British tribes
I'd love to see the same analysis done in the U.S., to see whether it would corroborate the findings in David Fischer's excellent book, "Albion's Seed." With so much frontier to settle, the U.S. findings presumably would be more smeared out towards the west.
Le Sacre du Printemps
Springtime.
We got through with half a rank of wood left, which can form the first part of next winter's firewood.
We got through with half a rank of wood left, which can form the first part of next winter's firewood.
St. Chesterton
Apparently there's a movement. If it's proper, though, there will be miracles. Although possibly he is a case like Aquinas: the writings are the miracles.
What's It Like To Live Like A Viking?
Ingrid Galadriel Aune Nilsen, Master of Arts, explains how becoming a full-time Viking re-enactor has changed her views on modern society. Her English is labored, so you'll have to be patient. It's still interesting what she thinks.
The ideal of a 'functioning democracy' in the Viking Age isn't so far fetched. The Icelandic sagas suggest that it worked more often than not.
The ideal of a 'functioning democracy' in the Viking Age isn't so far fetched. The Icelandic sagas suggest that it worked more often than not.
"A Fantastic Opportunity For You To Assert Your Dominance On Everyone Around You..."
"...which improves your life."
Content warning for those of you who don't share Tex's sense of humor.
Content warning for those of you who don't share Tex's sense of humor.
"Kant is a Moron"
That's the headline of all the articles about this act of graffiti.
Thus, the proper translation is more like "Kant is a sucker," which is much more defensible than him being a moron -- or even "Kant is a square," which is actually true. Kant is the squarest of squares.
The Russian word used is a relatively mild term of abuse for a slow-witted or foolish person, and could also be translated as "loser," "dumb-ass," or "chump". The vandals did not, however, leave any accompanying critique of Kant's thinking to justify the smear on his intellectual powers.I asked a Russian-speaking comrade about this, and he tells me that the actual word needs context. It's apparently a term that is of particular origin in the criminal community in Russia, which thinks of itself as pursuing a life worthy of a man because it isn't subordinate or groveling. This term refers to someone who deserves to be robbed, because they are the kind of person who slaves away to pay taxes and be lived-off by others.
Thus, the proper translation is more like "Kant is a sucker," which is much more defensible than him being a moron -- or even "Kant is a square," which is actually true. Kant is the squarest of squares.
Welcome to the Happiest Place on Earth!
I think we discussed the NY Post article debunking claims that Scandinavian countries are happiest. Gallup has come up with a new way of asking the question.
The Simpsons were right again.
By this standard, if you are interested, the Scandinavian countries have precisely the same level of happiness as the United States (except for Denmark, which scores a point lower).
Gallup tallied the “yes” responses to five questions from roughly 1,000 people in each country surveyed. The questions included:So where is the happiest place on earth? Latin America!
Did you feel well-rested yesterday?
Were you treated with respect all day yesterday?
Did you smile or laugh a lot yesterday?
Did you learn or do something interesting yesterday?
Did you experience a lot of the following feelings during the day yesterday? How about enjoyment?
The Simpsons were right again.
By this standard, if you are interested, the Scandinavian countries have precisely the same level of happiness as the United States (except for Denmark, which scores a point lower).
Class Leadership
So I saw this story about a student banned from class for challenging the commonplace '1 in 5' sexual assault statistic. This is hardly a rogue position, as challenges have appeared in very mainstream publications such as the Washington Post and TIME.
Nevertheless, I assume the teacher was responding less to the challenge and more to the mode of challenge. That's a matter of taste, to some degree: academia is supposed to be able to sustain robust but civil disagreements, but what constitutes the boundaries of "civil" are very much under contest. The excerpts from the professor's letter suggest that other students were highly uncomfortable, and that he had issued multiple warnings before the ban. Online student-reported feedback suggests that he's a good professor: he rates near the top in all categories except "easiness," where he rates at the bottom. This is exactly as it should be. I'm inclined to trust his sense of his environment.
Besides, it sounds as if the professor's claim that there were sexual assault survivors in the classroom is extremely plausible:
Nevertheless, I assume the teacher was responding less to the challenge and more to the mode of challenge. That's a matter of taste, to some degree: academia is supposed to be able to sustain robust but civil disagreements, but what constitutes the boundaries of "civil" are very much under contest. The excerpts from the professor's letter suggest that other students were highly uncomfortable, and that he had issued multiple warnings before the ban. Online student-reported feedback suggests that he's a good professor: he rates near the top in all categories except "easiness," where he rates at the bottom. This is exactly as it should be. I'm inclined to trust his sense of his environment.
