Government is the only enterprise in the world which expands in size when its failures increase.—Judge Janice Rodgers Brown, speaking at the University of Chicago on 20 April 2000.
2/04/2007
Quote of the Day
The Failure of the Diplomatic Mentality
Revolutions rarely compromise; compromises are made only to further the strategic design. Negotiation, then, is undertaken for the dual purpose of gaining time to buttress a position (military, political, social, economic) and to wear down, frustrate and harass the opponent. Few, if any, essential concessions are to be expected from the revolutionary side, whose only aim is to create conditions that will preserve the unity of the strategic line and guarantee the development of a "victorious situation."—
European-style diplomacy (which is largely the model for American diplomacy) is premised on two sides coming to a mutually tolerable agreement, involving gains and concessions, in order to avoid a larger conflict. Such an agreement is then expected to constrain the behavor of both sides going forward. A necessary precondition for such a system is that both sides must be operating in good faith; each side believes that it has achieved the most beneficial likely outcome, and therefore has an interest in protecting the stability of the agreement.
What has been overlooked is that a diplomatic agreement only has value when there are significant incentives for all parties to keep it. In Europe, the incentives had become implicit and overwhelming (i.e., breaking agreements would lead to economic consequences in an interdependent system, and sometimes war). Therefore it became possible for diplomats to neglect actively thinking about the consequences of bad faith, and to begin to ascribe an intrinsic, quasi-mystical power to the diplomatic agreement itself. That an agreement is signed (goes the unexamined, subconscious premise) guarantees that it will be followed.
The naiveté of such a premise comes to the fore when we must deal with a class of people who treat negotiations not as a way to avoid conflict, but as another tool in that conflict. The long history of diplomacy surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian war is an example of excellence: the Palestine Liberation Organization ostensibly agreed to end warfare against Israel and Jews around the world, but in practice this amounted to little more than mouthing empty platitudes of peace and toleration at black-tie functions. In exchange for this wrenching concession, the new Palestinian Authority was given administrative control over several million people, billions of dollars in international aid, large stores of weapons along with the training to use them—and most important of all, international legitimacy that served as a powerful shield against Israeli action. The PLO proceeded to use these gifts to mount a second Intifada, as well as turning a blind eye to the efforts of other terrorist groups such as Hamas and Jihad Islami.
The same class of behavior is on display with Iran. Iran's stated goal is the development of nuclear capability. In non-diplomatic settings, the Iranian government has openly alluded to its aim of a nuclear bomb. In pursuit of this goal, Iran has broken nearly a dozen separate agreements that the European powers painstakingly negotiated over a period of several years. These agreements have been very useful to Iran, even as they were being flouted: they often came with financial inducements, they served to keep the Western powers divided and bickering among themselves over the proper course to take—and most importantly, they bought time, lots of time.
To the serious observer whose brains have not been addled by the diplomatic fantasies so adored by most Western governments, it becomes obvious early on when an oppposing party is negotiating in bad faith. The most important early warning is when the aggressive party achieves tangible gains through negotiation, in exchange for concessions that are entirely symbolic or else of minimal importance. This pattern has been confirmed in the farcical negotiations between Israel and the PLO, between Columbia and FARC, between Pakistan and the Taliban forces of Waziristan, and (at the risk of invoking Godwin's Law) the Munich 1938 agreement with Hitler.
So then why do the assorted diplomats of the world continue to make the same errors over and over again? I have argued before that a major flaw in the structure of our government is that diplomats have a single responsibility (i.e. diplomacy) and the military has a single responsibility (i.e. warfighting) that is not called upon until the diplomats throw in the towel. We need to take an integrated view towards interactions with other governments, so that out actions are not divided into discrete categories but fall along the same continuum.
I am not necessarily advocating open war with Iran. There are easier ways to accomplish our goals. For one thing, there are indications that the Mossad has begun assassinating key Iranian scientists in their nuclear program. I find these reports entirely believable, given that Israel assassinated several ex-Nazi scientists working on Egypt's ballistic missile program in the early 1960's. And it is far more difficult to replace a scientist than it is to replace physical infrastructure. Given that, and given the recent isolation of Iran by America and our allies, it is entirely possible that the Khomeinist government of Iran could fall before they achieve nuclear capability. (There is still the issue of their continuing support for terror operations in Israel, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.)
But the larger point is that we need to look at our diplomatic activities with a jaundiced eye. Why on Earth should we engage in negotiations with a power operating in bad faith, if the only party that will benefit is our adversary?
*******************
UPDATE 4:31 PM: With impeccable timing, Wretchard has posted a news item from the Phillipines about a delegation of negotiators sent to talk to the Moro National Liberation Front, a supposed "peace partner," who were promptly taken hostage by a supposed "breakaway faction." Perhaps in the same sense that Black September was a "breakaway faction" of Fatah, i.e. an organizational fiction meant to provide plausible deniability.
2/01/2007
Quote of the Day
The rich, the owners of the already operating plants, have no particular class interest in the maintenance of free competition. They are opposed to confiscation and expropriation of their fortunes, but their vested interests are rather in favor of measures preventing newcomers from challenging their position. Those fighting for free enterprise and free competition do not defend the interests of those rich today. They want a free hand left to unknown men who will be the entrepreneurs of tomorrow and whose ingenuity will make the life of coming generations more agreeable. They want the way left open to further economic improvements. They are the spokesmen of material progress.—Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, pg. 83 (Fox & Wilkes paperback edition)
The Need for Skepticism in the Cabinet
One of the things I've been up to in my long absence from blogging has been studying up on game theory and issues of persuasion and decisionmaking, for one of my side projects. One of the tidbits I gleaned from this study is that academics agree that it is, indeed, very hard to go against a group consensus. You must fight against social penalties for perceived disloyalty, as well as the internalized doubt in your own beliefs: perhaps all these other people know something you don't? Otherwise, why would they hold a view that you see as obviously wrong?
Interestingly, when a dissenter has even a single ally, no matter how many are arrayed against him, it becomes much easier to sustain his position. The second factor noted above, that the lone dissenter tends to question his own conclusions, is mitigated by the presence of an ally who shares those conclusions. And the ally provides valuable social feedback that helps make up for the more general disapproval.
These points were going through my mind as I read Angelo M. Codevilla's review of Bob Woodward's latest book, State of Denial, in the most recent issue of the Claremont Review of Books. Woodward describes the petty politicking in the Bush Cabinet between competing centers of power, which the President was unwilling or unable to quash. Because (says Woodward) the President fostered an atmosphere in which good news was the order of the day, and in which bad news would spoil the mood, officials would often withhold bad news and try to solve the problems on their own, or else pass them off as someone else's responsibility. Most important for Cabinet officials in an environment without strong central management was to consolidate their own authority at the expense of others. Secretary Rumsfeld (says Woodward) was famous for this, fighting to preserve the autonomy of the Defense Department and avoiding collaboration with the State Department, even as observers and front-line soldiers decried the absence of State personnel.
I do not know whether Woodward's account is accurate. It would certainly explain the seemingly disjointed conduct of a government whose arms frequently work at cross-purposes in this war. And the larger phenomena of groupthink coloring decisionmaking, officials withholding crucial data from decisionmakers for fear of a bad reception, and feuding bureaucrats impeding the prosecution of policy are certainly not new in American government. Indeed, the classic case of groupthink has for a long time been the deliberations leading up to the Bay of Pigs operation under JFK.
I do not believe any president actually wants to foster such an environment in his cabinet. But as it stands, it is hard not to. Each member of the Cabinet has a tremendous amount of power over his department; no president would willingly entrust that power to someone with which he disagrees. This will lead to a certain intellectual homogeneity. Meanwhile, each member of the Cabinet is individually constrained by the imperatives of the department he represents. His information is filtered through that apparatus, and his policies are often identified with the policies of the entrenched establishment within that department. This will lead to cabinet members defending their own fiefdoms even against the greater national interest.
These two institutional factors together make a toxic brew.
Eliot Cohen, in his excellent book Supreme Command, concludes that perhaps the most crucial task of a good leader is to challenge the orthodoxies of his underlings and force people to respond more rapidly to the real world. (Ironically, Cohen's book achieved some prominence because it was on President Bush's reading list; it seems the President was not able to sufficiently profit from it.) This sort of challenge and interrogation is very difficult to do when a president must deal with groupthink in his cabinet, restricted information, and bureacratic backstabbing. What can be done?
There is a useful position in the parliamentary governments of some foreign nations (Israel is one such), called the Minister Without Portfolio. This minister has equal rank with other ministers who actually run branches of the government, yet has no executive authority (or responsibility) himself. This releases him from many institutional pressures, and allows him to speak more or less freely. Meanwhile, since the minister has no actual authority except as an official gadfly, prime ministers have more latitude in choosing ministers that they might not see eye-to-eye with.
The relative performance of parliamentary democracies is not the issue here; they are subject to their own pathologies. But the concept of a cabinet-level appointee without executive authority is ripe with possibility. It would help counteract the abovementioned corrosive factors of the Cabinet dynamic, allowing for a more healthy level of discourse and cooperation--especially if there were two Secretaries Without Portfolio, so that they could support each other if necessary. It should also be their responsibility and privilege to keep an eye on the inner workings of the various departments, to make sure that their internal politics are not allowed to damage American policy without notice.
Whatever the remedy, it is clear that the present structure of our decisionmaking bodies is badly flawed. They are frozen in a 1950's model of corporate structure, full of hierarchies and one-directional information flows, when the rest of America has moved on to more fluid, collaborative structures. But that is a larger discussion. We must fix one problem at a time, and fixing the Cabinet isn't a bad place to start.
Interestingly, when a dissenter has even a single ally, no matter how many are arrayed against him, it becomes much easier to sustain his position. The second factor noted above, that the lone dissenter tends to question his own conclusions, is mitigated by the presence of an ally who shares those conclusions. And the ally provides valuable social feedback that helps make up for the more general disapproval.
These points were going through my mind as I read Angelo M. Codevilla's review of Bob Woodward's latest book, State of Denial, in the most recent issue of the Claremont Review of Books. Woodward describes the petty politicking in the Bush Cabinet between competing centers of power, which the President was unwilling or unable to quash. Because (says Woodward) the President fostered an atmosphere in which good news was the order of the day, and in which bad news would spoil the mood, officials would often withhold bad news and try to solve the problems on their own, or else pass them off as someone else's responsibility. Most important for Cabinet officials in an environment without strong central management was to consolidate their own authority at the expense of others. Secretary Rumsfeld (says Woodward) was famous for this, fighting to preserve the autonomy of the Defense Department and avoiding collaboration with the State Department, even as observers and front-line soldiers decried the absence of State personnel.
I do not know whether Woodward's account is accurate. It would certainly explain the seemingly disjointed conduct of a government whose arms frequently work at cross-purposes in this war. And the larger phenomena of groupthink coloring decisionmaking, officials withholding crucial data from decisionmakers for fear of a bad reception, and feuding bureaucrats impeding the prosecution of policy are certainly not new in American government. Indeed, the classic case of groupthink has for a long time been the deliberations leading up to the Bay of Pigs operation under JFK.
I do not believe any president actually wants to foster such an environment in his cabinet. But as it stands, it is hard not to. Each member of the Cabinet has a tremendous amount of power over his department; no president would willingly entrust that power to someone with which he disagrees. This will lead to a certain intellectual homogeneity. Meanwhile, each member of the Cabinet is individually constrained by the imperatives of the department he represents. His information is filtered through that apparatus, and his policies are often identified with the policies of the entrenched establishment within that department. This will lead to cabinet members defending their own fiefdoms even against the greater national interest.
These two institutional factors together make a toxic brew.
