between the states. Aside from that, the 13-15th amendments were products of the war that was sparked in part because of the changes in the balance of power brought about by the introduction of new states, slave or free; and the 17th-21st were reactions to mass immigration, chiefly, which Plato's colony would forbid. (The 19th would presumably not have been necessary in any case, given Plato's view of equality for women.) The 16th we'd have been better off without; the 22nd was really just a restatement of a traditional principle that FDR chose to violate; the others are mostly small adjustments. If the United States had remained in its original form, perhaps many of the changes that followed later would not have been needed.

Of course, it is not merely constitutional amendments that Plato's colony would enact only by unanimous consent, but any sort of changes to the law. The largest and most obvious objection is that this might have prevented us from abolishing slavery; by coincidence, slavery is the subject of the next and last part of my commentary on this book.

Justice

Flyboys, 2006, after a pilot complains about a German pilot who killed a bailed-out pilot unlawfully:

Captain Thenault: "Reports can be filed. But you want "justice"? *You're* the man in the air. *You're* the man with the *gun*!"

Apropos of nothing. Just an old movie quote that happened to come to mind.  

Cool if it works

SpaceX is trying to move toward more reusable rockets. The next step is to snag the returning rocket with a launch arm, which would save having to add "bulky legs" to the cylinder. Watching SpaceX videos is starting to be a lot of fun.

Plato's Laws VI, 2

These next two days are potentially momentous, politically; but few of us are in a position to have even an indirect effect on the outcome. Thus, I shall try to studiously ignore the matters of the moment in favor of the more important matters of the eternal. Let's return to Plato's Laws, Book VI.

While I am going to continue to ignore the discussion of particular offices, e.g. how judges and magistrates should be distinguished, I do want to note in passing the truth of something Plato has to say about the officer in charge of education.

Ath. There remains the minister of the education of youth, male and female; he too will rule according to law; one such minister will be sufficient, and he must be fifty years old, and have children lawfully begotten, both boys and girls by preference, at any rate, one or the other. He who is elected, and he who is the elector, should consider that of all the great offices of state, this is the greatest; for the first shoot of any plant, if it makes a good start towards the attainment of its natural excellence, has the greatest effect on its maturity; and this is not only true of plants, but of animals wild and tame, and also of men. Man, as we say, is a tame or civilized animal; nevertheless, he requires proper instruction and a fortunate nature, and then of all animals he becomes the most divine and most civilized; but if he be insufficiently or ill educated he is the most savage of earthly creatures. Wherefore the legislator ought not to allow the education of children to become a secondary or accidental matter. 

The idea that children must be properly trained less the advantages of civilization be lost to the worst kinds of savagery is an important one. This is, as he says, in some ways the first business of a society. If it fails in this, as we appear to be doing in spite of sending more children to more years of education than ever before, there is a great peril of failing in everything. 

That dire point aside, note Plato's interest in ensuring that the girls and boys are both considered in education. It's not just that he mentions "youth male and female," but that his ideal officer will be someone who has successfully raised both sons and daughters. (I would not qualify, both because I'm not quite old enough and because I've only raised a son.) 

Plato has the Athenian restate this view of equality in his discussion of the final purpose of life and of the state:

Ath. There was one main point about which we were agreed-that a man's whole energies throughout life should be devoted to the acquisition of the virtue proper to a man, whether this was to be gained by study, or habit, or some mode of acquisition, or desire, or opinion, or knowledge-and this applies equally to men and women, old and young-the aim of all should always be such as I have described; anything which may be an impediment, the good man ought to show that he utterly disregards.

It is not merely that women are capable of some virtues, and should be encouraged to develop the ones that they can; but that, exactly like men, the whole business of their lives should be the inculcation of virtue. Courage, temperance, justice, all these things are just as important for women as men. 

This is familiar ground for readers of the Republic, but it's even more strongly stated in the Laws. In the Republic, Socrates defends merely the proposition that highly capable women should be admitted to the Guardian or Auxiliary classes, 'though it is hardly to be expected that they are going to be the equals of the men in those classes.' The view of the Republic is eugenic, in that the hope is that the classes will breed true, although some measures are taken to push failures back into the lower classes. The Laws view is not: all citizens, male and female, are to be educated and taught to strive for virtue to the best of their ability. 

This last passage is immediately followed by a remark, perhaps important to us today, about what is to be done if the civilization ultimately fails and falls into vice.

Ath. And if at last necessity plainly compels him to be an outlaw from his native land, rather than bow his neck to the yoke of slavery and be ruled by inferiors, and he has to fly, an exile he must be and endure all such trials, rather than accept another form of government, which is likely to make men worse. 

Death before dishonor; become an outlaw before submitting to tyranny. This much I wholly endorse.

There are two more matters in this book before we finish with it that each deserve their own section. The first is the matter of leaving the legislative power to future generations, so they may correct flaws while hopefully not undermining the original project. The second is a discussion of slavery, which even this idealized ancient society did not imagine it could avoid. 

Thank you, Mr. Nunes

A good summary of a disgraceful episode.

A Band Like This

It's been a tough year, but this guy's was at least as bad as yours.

I hope so, anyway.

Tempora, Mores

This is quite a development.