Besides, it sounds as if the professor's claim that there were sexual assault survivors in the classroom is extremely plausible:
Despite its small size, Reed’s students reported the most sex crimes of all colleges and universities in the state of Oregon during 2010–2012 and ranked third in the number of reported assaults per 1,000 students in the country in 2012.Sounds like part of the reason the student's mouth was such an issue is a complete failure of the college to uphold other standards. That's neither the student's nor the professor's fault, but it can't help but be a factor here. Reed as an institution bears the real shame in this story.
No Wonder It's Hard to Develop Virtuous Citizens
Related to Grim's recent post that discussed developing virtues in our citizenry, I recently ran across an article in the New York Times by philosophy professor Justin P. McBrayer that considers one reason why it's difficult to do today. The article is a quick read, so I'll let you take in the rest there, but the problem begins with this:
I agree with McBrayer that a lot of young people today end up with a serious case of doublethink. On the one hand, they insist that things like sexual morals are merely personal opinions. On the other, they are great devotees of social justice, which is nothing but a system of morality. It's very strange. His partial explanation for why that is sounds true to me.
When I went to visit my son’s second grade open house, I found a troubling pair of signs hanging over the bulletin board. They read:Fact: Something that is true about a subject and can be tested or proven.Opinion: What someone thinks, feels, or believes.
Hoping that this set of definitions was a one-off mistake, I went home and Googled “fact vs. opinion.”
I agree with McBrayer that a lot of young people today end up with a serious case of doublethink. On the one hand, they insist that things like sexual morals are merely personal opinions. On the other, they are great devotees of social justice, which is nothing but a system of morality. It's very strange. His partial explanation for why that is sounds true to me.
Ah, youth
From James Taranto:
The headline in London’s Guardian the other day was certainly eye-catching: “Privatising BBC3 Would Be as Pernicious as Isis Destroying Iraq’s Historic Sites.” It seems like an overstatement but turns out not to be much of a statement at all. Here’s the first paragraph of the commentary, by Stewart Lee:
When so-called Islamic State destroyed historic sites in Iraq, I was wary of making judgments of other cultures, and gave these exuberant young men the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps shattering the statues was mere high spirits, like when Greeks trample wedding crockery? Or perhaps it was the fault of MI5?We strongly disagree with Lee on ISIS, but it does sound as though he’s right that privatizing BBC3 wouldn’t be the least bit pernicious.
Douthat on Marriage
A helpful inquiry.
Currently the politics are such that there's no possibility of controlling immigration or reducing globalization. Those who control the political class in our country are completely in favor of both of those things, as they benefit financially from them. The one thing we can really do to help the poor and working classes, then, is to encourage public morality.
That society should find ways to support the development of virtues in its citizens has been a commonplace idea since Plato. That it remains a perennial issue doesn't imply, I think, that there's no solution to it: it implies that something about human nature always requires a focus on developing virtue and avoiding vice.
How to do that, though? The working class is unlikely to take lessons from the government, because it is manifestly obvious that the government isn't concerned about their good: the policies of both political parties are dead-set on opposing the good of the working class in immigration and globalization, and dead-set on pursuing the good of their donor class instead. The Republican politician's game of pretending to oppose amnesty only makes them less credible with everyone. Similarly, the implementation of Obamacare has been a disaster for the workers of America, as we've often discussed: the only jobs available in much of the country are 24-hour-a-week part-time gigs, or temporary/seasonal labor, that avoid the law's mandates. The government has presented this as "help" for the worker, but it's clearly the opposite in effect.
You can make the argument in the hope of persuading people, but the working class is less likely to read political blogs (or the New York Times, for that matter). Churches are a good option in some places, less in others. In any case, they need more than persuasion: virtue development is hard. In many cases a young, poorer, married couple lacks models for success -- their parents may well have been divorced -- and therefore doesn't know what skills they need or how to develop them. We don't teach them in schools, instead handing them condoms and telling them to be 'safe' while working it out for themselves.
The first counterargument is about men: It concedes that there is a modest upward post-’60s trend in household income, rather than a steep decline, but it argues that focusing on the general trend ignores a collapse in earnings for low-skilled men.... As I said in the column, a modest version of this argument makes sense to me. Less-educated men haven’t seen the same gains as their female peers in recent decades, male-dominated sectors of the economy have declined relative to the female-friendly sectors, and so some lower-income men clearly do look relatively less appealing as partners, less “marriagable” in strictly economic terms than they would have in 1960.I think that's right. Marriage is still very beneficial for those who can keep its disciplines. The working class is being damaged by both a collapse in public morality, and also by an immigration-heavy policy that makes American workers compete with immigrants who are willing to accept much less (as well as by globalization, which allows companies to hire non-American workers in the cheapest parts of the world).