Eliot Cohen, in his excellent book Supreme Command, concludes that perhaps the most crucial task of a good leader is to challenge the orthodoxies of his underlings and force people to respond more rapidly to the real world. (Ironically, Cohen's book achieved some prominence because it was on President Bush's reading list; it seems the President was not able to sufficiently profit from it.) This sort of challenge and interrogation is very difficult to do when a president must deal with groupthink in his cabinet, restricted information, and bureacratic backstabbing. What can be done?
There is a useful position in the parliamentary governments of some foreign nations (Israel is one such), called the Minister Without Portfolio. This minister has equal rank with other ministers who actually run branches of the government, yet has no executive authority (or responsibility) himself. This releases him from many institutional pressures, and allows him to speak more or less freely. Meanwhile, since the minister has no actual authority except as an official gadfly, prime ministers have more latitude in choosing ministers that they might not see eye-to-eye with.
The relative performance of parliamentary democracies is not the issue here; they are subject to their own pathologies. But the concept of a cabinet-level appointee without executive authority is ripe with possibility. It would help counteract the abovementioned corrosive factors of the Cabinet dynamic, allowing for a more healthy level of discourse and cooperation--especially if there were two Secretaries Without Portfolio, so that they could support each other if necessary. It should also be their responsibility and privilege to keep an eye on the inner workings of the various departments, to make sure that their internal politics are not allowed to damage American policy without notice.
Whatever the remedy, it is clear that the present structure of our decisionmaking bodies is badly flawed. They are frozen in a 1950's model of corporate structure, full of hierarchies and one-directional information flows, when the rest of America has moved on to more fluid, collaborative structures. But that is a larger discussion. We must fix one problem at a time, and fixing the Cabinet isn't a bad place to start.
1/24/2007
Quote of the Day
It always turns out that the party that is not your ally calls for your neutrality, while your ally asks that you declare yourself with action. In order to avoid immediate peril, an irresolute prince most often embraces neutrality and most often comes to grief…. And let no state suppose that it can choose sides with complete safety. Indeed, it had better recognize that it will always have to choose between risks, for that is the order of things. We never flee one peril without falling into another. Prudence lies in knowing how to distinguish between degrees of danger and choosing the least danger as the best.—Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince Ch. 21 (trans. Daniel Donno)
11/18/2006
Get It in Writing
Looking over the details of the New School case as reported in this news article, one point in particular stands out:
This case has all the elements in it that have collectively made for tyrannical government in the modern sense: the capricious application of inexplicable regulations, the diffusion of responsibility across a faceless bureaucracy, the decision that the parties involved are guilty until proven innocent (after spending a great deal of their own money), the total lack of regard for the real-world consequences of regulatory mandates. Plus, it surely cannot be an accident that the target in this case is a charter school, i.e. a novel institution that is free from much of the government's raft of regulations.
How did it happen that the power to make law is most in evidence not in the various legislatures, but rather in the faceless regulatory bodies? We have no easy recourse; we have no way to punish those who overreach. The regulators have no incentive to regulate well, only to regulate heavily; they are America's greatest bastion of corruption and graft, simply because of their untrammeled power and protection from consequences. (Not to accuse the principles in this case of corruption; there has so far been no evidence of same. But the point still stands.)
I will give the final word here to the recently-deceased champion for freedom, Dr. Milton Friedman:
According to New School Director Sue Miller-Hurst, she went to the county initially. “When we looked at this site in 2004, we sent a school architect to the county for a conditional use permit and he was told we did not need one because we were a public school. When we wanted to change a classroom, the owner’s contractor went to the county for a building permit and was again told, ‘You are a state school; we have no jurisdiction to issue you a permit.’ When I went to Supervisor Horn regarding a piece of land that had been pre-approved by the Division of State Architects for a school site, he said, ‘You are a public school. Stop asking and go forward.’ I asked him to put it in a letter and he said, ‘That would be asking. You are a public school and you do not have to ask.’ Then they show up in force the second day of school with no notice or warning and shut our kids out of their classroom [for alleged lack of permits]. At some point we have a reliance issue. We should be able to rely on the answers we are given from the county."Governments, and large organizations generally, run on documentation. It is their lifeblood. When a government official gives an assurance regarding the application (or lack of same) of government regulations that he is unwilling to put into writing, the wise man will immediately become suspicious.
This case has all the elements in it that have collectively made for tyrannical government in the modern sense: the capricious application of inexplicable regulations, the diffusion of responsibility across a faceless bureaucracy, the decision that the parties involved are guilty until proven innocent (after spending a great deal of their own money), the total lack of regard for the real-world consequences of regulatory mandates. Plus, it surely cannot be an accident that the target in this case is a charter school, i.e. a novel institution that is free from much of the government's raft of regulations.
How did it happen that the power to make law is most in evidence not in the various legislatures, but rather in the faceless regulatory bodies? We have no easy recourse; we have no way to punish those who overreach. The regulators have no incentive to regulate well, only to regulate heavily; they are America's greatest bastion of corruption and graft, simply because of their untrammeled power and protection from consequences. (Not to accuse the principles in this case of corruption; there has so far been no evidence of same. But the point still stands.)
I will give the final word here to the recently-deceased champion for freedom, Dr. Milton Friedman:
Given our monstrous, overgrown government structure, any three letters chosen at random would probably designate an agency or part of a department that could be profitably abolished.
11/13/2006
Quote of the Day
Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.—George Washington
11/12/2006
A Democratic Congress
[Apologies for not posting much lately. Since Nov. 1, I have been participating in National Novel Writing Month, which has utterly monopolized my capacity for stringing sentences together. However, I would be remiss if I did not say something about the most recent election.]
Well, the Democrats have control. Let's see what they do with it.
That was my overriding reaction to the election results, by early Wednesday. I am not sure yet whether I should consider the results to be a good or bad thing. I have said many times that it is harmful for the country to have one political party that is corrupt and incompetent, and another that is corrupt and insane. Well, now that the Democrats are faced with the responsibility for setting policy again, it is my profound hope that they give up their insanities and actually do a decent job of it.
One worry is that the committee appointments do not look promising. In particular, if Rep. Jane Harmon is passed over for the chairmanship of the Intelligence Committee for being insufficiently partisan, in favor of Alcee Hastings (a former judge impeached for accepting bribes), it cannot say good things for the state of Democratic governance. Nor will it say much about the Democratic commitment to taming the "culture of corruption" that they so lamented, especially if Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson remains in office even after he was found accepting bribes.
I do not expect to enjoy the Democratic policy preferences during the next two years on the domestic front. But I can accept that, if they finally get serious about the wider conflict with Islamist tyranny in its many hostile forms. Lieberman's victory over Lamont may cool the ardor of the leadership to vacate the field of battle; but it is troubling that many news reports have Democratic leaders taking counsel with George McGovern of all people.
I only hope that we do not abandon the Iraqis to anarchy and tyranny, like we did the South Vietnamese. Recall that the SVA had already repelled a full conventional invasion by the North, with the help of American air cover and resupply only. But then the Democratic Congress cut all funding for the South; before long, the South fell, and Cambodia after it. That cannot happen again. Before, the blood of millions flowed thanks to our war-weariness; if we make the same mistake now, who can say how many innocents will die? Far more than the number of soldiers who might die to prevent such a fate, in any event.
The Democrats have two years to show what they can be trusted to do with power. I hope, for all of our sakes, that they treat that power with the care and seriousness that the times demand. The danger did not begin with Iraq; it will not end with Iraq. I fear that the wider struggle will continue for a generation at least, and we cannot dare to mix policy with fantasy.
The Democrats have control. Let's see what they do with it.
Well, the Democrats have control. Let's see what they do with it.
That was my overriding reaction to the election results, by early Wednesday. I am not sure yet whether I should consider the results to be a good or bad thing. I have said many times that it is harmful for the country to have one political party that is corrupt and incompetent, and another that is corrupt and insane. Well, now that the Democrats are faced with the responsibility for setting policy again, it is my profound hope that they give up their insanities and actually do a decent job of it.
One worry is that the committee appointments do not look promising. In particular, if Rep. Jane Harmon is passed over for the chairmanship of the Intelligence Committee for being insufficiently partisan, in favor of Alcee Hastings (a former judge impeached for accepting bribes), it cannot say good things for the state of Democratic governance. Nor will it say much about the Democratic commitment to taming the "culture of corruption" that they so lamented, especially if Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson remains in office even after he was found accepting bribes.
I do not expect to enjoy the Democratic policy preferences during the next two years on the domestic front. But I can accept that, if they finally get serious about the wider conflict with Islamist tyranny in its many hostile forms. Lieberman's victory over Lamont may cool the ardor of the leadership to vacate the field of battle; but it is troubling that many news reports have Democratic leaders taking counsel with George McGovern of all people.
I only hope that we do not abandon the Iraqis to anarchy and tyranny, like we did the South Vietnamese. Recall that the SVA had already repelled a full conventional invasion by the North, with the help of American air cover and resupply only. But then the Democratic Congress cut all funding for the South; before long, the South fell, and Cambodia after it. That cannot happen again. Before, the blood of millions flowed thanks to our war-weariness; if we make the same mistake now, who can say how many innocents will die? Far more than the number of soldiers who might die to prevent such a fate, in any event.
The Democrats have two years to show what they can be trusted to do with power. I hope, for all of our sakes, that they treat that power with the care and seriousness that the times demand. The danger did not begin with Iraq; it will not end with Iraq. I fear that the wider struggle will continue for a generation at least, and we cannot dare to mix policy with fantasy.
The Democrats have control. Let's see what they do with it.
11/05/2006
An Attack on Charter Schools
[Note: I originally had a post up dealing with an attempt by a government bureaucrat to make trouble for a charter school. People involved in the case have asked me to pull the post for the time being; I have archived the original and will hopefully add more details later.]
[UPDATE 11/18: It's later. The original post follows; here is a link to a news article covering the case.]
On Friday, I received an email from a relative which was so disturbing that I ask for, and received, permission to reprint most of it here:
There are at least three issues here. First, obviously, is that a government official is waging a vendetta against a legal charter school, without any justification or legal standing. I would like to ask my readers to help spread the word about this gross abuse of power, and help fight back. Bill Horn needs to hear from people, and the DPLU needs to be swamped with calls and emails. This is about more than a single school; the charter school in question is one of the most successful schools in the state of California, in a relatively affluent area—i.e. full of parents who can be expected to seek out educational opportunities beyond the traditional public school. This makes the New School dangerous to the established educational bureaucracy. If government officials can shut it down without any opposition, the entire school choice movement could be set back years.
Second is the broader issue: here we have a government bureaucrat who is acting in ways which are universally acknowledged to be illegal; yet he can still wield the power of government machinery in order to coerce his victims to submit. And the burden is on his victims to prove that what he is doing is illegal! (On their own nickel, of course.) I find it disturbing that none of Murphy's subordinates (the ones who actually will carry out his dictat) are able to judge the legality of his behavior, and refuse to take part in it. I find it even more disturbing that Murphy's boss, Supervisor Horn, can admit that his subordinate is acting illegally, yet still refuse to curb him without consequence.
If this were the military, Murphy and Horn would both be facing courts-martial (assuming, of course, that Murphy's actions are indeed illegal); consider that the officers in charge of Abu Ghraib were punished for the infractions of soldiers many steps below them in the chain of command. The larger point is that you have an obligation to control the behavior of your subordinates. Horn seems to be abrogating that obligation.
Third, this episode displays the ease with which zoning regulations can be exploited for malicious ends by government officials. There is a proposition on the California ballot that could mitigate this problem, Prop. 90; it would allow property-owners who are penalized by changes in zoning, building codes, etc. to sue for damages. Please vote for this proposition; it is without a doubt the most important piece of legislation on the ballot.
[UPDATE 11/18: It's later. The original post follows; here is a link to a news article covering the case.]