This means that in my lifetime we will have gone from a nation that could be scandalized by a President giving an interview to Playboy to a nation incapable of being scandalized by a President plagiarizing from Playboy.

Well, she'll be President the day after tomorrow, so to speak. Unless Trump's people pull off a miracle, and then win the war they'd start if they did. The point isn't about her, though, it's about us.  

Authority and Legitimacy

D29 links an essay with an interesting conception of what the terms "authority" and "legitimacy" mean. It's a little idiosyncratic, but it's a plausible frame for thinking about the problems Plato's Athenian has been encountering. (The essay, and its predecessor, are also worth reading in their own right; at least for those who accept that the recent election, characterized by outright violations of law and state constitutions, which were then blessed by all the courts, represents an effective end to constitutional government. However, I am here interested in the philosophy, not the politics.)

So here is how he defines his concepts:

I'll try to be more explicit about what I mean by the terms 'authority' and 'legitimacy'. Authority derives from the degree that a regime reflects the truth of human nature. Legitimacy refers to the degree that a regime reflects the views of the population it purports to represent. A bit of reflection will suggest that a given regime may be legitimate, yet lack authority--and vice versa, unfortunately. In an imperfect world, authority and legitimacy will normally be imperfect, as well. However, I take it as given that the regime established by our written Constitution had sufficient authority and legitimacy to command the consent of the population.

Arguably those are exactly the problems the Athenian is wrestling with in the last two books of the Laws. On the one hand, he needs a state that has legitimacy in this sense: the people who live under it will continue to consent to be governed by it. He takes it as read that some sort of equality is necessary to maintaining this legitimacy. So, in Book V, he proposes several approaches to ensuring this legitimacy, e.g., the complete equality of common ownership of everything, or the proportionate equality of his more complex system of tiered wealth.

Book V falters on the ground of human nature, though: the first approach is one no one will endure, anywhere at any time. The second is also one that is going to break up on the rocks of human nature, including the ordinary human activities of reproduction, economic activity, etc. These states can't exercise authority on these terms, which means that whatever legitimacy is gained is insufficient. 

Book VI has the Athenian turn to an important point of human nature, which is inequality: specifically the inequality of virtue, which enables only some to be trustworthy with powerful political offices. He has an elaborate system, again, designed to try to ensure that only the best people gain power and exercise it well:  that is, a system of authority that one could trust. 

The problem here proves then to be legitimacy: human beings will not accept that they are unworthy of equality of power, and will revolt against a scheme that sets out to rule them without giving them a share. The Athenian proposes accepting some schema that will allow the less-worthy to participate in government offices, but proposes that it needs to be minimized because it's terribly dangerous and destructive to give power to the vicious. 

So whether or not you think these essays describe our current conditions well, I think it's very helpful for trying to see the problems Plato is teasing out. Feel free to reference it in our discussions of the Laws.

“Awomen”

It’s more rhetoric than prayer, I guess. 

UPDATE:

Some clever rejoinders:

"How will the churches know which are the hymns and which are the hers?"

"Joe Biden to call for national mask mandate and womandate."

Add any more you find in the comments.

Venison Mince Pies

I forgot to take a picture, but the venison pies were great. I took AVI’s advice and omitted ingredients I wasn’t sure about, but left in Christmas spices that sounded plausible with game. Highly recommended. 

Plato's Laws VI

The sixth book of the Laws contains an important argument on the need to maintain equality versus the need to ensure that not just anyone is given a public office with great powers. The last book showed us limits on how much equality human beings are really prepared to accept, with the Athenian nevertheless advocating for taking it as far as possible -- the ideal society absolutely abandoning any idea of property or ownership per se, and the second-best society at least trying to impose a kind of proportionate equality. Neither one was really workable, but we're going to proceed 'as best we can' with the second-best society. 

(Note that the Athenian promised us a third-best kind of society, and then said he'd get back to it later.)

In this book, though, the Athenian himself is suddenly pointing out how important it is to set limits on equality. Equality of wealth may be fine and dandy, but equality of power is really dangerous. Power should only belong to those who have been carefully trained and taught how to wield it in accord with society's values and constitution. If it should fall into the hands of people who don't understand the value of the society's laws and existing order, they'll run things up on the rocks. 

I'm going to skip nearly all the discussion about the proper offices, since they pertain to a kind of social organization we won't attempt. I'm going to focus instead on two points: who the proper voters are, and who the proper officials aren't. 

This is going to be a kind of representative democracy, with officers like magistrates elected by voters. The Athenian wants voters who will make good choices, but he thinks that it takes time to see the value of a set of laws. The thing to do is to reserve the right to vote, then, to only those who "have been imbued with them from childhood, and have been nurtured in them, and become habituated to them." These will choose officers, it is hoped, who will use the power entrusted to them to support the constitutional order and the values of the state. Until that class has had time to develop, the original founders of the colony will serve as trustees. 

That class of voters turns out to be a subclass of citizens, but not just anyone who grew up in the new colony. They're going to be veterans: nobody gets to vote who has not served in the infantry or cavalry (a surprising and pleasing addition, given the earlier discussion of the worth of the infantry vs. the marines -- who were like the cavalry in the way the Athenian criticizes). They also have to have continued their service for as long as the law permits, i.e., they can't stop showing up for drill and duty and retain the power to vote. 