At the same time, though, even in a world where women are earning more on their own, the strictly-economic advantages of the two-parent family and the potential costs of single parenthood are still very significant, and they get more significant, not less, as you go down the ladder of income and education.
...the issue is this: The men dragging down the overall low-skilled wage average since the ’60s are primarily recent immigrants, whose numbers have dramatically increased relative to mid-century, and whose wages are low by American standards but obviously much higher than the wages earned by their fathers and grandparents in their countries of origin.
Currently the politics are such that there's no possibility of controlling immigration or reducing globalization. Those who control the political class in our country are completely in favor of both of those things, as they benefit financially from them. The one thing we can really do to help the poor and working classes, then, is to encourage public morality.
That society should find ways to support the development of virtues in its citizens has been a commonplace idea since Plato. That it remains a perennial issue doesn't imply, I think, that there's no solution to it: it implies that something about human nature always requires a focus on developing virtue and avoiding vice.
How to do that, though? The working class is unlikely to take lessons from the government, because it is manifestly obvious that the government isn't concerned about their good: the policies of both political parties are dead-set on opposing the good of the working class in immigration and globalization, and dead-set on pursuing the good of their donor class instead. The Republican politician's game of pretending to oppose amnesty only makes them less credible with everyone. Similarly, the implementation of Obamacare has been a disaster for the workers of America, as we've often discussed: the only jobs available in much of the country are 24-hour-a-week part-time gigs, or temporary/seasonal labor, that avoid the law's mandates. The government has presented this as "help" for the worker, but it's clearly the opposite in effect.
You can make the argument in the hope of persuading people, but the working class is less likely to read political blogs (or the New York Times, for that matter). Churches are a good option in some places, less in others. In any case, they need more than persuasion: virtue development is hard. In many cases a young, poorer, married couple lacks models for success -- their parents may well have been divorced -- and therefore doesn't know what skills they need or how to develop them. We don't teach them in schools, instead handing them condoms and telling them to be 'safe' while working it out for themselves.
Where's An Actuary?
It occurs to me that this offer is one that it would be enlightening to test with data. Leaving the politics to the side entirely, is it a good deal?
So, if I were an actuary writing you an insurance policy, would I charge you more or less than $50 a month to cover you for the additional risks?
Obviously that leaves out questions about how dangerous your neighborhood is, etc. It's also not about the politics: if you're a law-abiding American citizen, I fully support your right to keep and bear arms as you please. I'm just interested in how the money works out. Is $50 a good deal? Should a rational economic actor who is not otherwise inclined to carry, and who lives in a safe neighborhood where the firearm is unlikely to otherwise be useful to them, take such a deal if offered?
A local attorney said he is giving his employees a $50 bonus each month if they choose to conceal carry.Now carrying a pistol exposes you to a certain amount of risk. Even with near-perfect use, the danger that you will accidentally shoot yourself or someone else is higher if you handle a firearm every day than if you don't ever handle one. (So much higher that, even in Iraq, the Army made everyone inside the wire except guards on duty carry in condition green -- magazine not loaded, chamber empty, rifle on safe). Assuming you are properly trained and that you obey correct safety rules, however, the risk is not great. On the other hand, the consequences are potentially substantial: major medical bills or wrongful death lawsuits are quite expensive.
“I was like so you’re going to give me $50 to carry a pistol? And he was like, yup that’s what we’ll do. Well sign me up,” said paralegal for Puryear Law P.C. Elizabeth Payne.
Carrying her gun at work gets her $50 extra each month from her boss.
So, if I were an actuary writing you an insurance policy, would I charge you more or less than $50 a month to cover you for the additional risks?
Obviously that leaves out questions about how dangerous your neighborhood is, etc. It's also not about the politics: if you're a law-abiding American citizen, I fully support your right to keep and bear arms as you please. I'm just interested in how the money works out. Is $50 a good deal? Should a rational economic actor who is not otherwise inclined to carry, and who lives in a safe neighborhood where the firearm is unlikely to otherwise be useful to them, take such a deal if offered?