On Friday, I received an email from a relative which was so disturbing that I ask for, and received, permission to reprint most of it here:
The New School is being targeted like no other charter school in the state's history, according to the school's attorneys. These attorneys have represented at least 2/3 of the charter schools in CA, so they have a good idea of the level of harassment we are getting.The official in question is subordinate to Supervisor Bill Horn, who has acknowledged that Murphy has exceeded his legal authority, but refuses to stop him.
I have lots of details, but suffice it to say, that there is a man in the DPLU (Dept of Planning & Land Use) in San Diego County that absolutely refuses to let the school "be" anywhere. We're trying to find a new location, and he has shut down all directions starting with "our current location is suddenly not compliant with zoning" to "being treated like a private school for purposes of finding a new location." The law is on our side in every area. We are compliant with the zoning, and we are a public school, so we are supposed to be able to pick any site we want and move there. When presented with all of the law behind us, his response is, "I don't care." We apparently need his permission to move forward, but for some reason, he won't let us...maybe, simply, because he can! He's trying to drain us of our funds by requiring all sorts of legal briefs, etc. We think that this is his plan to end the school...to drain our money.
The parents met last night and learned all of these wonderful things. We are trying to form some sort of political action to fix this. We all want to fight. This school has outstanding standardized test scores. The director thinks that this idiot, Jeff Murphy, might be bluffing because if we took him to court, he'd surely lose because the law is on our side…. We will be going to the press soon, getting on some talk radio shows, and trying to be picked up by "big" newspapers, etc.
But we have limited time here—our director was given a Compromise by the DPLU that is supposed to be signed by Monday if we are going to sign it at all. It allows us to stay where we are until the end of the year as long as we then dissolve. She (director) isn't going to sign it, and we are expecting to be locked out of the facility on Tuesday. If that happens, we will file an injunction that will at least let us exist until it's all sorted out. As a charter school, we don't have to meet there, and have resolved to be on permanent field trips until it's settled. We'd rather not have to do that, of course.
There are at least three issues here. First, obviously, is that a government official is waging a vendetta against a legal charter school, without any justification or legal standing. I would like to ask my readers to help spread the word about this gross abuse of power, and help fight back. Bill Horn needs to hear from people, and the DPLU needs to be swamped with calls and emails. This is about more than a single school; the charter school in question is one of the most successful schools in the state of California, in a relatively affluent area—i.e. full of parents who can be expected to seek out educational opportunities beyond the traditional public school. This makes the New School dangerous to the established educational bureaucracy. If government officials can shut it down without any opposition, the entire school choice movement could be set back years.
Second is the broader issue: here we have a government bureaucrat who is acting in ways which are universally acknowledged to be illegal; yet he can still wield the power of government machinery in order to coerce his victims to submit. And the burden is on his victims to prove that what he is doing is illegal! (On their own nickel, of course.) I find it disturbing that none of Murphy's subordinates (the ones who actually will carry out his dictat) are able to judge the legality of his behavior, and refuse to take part in it. I find it even more disturbing that Murphy's boss, Supervisor Horn, can admit that his subordinate is acting illegally, yet still refuse to curb him without consequence.
If this were the military, Murphy and Horn would both be facing courts-martial (assuming, of course, that Murphy's actions are indeed illegal); consider that the officers in charge of Abu Ghraib were punished for the infractions of soldiers many steps below them in the chain of command. The larger point is that you have an obligation to control the behavior of your subordinates. Horn seems to be abrogating that obligation.
Third, this episode displays the ease with which zoning regulations can be exploited for malicious ends by government officials. There is a proposition on the California ballot that could mitigate this problem, Prop. 90; it would allow property-owners who are penalized by changes in zoning, building codes, etc. to sue for damages. Please vote for this proposition; it is without a doubt the most important piece of legislation on the ballot.
10/29/2006
Atheism's Best Defense of Rights
Over at Smallest Minority, Kevin Baker has posted a monumental effort at defining a "right," and explicating why it and the United States are so important, from the atheist perspective. (Kevin was kind enough to quote from my earlier piece, The Enervated Man of the West, as part of his presentation.) Ultimately he must fall back on Ayn Rand's "one fundamental right," the right to your own life, from which all other fundamental rights flow.
Yet, strictly speaking, this is not a "right." Nothing has granted your life protected status. By speaking of a "right to your own life," Rand, and Kevin in his piece, simply acknowledge that if you do not defend your own life absolutely, you will inevitably be destroyed. It is a philosophical reflection of reality:
This is why I have tended to avoid talking about "rights." Instead, I talk about the "sanctity of life," which has nothing to do with whether a murderer is punished for his crime or not. Nor does it have to do with human reason. Rather, it is an inherent state of existence, springing forth from our status as Divine creations. Only this axiom—that we are created, and given intrinsic significance, by God—can serve as a philosophical basis for defending life in the abstract. Kevin acknowledges this, which is why he believes that an intrinsic right to life does not truly exist.
Kevin believes that the need to wage war directly contradicts the idea of a "God-given right to life." He further believes that this contradiction must ultimately lead to a fatal cognitive dissonance that will bring down cultures based on such an idea. In saying this, Kevin does not consider how a worldview built on sanctity differs from one built on natural rights.
Kevin states: We have the right to kill others because our own lives are of value. Yet taken to its extreme, this formulation simply means that you can ultimately do whatever you need to to defend your own life, including killing the innocent. (This point is made explicitly above.) Meanwhile, in Judaism you are allowed to set aside nearly all parts of the law to save life. But there are clearly defined circumstances in which you are categorically ordered to lay down your life. You must allow yourself to die rather than commit idolatry, a capital sexual transgression such as adultery, or murder. These acts are considered so profane that you may never, under any circumstances, defile yourself with them.
However, you can, and sometimes must, kill someone who seeks to commit murder himself.
What is the difference? I believe that the act of profanity in which the would-be murderer has immersed himself nullifies his sanctity, for that instant.
More to the point, there is no contradiction between the sanctity of life and killing another to defend that sanctity. Admittedly, I have not studied enough to say whether this is the rationale used by Jewish law; but it shows, I think, that while a "rights"-based society might be built on a contradiction, as Kevin suggests, this does not mean that belief in God cannot generate a consistent worldview that allows war in defense of life.
Which brings us to the upshot. Without belief in God, you are left with self-interest, in its crude or enlightened forms. With belief in God, you can have the basis for a true defense of life as a principle.
Perhaps Kevin might be interested in a modified form of Pascal's wager. The stakes here are not eternal damnation, whatever that means; they are the philosophical integrity of our society, here on Earth.
Yet, strictly speaking, this is not a "right." Nothing has granted your life protected status. By speaking of a "right to your own life," Rand, and Kevin in his piece, simply acknowledge that if you do not defend your own life absolutely, you will inevitably be destroyed. It is a philosophical reflection of reality:
The "state of nature" is the ultimate objective reality. In it, people will do whatever is necessary to survive, or they don't survive. In point of fact, throughout history - even today - people have not only defended their lives, liberty and property, they have taken life, liberty, and property from others not of their society. And they have done so secure in the knowledge that their philosophy tells them that it's the right thing to do.Kevin argues that such an outlook clashes with the basic principle underlying Western civilization, that of God-given rights. And though a devout atheist himself, he concludes that the advance of atheism is to blame for the crumbling of our cultural strength:
It is my contention that the loss of faith in Western civilization is the direct result of two things: the secularization of Western civilization, and a corresponding realization that there are no absolute, positive, unquestionable, fundamental, ultimate rights. Or, more specifically, the cognitive dissonance resulting from the refusal to accept this as objective fact.This is the danger of atheism. Even Ayn Rand's "one fundamental right" when expressed in a social setting is merely a collective decision of enlightened self-interest. There is nothing about human life, in the abstract, that is worth defending when its destruction does not affect you.
Western civilization is based on the concept of God-given individual rights, but reality refutes their existence. War cannot exist if such a philosophy is true, yet war exists. People die. Their liberty is stripped from them. Their property is stolen or destroyed. No one is punished for the violation of these rights. If a society abandons religion (as much of Western civilization has done) then we cannot count on God to punish the violators, and they get away with their crimes against us, (See: Josef Mengele, Slobodan Milosevic, and most probably Saddam Hussein) yet we've been breastfed on the idea that our rights are absolute, positive, unquestionable, fundamental, and ultimate - not to mention, self-evident.
This is why I have tended to avoid talking about "rights." Instead, I talk about the "sanctity of life," which has nothing to do with whether a murderer is punished for his crime or not. Nor does it have to do with human reason. Rather, it is an inherent state of existence, springing forth from our status as Divine creations. Only this axiom—that we are created, and given intrinsic significance, by God—can serve as a philosophical basis for defending life in the abstract. Kevin acknowledges this, which is why he believes that an intrinsic right to life does not truly exist.
Kevin believes that the need to wage war directly contradicts the idea of a "God-given right to life." He further believes that this contradiction must ultimately lead to a fatal cognitive dissonance that will bring down cultures based on such an idea. In saying this, Kevin does not consider how a worldview built on sanctity differs from one built on natural rights.
Kevin states: We have the right to kill others because our own lives are of value. Yet taken to its extreme, this formulation simply means that you can ultimately do whatever you need to to defend your own life, including killing the innocent. (This point is made explicitly above.) Meanwhile, in Judaism you are allowed to set aside nearly all parts of the law to save life. But there are clearly defined circumstances in which you are categorically ordered to lay down your life. You must allow yourself to die rather than commit idolatry, a capital sexual transgression such as adultery, or murder. These acts are considered so profane that you may never, under any circumstances, defile yourself with them.
However, you can, and sometimes must, kill someone who seeks to commit murder himself.
What is the difference? I believe that the act of profanity in which the would-be murderer has immersed himself nullifies his sanctity, for that instant.
More to the point, there is no contradiction between the sanctity of life and killing another to defend that sanctity. Admittedly, I have not studied enough to say whether this is the rationale used by Jewish law; but it shows, I think, that while a "rights"-based society might be built on a contradiction, as Kevin suggests, this does not mean that belief in God cannot generate a consistent worldview that allows war in defense of life.
Which brings us to the upshot. Without belief in God, you are left with self-interest, in its crude or enlightened forms. With belief in God, you can have the basis for a true defense of life as a principle.
Perhaps Kevin might be interested in a modified form of Pascal's wager. The stakes here are not eternal damnation, whatever that means; they are the philosophical integrity of our society, here on Earth.
10/25/2006
There's Reality, and There's Political Reality
Last week I attended an industry conference in Atlanta, at which the headline speaker was former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan. Greenspan was interviewed on the front stage by a CNN finance anchor, Ali Someone-or-Other (not being in the habit of watching CNN, I did not know him at all). The contrast throughout was striking: while the interviewer kept digging for the incendiary soundbite, Mr. Greenspan consistently replied with deep, reasoned analysis that displayed a level of historical perspective too often lacking today. For example, when asked a question about the housing boom and emerging slump, Mr. Greenspan began his answer by outlining the economic effects of the fall of the Soviet Union. And as he made clear in his answer, one cannot try to understand the current interest-rate environment without going back at least that far.
Ali asked if oil speculation posed a threat to the economy. Greenspan replied that the speculators were doing a great service, by building up large inventories of crude oil that would otherwise not have been available to mitigate shortages. Ali asked if hedge funds were dangerous and needed to be tightly regulated. Greenspan instead spoke highly of hedge funds, calling them "the pollinating bees of Wall Street" and crediting them with turning inefficient economic niches into efficient commodities. And on and on it went.
Noteworthy was the exchange on Social Security. When asked about the problem with Social Security, Mr. Greenspan replied that there was no real problem with Social Security: we know how much money there is, we know how many people there will be, and we know how much the shortfall is. He said, "I'm a Republican, but I could sit down in a room with Bob Rubin [i.e. Robert Rubin, Treasury Secretary under President Clinton] and we could solve the problem in fifteen minutes. And the first ten minutes would be spent reminiscing over old times."
