Why Universities Must Choose One Telos: Truth or Social Justice

Jonathan Haidt has a very interesting article up at Heterodox Academy by this title.

The article itself is really just the bare outline of a talk he has given on this topic. You can watch a video of the whole talk, all 66 minutes of it, there if you like. I'm going to make time soon to do that.

Here is the introduction:

Aristotle often evaluated a thing with respect to its “telos” – its purpose, end, or goal. The telos of a knife is to cut. The telos of a physician is health or healing. What is the telos of university?

The most obvious answer is “truth” –- the word appears on so many university crests. But increasingly, many of America’s top universities are embracing social justice as their telos, or as a second and equal telos. But can any institution or profession have two teloses (or teloi)? What happens if they conflict?

As a social psychologist who studies morality, I have watched these two teloses come into conflict increasingly often during my 30 years in the academy. The conflicts seemed manageable in the 1990s. But the intensity of conflict has grown since then, at the same time as the political diversity of the professoriate was plummeting, and at the same time as American cross-partisan hostility was rising. I believe the conflict reached its boiling point in the fall of 2015 when student protesters at 80 universities demanded that their universities make much greater and more explicit commitments to social justice, often including mandatory courses and training for everyone in social justice perspectives and content.

Now that many university presidents have agreed to implement many of the demands, I believe that the conflict between truth and social justice is likely to become unmanageable.  Universities will have to choose, and be explicit about their choice, so that potential students and faculty recruits can make an informed choice. Universities that try to honor both will face increasing incoherence and internal conflict.

He follows this with an 8-point argument showing why universities must choose one telos.

UPDATE: The video is excellent. He is giving a talk at Duke University and argues that a university having more than one telos is harmful to everyone at the university, including those who are focused on social justice. I don't think I have ever seen a better presentation of conservative arguments to a progressive audience.

Also, if you are interested in recent changes at our universities or their future, I highly recommend it.

Healthy Dieting, Medieval Style

It was a lot harder to start a fad diet before the printing press, but there was a trade in ideas. One was the Regimen Sanitatus Salernitanum.

The Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum was created, allegedly, by famous doctors for English royalty and disseminated in the form of a poem. It recommends, very specifically, red wine, fresh eggs, figs and grapes. It has little to say about vegetables. In many ways, it’s the antithesis of today’s health fads—it celebrates wheat, emphasizes meat, and involves two significant meals, with no mention of snacking. Water is looked on with suspicion, and juice is nowhere to be found.

But from the 1200s through the 1800s, the Regimen was one of the most well known guides to health in Europe, at a time when the stakes of staying healthy were much higher than they are now. Getting sick could be a death sentence; this regimen promised to keep people well.

The author tried it out to see how it worked. The wine, in the ancient way, was diluted -- drinking raw water made it more likely you would get sick from things in the water, but diluting wine with it meant that the harmful effects of the wine were largely eliminated, while the beneficial effects remained.

There are some aesthetic differences:

One giant difference between diet advice of 1200s and diet advice now is that Salerno never mentions losing weight or keeping skinny. In fact, all the foods Salerno smiles on, the poem describes as “fattening.” When you’re liable as not to face a famine, or at least a food shortage, at basically any time, fattening is good.

In the end, the author consulted a modern specialist for advice.

How did it stack up from a modern point of view? I asked Andrea Grandson, a nutritional therapist who specializes in metabolic health, to go over the Salerno prescriptions with me. “It sounds very healthy, with eggs, wine, and broth,” she says. Eggs are a complete protein and one of the easiest to digest. Red wine is valuable for its resveratrol and antioxidants. Broths and stews extract the nutrients from the bones and organs of animals. “They were on the right track in terms of looking for nutrient density,” she says.

But, most importantly, she said, how did I feel? Was I sleeping ok? Did I feel an afternoon slump?

The truth is, I felt great eating this food. It was simple, hearty, and filling, but I never stuffed myself.

Apparently This Is For Real?

This image is part of a whole series of newspeak lessons in political correctness from a university I'd never heard of before. I gather that they intend them completely seriously and non-ironically, even the ones about "Shemales" and how "Just Kill Me" is insensitive because of suicide. (If you 'just kill me,' how is that a suicide?)

But get a load of this one:

Two things to notice here:

1) There is apparently no such thing as an objective judgment permitted: all judgments of a person's moral qualities are illegitimate applications of someone else's standards to another individual. I believe the academic way of saying this is: "To apply someone else's standards to an individual is to treat the judger as the subject whose experience and standards matter, while the judged is a mere object against which someone else's standards are applied." To treat someone else as an object is taken to be a kind of moral affront to that person, even though it's actually impossible to understand the world without the grammatical categories of subject and object. "No one must ever be treated as an object" is another way of saying "we must give up on describing the world."