Now this will not be an expeditionary army, but a defensive one. So we are not talking about committing to endless tours of war, but about remaining part of the defensive force in the city -- somewhat akin to being qualified to vote by being a member of a volunteer fire department, or the citizen's militia, or the National Guard, or the police. Those citizens, who put their lives on the line and do the hard work of being on call to protect the city, are the ones qualified to elect officers.

There is no secret ballot. There is the opposite of a secret ballot. You have to put your nominee's name on a tablet with a list of all your ancestors and relatives. Then there is a process of multiple ballots, so that if anyone objects to any of the proposed magistrates all your ancestors and relatives can be asked to discuss the matter with you before you vote again. Only after this process has occurred three times is the selection final. 

Note that the voting is a sacred process, done in the most revered sanctuary, but the objections and disputation about who is a fit officer is moved to the marketplace. It interests me that this ties the whole of the public spaces of town into the process and allows for hot disputation, while emphasizing the sacredness of the duty to vote wisely. 

Who are the right officers to elect? Obviously, at this point in the dialogue, you know the answer:  the right officer is the person who has the right virtues for the job. Virtue is worthy of honor. A just society rewards that virtue by assigning the person who has it an office that is an honor, and also allows that person to exercise their virtue in a way that benefits everyone. There is a very nice reflexivity between the virtues you have and the duties and honors you receive. 

Who are the wrong people? Just as obviously, those who lack the right virtues for the job. But there's a problem: people who lack virtue may also lack humility, and be unwilling to accept (or unable to recognize) that they aren't the best person to be entrusted with power. 

There's another problem: this recognizes a basic inequality between the citizens. Some are good and worthy, and others are not. This society is supposed to be based on equality, to the point that the Athenian is striving to create mathematical equalities as far as possible. Yet at the root of the politics, if it is going to work, they need good officers and not bad ones. The truth is that not everyone is equally fit to wield power. 

What this is likely to produce, says the Athenian, is a demand from the unworthy for offices to be assigned randomly -- so that they will not miss out, or be treated as lesser men by their society. The problem, of course, is that they are lesser men. Not treating them that way is very perilous. 

Ath. The mode of election which has been described is in a mean between monarchy and democracy, and such a mean the state ought always to observe; for servants and masters never can be friends, nor good and bad, merely because they are declared to have equal privileges. For to unequals equals become unequal, if they are not harmonized by measure; and both by reason of equality, and by reason of inequality, cities are filled with seditions. The old saying, that "equality makes friendship," is happy and also true; but there is obscurity and confusion as to what sort of equality is meant. For there are two equalities which are called by the same name, but are in reality in many ways almost the opposite of one another; one of them may be introduced without difficulty, by any state or any legislator in the distribution of honours: this is the rule of measure, weight, and number, which regulates and apportions them. But there is another equality, of a better and higher kind, which is not so easily recognized. This is the judgment of Zeus; among men it avails but little; that little, however, is the source of the greatest good to individuals and states. For it gives to the greater more, and to the inferior less and in proportion to the nature of each; and, above all, greater honour always to the greater virtue, and to the less less; and to either in proportion to their respective measure of virtue and education. And this is justice, and is ever the true principle of states, at which we ought to aim, and according to this rule order the new city which is now being founded, and any other city which may be hereafter founded. To this the legislator should look-not to the interests of tyrants one or more, or to the power of the people, but to justice always; which, as I was saying, the distribution of natural equality among unequals in each case. But there are times at which every state is compelled to use the words, "just," "equal," in a secondary sense, in the hope of escaping in some degree from factions. For equity and indulgence are infractions of the perfect and strict rule of justice. And this is the reason why we are obliged to use the equality of the lot, in order to avoid the discontent of the people; and so we invoke God and fortune in our prayers, and beg that they themselves will direct the lot with a view to supreme justice. And therefore, although we are compelled to use both equalities, we should use that into which the element of chance enters as seldom as possible.

This is an interesting philosophical move, one that tries to preserve the idea of equality while admitting blatant inequalities -- 'gives to the greater more, and to the lesser less.' The basic idea is that the same rule is being applied to all parties, and those who are found by the rule to be more worthy are given more. They're held to the same standard, and gain more honors (including especially the honor of being assigned power) if they prove worthier. 

So why not just say, "Look, people aren't really equal, so let's stop pretending and give the better people more power"? According to the passage, that leads to sedition among the worse; and sometimes that sedition grows strong enough that even the best kind of society can't help but distribute honors at random, or anyway according to some scheme that makes sure they're more available to the less worthy. That should be minimized, the Athenian suggests, but it can't be expected to be avoided. 

Note again that this is about power, not wealth. The same society is going to enforce some proportionate limits on wealth, at the same time it tries to assure inequalities of power as much as it can. If successful, the inequalities of power won't cause corruption in the wealth equalities because virtuous people will be given the power, and they won't use it to dodge limits or enrich themselves. But we know it won't be successful: sometimes powers have to be assigned by lot, or in another way to ensure the less worthy have offices. Thus, corruption is sure to arise at least insofar as less virtuous people are elevated to positions of power. 