The problem was not one of numbers, he said, but of the lack of political will. (Neither party really wants to ask Americans to tighten their belts, which is what the situation demands: either more taxes, smaller payouts, or a radical restructuring that would cause great trauma in some form or another.) The real problem was not with Social Security, but with Medicare: "We have made promises we don't know if we can keep." Not only because of the ballooning expense of medical care—we don't know if there will be enough hospitals, doctors, or nurses to provide the necessary services. And the government is only halfheartedly trying to figure out exactly what it has promised, even as it piles on more promises on top of the ones already made.
The most serious problem Mr. Greenspan pointed out was the catastrophic failure of our schools. He noted that at 4th grade, our students score near the top of the world in academic achievement; but by the time they reach high school, American students rank near the bottom of developed nations. This is the cause of our shortage of doctors and scientists; it is also the cause of the stagnation of low-skill wages, as students who by rights should have been prepared for technical careers must settle for low-skilled work instead, glutting the labor market.
Yet very little is done to actually improve our schools. Teachers' unions fight tooth and nail against the expansion of charter schools, or any substantive reform of the school bureaucracy, and instead loudly moan for more money. This despite the worst-performing school district, in Washington D.C., also being the most lavishly funded. The problem is not one of money; it is of institutions. And Democratic politicians especially are too deeply indebted to the teachers' unions to dare cross them.
(One notable exception is the Democratic mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa. I'm not sure if I agree with a city takeover of the school district in the abstract, but it will surely do a great deal of good in the concrete. And I particularly enjoyed the panicked howling from the teachers' unions.)
Something is very wrong with our politics when the most damaging and obvious problems are never addressed, while relatively minor problems are built up into bogeymen. A part of this is from the "gotcha" mindset typified by the CNN interviewer, who was more interested in creating controversy than in reasoned analysis. (To be fair to him, he was quite a skilled interviewer. But still a narcissistic lightweight.) Our politics is less about improving the country than it is about scoring points off of the other guy. Witness the hyperventilating over Rep. Foley's famous emails, a subject which (while sordid and reflecting very poorly on his character) has nothing at all to do with government policy.
Yesterday on a local radio program, Larry Mantle's "Airtalk," Kevin O'Leary proposed a new political institution to help remedy this malady. Borrowing from the Athenian system of democratic assemblies, O'Leary proposed that each Congressional district should select by lottery 100 citizens, who would participate in a citizens' assembly for two years if they accept the appointment. There would thus be 43,500 such average-joe assemblymen, who would debate the issues of the day away from the backbiting of Washington. Read his website for a summary; I have a few issues with the idea, which I brought up in a phone call to the show, but it has a great deal of potential to get the government focused on doing its job again. (You can listen to the segment, as of right now, by going here, scrolling down to Tuesday, October 24th, and clicking on the "Saving Democracy" audio.)
At any rate, we as citizens need to muster the will to break out of the petty morasses of the moment and consider the difficult questions that matter most. The laws of economics cannot be ignored by the political class forever.
************
On another note, Michael Barone writes about a private interview he and seven other columnists had with President Bush earlier today. The hour-long audio of the interview is posted, and makes for fascinating listening. The President began his remarks sounding stilted and uncomfortable, but loosened up considerably as the interview wore on. If you have any interest at all in the thoughts of the most powerful man on Earth, take a listen. This is not the fabled Texas cowboy by any means. (Much as he would like to be sometimes; listen especially to his comments about Syria!)
Ali asked if oil speculation posed a threat to the economy. Greenspan replied that the speculators were doing a great service, by building up large inventories of crude oil that would otherwise not have been available to mitigate shortages. Ali asked if hedge funds were dangerous and needed to be tightly regulated. Greenspan instead spoke highly of hedge funds, calling them "the pollinating bees of Wall Street" and crediting them with turning inefficient economic niches into efficient commodities. And on and on it went.
Noteworthy was the exchange on Social Security. When asked about the problem with Social Security, Mr. Greenspan replied that there was no real problem with Social Security: we know how much money there is, we know how many people there will be, and we know how much the shortfall is. He said, "I'm a Republican, but I could sit down in a room with Bob Rubin [i.e. Robert Rubin, Treasury Secretary under President Clinton] and we could solve the problem in fifteen minutes. And the first ten minutes would be spent reminiscing over old times."
The problem was not one of numbers, he said, but of the lack of political will. (Neither party really wants to ask Americans to tighten their belts, which is what the situation demands: either more taxes, smaller payouts, or a radical restructuring that would cause great trauma in some form or another.) The real problem was not with Social Security, but with Medicare: "We have made promises we don't know if we can keep." Not only because of the ballooning expense of medical care—we don't know if there will be enough hospitals, doctors, or nurses to provide the necessary services. And the government is only halfheartedly trying to figure out exactly what it has promised, even as it piles on more promises on top of the ones already made.
The most serious problem Mr. Greenspan pointed out was the catastrophic failure of our schools. He noted that at 4th grade, our students score near the top of the world in academic achievement; but by the time they reach high school, American students rank near the bottom of developed nations. This is the cause of our shortage of doctors and scientists; it is also the cause of the stagnation of low-skill wages, as students who by rights should have been prepared for technical careers must settle for low-skilled work instead, glutting the labor market.
Yet very little is done to actually improve our schools. Teachers' unions fight tooth and nail against the expansion of charter schools, or any substantive reform of the school bureaucracy, and instead loudly moan for more money. This despite the worst-performing school district, in Washington D.C., also being the most lavishly funded. The problem is not one of money; it is of institutions. And Democratic politicians especially are too deeply indebted to the teachers' unions to dare cross them.
(One notable exception is the Democratic mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa. I'm not sure if I agree with a city takeover of the school district in the abstract, but it will surely do a great deal of good in the concrete. And I particularly enjoyed the panicked howling from the teachers' unions.)
Something is very wrong with our politics when the most damaging and obvious problems are never addressed, while relatively minor problems are built up into bogeymen. A part of this is from the "gotcha" mindset typified by the CNN interviewer, who was more interested in creating controversy than in reasoned analysis. (To be fair to him, he was quite a skilled interviewer. But still a narcissistic lightweight.) Our politics is less about improving the country than it is about scoring points off of the other guy. Witness the hyperventilating over Rep. Foley's famous emails, a subject which (while sordid and reflecting very poorly on his character) has nothing at all to do with government policy.
Yesterday on a local radio program, Larry Mantle's "Airtalk," Kevin O'Leary proposed a new political institution to help remedy this malady. Borrowing from the Athenian system of democratic assemblies, O'Leary proposed that each Congressional district should select by lottery 100 citizens, who would participate in a citizens' assembly for two years if they accept the appointment. There would thus be 43,500 such average-joe assemblymen, who would debate the issues of the day away from the backbiting of Washington. Read his website for a summary; I have a few issues with the idea, which I brought up in a phone call to the show, but it has a great deal of potential to get the government focused on doing its job again. (You can listen to the segment, as of right now, by going here, scrolling down to Tuesday, October 24th, and clicking on the "Saving Democracy" audio.)
At any rate, we as citizens need to muster the will to break out of the petty morasses of the moment and consider the difficult questions that matter most. The laws of economics cannot be ignored by the political class forever.
************
On another note, Michael Barone writes about a private interview he and seven other columnists had with President Bush earlier today. The hour-long audio of the interview is posted, and makes for fascinating listening. The President began his remarks sounding stilted and uncomfortable, but loosened up considerably as the interview wore on. If you have any interest at all in the thoughts of the most powerful man on Earth, take a listen. This is not the fabled Texas cowboy by any means. (Much as he would like to be sometimes; listen especially to his comments about Syria!)
10/16/2006
Redeeming Our Politics
Excerpts from a post about politics by Roger L. Simon and from a few commenters:
Most of all, one must have a lot of money, or else one or several wealthy backers. (Since McCain-Feingold, the wealthy actually have more influence on politics than before, by design. It is the middle class and the upper-middle class who were effectively shut out of politics by that ill-made law.) You could fund a campaign with thousands of small donations, of course; but to win national office, you need a war chest of millions, sometimes tens of millions. Try getting that from your friends and family.
What you do not need is any skill in statecraft, law, or economics. True, you must be expert in the rules and procedures, the minutia of getting things done, and you have to perform well enough that your constituents are not actively disgusted with you; but the simplest way to do that is to avoid taking strong positions on anything. When power is apportioned through an elaborate popularity contest, there is no reason to suppose that your elected officials will be true statesmen.
One can imagine all sorts of necessary or desirable changes in electoral procedure; but they will have limited effect so long as we continue to act as though our leaders must come from an electoral caste, a self-styled aristocracy. It galls me every time I see a national politician run unopposed, simply because nobody—nobody!—in that district wants the hardship of running. It galls me when practically everyone thinks of voting as a choice between two evils, and then does nothing to help remedy that detestible state.
"How many libertarians does it take to change a light bulb? Just one, but you have to get him to show up."
Our government will continue slogging its way through mediocrity, unless talented people from all walks of life run for office. Not because they desire power, not because they want to run their fellow citizens' lives, but precisely because they want neither. Those with a keen understanding of government's operation, history, or human nature should see it a civic duty to interrupt their real lives for a time, and dedicate their service to the good of the nation. A burden, even. Yet one that must be carried, unless we want to let our laws be written by the Hasterts and the Pelosis of the world.
Almost all of them will lose. Running will represent a huge investment of time, money, and emotional strain that candidates will never get back. But their mere presence in the ring will change the dynamic of our politics, just a bit—will force our elected officials to talk about ideas as often as about their skill at securing pork, about the real world as often as the high-school-lunchroom politicking of Washington.
And a few of these talented statesmen might win.
It's blood sport performed by truly uninteresting performers—basketball without Kobe, Shaq or Jordan. People like Reid, Hastert, Pelosi are complete mediocrities who should be at much lower levels in our society. Something is fundamentally wrong on both sides of the aisle if they are the upper leadership of our Congress…At present, winning election to public office requires an incredible assortment of skills. One must curry favor with the party machine; one must build (or at least fund) a powerful get-out-the-vote organization. One must be reasonably photogenic; one must know the right people. One must know how to stroke the egos of news reporters to ensure favorable coverage. One must carefully balance the interests of the various segments of your electorate, to ensure that all-important 51% "Yes." And one must either have a spotless record, or else pay off the right people to ensure their silence.
[Carl Spackler:] Life gets more complex every year. But not by accident. In my case of building private homes, I can remember when a permit was a twenty minute exercise. Now, six months to a year is normal. Same in manufacturing or even in running a middle school. So, more intellectual power is sucked up in doing the same thing. Only it seems as if the cost continues to increase and quality declines.
And who do you think gets paid the most? Take wood frame house building. It’s really very simple. Is it the framer working in the summer sun, up high on the rafters or in the winter winds and snow lifting walls up? Nope. The plumber, the electrician or the mason with the skin on his hands crevassed and like sand paper? All of whom work without sick days, paid vacations, pensions? Nope. The highest paid are the paper shufflers. The lawyers, the inspectors, the ‘environmental consultants’. So why would people do real, literally constructive work?
[ahem:] Everyone's missing the part played by yellow journalism. Many honorable people are dissuaded from participating in government because they don't want to be combed over by the idiot media.
How dearly would I love for a politician to turn around and ask Diane Sawyer about her sex life for a change. If the media dimwits had to answer the insulting questions they ask daily, they might back off…
[geekWithA.45:] If you remember reading documents and other root materials from the time of the Founding, such as the Federalist papers, you'll note that on many, many occassions they talked about how the system would bring forth the best and brightest minds, men of sterling character and integrity.
You could say that this is one of the Republic's dependencies.
You'll also note that they make repeated references to the dependency on an educated, informed electorate.