2) Since there is no objective judgment, and all judgments must be subjective, there can be no judgment at all. Everyone is entitled to live life on his or her (or whatever's) own terms, without any moral weight being imposed on them from outside of whatever feels right to them.

I expect it is completely impossible to field a winning sports team on this model as you will not win if you cannot assert that players ought to push themselves and train harder and face whatever fears they have. That fact suggests that the Chico State administration are hypocrites. Presumably they don't adhere to this practice to the slightest degree when it comes to training their student athletes for competition, nor should they.

However, the suggestion of hypocrisy isn't needed to prove the case against them. The fact is that this whole set of posters is about teaching students to judge others. You can't apply someone else's standards to anyone? What about the guy who says "retarded"?

Hypocrites and fools are these. They not only don't believe in the standards they're advocating, they don't even know that they don't believe in them.

Dogs from Above

According to the article at Science Alert, this is part of an anti-poaching program in South Africa's Kruger National Park. I liked this bit:

And even though the school isn’t sure if dogs experience adrenaline rushes like human skydivers, they say their tails start to wag when they hear the helicopter.

"The dogs are exceptionally comfortable with skydiving," Eric Ichikowitz from the Ichikowitz Family Foundation, who helped start the program, told National Geographic. "They know they’re going to work."

Looks like fun.

The Army Comes After Vets

This is the kind of thing that only the military gets away with.

The Pentagon is demanding thousands and in some cases tens of thousands of dollars back from California soldiers who received enlistment bonuses for signing up to fight for American freedoms in the war on terror. The Pentagon is even demanding pay from enlistment bonuses all way back to a decade ago.... close to 10,000 soldiers are being ordered repay their bonuses and also are being charged for interest charges and are being threatened with wage garnishments and tax liens if they do not repay.

This is due to the Pentagon determining that the California National Guard mismanaged their money while under pressure to meet enlistment recruiting targets.

So, let me get this straight. California's National Guard screwed up and offered bigger (or more) bonuses than they were entitled to do under the law. National Guard soldiers, who are not all of them expert lawyers or familiar with the intricacies of budgets, accepted what looked like explicably generous bonuses given how much retention trouble the military was having at that particular moment of the war. Now, Big Army wants the money back -- and it wants it back from the soldiers, even if they're no longer in, not from the National Guard that mismanaged the money.

Accountability in government is a great concept, but these are not the people who screwed up. This is making the little guy pay for the big guy's mistakes. Pay through the nose for them.

28 Good Ideas?

Let's take a look at Trump's closing argument, 28 things he'll do as President.  It's a long list, so I'll put it after a jump break.

Ballad of Balad

Mellow Out

The Al Smith Dinner

It was McCain's best moment in 2008. Of course, he lost.

Well, here's what we saw tonight.

It's That Kind of ... Year? Decade?

h/t (or blame) neo-neocon

Paying the Rent

When possible, it's usually best to lock in rates early.

Earlier this October, at a ceremony at the Royal Courts of Justice, London paid its rent to the Queen. The ceremony proceeded much as it had for the past eight centuries. The city handed over a knife, an axe, six oversized horseshoes, and 61 nails to Barbara Janet Fontaine, the Queen’s Remembrancer, the oldest judicial position in England. The job was created in the 12th century to keep track of all that was owed to the crown.

In this case, the Remembrancer has presided over the rent owed on two pieces of property for a very long time—since 1235 in one case, and at least 1211 in the other. Every year, in this Ceremony of Quit Rents, the crown extracts its price from the city for a forge and a piece of moorland.

Heck of a deal, huh? Only one small detail:

No one knows exactly where these two pieces of land are located anymore, but for hundreds of years the city has been paying rent on them.

Well, it could turn out that they're somewhere important. Best to keep up the payments just in case.

Free Trade Is Good For Everybody, Right?

Well, it turns out it wasn't very good for Louis XVI:

France and Britain were longtime rivals and both countries were committed to Mercantilism, yet they struck one of the first “free trade “deals or at least the first deal premised on philosophy of free trade. Even today, many free market types will argue that trade can overcome even the bitterest of rivalries. People like making money more than they like making trouble, so the theory goes. This trade deal is proof of that.

The most notable part of the deal is that it was a disaster for France. Soon after the deal was signed, there was a flood of British manufactured goods into France. Importation of British goods doubled. This put enormous pressure on the already distressed French industries, setting off riots and revolts. Naturally, this put pressure on the already strained relations between the provinces and the crown. Most historians count the Eden Treaty as one of the contributing factors leading up to the French Revolution.