Aristotle viewed this approach as unlikely to be workable anyway; as he says in the first book of the Rhetoric, it's always best to give as little power as possible to even carefully-chosen magistrates because even the best people tend to use it to help themselves and their factions and families. It's a human weakness. Yet for the Athenian, the only hope of maintaining a successful equality of wealth lies in an unequal distribution of power he admits is impossible to maintain. 

Yep

It's the club soda of philosophies.

A Short Delay

I was planning to get to Laws VI today, but we have lost power. I could try reading by candlelight, and perhaps I shall when the meager sunlight is gone. I won’t be able to write much today, though: just picking on my phone while it has power. 

So you are excused from your philosophy lecture for today. Do catch Elise’s explanation in the last section about how she had a similar approach in mind, distinct from both Plato’s and UBI in interesting ways. 

Hogmanay

 

New Year, in the Cimmerian style.

The Late, Great Hank Williams

I have a few records that belonged to my grandfather that give "Hank Williams" as the artist -- not Hank Williams, Sr., but just the name of the man. He died on New Year's Eve, 1953. 

A Refutation of Plato?

Confer this with all you have read.

Is this a refutation, or a confirmation? Is Ireland a proof of his concept, given its commitment to this mathematical music? Or is it a denial of the claims, given that Ireland is not foremost among the world's nations?

The High Reel

Now I've posted this before, some of you may remember it. The concert goes on for a good ways after, and it's all worth your time, as is what came before. But it's this part to which I want now, as in years before, to draw your attenion.

Our friend Plato would have had good things to say about this, I do not doubt. Men who can play like that are on the spectrum with gods, as discussed not long ago.

Philosophy and Safety

A younger cousin is expecting a child. I called to congratulate him. He asked if we were being safe. “I ride motorcycles for fun,” I told him. 

Philosophy is the base human discipline not only because it happened to give rise to all the others, but also because it is the discipline for determining what is best in life. 

Safety ain’t it.

Plato's Laws V, 6

The rest of Book V wrestles with the problems we identified in the last two discussions, especially the ways in which what we call capitalism will distort the equality of the initial division. 

The Athenian suggests that, now, the state must decide on a system for handling property ownership. The best of all system, he claims, is that all shall be held in common and in conditions of friendship. This means not just property but everything: wives, children, nothing shall be thought of as properly belonging to anyone, but all as the common property and business of all. There is no real argument given for this being the best possible system because Plato had already argued for it in the Republic, where he admits that only the Guardians and Auxiliaries will be rational enough to see its value. Here the Athenian simply asserts that it is the best system, but admits that absolutely no one anywhere abides by it, so it probably won't be acceptable to this colony either.

No, people are going to want private property, and private relationships like spousal ones, and to parent their own children. So the problem becomes one of how to ensure that some sort of equality is maintained among the populace.

The Athenian proposes a whole series of anti-capitalist regulations meant to ensure that no one accumulates great wealth. Most important is a regulation that you shouldn't buy or sell your assigned land. It isn't actually forbidden, but anyone who does comes under religious censure and public curse. The idea here is not to provide you with a basis for profit, but with a permanent source of support and standing within a community that is meant to approximate human equality. 

People should not be able to own gold or silver, or currencies issued by other nations abroad; only the local currency should be possessed, as necessary to further local transactions or pay wages (note that slaves are expected to be paid wages). People who have business abroad may draw currency, once the government has approved their going abroad; but when they return, they need to hand in their foreign currency for a like amount of the local currency.

So they can profit, then, on their foreign trips? Yes, profit is allowed, and not just on foreign trips but by regular economic activity at home. However, there are to be limits placed on wealth acquisition. The initial value of the equal lot that everyone received is to be taken as a lower bound: no one should be allowed to fall below it, the Athenian says. presumably meaning that the state should provide new funds as necessary to those who do. 

This lower-bound value is also to be used as the basis for calculating the upper bound. The state is to divide society into classes based on those who have twice, three times, or four times the original value of the lottery distribution. These classes will be assigned different political powers, although so far we have not heard yet exactly how they will be differentially empowered. But what we do hear, now, is that the Athenian wants to limit the absolute upper limit of wealth at four times the initial lottery value. Everything one earns after that is to be handed over to the state.

There is a proof along the way that good men can't grow exceedingly rich, which is mathematical and logical rather than pragmatic. As such, it is subject to Aristotle's dictum (frequently cited here, because I take it to be one of the most important Aristotelian insights and a kind of proto-pragmatism) that proofs from strict logic cannot apply to worldly affairs. I am therefore inclined to dismiss it, but it is worth noting because it allows the Athenian to assume that anyone who has grown very rich is also not morally good.

Note that the upper bound is on wealth, not income. Once you have grown in wealth to four times the original amount you received at lottery, there is a 100% tax on all future income, which carries on forever until you lose enough to fall below the upper bound.

The Athenian also describes the division of the city, physically, into legal departments; here he makes the claim I mentioned earlier, which is that the capital should be at the center of the territory in order to ensure the closest thing to equality of access to the center of law and power. Equality is not going to be perfect -- the most outlying farms will be more distant that the inlying ones -- but that is also true for the wealth system. Some are going to be as much as four times richer than others, and you can rise or fall within limits on how much you can rise or fall. 