Israel and Iran
We have come to an odd passage with yesterday's election. United States policy is now formally opposed to the elected government of Israel, which has (with a few exceptions) been an American ally of long standing. Some state that the world is no longer bound to defend Israel. I wonder what precisely that is intended to mean, since the "world" of international diplomacy has typically been strongly critical of Israel at the UN and elsewhere. Nevertheless, commentary expects Israeli isolation to deepen. Perhaps the pressure is intended to grant the President some cover to fail to veto a Security Council resolution that would lead to Israel being declared a rogue state, or a criminal regime, or placed under punishing sanctions. That would represent a shock to the seven in ten Americans who view Israel favorably, a figure which suggests that the administration is acting against the will of a clear majority of Americans.
In Iran, on the other hand, we have a longstanding enemy that continues to pursue nuclear weapons while also backing terrorist groups across the region. Yet our policy seems strangely aligned with them. We are both working to assist Iraq's government against Daesh. Yet the Maliki government is heavily Iranian influenced, so much so that its army is now fighting alongside Iranian-trained Shi'ite militia. Furthermore, Maliki has broken the accords with Sunni Iraqis that we helped to negotiate and often pledged to ensure. It was at one time US policy to ensure that those agreements were fairly kept, which might have prevented the breakout success of Daesh in Western Iraq in the first place. Meanwhile, Iran seems happy with our proposals on its nuclear policy, proposals made in spite of the clearest possible signal from the US Senate that it will not ratify that deal and might even overturn it with veto-proof majorities. Here, too, the administration is out of order with the democratic will of the American people in a serious way.
The unifying factor here is an apparent preference to hurt our friends and help our enemies, in defiance not only of the well established character of these relationships but the sense of the majority of the American people and their representatives.
In Iran, on the other hand, we have a longstanding enemy that continues to pursue nuclear weapons while also backing terrorist groups across the region. Yet our policy seems strangely aligned with them. We are both working to assist Iraq's government against Daesh. Yet the Maliki government is heavily Iranian influenced, so much so that its army is now fighting alongside Iranian-trained Shi'ite militia. Furthermore, Maliki has broken the accords with Sunni Iraqis that we helped to negotiate and often pledged to ensure. It was at one time US policy to ensure that those agreements were fairly kept, which might have prevented the breakout success of Daesh in Western Iraq in the first place. Meanwhile, Iran seems happy with our proposals on its nuclear policy, proposals made in spite of the clearest possible signal from the US Senate that it will not ratify that deal and might even overturn it with veto-proof majorities. Here, too, the administration is out of order with the democratic will of the American people in a serious way.
The unifying factor here is an apparent preference to hurt our friends and help our enemies, in defiance not only of the well established character of these relationships but the sense of the majority of the American people and their representatives.
Not a suicide pact yet
And never again, I hope:
Netanyahu [told] the country that left-wing groups funded by foreign money were busing Arab voters to the polls in order to elect a left-wing government led by his Zionist Union rival Isaac Herzog. Netanyahu’s opponents interpreted this as an appeal to racism. . . . But a critical mass of voters viewed the prospect with alarm not because they’re racists but because a government that relied on the votes of anti-Zionists that favor Israel’s dissolution was something they considered a danger to the future of their country…. They may not like Netanyahu but today’s results demonstrates that there is little support for a government that would make the sort of concessions to the Palestinians that President Obama would like. They rightly believe that even if Israel did make more concessions it would only lead to more violence, not peace.
A Documentary for St. Patrick's Day
If you have an hour or so this evening, you might enjoy it.
We will do what we always do on St. Patrick's Day here at the Hall, and have a showing of The Quiet Man a bit later.
We will do what we always do on St. Patrick's Day here at the Hall, and have a showing of The Quiet Man a bit later.
Separations
A liberal writer ponders why other liberals are welcoming an increasing role for religion in public life.
The preference for waging war against conservative ideas in the courts is based on the hope that the battlefield itself is biased against conservatives. This follows from three ideas: 1) The judiciary must, in order to do their jobs, be highly educated. 2) The academy has largely been captured by liberals, which means educated people will have been taught to think by liberals most of the time. 3) As a consequence that re-enforces the bias, peer pressure among the highly educated is to conform to left-leaning ideas. Thus, the courts are much better ground for locating the real power of government than the legislature in which the general population gets most of the vote in selecting representatives. If the courts will just go along with stripping legislatures of the power to create laws that transgress against the principles of the left, it doesn't matter very much if you win or lose elections. When you win, you can pass new laws in line with your principles. When you lose, you can relax because the courts will throw out new laws that you'd oppose.