H/t D29, who adds: "We would not, of course, suggest that the guillotine is a remedy. Yet."

A Rigged System, Continued

Lots of people seem to think it's rigged. People who would presumably know.



How about those computers that count your votes? In Georgia, they record your vote on a credit-card shaped device, then wipe it after they transfer the information to the central system. At least, that's allegedly what happens. There's no record of how you voted, and the people transferring the data have nothing to look at that would indicate that the transfer was done fairly. There's also no paper ballot or receipt that could be used for a recount. That doesn't prove the system is correct, but it gives us reason to suspect the system.

In that context, then, here's some sworn testimony from a programmer who says he wrote software to rig elections. There is also a discussion thread at Snopes about him and his testimony.



George Will points out that the IRS scandal is itself proof of official attempts to rig the election against conservatives, by preventing them from organizing or collecting tax-deductible donations, and harassing them with audits.

And of course, as we (and left wing Vox) recently discussed, gerrymandering is the Fire-Breathing Godzilla of vote rigging. My Congressional district is R +27. If I and everyone I know voted Democrat this year, it might fall to R +25. Other districts are just as heavily D +. The same is true of state-level districts.

Of course the vote is rigged, in every way they've figured out how to get away with rigging it. The animating questions should be whether there's anything left that isn't rigged, and what (if anything) we can do about the parts that are. If the answer to that latter question is that we can't do anything that will legally compel the powers that be to back off their vote-rigging, we should start talking about what to do about that.

UPDATE: Another Vox piece demonstrating a proven, actual history of rigging elections -- Jim Crow, of course.

That example is hopeful, in a way, because the Jim Crow system was eventually dismantled (except, arguably, for gerrymandering -- or if you take seriously the complaint that things like Voter ID laws are intimidation efforts). But it's also a telling example for the plausibility of rigging an election. Of course it can be done. It always has been done. It's done everywhere anyone figures out a good way to do it. Often, as in the case of gerrymandering or the IRS scandal, it's done right out in the open.

The question is, what can we do about it?

Something I've Also Noticed

A blogger I've only just learned of recently, thanks to AVI, warns that many people are conditioned to accept and even to proclaim falsehoods. A particular example that he raises, which has bothered me for decades, is the habit of naming things like subdivisions with blatantly false names.

Canadians, for instance — who are among the nicest people in the world; who wouldn’t hurt a fly; who won’t complain about anything, however painful; and will spontaneously apologize to inanimate objects if they happen to collide with them — will suddenly become downright stroppy if one expresses an idea which their betters have ruled to be “not nice.” They will tell you that they “have problems with that.”

One must resist the temptation, simply to give them problems, e.g. by using non-euphemistic language. (Example: you are allowed to be abstractly opposed to abortion; but you are certainly not allowed to be against killing babies.)

Yet, under delicate cross-examination, in the spirit of Mr Socrates’ kindly niece, one finds that they might do it themselves — might express many of these not-nice ideas — if they thought they could get away with it. (We have free speech in Canada, but only between consenting adults.) Their disapproval is an anxious concession to the requirement for niceness, with its comfortable mental and spiritual inanition. It is the line of least resistance when any third party might be within hearing. Alone, with only the not-nice person to talk with, their “problems” begin to disappear.

Secretly, I suspect that across a range of issues, and commercial products, people pretend even to themselves that they like things they actually abhor. Or rather, I think this openly, even though it may not be nice.

The advertising agencies (which work with equal enthusiasm on commercial and political products) know this. It is why Democrats and Liberals exist. It is why products that are obviously not good for any conceivable environment are sold as “ecological” and “organic.” It is why new subdivisions are called “Mountainview” when there is no mountain in sight. Or, “Meadowview” when they are in the heart of an asphalt jungle.

I am always relieved, and even impressed, when I encounter someone who does not give in to this temptation -- even if they say things that are conventionally offensive or dispiriting. On the road to Ballground, Georgia,* there is a subdivision that is actually called "The Preserve at Long Swamp Creek." Just as the name suggests, it sits on the banks of Long Swamp Creek. There's a certain honor in that kind of honesty.

* Ballground itself is descriptively named for a Cherokee game that was played there. I have always heard that it was used as a form of dispute resolution, winner-take-all.

Is It Possible To Rig The Vote?

In opposition to the proposition, this article explaining the controls.

In support of the proposition, this video of a man explaining exactly how he does it, and pondering a scheme to do it harder than ever before.