It's hard to imagine what a modern society would look like if it attempted to enforce a rule that one could be only four times as rich, in total wealth, as the poorest member of one's society. There are of course also big problems in terms of incentives to work that come from setting a permanent 100% tax on the most successfully productive of the citizenry; but that part, at least, doesn't bother the Athenian. He does not want the society to grow rich, he wants it to be good, and he thinks that excessive wealth concentration is opposed to both personal moral goodness and social stability.

A practical problem: what about the problem of mental health, so that "the poorest" may be incapable of maintaining anything like a reasonable personal standard of wealth? There are two answers to that, one of which is explicit and the other implicit. The implicit answer is that the wealth is not personal, but per household: if a household contains an incompetent member, they are meant to sort that our internally. The householder should be a competent family member, with incompetents to be cared for within the household. The explicit answer is, of course, that households that fall below the lower wealth threshold are to be supported by state resources until they are back at that threshold. 

The book closes ironically, with the Athenian admitting about this system exactly the same thing he admitted about the "everything in common system" -- no one does this, and probably no one would agree to it anyway. The legislator ends up admitting it to the public, and suggesting, "Look, this is just a model, we'll just try to approximate it and leave off the parts that prove impossible." So why did we run through these two systems that are so opposed to human nature that no one does and no one would adopt them? These are two views of human equality, both of which run up against human nature (as well, returning to Aristotle's point, as practical reality). The first one is perfectly equal; the second is only approximately equal; neither is obtainable, because equality is not what we really want.

Social stability is going to require some sort of equality, though. What kind, since neither true equality nor even approximate equality are acceptable to us?

Plato's Laws V, 5: Divisions of Land Part Two

Again, today I'm handling only a few paragraphs of this section, because there's a lot buried in them. The rest of this book turns on the division of land, and tomorrow or thereabouts I'll get to the rest of it. For the moment, though, I want to examine just the introduction to the problem.

"Ath. Another piece of good fortune must not be forgotten, which, as we were saying, the Heraclid colony had, and which is also ours-that we have escaped division of land and the abolition of debts; for these are always a source of dangerous contention, and a city which is driven by necessity to legislate upon such matters can neither allow the old ways to continue, nor yet venture to alter them. We must have recourse to prayers, so to speak, and hope that a slight change may be cautiously effected in a length of time. And such a change can be accomplished by those who have abundance of land, and having also many debtors, are willing, in a kindly spirit, to share with those who are in want, sometimes remitting and sometimes giving, holding fast in a path of moderation, and deeming poverty to be the increase of a man's desires and not the diminution of his property. For this is the great beginning of salvation to a state, and upon this lasting basis may be erected afterwards whatever political order is suitable under the circumstances; but if the change be based upon an unsound principle, the future administration of the country will be full of difficulties. That is a danger which, as I am saying, is escaped by us, and yet we had better say how, if we had not escaped, we might have escaped; and we may venture now to assert that no other way of escape, whether narrow or broad, can be devised but freedom from avarice and a sense of justice-upon this rock our city shall be built; for there ought to be no disputes among citizens about property. If there are quarrels of long standing among them, no legislator of any degree of sense will proceed a step in the arrangement of the state until they are settled. But that they to whom God has given, as he has to us, to be the founders of a new state as yet free from enmity-that they should create themselves enmities by their mode of distributing lands and houses, would be superhuman folly and wickedness."

So here the Athenian begins by nothing something mentioned in an earlier book, i.e., that the colony is lucky because it doesn't have pre-existing distributions of land or debt to worry about. It can divide land anew without having to tread among the pre-existing jealousies and resentments of the people.

These very issues are problems for us, though. As Congress proposes new debts or new divisions, or the elimination of whole classes of debt (like student loans), it aggravates the existing divisions in society. 

This can be ok, Plato suggests, if those who have are generous about giving things up, and those who have not are not greedy. Well, many things could be ok if human nature was better than it is; but both of these are relative concepts. Who is going to say that you have been generous enough, or that the poor who want this or that concession are being too greedy? Is waiving medical debt ok, but not student loans? Both, but not mortgage payments? 

In Aristotle's Politics, this very aspect of government by the many turns out to be the failing point of many constitutions. In aristocracies, the rich are powerful enough to prevent any concessions to the poor -- until the poor revolt. In democracies, the poor are powerful enough to vote to seize whatever they want from the rich -- until the rich hire mercenaries and overthrow the state, establishing themselves as its overlords. In both cases, given Aristotle's concept that there is a healthy form and an unhealthy form of every government, the movement is in the direction of a corrupted form.

Still, say you could do it. Conceptually, how would you do it? What would make sense to me is a kind of corporate form of redistribution: i.e., take land away from those who have not managed to use it productively, and assign it to those with smaller estates who seem to have developed good systems of management and fair conditions for their workers. Just as you might demote an executive, or promote one who seems to be doing well, you might redistribute land and resources in this way. 

You could even then ease the hard feelings from the losers by compensating them: perhaps by disguising the demotion as a "promotion to a distinguished emeritus position" with less practical power and control, but a comfortable sinecure. This kind of fine adjustment might work for the sort of system Plato is envisioning, one with a king (the analog to the CEO of a corporation) and a legislator empowered to introduce new rules. 