It's pretty hard to argue that these dependencies are being met.
God help the Republic.
Most of all, one must have a lot of money, or else one or several wealthy backers. (Since McCain-Feingold, the wealthy actually have more influence on politics than before, by design. It is the middle class and the upper-middle class who were effectively shut out of politics by that ill-made law.) You could fund a campaign with thousands of small donations, of course; but to win national office, you need a war chest of millions, sometimes tens of millions. Try getting that from your friends and family.
What you do not need is any skill in statecraft, law, or economics. True, you must be expert in the rules and procedures, the minutia of getting things done, and you have to perform well enough that your constituents are not actively disgusted with you; but the simplest way to do that is to avoid taking strong positions on anything. When power is apportioned through an elaborate popularity contest, there is no reason to suppose that your elected officials will be true statesmen.
[Section9:] Washington is Hollywood for ugly people.So what can we do? How can we spectators to this glorified mud wrestling match rescue our government from its own mediocrity?
One can imagine all sorts of necessary or desirable changes in electoral procedure; but they will have limited effect so long as we continue to act as though our leaders must come from an electoral caste, a self-styled aristocracy. It galls me every time I see a national politician run unopposed, simply because nobody—nobody!—in that district wants the hardship of running. It galls me when practically everyone thinks of voting as a choice between two evils, and then does nothing to help remedy that detestible state.
"How many libertarians does it take to change a light bulb? Just one, but you have to get him to show up."
Our government will continue slogging its way through mediocrity, unless talented people from all walks of life run for office. Not because they desire power, not because they want to run their fellow citizens' lives, but precisely because they want neither. Those with a keen understanding of government's operation, history, or human nature should see it a civic duty to interrupt their real lives for a time, and dedicate their service to the good of the nation. A burden, even. Yet one that must be carried, unless we want to let our laws be written by the Hasterts and the Pelosis of the world.
Almost all of them will lose. Running will represent a huge investment of time, money, and emotional strain that candidates will never get back. But their mere presence in the ring will change the dynamic of our politics, just a bit—will force our elected officials to talk about ideas as often as about their skill at securing pork, about the real world as often as the high-school-lunchroom politicking of Washington.
And a few of these talented statesmen might win.
10/11/2006
Update
North Korea's been conducting purported nuclear tests and threatening war, the budget deficit has shrunk to 1.9% of GDP (well below the 40-year average of 2.3%), Jimmy Carter has opened his fetid mouth in public again, the price of oil has dropped like a rock, and Pope Benedict continues to state uncomfortable truths about modern Islamism.
So why haven't I been posting?
There are several reasons for my inactivity; a chief one is that I've been pushing to finish the revision of my undergrad thesis, on which I have now worked off and on for nearly two years. The previous draft was a complete mess, as was obvious when I picked it up again after a few months. The draft that is presently taking shape (my last, God-willing) is much stronger, and also incorporates more literature from the field.
I should have it finished in short order, at which point I plan to upload it to the Net. Until then, I commend you to the blogs on my sidebar.
So why haven't I been posting?
There are several reasons for my inactivity; a chief one is that I've been pushing to finish the revision of my undergrad thesis, on which I have now worked off and on for nearly two years. The previous draft was a complete mess, as was obvious when I picked it up again after a few months. The draft that is presently taking shape (my last, God-willing) is much stronger, and also incorporates more literature from the field.
I should have it finished in short order, at which point I plan to upload it to the Net. Until then, I commend you to the blogs on my sidebar.
9/27/2006
Quote of the Day
Officials of the [Iranian] regime have admitted that most Iranian clerics have always taken a wary view of Khomeinism. It is important to realize that the religious references which Khomeini used to justify his rule were literally the same as those invoked a century earlier by an eminent ayatollah who was arguing for the legitimacy of parliamentarianism and popular sovereignty on Islamic grounds.—Ladan Boroumand and Roya Boroumand, Terror, Islam, and Democracy, published in the Journal of Democracy, Spring 2002
9/26/2006
If All You Have is a Hammer...
One of the constant critiques by soldiers deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq is that they are having to carry out diplomatic and civil affairs duties that are, strictly speaking, outside of their core competency. Robert Kaplan noted that "they say where is the State Department. We want desperately to hand over responsibility to USAID, the State Department." Yet the State Department has been slow to get involved in efforts on the ground, spending its energies on high politics instead; after all, that is the core competency of State.
We have two organizations, the military and the diplomatic corps, each of which has its own idea of what its purpose is, and neither of which is explicitly tasked with low-level development work. That the job ends up being done by the military is merely a concession to necessity; soldiers are not trained to be city planners, or sewer engineers, or diplomats. (Though as Kaplan wrote, they often do a much better job of it than more qualified specialists.)
This dichotomy between diplomacy and military force dates back to a time in which politics were largely between royal European courts, in which statecraft was a grand game and was played by clearly defined rules. War was war, peace was peace, and institutions were developed in light of that. In particular, the notions of international development, low-level diplomacy, or nation-building were completely foreign to the structure of these institutions, which dealt with unitary states for the most part.
Even under such circumstances, to divide warfighting from diplomacy is problematic. Clausewitz wrote that "War is the continuation of politics by other means," and that warfighting needed to be strictly subordinated to political goals. Similarly, diplomacy is ineffectual when not backed up by the threat of force. As Ace noted a few times, diplomats can only negotiate; they have nothing to fall back on when they are faced with the word "No."
Worse, by having two institutions, each fundamentally built around a different way of relating to the outside world, each of them will have a distorted picture of the outside world: the diplomat will see all problems as amenable to jaw-jaw, and the soldier will see all problems as needing war-war. National policy will be influenced as much by which of the cabinet officials is more powerful that month, as it will by the facts on the ground.
And in the event of a conflict, the military will be backed up by a diplomatic corps that is, by nature, oriented away from the use of force. Friction develops, effort is wasted, opportunities are lost. And bureaucratic turf battles will stand in the way of applying the right skills to the situation.
Now, let us look at the modern battlefield. The distinction between warfighting and diplomacy has vanished entirely. Our soldiers must deal with civilian populations constantly, negotiating with clashing power centers and building alliances to support American interests. Our diplomats are often acting in support of military objectives such as the arrest of foreign terrorists. More importantly, battlespaces are chaotic; the unitary government is often nonexistent, and diplomacy must often be conducted on-the-fly by the men in theater, whoever they work for.
That being the case, why should we have two separate organizations at all?
The fundamental task is to interact with the outside world. Our representatives should have access to the entire continuum of behaviors and assets, from bandages to bullets, without having to navigate political mazes and dangerous turf battles. They should also be trained in both the sword and the olive branch, so that there is no inherent bias towards one or the other in their understanding of the world.
The Defense Department and the State Department should both be abolished. In their place should be a new organization, better suited to defend our interests abroad and to do the crucial work of nation-building which seems to be our great challenge. It should bring the full resources of the United States -- military, financial, educational, and diplomatic -- to bear on obstacles. The sergeant at the front line should be able to negotiate treaties and disburse foreign aid, and the diplomat in a foreign capital should be able to pick up a phone and order an airstrike.
In short, I propose a new organization: the Department of Statecraft.
We have two organizations, the military and the diplomatic corps, each of which has its own idea of what its purpose is, and neither of which is explicitly tasked with low-level development work. That the job ends up being done by the military is merely a concession to necessity; soldiers are not trained to be city planners, or sewer engineers, or diplomats. (Though as Kaplan wrote, they often do a much better job of it than more qualified specialists.)
This dichotomy between diplomacy and military force dates back to a time in which politics were largely between royal European courts, in which statecraft was a grand game and was played by clearly defined rules. War was war, peace was peace, and institutions were developed in light of that. In particular, the notions of international development, low-level diplomacy, or nation-building were completely foreign to the structure of these institutions, which dealt with unitary states for the most part.
Even under such circumstances, to divide warfighting from diplomacy is problematic. Clausewitz wrote that "War is the continuation of politics by other means," and that warfighting needed to be strictly subordinated to political goals. Similarly, diplomacy is ineffectual when not backed up by the threat of force. As Ace noted a few times, diplomats can only negotiate; they have nothing to fall back on when they are faced with the word "No."
Worse, by having two institutions, each fundamentally built around a different way of relating to the outside world, each of them will have a distorted picture of the outside world: the diplomat will see all problems as amenable to jaw-jaw, and the soldier will see all problems as needing war-war. National policy will be influenced as much by which of the cabinet officials is more powerful that month, as it will by the facts on the ground.
And in the event of a conflict, the military will be backed up by a diplomatic corps that is, by nature, oriented away from the use of force. Friction develops, effort is wasted, opportunities are lost. And bureaucratic turf battles will stand in the way of applying the right skills to the situation.
Now, let us look at the modern battlefield. The distinction between warfighting and diplomacy has vanished entirely. Our soldiers must deal with civilian populations constantly, negotiating with clashing power centers and building alliances to support American interests. Our diplomats are often acting in support of military objectives such as the arrest of foreign terrorists. More importantly, battlespaces are chaotic; the unitary government is often nonexistent, and diplomacy must often be conducted on-the-fly by the men in theater, whoever they work for.
That being the case, why should we have two separate organizations at all?
The fundamental task is to interact with the outside world. Our representatives should have access to the entire continuum of behaviors and assets, from bandages to bullets, without having to navigate political mazes and dangerous turf battles. They should also be trained in both the sword and the olive branch, so that there is no inherent bias towards one or the other in their understanding of the world.
The Defense Department and the State Department should both be abolished. In their place should be a new organization, better suited to defend our interests abroad and to do the crucial work of nation-building which seems to be our great challenge. It should bring the full resources of the United States -- military, financial, educational, and diplomatic -- to bear on obstacles. The sergeant at the front line should be able to negotiate treaties and disburse foreign aid, and the diplomat in a foreign capital should be able to pick up a phone and order an airstrike.
In short, I propose a new organization: the Department of Statecraft.
9/13/2006
Quote of the Day
In societies such as ours, it is unusual for anyone describable as an intellectual to feel a very deep attachment to his own country. Public opinion — that is , the section of public opinion of which he as an intellectual is aware — will not allow him to do so. Most of the people surrounding him are sceptical and disaffected, and he may adopt the same attitude from imitativeness or sheer cowardice: in that case he will have abandoned the form of nationalism that lies nearest to hand without getting any closer to a genuinely internationalist outlook. He still feels the need for a Fatherland, and it is natural to look for one somewhere abroad. Having found it, he can wallow unrestrainedly in exactly those emotions from which he believes that he has emancipated himself. God, the King, the Empire, the Union Jack — all the overthrown idols can reappear under different names, and because they are not recognized for what they are they can be worshipped with a good conscience. Transferred nationalism, like the use of scapegoats, is a way of attaining salvation without altering one's conduct.—George Orwell, Notes on Nationalism (1945)
9/12/2006
The Role of the People
The Sept. 9-10 Wall Street Journal published an interview with President Bush that is well worth reading, if only for the insight it provides into the mind of the most powerful man on Earth. I would like to focus on one particular point. Discussing the old policy of Middle-East "stability" at the price of liberty and justice, the President said:
The President has spent the last several weeks doing the kind of public explication of our philosophy that many supporters of the war have been begging him to do for the past five years. Many have explained this spurt of activity by pointing to the upcoming midterm elections, which seems correct to me. Yet why the galling silence in the long days before now, especially if the President considers the war of ideas so important? Why was there no attempt to pull an FDR, and continuously rally philosophical support to the war with the repeated invocation of our principles?
Until recently, when the White House did justify the war, the ideas of freedom and democracy were employed so casually as to make them clichés. It was as though the government did not think it important to make its own formal case, only to provide the key words and let a subset of the people fight a desperate holding action against the rising tide of oppposition. Why?