This Sounds Basically Right

I didn't read this earlier because it was billed as "Donald Trump's speech addressing sexual assault allegations." I already know what I think about that -- I think his character is such that the accusations are completely believable -- so I ignored what he had to say about it.

That was a mistake. Once you get past his denials of wrongdoing, it turns out he has something very interesting to say.

This is not simply another four-year election. This is a crossroads in the history of our civilization that will determine whether or not we the people reclaim control over our government.

The political establishment that is trying to stop us is the same group responsible for our disastrous trade deals, massive illegal immigration and economic and foreign policies that have bled our country dry.

The political establishment has brought about the destruction of our factories, and our jobs, as they flee to Mexico, China and other countries all around the world. Our just-announced job numbers are anemic. Our gross domestic product, or GDP, is barely above 1 percent. And going down. Workers in the United States are making less than they were almost 20 years ago, and yet they are working harder.

It’s a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities.

Just look at what this corrupt establishment has done to our cities like Detroit; Flint, Michigan; and rural towns in Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina and all across our country. Take a look at what’s going on. They stripped away these town bare. And raided the wealth for themselves and taken our jobs away out of our country never to return unless I’m elected president.

The Clinton machine is at the center of this power structure. We’ve seen this first hand in the WikiLeaks documents, in which Hillary Clinton meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers, her special interest friends and her donors.

Honestly, she should be locked up.

Let’s be clear on one thing, the corporate media in our country is no longer involved in journalism. They’re a political special interest no different than any lobbyist or other financial entity with a total political agenda, and the agenda is not for you, it’s for themselves.

And their agenda is to elect crooked Hillary Clinton at any cost, at any price, no matter how many lives they destroy.

H/t Cold Fury, via D29.

I don't know that I believe that Donald Trump can actually fix any of those problems, but allowing for a few rhetorical flourishes, he's right about what the problems are. Organizations like those set up by the TPP and T-TIP do intend to transfer much of America's sovereignty to international councils and courts that will respond to global corporations instead of the American people. Clinton's speeches to Goldman Sachs, and the large-scale foreign money passed quid-pro-quo through the Clinton Foundation, prove that she's on board with this transfer of power from the American people to this global elite.

Likewise, of course, her Supreme Court appointments will be pointed right at stripping away the limits on Federal power that the Constitution is intended to enshrine. It's already the case that they treat the 10th Amendment like a nullity; it's increasingly the case that the religious liberty guaranteed by the 1st Amendment is a nullity. We will see all such limitations traduced if she has her way on the Court, such that the American people will no longer be self-governing but will be bowed under the will of a tiny, "progressive" elite.

It's a dark future. I don't know if it can be avoided, and I don't know that I believe that Trump is the one who could avoid it in any case. But it's where we are.

UPDATE: Bret Stephens writes at the WSJ that he regards this talk as echoing anti-Semitic conspiracy theories from the last mid-century. As is well known, I have no use for anti-Semitism, and certainly would regard it as a disqualifying aspect of such a theory if it were true that it was merely a renewed telling of an old myth. But these charges about the threat to sovereignty aren't "conspiracy theories," they're an analysis of the language of the TPP -- and they aren't fever dreams of the right, either, as should be proven by this article on the subject by none other than Elizabeth Warren. Now, you may have noticed that there's very little overlap in support for Elizabeth Warren and Donald Trump.

UPDATE: David Foster, in the comments, proposes an analogy to the governor of an engine. The discussion it provoked in the comments section is highly interesting, which is a fact that speaks very well of his audience.

Wonder If He Came From The Old Danelaw?

An SAS soldier does what commandos do best -- with an axe.

An SAS soldier killed an ISIS fighter with an axe as he freed young girls who were being held hostage as sex slaves. According to the Daily Star, the SAS hero struck the jihadi in one blow to the skull during a mission in Syria last month. The mission was a US and British covert operation in northern Syria to free girls who were being held hostage by ISIS and forced to marry their fighters.

That's what it's all about.

Price signals

Financial markets are hard to interpret without them:

Think of zero rates as a compass that can’t point north and only spins around.

Clean Your Guns

It's kind of fun, and also...

Is the System Rigged?

Are we seriously having a debate about whether the system is rigged, rather than to what degree or just how it is rigged?

Here's the perspective from the right, today:



And here it is from the left, last week.

The system is as rigged as the politicians can get away with making it. That shouldn't be controversial. What we should be worried about are these questions:

1) Are there any parts we can have confidence in?

2) What can we do, if anything, to fix the parts we already know are rigged?