That is not what Plato has in mind. What Plato has in mind is mathematical and geometric. 

Ath. "How then can we rightly order the distribution of the land? In the first place, the number of the citizens has to be determined, and also the number and size of the divisions into which they will have to be formed; and the land and the houses will then have to be apportioned by us as fairly as we can. The number of citizens can only be estimated satisfactorily in relation to the territory and the neighbouring states. The territory must be sufficient to maintain a certain number of inhabitants in a moderate way of life-more than this is not required; and the number of citizens should be sufficient to defend themselves against the injustice of their neighbours, and also to give them the power of rendering efficient aid to their neighbours when they are wronged. After having taken a survey of theirs and their neighbours' territory, we will determine the limits of them in fact as well as in theory. And now, let us proceed to legislate with a view to perfecting the form and outline of our state. The number of our citizens shall be 5040-this will be a convenient number; and these shall be owners of the land and protectors of the allotment. The houses and the land will be divided in the same way, so that every man may correspond to a lot. Let the whole number be first divided into two parts, and then into three; and the number is further capable of being divided into four or five parts, or any number of parts up to ten. Every legislator ought to know so much arithmetic as to be able to tell what number is most likely to be useful to all cities; and we are going to take that number which contains the greatest and most regular and unbroken series of divisions. The whole of number has every possible division, and the number 5040 can be divided by exactly fifty-nine divisors, and ten of these proceed without interval from one to ten: this will furnish numbers for war and peace, and for all contracts and dealings, including taxes and divisions of the land. These properties of number should be ascertained at leisure by those who are bound by law to know them; for they are true, and should be proclaimed at the foundation of the city, with a view to use. 

"Whether the legislator is establishing a new state or restoring an old and decayed one, in respect of Gods and temples-the temples which are to be built in each city, and the Gods or demi-gods after whom they are to be called-if he be a man of sense, he will make no change in anything which the oracle of Delphi, or Dodona, or the God Ammon, or any ancient tradition has sanctioned in whatever manner, whether by apparitions or reputed inspiration of Heaven, in obedience to which mankind have established sacrifices in connection with mystic rites, either originating on the spot, or derived from Tyrrhenia or Cyprus or some other place, and on the strength of which traditions they have consecrated oracles and images, and altars and temples, and portioned out a sacred domain for each of them. The least part of all these ought not to be disturbed by the legislator; but he should assign to the several districts some God, or demi-god, or hero, and, in the distribution of the soil, should give to these first their chosen domain and all things fitting, that the inhabitants of the several districts may meet at fixed times, and that they may readily supply their various wants, and entertain one another with sacrifices, and become friends and acquaintances; for there is no greater good in a state than that the citizens should be known to one another. When not light but darkness and ignorance of each other's characters prevails among them, no one will receive the honour of which he is deserving, or the power or the justice to which he is fairly entitled: wherefore, in every state, above all things, every man should take heed that he have no deceit in him, but that he be always true and simple; and that no deceitful person take any advantage of him."

So Plato is aiming at something akin to a true mathematical equality among the households. Everyone should receive as close to a perfectly equal distribution as everyone else, using 5,040 as the basis to ensure that as many perfectly equal distributions as possible are available. He also wants to establish a distribution that is as close as possible to equidistant from the capitol, ensuring equal access. He is motivated by the beauty of math here as he was in music.

Now it happens that I can think of an occasion when something like this was done in reality, and it is a thing I have occasionally praised here. Georgia was set up like this, following James Jackson's overturning of the Yazoo Land Scandal. Georgia was divided into parcels and distributed by lottery; county seats were set up no more than 24 miles from the county border so that everyone who lived in the county could travel to town, do their necessary business at the county seat, and get back in one day.

It worked well for a while, but there are two problems that the Georgian experience illuminates. The first one is that not all land is equally valuable. One of the lottery winners won Stone Mountain, for example. If you had the capitol and resources to set up a quarry, that might have been valuable; as he was a small farmer, it was useless to him. So at once you're going to need to permit trades of these mathematically equal divisions, and some of them are going to require concentration of resources to work effectively. That means inequality.

The other problem is that economics will out. Georgia's lottery system survived hardly any time because it wasn't capable of competing with the slave-based plantation system. That was a much worse system morally, but it produced titanic wealth by comparison. Plato would want the ideal government he hopes to erect to prevent a morally worse system from replacing his division of equality, but practically that is not to be expected. Wealth corrupts politics, so an immoral system that is productive of gigantic wealth will win over a morally better system that does not. Arguably we are witnessing that happening now, with China's openly genocidal tyranny winning out over the law-and-freedom-based American system by a simple practice of mass bribery of international elites. 

Still, there is much to say that is positive about having made the attempt; it has a lot to praise in theory, and even practically for the short while until competition swept it away. 

Plato's Laws V, 4: On the Division of Land

Today's reading is likewise short, this time because it contains a fun mystery as well as some general principles that need to be discussed. I'll take the mystery first. Plato is going to suggest that an ideal population will consist of 5,040 landholders, which he says can be divided by 59 quotients.