Similarly, there has been no attempt to directly discredit the ideas of the enemy. In a true "war of ideas," you seek to demonstrate the flaws in the opposing philosophy, and show that your own is superior. (Admittedly, it is difficult to do that when the pseudo-intelligensia is on the lookout for any sign of "cultural arrogance"…) Instead, the participation of the Afghani and Iraqi peoples in their new democracies is presented as clear proof that democracy is superior to the alternative. But for one who already believes in jihadi Islamism, this "proof" is no proof at all. His ideas remain intact.
In both cases, it seems that the important part is for the United States to carry out its idea and put it into practice. Once democracy is established, so goes the implicit theory, it will perpetuate itself regardless of the initial mentality of the Arab world. So there is no need to actually convince anyone of democracy's superiority, merely to demonstrate it. Similarly, there is no need to truly unite the American people around an idea, merely to retain enough of an electoral edge to carry out your policies.
There is some truth to this theory, as a fallback position. But it does not adequately explain why the White House has never seriously attempted a true war of ideas in the first place.
Let us look back into the mists of time to the long-ago days of the 2000 election. Back then, Mr. Bush ran as a "compassionate conservative." This epithet was mocked by liberals as contradictory; but small-government conservatives knew better. What Mr. Bush meant by "compassionate conservative" was "big-government conservative," meaning that he would use the power of government as an instrument to achieve his policy goals. This in sharp contrast to the supposedly unfeeling "Goldwater conservative," who sees government as dangerous and in need of curtailment.
So, what goals has the President pursued? Aside from his war aims, what has most characterized this administration has been the Ownership Society. That is, the President has sought to modify existing government programs in ways that promote individual savings and responsibility. Though most people remember the famous tax cuts, and the White House's failure to enact Social Security reform, few notice such reforms as Health Savings Accounts, expanded vehicles for retirement savings, and new rules for pension plans. (The recently passed Pension Protection Act of 2006 is the most thorough pension reform in three decades, and was scarcely noticed by most people.)
But while the President was making all of these reforms, he was not laying out a philosophical foundation for them to the people. Also, many of the reforms amount to actuarial adjustments (for example, raising IRA limits to $4000 from $2000) rather than true changes of approach. By making prudent habits such as saving for retirement more attractive, Mr. Bush seeks to change people's behavior without changing their minds. And he does so through the framework of government, not by setting the government aside. Action is initiated by government; the people simply respond to a new set of incentives.
Six months ago, I noted a speech the President gave in which he was asked:
I believe, based on the foregoing and especially the President's economic policies, that he bases his policies on the idea that most people only act by responding to incentives. It is the role of government, therefore, to shape the incentives available. Thus, to reduce terrorism, you need only set up a democracy and allow a new social dynamic to come into being. You needn't worry about an actual war of ideas, since the idea of terrorism will vanish as soon as the societal pressures that created it change.
You will not find a Democrat to explicitly criticize this worryingly incomplete philosophy, as most Democrats believe the same thing (albeit they seek to promote different incentives). But as in the "support the troops" quote above, Mr. Bush is wasting a tremendous source of power: the independent efforts of his countrymen, which he does not seem to believe truly exist as a force to be used. And he is similarly underestimating the power of jihadi Islamism, which has proven most corrosive not under dictatorships, but within seemingly Westernized communities across Europe and (to a lesser degree) the United States.
We may win out anyway; America has always been good at muddling through. But our cause is not helped by this sort of cynical statism. Our leaders need to stop thinking of government as the cure for all of our problems. Government is simply a concentration of the power of the citizenry; if an occasion arises when we can employ that power to greater effect ourselves, then we should be given the chance.
The problem with that philosophy, or that foreign policy, was that beneath the surface boiled resentment and hatred, and that resentment and hatred helped fuel this radical Islam… [I]n the long run, the only way to make sure your grandchildren are protected, Paul, is to win the battle of ideas, is to defeat the ideology of hatred and resentment.And later, he said:
In the long run, the United States is going to have to make a decision as to whether or not it will support moderates against extremists, reformers against tyrants. And Iraq is the first real test of the nation's commitment to this ideological struggle…Mr. Bush displays admirable clarity on what constitutes the heart of this struggle, not weapons or armies but ideas. This only makes more remarkable the strange passivity from the White House, and the government in general, on the subject of the ideas in question.
The President has spent the last several weeks doing the kind of public explication of our philosophy that many supporters of the war have been begging him to do for the past five years. Many have explained this spurt of activity by pointing to the upcoming midterm elections, which seems correct to me. Yet why the galling silence in the long days before now, especially if the President considers the war of ideas so important? Why was there no attempt to pull an FDR, and continuously rally philosophical support to the war with the repeated invocation of our principles?
Until recently, when the White House did justify the war, the ideas of freedom and democracy were employed so casually as to make them clichés. It was as though the government did not think it important to make its own formal case, only to provide the key words and let a subset of the people fight a desperate holding action against the rising tide of oppposition. Why?
Similarly, there has been no attempt to directly discredit the ideas of the enemy. In a true "war of ideas," you seek to demonstrate the flaws in the opposing philosophy, and show that your own is superior. (Admittedly, it is difficult to do that when the pseudo-intelligensia is on the lookout for any sign of "cultural arrogance"…) Instead, the participation of the Afghani and Iraqi peoples in their new democracies is presented as clear proof that democracy is superior to the alternative. But for one who already believes in jihadi Islamism, this "proof" is no proof at all. His ideas remain intact.
In both cases, it seems that the important part is for the United States to carry out its idea and put it into practice. Once democracy is established, so goes the implicit theory, it will perpetuate itself regardless of the initial mentality of the Arab world. So there is no need to actually convince anyone of democracy's superiority, merely to demonstrate it. Similarly, there is no need to truly unite the American people around an idea, merely to retain enough of an electoral edge to carry out your policies.
There is some truth to this theory, as a fallback position. But it does not adequately explain why the White House has never seriously attempted a true war of ideas in the first place.
Let us look back into the mists of time to the long-ago days of the 2000 election. Back then, Mr. Bush ran as a "compassionate conservative." This epithet was mocked by liberals as contradictory; but small-government conservatives knew better. What Mr. Bush meant by "compassionate conservative" was "big-government conservative," meaning that he would use the power of government as an instrument to achieve his policy goals. This in sharp contrast to the supposedly unfeeling "Goldwater conservative," who sees government as dangerous and in need of curtailment.
So, what goals has the President pursued? Aside from his war aims, what has most characterized this administration has been the Ownership Society. That is, the President has sought to modify existing government programs in ways that promote individual savings and responsibility. Though most people remember the famous tax cuts, and the White House's failure to enact Social Security reform, few notice such reforms as Health Savings Accounts, expanded vehicles for retirement savings, and new rules for pension plans. (The recently passed Pension Protection Act of 2006 is the most thorough pension reform in three decades, and was scarcely noticed by most people.)
But while the President was making all of these reforms, he was not laying out a philosophical foundation for them to the people. Also, many of the reforms amount to actuarial adjustments (for example, raising IRA limits to $4000 from $2000) rather than true changes of approach. By making prudent habits such as saving for retirement more attractive, Mr. Bush seeks to change people's behavior without changing their minds. And he does so through the framework of government, not by setting the government aside. Action is initiated by government; the people simply respond to a new set of incentives.
Six months ago, I noted a speech the President gave in which he was asked:
From the grassroots level, how can we help you promote the cause of freedom and liberty for all peoples throughout the world?He responded:
[T]he best way you can help is to support our troops. You find a family who's got a child in the United States military, tell them you appreciate them. Ask them if you can help them. You see somebody wearing a uniform, you walk up and say, thanks for serving the country.In other words, the role of individuals is to acquiesce to government action, not to initiate action of their own.
I believe, based on the foregoing and especially the President's economic policies, that he bases his policies on the idea that most people only act by responding to incentives. It is the role of government, therefore, to shape the incentives available. Thus, to reduce terrorism, you need only set up a democracy and allow a new social dynamic to come into being. You needn't worry about an actual war of ideas, since the idea of terrorism will vanish as soon as the societal pressures that created it change.
You will not find a Democrat to explicitly criticize this worryingly incomplete philosophy, as most Democrats believe the same thing (albeit they seek to promote different incentives). But as in the "support the troops" quote above, Mr. Bush is wasting a tremendous source of power: the independent efforts of his countrymen, which he does not seem to believe truly exist as a force to be used. And he is similarly underestimating the power of jihadi Islamism, which has proven most corrosive not under dictatorships, but within seemingly Westernized communities across Europe and (to a lesser degree) the United States.
We may win out anyway; America has always been good at muddling through. But our cause is not helped by this sort of cynical statism. Our leaders need to stop thinking of government as the cure for all of our problems. Government is simply a concentration of the power of the citizenry; if an occasion arises when we can employ that power to greater effect ourselves, then we should be given the chance.
9/11/2006
Castles in the Air (A 9/11 Jeremiad)
In Roman times, roads meant trade, so new villages were built beside roads. In Anglo-Saxon times, roads meant marauders, so new villages were built far from roads. Tells you most of what you need to know, I reckon.—dearieme, commenting at Samizdata.
As the West wages desultory war against its enemies, we have too often taken our eventual victory for granted. Those among us who hope that we lose, the acolytes of Noam Chomsky and his ilk, likewise do not really believe that the West can actually be overthrown; they suppose that our imperial ambitions will be thwarted, and we will withdraw from the international scene smarting with humiliation but otherwise whole. Western society would remain largely as it is, perhaps with fundamentally minor changes in economic or political policy, in one direction or another.
This assurance is born in large part from our tremendous material wealth, which translates into military power. Just as importantly, our wealth comes less from our (admittedly prodigious) natural resources than from our entreprenurial and technological prowess. Our superiority is made self-evident, so we imagine, just by comparing our own technology to that of our foes. Our technology is seen not only as a measure of power, but of creative ability and the mental agility to live in such a technological world. Our enemies, the backward peoples of the Muslim world, surely cannot hope to match such wonders!
This is in truth a thin reed on which to base such complacency. Two points are neglected in this triumphal narrative:
First, one man may use a tool crafted by another. That we created the atomic bomb ex nihilo, as it were, only makes it that much easier for Iran and other malevolent powers to imitate us. That we did it first will soon become a point of historical curiosity.
Second, our matchless technologies are driving tremendous change thoughout the world. Much of this change is good, lifting millions from poverty and threatening to destabilize tyrannies across the globe. But this technology is also laying bare our own existential nullities as never before.
Yesterday, I came across two older pieces by David Wong, proprietor of the website A Pointless Waste of Time (warning: sporadic profanity). In 7 Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miserable, Wong argues that our increasing reliance on the Internet for communication and social interaction is turning us into alienated, maladjusted, small human beings. Read the whole thing if you have 15 minutes or so, but here are some key paragraphs:
Studies show that for almost everybody, the number of people we really trust is shrinking. About a quarter of the people they talked to said they had NO ONE to confide in. Walk down the street, one out of four people you pass have nobody…Previously, the sheer imperative to function in society carried with it innumerable opportunities for minor and major kindnesses. It is certainly possible to go out into the real world and be an absolute jackass, but it takes a lot of effort. But now, an internet user can easily go long stretches without doing kindnesses for another, simply because there is much less face-to-face interaction. Moreover, people are becoming less able to communicate in general, and there is a powerful incentive to close yourself off in your own private world, with your own private amusements (which are getting more sophisticated all the time).