Unfortunately, there are some disadvantages to this approach. One of them is this one: when the court goes against you, it generally goes all the way. The other one is that politicizing the courts damages the legitimacy of two whole branches of government. The author really wants the courts to come up with political compromises here, in order to rewrite the laws in a way that would satisfy everyone. That's a legislative function. Should the courts take over the legislative function while also embracing the power to set aside legislatively-enacted laws that violate principles held by the educated elite who make up the judiciary, the court has effectively gelded the legislature. The legislature will not be respected as a co-equal branch of government if its power is completely co-opted by the courts.
By the same token, since Federal judges are not elected (and in this court serve lifetime terms) their decisions have no democratic legitimacy. When the legislature rewrites the law, it does so with the direct involvement of the people's representatives. Those representatives, should they defy the people's will, can be replaced at the next election. Unelected judges who cannot be replaced ought not to perform the legislative function in a republic that claims to draw its legitimacy from the will of the people.
So, grammercy for coming up with a viable compromise. I think people might go along with it. Take it to the legislatures, and at the state and local level as well. Make the argument. Point out that Jefferson and Madison are on your side. You might convince some people. Stop trying to get the courts to alter the playing field such that laws you don't like are forbidden to legislatures. Instead, play fairly and talk with the people with which you disagree instead of suing them.
Crazy idea, I know. But I'm pretty sure it's how the system was supposed to work.
Going back to Jefferson and Madison, the idea behind separating church and state has been to prevent the state from forcing taxpayers to pay for other people’s religious practices. Fair enough. But in order to get religious conservatives to go along with that principle, secular liberal thinkers felt they had to give them something in return. And what do religious conservatives want? They want to be able to express their deepest religious convictions in the public sphere. They want to pray at town meetings, to place religious symbols in government buildings and on public lands, and, more generally, they want the state to acknowledge the importance—and perhaps also the truth—of their religious heritage.See, the legislature is where you go to make compromises with the other side. When you try to fight your battles in the courts, you're going to get decisions on one side or the other. That's the nature of the beast.
So here we have the makings of a compromise: Liberals would get a ban on state funding of religion, and conservatives would get state-sponsored religious recognition...
Except that the Roberts court, like the Rehnquist court before it, isn’t interested in taking this deal. In exchange for greater acceptance of religious practice and symbols in the public square, they have given up, well, nothing. In a series of 5–4 decisions, conservative majorities have rejected the ability of taxpayers to challenge state funding of religion...
If giving up your side in exchange for nothing looks like a shoddy compromise for liberals, what else might explain acceptance of Justice Kennedy’s new coercion principle[?]
The preference for waging war against conservative ideas in the courts is based on the hope that the battlefield itself is biased against conservatives. This follows from three ideas: 1) The judiciary must, in order to do their jobs, be highly educated. 2) The academy has largely been captured by liberals, which means educated people will have been taught to think by liberals most of the time. 3) As a consequence that re-enforces the bias, peer pressure among the highly educated is to conform to left-leaning ideas. Thus, the courts are much better ground for locating the real power of government than the legislature in which the general population gets most of the vote in selecting representatives. If the courts will just go along with stripping legislatures of the power to create laws that transgress against the principles of the left, it doesn't matter very much if you win or lose elections. When you win, you can pass new laws in line with your principles. When you lose, you can relax because the courts will throw out new laws that you'd oppose.
Unfortunately, there are some disadvantages to this approach. One of them is this one: when the court goes against you, it generally goes all the way. The other one is that politicizing the courts damages the legitimacy of two whole branches of government. The author really wants the courts to come up with political compromises here, in order to rewrite the laws in a way that would satisfy everyone. That's a legislative function. Should the courts take over the legislative function while also embracing the power to set aside legislatively-enacted laws that violate principles held by the educated elite who make up the judiciary, the court has effectively gelded the legislature. The legislature will not be respected as a co-equal branch of government if its power is completely co-opted by the courts.
By the same token, since Federal judges are not elected (and in this court serve lifetime terms) their decisions have no democratic legitimacy. When the legislature rewrites the law, it does so with the direct involvement of the people's representatives. Those representatives, should they defy the people's will, can be replaced at the next election. Unelected judges who cannot be replaced ought not to perform the legislative function in a republic that claims to draw its legitimacy from the will of the people.
So, grammercy for coming up with a viable compromise. I think people might go along with it. Take it to the legislatures, and at the state and local level as well. Make the argument. Point out that Jefferson and Madison are on your side. You might convince some people. Stop trying to get the courts to alter the playing field such that laws you don't like are forbidden to legislatures. Instead, play fairly and talk with the people with which you disagree instead of suing them.
Crazy idea, I know. But I'm pretty sure it's how the system was supposed to work.
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