A contemporary reader will probably be a bit confused by this, because it would seem as if 5,000 were more obviously divisible into even units than 5,040. You could divide 5,000 into units of one thousand or two hundred-fifty, or one hundred, or fifty. Adding that extra 40 guys seems like it is going to cause a lot of fractions of guys, and while people can be divided into fractions conceptually, dividing them actually tends to ruin the use of the individual.

The Ancient Greeks had a completely different system of mathematics from ourselves, though, one that lacked both fractions and decimals -- that is, both of the ways we teach our young to handle uneven divisions. The Greeks used ratios, so that a number was divisible if you could give a whole number (say "6") and a ratio for the remainder (say "...and two for every three"). It turns out that is exactly what is being captured by the fraction 6 2/3, but this was done on the assumption that really you would not be dividing the two by three. You would be providing two here for every three there. So at first you might think that this aspect of our different systems was behind it.

But actually, if you work it out, 5,040 really is divisible by every number from 1-10, plus 12, and then turns out to have many more ways of evenly dividing it (fifty-nine total, according to Plato; actually 60 if you include itself and 1). So even though it seems like those extra forty guys are going to cause problems, they actually provide for even divisions in more cases. 5,040 can be divided by seven, for example, whereas 5,000 would cause a remainder. 

So it is our conceptual reliance on our base ten decimal system that is fooling us: a number divisible by ten looks like it would be the most obviously useful number.  Because the Greeks worked with practical divisions of whole numbers, they could see that 5,040 was a better choice. This is similar to the way that SAE wrenches and metric wrenches end up fooling the mind when you have to switch between them (as for example when working on a Ford truck, as I do sometimes, which has both SAE and metric fittings for no very good reason I can divine).

This quality of 5,040 was obvious to the Greeks because their quite different approach to math led them to it. The number has some other qualities, some of them more mystical, which are described here, here and here for those interested.

Moon eggs

A couple of Danes shipped a foldable capsule to Greenland and lived in it for two months, as an initial proof-of-concept for Moon or Mars exploration. Much of the experiment was about how bad the shack-nasties might get, but they did pretty well.

Test with St. Stephen's Day Video

 I thought I'd give posting a video a go, using Brave [Version 1.18.75 Chromium: 87.0.4280.101 (Official Build) (64-bit)] and on an old Dell laptop (2014 Inspiron 15) just to see if it works, as a test against Grim's attempts.

Here goes nothing-

Ralph Ellison

 Quillette has a piece on the eminent author that begins oddly.

Ralph Ellison, author of the timeless American classic Invisible Man, was among the most commanding black literary voices to emerge in the 20th century. It is a designation he would almost certainly have resented. Ellison didn’t see his work through the prism of his racial identity but as a means of transcending it... He wanted to “do with black life what Homer did with Greek life” as Clyde Taylor, a professor at NYU, put it.

Quite right. So why label him that way? He probably succeeded as well as anyone can at that great and difficult task.

Otherwise, it's not a terrible essay. It ends on a hopeful note that race may finally be beginning to pass away, though so deep a wound does not heal quickly. Great book. I should dig out my copy and read it again.

First, though, I should get the rest of the way through the Laws. We're just getting to an interesting part, about the perils of wealth redistribution. 

SCoPEx

Long-time readers will recall that I've suggested for years that, if Global Warming is really a problem, we have a ready engineering solution:  add dust to the upper atmosphere. It won't stay up there forever, so if we want to adjust later we can just stop putting it up there. It's relatively cheap and quite within our technical capacity.

Bill Gates has decided he wants to do this, which now makes me question this idea that I've long embraced. Partly that is because I don't believe that Bill Gates is the right person to make the decision to do it, of course; my approval of the idea was conditional on if Global Warming really proves to be a problem. I'm not sure we are there yet; last summer was a bit warm and lingered into November. but that's not a proof that we've reached anything like a warming tipping point. We might have just had a warm year.

The Barnum Effect

An amusing matter that came up in a discussion today: the Barnum Effect, named after P.T. Barnum. I have long suspected that astrology is meant to work this way, except it doesn't work on me because I'm so unlike what 'my sign' is supposed to be that horoscopes are almost a negative indicator. 

Toward the bottom is a link to common criticisms of Myers-Briggs Type Indicator tests. Confer, if you like.

Honorificabilitudinitatibus

Or, an essay on the hapax. 

Saint Stephen’s Day

Here’s the Wren Song. 

UPDATE: For dinner tonight I made a variation on Beef Wellington, using the eye of the standing rib roast instead of a proper fillet. I suspect that it will not receive many complaints all the same. 

UPDATE: No complaints. The whole thing was devoured. 

In Defense of the Swastika

Obviously there is nothing to defend about the ideology of Nazi Germany, nor would I undertake such a defense. Yet I think our friends -- Sen. Cruz, for example -- got this one wrong. This was a matter of honor, and we have failed it.

The news story predictably and characteristically fails to explain the side with which it disagrees, if it bothered to try to understand it in the first place. You are left with the impression that there was one side that was clearly and authoritatively correct, and no other side but hate.

Yet that is not the case. The only reason there ever were Nazi swastikas on those grave markers was that the United States signed a treaty governing the honorable treatment of prisoners of war. This treaty required us, by our given word, to bury prisoners of war who died in our custody with all ranks and honors they were entitled to by their own national laws. This was not for reasons of 'preserving history,' because it wasn't history at the time: it was a matter of ongoing action, at a time when we had soldiers being held as prisoners of war by the Nazi regime as well. Our word was given for the succor of our own, and we should have kept it as we honor our own.