The problem is we've built an awesome, sprawling web of technology meant purely to let us avoid [being annoyed]… And that would be awesome, if it were actually possible to keep all of the irritating s--- out of your life. But it's not. It never will be. As long as you have needs, you'll have to deal with people you can't stand from time to time. But that skill, the one that lets us deal with strangers and tolerate their shrill voices and clunky senses of humor and body odor and squeaky shoes, is being burned right out of us. Our Annoyance Immune System is being weakened. So what encounters you do have with the outside world, the world you can't control, make you want to go on a screaming crotch-punching spree…
Half of what sucks about not having close friends has nothing to do with missing birthday parties or not having a second person to play basketball with. No, what sucks is the lack of real criticism… I've been insulted lots, but I've been criticized — and I mean the way a wife or a best friend can criticize you — very little. And I've been made worse because of it. The difference is of course that insults are just someone who hates me making a noise to indicate they hate me. It's them telling me how they feel. Criticism, on the other hand, is someone telling me something about myself that I myself didn't know.
And as much as we hate to admit it, most of what we know about ourselves we've learned from other people…
There's one advantage to having mostly online friends, and it's one that nobody ever talks about: They demand less from you… But here's the thing. You are hard-wired by evolution to need to do things for people. Everybody for the last five thousand years seemed to realize this and then we suddenly forgot it in the last few decades. We get suicidal teens and scramble to teach them self-esteem. Well, unfortunately, self-esteem and the ability to like yourself only come after you've done something that makes you likable.
(In Japan, this tendency has manifested to a pathological degree in the hikikomori, adolescents and young adults who confine themselves to a single room of their house for months or years, never emerging even to speak to their own parents. Some estimates number the hikikomori at up to a fifth of Japan's adolescent population.)
In short, people are becoming more spiritually stunted. Because of our lessening human contact, empathy is rarer, inner contentment is waning, and people are losing the mental strength necessary to do hard deeds, rather than simply disengaging from the world and its pain. And they know that something is wrong. A creeping discontent with life, a sense that some vital component is missing, becomes ever-stronger.
In desperation, many are turning to the Fahrenheit-451option of endless amusement, endless games, endless thrill-seeking. And this choice is about to become easier than ever. In Wong's other piece, A World of Warcraft World, Wong anticipates a time when online roleplaying will have all but displaced the real world, for growing numbers of people. (The article was written some time ago, and his numbers are out of date. My brother, an employee of Blizzard, tells me that "World of Warcraft" now has over 7 million subscribers.) Read it, but here are some key paragraphs:
If you don't understand the gravitational pull of an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game), I'm going to enlighten you with just a dozen words: you get to pick what you look like and what your talents are… And this idea is what's going to push the expansion of MMORPG technology in the way that porn pushed the expansion of the internet, the desperate-but-untapped desire to interact with others without the bothersome interference of genetic flaws and poor diet and exercise habits…Why is all of this significant? Because this is happening at a time when we need to be more aware of the harsh realities of the real world, not less. If it were a simple matter of marshalling the will for a long war I would not be as worried; it will be trivial to have military robots controlled by internet users, who would see the carnage as just another game. No, the problem is that the Long War is fundamentally a war of warring epistemologies; in particular, the long-reviled idea of religion is coming back to the forefront of history, with a vengeance.
Total immersion, the kind that could really fool you, won't happen tomorrow. But as time goes on it is absolutely inevitable that the graphics will become life quality, that visual displays light years beyond monitors or cumbersome headsets will hit the market. The keyboard and mouse will be long gone, everything done by thought and voice. It is the logical end of everything game developers and console makers are trying to do today and they will not stop until they have it.
And that, my friends, will be a watershed moment in human history. The point where we can trick the senses into thinking a piece of software is real, thinking a real supermodel is in our bed or a dragon is in our front yard or our dead mother has come back to give us advice, that's when everything changes. The metaverse will still be less important in many fundamental ways. Goods won't be produced there, food won't be grown there, babies won't be born there. But in the minds of a whole lot o' people, visits to the physical world will be just brief interruptions to the "real" world as they live it, the world where all of their friends and hobbies and ambitions are.
An all-encompassing belief in a Supreme Being, who has specific mandates for the true believer, shows all of the signs of being a Darwinian survival trait on a societal level. The believer has strong reasons to engage in social behavior with other believers; he has powerful incentives to carry out a shared societal program with his coreligionists; part of that program is usually to spread the belief system to others; and — most importantly — the true believer cannot compromise his fundamental beliefs without adulterating his certainty in the Supreme Being. This sort of foundational stability is lacking in the secular West, in which societal institutions are based on nothing more durable than human reason. Indeed, of late it has become the practice to tear down all societal institutions, without replacing them in turn. In such an environment of philosophic void, a spreading religious system can find much nourishment.
But what happens when the aforementioned Darwinian traits are joined to a religious system that is fundamentally evil? Then you are faced with what amounts to a viral epidemic. You can slow such an epidemic by quarantine, or cauterizing infections, but to truly vanquish it you must develop a robust epistemological immune system. And it is precisely this faculty, philosophical robustness, that is attacked by the widespread descent into fantasy worlds. There is no need for a philosophy when one is slaying notional dragons, in a world with specific rules coded by a team of programmers laboring in a corporate campus. You know what the score is. You face few, if any, moral dilemmas. The world is predictable, without unpleasant surprises.
And your spiritual fortitude, your strength of character, wanes away.
At the last, you will lack the mental steadfastness to fight against the oncoming rush of religious warriors. Because you will have trouble understanding why they are wrong. If you doubt this, consider the growing ranks of people today, even at this early hour in the Long War, who make excuses for the Islamist faction or who actively encourage it in order to further their own petty goals.
The idea of the secular state, as a guiding principle of nations, is less than three hundred years old — a historical novelty. Many naively assume that secularism is the next stage in a unidirectional arrow of human development. But there is nothing to prevent the tides of religious war from swamping the weakening philosophical dikes of the Enlightenment, and scouring secularism from the sodden earth. Unless we of the West have the strength to man the dikes. Unless we believe the dikes to be worth manning.
8/30/2006
The Enervated Man of the West
There are truths that must be stated. Mark Steyn starts down that road with the speech from which I quoted some hours ago, which has earned him a great deal of hatred; yet while he identifies the problem — that there is little in the multicultural identity, or lack of same, that can offer a compelling alternative to a determined, militant Islam for the individual Muslim — Steyn stops halfway in his search for a solution. We must regain calm self-confidence in our Western culture and heritage, Steyn says. Very good; yet what about our heritage are we to have confidence in? What specifically does the classical tradition hold that the modern multicultural society lacks, which is the essential point that will grant us victory in the long war ahead?
Steyn does not say straight out, aside from correctly stating that we will only fight to defend our society if we see it worth defending, as being superior to the opposing culture. But why does he not say clearly what in the Western tradition he thinks is superior and worth defending?
I hesitate to put words in Steyn's mouth; but he returns again and again in his writings to the example of the Thuggee cult in India, which would immolate young widows at their husbands' funerals. The response of the British General Sir Charles Napier to this charming custom (known as Sati) was not to ignore it as an expression of a different culture, but to eradicate the Thuggee cult from India. It seems, then, that one of our great virtues according to Steyn is that we consider human life sacred.
This by itself is easy; how difficult is it for an individual to abstain from killing people? The difference with the West is that we value life so much that we are willing to kill people to protect it. This requires a sterner mind than does simple nonviolence; it is not trivial to develop a philosophy in which you can willingly kill others at the same time as you hold life sacred, indeed, in service to that sanctity.
A word on sanctity. It necessarily implies that human life is sacred everywhere, at all times, regardless of prevailing social mores or laws. This carries with it the obligation to protect human life everywhere, to the best of our practical ability, and regardless of opposing social mores. Which is why Steyn is horrified that:
Why? "Cultural sensitivity." Britain was unwilling to enforce the sanctity of human life among a community that thinks otherwise. Doing so might lead to a violent reaction, after all; better to let sleeping dogs lie and avoid trouble, no matter how many young girls are murdered in the meantime.
How could such a travesty occur? As I said above, it is difficult to reconcile the sanctity of life with the need to kill people in its defense. It is even more difficult for a decent person to kill another, himself (as opposed to supporting a champion who kills in his stead). And, most of all, it is most difficult to do so when it places yourself and your loved ones at risk. In short, we are dealing with an intertwining of philosohpical dissonance, misplaced mercy, and above all else a deep, pervasive fear.
All of these are symptoms of enervation. Intellectual enervation, in which elites who fear the abyss more than anything else have chosen to turn their backs on it, so that the abyss will not stare back at them. Moral enervation, in which individuals can reject necessary duties because they are distasteful. And enervation of the instincts, in which fear is allowed to dominate our minds above all else. We lack the fortitude, the iron determination, to do what must be done.
Why?
To approach our answer, let us return to the question of the hour: why will Islamic communities not assimilate into the West?
Set aside the various ways in which the West does not conform to Islam's ideal. I am not concerned with whether practicing Muslims feel at home in the West; I as an Orthodox Jew am not truly at home here even though I am a proud American from birth. What concerns me is why many Muslims are actively repelled by Western culture. Why do so many seemingly Westernized Muslims seem driven into the arms of the anti-Western exclusionism of the Jihad?
One finds this revealing sentence in a review of Osama bin Laden's writings by Printculture: "Democracy is at best a materialist doctrine for [bin Laden], a sinful worship of human desires of happiness." Similarly, a term that comes up over and over again is "decadence." The West puts the pursuit of pleasure above all else, so says the contemptuous Jihadi.
Materialism. Worship of human desire. Worship of happiness. All this set against the ultimate self-nullification of the suicide bomber.
But why should our decadence be so repulsive, and the alternative so attractive, to these Jihadis? After all, decadence is fun. It is pleasurable. It is so very easy! But (and here we tread on dangerous ground indeed) it is our decadence that is enervating us as a society. In the midst of our tremendous material wealth and power, we have grown so weak and stunted that much of the West cannot bear to use that power. Whereas, while the warriors of the Jihad are materially weak, they are indeed the mightiest of men. For they have offered up their very lives for their beliefs, and the halls of the powerful tremble with fear.
Steyn cannot say this out loud (assuming he even thinks in these terms, which he may not) because if he does, he must identify those decadent ideas and practices that are to blame for our enervation. It is hard enough for him to argue that Western culture is superior to others because it holds life sacred; if he tried to explain why some no longer defend that sanctity, he would have to challenge not only ideas of the multicultural Left, but of classical liberalism itself — the founding political doctrine of the United States.
The tradition of classical liberalism is built around the social contract, in which citizens cede power to a government in exchange for the guarantee that their rights will be protected. The main rights, of course, are "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," or alternatively "property." In essence, the government has a limited mandate: to ensure the security of material goods, and the negative good of freedom from oppression.
But what of our civic obligations? They are narrow indeed: obey the law. Beyond that, you are free to act however you wish. You may feel certain behaviors as an obligation, but the obligation does not come from government. The government will not force you to be a good person.
More than that, this freedom to act however we choose is extolled as a virtue. Matthew Arnold, in his work Culture and Anarchy, speaks of the British love for "doing as one likes," a love which largely carried over to America. Politicians, who need the support of the people to gain power, naturally celebrated this tendency and called "doing as one likes" a glorious expression of political liberty. In essence, they confirmed and celebrated the existing prejudice of the people.
What they did not do, and what few politicians do today, was use their stature to ecourage the people to become a better people. Indeed, there is no civic obligation in democracies for an individual to improve himself morally or physically, beyond a certain bare minimum. On the other hand, there is great civic value attached to gaining material possessions. This is not difficult to explain, and I have some related thoughts in a previous post. Put briefly, society agrees that material goods are better than their absence, and even has a standard for keeping score, i.e. money. This, incidentally, allows free markets to function well, since each individual can measure the effectiveness of his commerical transactions in absolute terms, setting up a constant feedback loop.
However, there is no single agreed-upon standard for morality. The standard against which you measure your moral choices is itself the product of a choice. The classical liberal government does not impose a uniform moral standard, thanks to Europe's long bloody history of religious war. Morality is essentially separate from civic obligation.