Nothing should make one regret standing over a Nazi's grave in any case. There is no more fit place for a swastika, or a Communist sickle-and-hammer, than on a tombstone. If anything, we have too few such tombstones. 

Really clear user instructions

From James's "I don't know, but...." site, a wonderful little explanation of the Pfizer vaccine mRNA code and, while it's at it, of genetically coded protein synthesis in general.

The people that discovered this should be walking around high-fiving themselves incessantly. Unbearable amounts of smugness should be emanating from them. And it would all be well deserved.

The High Feast of Christmas

 

That is a duck and bacon Great Pie in the Medieval style, spiced with cinnamon, mace, and cloves. Also a standing rib roast with an herb butter crust. And trimmings. 

I hope your feasting was good, but more that you each found spiritual wealth and divine goods on this holiest day. 

UPDATE: I usually post videos with favorite carols, but I continue to have trouble with Blogger. I tried Brave, but although I like it it seems equally incapable of accessing the HTML editing function without crashing Blogger. Also, now Firefox -- which worked last week -- is incapable of making the switch without crashing. Whatever is wrong is spreading to the other browsers I'm trying to use as a workaround.

So here are some links, which I can still do.

Dog and hearth

Merry Christmas to the Hall!

Christmas Eve

A wintry, White Christmas here.

 

 But inside the Hall, it is bright and warm.

 I added my sister's glasses to the holiday decorations.

Extract or Die

"We'll be better off without you, but it would be criminal of you to leave." It's the classic beef of people who don't understand where prosperity comes from, and think they can lock the producers up on a plantation--but, as always, more vivid and unhinged in its peculiar California manifestation.

Plato's Laws V 3, Christmas Edition

Some advice that might be relevant to the holiday:

Ath. "Of all evils the greatest is one which in the souls of most men is innate, and which a man is always excusing in himself and never correcting; mean, what is expressed in the saying that 'Every man by nature is and ought to be his own friend.' Whereas the excessive love of self is in reality the source to each man of all offences; for the lover is blinded about the beloved, so that he judges wrongly of the just, the good, and the honourable, and thinks that he ought always to prefer himself to the truth. But he who would be a great man ought to regard, not himself or his interests, but what is just, whether the just act be his own or that of another. Through a similar error men are induced to fancy that their own ignorance is wisdom, and thus we who may be truly said to know nothing, think that we know all things; and because we will not let others act for us in what we do not know, we are compelled to act amiss ourselves. Wherefore let every man avoid excess of self-love, and condescend to follow a better man than himself, not allowing any false shame to stand in the way. There are also minor precepts which are often repeated, and are quite as useful; a man should recollect them and remind himself of them. For when a stream is flowing out, there should be water flowing in too; and recollection flows in while wisdom is departing. Therefore I say that a man should refrain from excess either of laughter or tears, and should exhort his neighbour to do the same; he should veil his immoderate sorrow or joy, and seek to behave with propriety, whether the genius of his good fortune remains with him, or whether at the crisis of his fate, when he seems to be mounting high and steep places, the Gods oppose him in some of his enterprises. Still he may ever hope, in the case of good men, that whatever afflictions are to befall them in the future God will lessen, and that present evils he will change for the better; and as to the goods which are the opposite of these evils, he will not doubt that they will be added to them, and that they will be fortunate. Such should be men's hopes, and such should be the exhortations with which they admonish one another, never losing an opportunity, but on every occasion distinctly reminding themselves and others of all these things, both in jest and earnest."

Whom should you follow? For those of you who are Christians -- the majority of you, as far as I know -- tomorrow's holiday perhaps provides an obvious answer. The Athenian is of course not thinking of that answer. However, one of the parts I did not quote from the Laws has to do with the proper ordering of the gods, which exist in a continuum with men. (If you want to read it, scroll to "heroes" at this link; note that 'demons' is a mistranslation by Jowett, a minister, who did not distinguish the Greek daemon from the evil Satanic spirits. Plato was not urging you to include demons in your prayers, but suggesting the right place for honoring the divine being that guards your family and lends you personally power and protection.) 

That is, it was thought possible that the best of men would rise into the lower levels of the divine; and of course, gods could mate with mortals and produce half-godly offspring, whose children would themselves have part of the divine in them as well. Likewise, your ancestors were to be honored in the same way as the various ranks of gods, though at a lesser rank themselves; and you, too, in time should be honored by your descendants as a member of that rank.

Certainly in my case, the best non-divine man I can think of to follow is my father. He is gone these last four years, but continues to set a good example in memory. He always loved Christmas; all our Christmases were good while he was around to make sure of it. It is right and proper to remember him on this holiday.

The Athenian is on pretty good ground with all of the recommendations in this section. I like the inclusion of the role of jesting in reminding each other playfully to do what's right. In this way we help each other, and as a community of friends we do better than any of us might do alone. Cf. the sidebar links regarding the Anglo-Saxon concept of frith, which is a similar concept: friendship makes us free, and provides us with strength.