This was less of a problem in former years, when communal organizations and religious goups still commanded great authority, and public standards of behavior were agreed upon through collective consent, and not through government decree. However, as Socrates warned, the natural trajectory of democracies is to become dissolute; how can it be otherwise, when democracy is about rule by the majority, and not rule according to a set standard? Extragovernmental moral authorities held the line for a very long time, but have been effectively routed by the forces of eros and the everpresent love of "doing as one likes." Now, we live in a moral anarchy, where anything that is legal (and a few things that aren't) is considered acceptable behavior by large numbers of people.
All right; but why is this a problem? After all, why should an atheist care if the three monotheisms officially outlaw homosexuality, or premarital sex? It doesn't hurt anyone, does it? Why should someone avoid using profanity if it is considered acceptable in his social circle? If a person wants to eat a deep-dish pizza every day and play video games until his thumbs drop off, what business is that of anyone else?
The fundamental problem is that Western society is fast abandoning the concept of personal discipline, of measuring oneself against a standard which he must struggle to attain. In particular, we learn to immediately gratify our emotional impulses (especially sexual impulses), rather than controlling them and channeling them towards a higher use. There is no more place for the sublime. There is no example of the exceptional moral paragon which we are encouraged to emulate. Whereas before we could imitate Washington's honesty, Lincoln's steely resolve in the cause of anti-slavery, Franklin's homespun wisdom, now we are constantly reminded that these dead white guys are all flawed men and not worth paying attention to.
It is very hard work to seek moral and ethical improvement; not for nothing does the Bible speak of "refinement," being passed through the fires of the crucible to emerge purer on the other side. Now there is less and less reason for the average citizen to go through the effort. And this sloth is extending past the moral realm and into the material. Each generation has a poorer work ethic than the last; each has a larger obesity problem; each accumulates more debt. The mere presence of our abundance is excuse enough for citizens to gorge; that they could train themselves to hold back from immediate gratification seems laughable. Our society no longer teaches the young to accept hardship. Our wills are weak and flabby, unused to hard strain.
Not for nothing is the bulk of the U.S. military made up of the deeply religious. They are increasingly the only communities willing to shoulder the burden. They are the only communities who not only dedicate themselves to a higher purpose and to civic virtue, but actually accept significant limits on their behavior in the process.
The specific problem of our unbunded sexual impulses is, I think, a primary contributor to our societal enervation. Sex is not simply a method of cooperative amusement; it is an incredibly powerful innate drive. It is the source of much of our emotional vitality. And how the sex drive is cultivated will have dramatic effects on a personality. If you are used to gratifying every urge, not willing to let even the slightest sexual tension accumulate, then you will lose a great source of emotional power and discipline. Not for nothing did the Victorians refer to orgasm as a "little death." Almost every program of spiritualism calls for periods of abstinence, because of the dramatic power that will accumulate during these periods: power which can then be applied in your daily life. Recall the movie Raging Bull, in which the protagonist avoids orgasm in the days leading up to a big fight. Recall, too, that in Orwell's 1984 the Party sought to suppress sexual activity to keep its members at a constant fever pitch of frenetic energy.
And yet in the West, every institution for channeling and controlling the sex drive has been devalued. Premarital sex is commonplace; adultery is shrugged off. Masturbation was even encouraged by Surgeon General Elders, under the most apropos of presidents. This is one part of the reason why the young seek ever-more-extreme diversions: when the pinnacle of primal experiences has become commonplace, life loses some of its color.
Compare the preceding with Islam. Much like traditional Judaism, Islam sees no distinction between government and religion; indeed, it is the duty of government to enforce the dictates of religion. Muslims must discipline their dietary habits according to the laws of halal, must pray five times daily, and — perhaps most importantly — must severely control their sexual behavior (at least in theory, though this is more rigorously enforced on women than men). Across entire societies, material goods are seen not as the prime societal good, but as a means for attaining the true good: submission to Allah. There is very little "doing what one likes" in Islam in the sense which it is found in the West; all Muslims have a duty to continually perfect themselves (as they understand the term), and activities that detract from that goal are condemned. Here, we have a society founded on discipline, submission to a greater good, and continual focus on serving Allah. Is it any surprise that the most fanatical should look at the West with contempt, even as the outputs of Western culture are eagerly consumed?
I fear that so long as Western culture permits the soft nihilism of "doing what one likes" instead of restoring the concepts of discipline and self-perfection as civic virtues, that the secular Western world will fall. In its place will rise the deeply religious communities of all stripes, those with the fortitude and will to fight for their beliefs. Religious commitment is already associated with high birthrates, compared to more secular populations; if only religious communities are prepared to fight in their own defense — or, more ominously, as an aggressor — then it is only a matter of time before secularism passes from the earth.
(Is this all a gross generalization? Absolutely. There are many secular stalawarts, just as there are many religious sluggards. But demographics are all about generalizations; and demography is destiny.)
Will the secular world meet the challenge? Or has it already become too enervated to escape its own nihilistic implosion?
Steyn does not say straight out, aside from correctly stating that we will only fight to defend our society if we see it worth defending, as being superior to the opposing culture. But why does he not say clearly what in the Western tradition he thinks is superior and worth defending?
I hesitate to put words in Steyn's mouth; but he returns again and again in his writings to the example of the Thuggee cult in India, which would immolate young widows at their husbands' funerals. The response of the British General Sir Charles Napier to this charming custom (known as Sati) was not to ignore it as an expression of a different culture, but to eradicate the Thuggee cult from India. It seems, then, that one of our great virtues according to Steyn is that we consider human life sacred.
This by itself is easy; how difficult is it for an individual to abstain from killing people? The difference with the West is that we value life so much that we are willing to kill people to protect it. This requires a sterner mind than does simple nonviolence; it is not trivial to develop a philosophy in which you can willingly kill others at the same time as you hold life sacred, indeed, in service to that sanctity.
A word on sanctity. It necessarily implies that human life is sacred everywhere, at all times, regardless of prevailing social mores or laws. This carries with it the obligation to protect human life everywhere, to the best of our practical ability, and regardless of opposing social mores. Which is why Steyn is horrified that:
In London last summer, the Metropolitan police announced they were reopening investigations into 120 deaths among British Muslim girls that they'd hitherto declined to look at too closely on grounds of cultural sensitivity. Now think about that. Think about that. One hundred and twenty women are murdered and their murders go uninvestigated because the cops thought it was just some multicultural thing.Steyn realizes that such murders are common in the Muslim world, of course, which is a large part of his implacable opposition to the spread of Islamic law. But what makes this truly horrifying to him (and to me, frankly) is that these murders went uninvestigated on British soil. That is to say, Britain had consciously abdicated its duty to defend human life even within its own sovereign borders, to say nothing of elsewhere.
Why? "Cultural sensitivity." Britain was unwilling to enforce the sanctity of human life among a community that thinks otherwise. Doing so might lead to a violent reaction, after all; better to let sleeping dogs lie and avoid trouble, no matter how many young girls are murdered in the meantime.
How could such a travesty occur? As I said above, it is difficult to reconcile the sanctity of life with the need to kill people in its defense. It is even more difficult for a decent person to kill another, himself (as opposed to supporting a champion who kills in his stead). And, most of all, it is most difficult to do so when it places yourself and your loved ones at risk. In short, we are dealing with an intertwining of philosohpical dissonance, misplaced mercy, and above all else a deep, pervasive fear.
All of these are symptoms of enervation. Intellectual enervation, in which elites who fear the abyss more than anything else have chosen to turn their backs on it, so that the abyss will not stare back at them. Moral enervation, in which individuals can reject necessary duties because they are distasteful. And enervation of the instincts, in which fear is allowed to dominate our minds above all else. We lack the fortitude, the iron determination, to do what must be done.
Why?
To approach our answer, let us return to the question of the hour: why will Islamic communities not assimilate into the West?
Set aside the various ways in which the West does not conform to Islam's ideal. I am not concerned with whether practicing Muslims feel at home in the West; I as an Orthodox Jew am not truly at home here even though I am a proud American from birth. What concerns me is why many Muslims are actively repelled by Western culture. Why do so many seemingly Westernized Muslims seem driven into the arms of the anti-Western exclusionism of the Jihad?
One finds this revealing sentence in a review of Osama bin Laden's writings by Printculture: "Democracy is at best a materialist doctrine for [bin Laden], a sinful worship of human desires of happiness." Similarly, a term that comes up over and over again is "decadence." The West puts the pursuit of pleasure above all else, so says the contemptuous Jihadi.
Materialism. Worship of human desire. Worship of happiness. All this set against the ultimate self-nullification of the suicide bomber.
But why should our decadence be so repulsive, and the alternative so attractive, to these Jihadis? After all, decadence is fun. It is pleasurable. It is so very easy! But (and here we tread on dangerous ground indeed) it is our decadence that is enervating us as a society. In the midst of our tremendous material wealth and power, we have grown so weak and stunted that much of the West cannot bear to use that power. Whereas, while the warriors of the Jihad are materially weak, they are indeed the mightiest of men. For they have offered up their very lives for their beliefs, and the halls of the powerful tremble with fear.
Steyn cannot say this out loud (assuming he even thinks in these terms, which he may not) because if he does, he must identify those decadent ideas and practices that are to blame for our enervation. It is hard enough for him to argue that Western culture is superior to others because it holds life sacred; if he tried to explain why some no longer defend that sanctity, he would have to challenge not only ideas of the multicultural Left, but of classical liberalism itself — the founding political doctrine of the United States.
The tradition of classical liberalism is built around the social contract, in which citizens cede power to a government in exchange for the guarantee that their rights will be protected. The main rights, of course, are "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," or alternatively "property." In essence, the government has a limited mandate: to ensure the security of material goods, and the negative good of freedom from oppression.
But what of our civic obligations? They are narrow indeed: obey the law. Beyond that, you are free to act however you wish. You may feel certain behaviors as an obligation, but the obligation does not come from government. The government will not force you to be a good person.
More than that, this freedom to act however we choose is extolled as a virtue. Matthew Arnold, in his work Culture and Anarchy, speaks of the British love for "doing as one likes," a love which largely carried over to America. Politicians, who need the support of the people to gain power, naturally celebrated this tendency and called "doing as one likes" a glorious expression of political liberty. In essence, they confirmed and celebrated the existing prejudice of the people.
What they did not do, and what few politicians do today, was use their stature to ecourage the people to become a better people. Indeed, there is no civic obligation in democracies for an individual to improve himself morally or physically, beyond a certain bare minimum. On the other hand, there is great civic value attached to gaining material possessions. This is not difficult to explain, and I have some related thoughts in a previous post. Put briefly, society agrees that material goods are better than their absence, and even has a standard for keeping score, i.e. money. This, incidentally, allows free markets to function well, since each individual can measure the effectiveness of his commerical transactions in absolute terms, setting up a constant feedback loop.
However, there is no single agreed-upon standard for morality. The standard against which you measure your moral choices is itself the product of a choice. The classical liberal government does not impose a uniform moral standard, thanks to Europe's long bloody history of religious war. Morality is essentially separate from civic obligation.
This was less of a problem in former years, when communal organizations and religious goups still commanded great authority, and public standards of behavior were agreed upon through collective consent, and not through government decree. However, as Socrates warned, the natural trajectory of democracies is to become dissolute; how can it be otherwise, when democracy is about rule by the majority, and not rule according to a set standard? Extragovernmental moral authorities held the line for a very long time, but have been effectively routed by the forces of eros and the everpresent love of "doing as one likes." Now, we live in a moral anarchy, where anything that is legal (and a few things that aren't) is considered acceptable behavior by large numbers of people.
All right; but why is this a problem? After all, why should an atheist care if the three monotheisms officially outlaw homosexuality, or premarital sex? It doesn't hurt anyone, does it? Why should someone avoid using profanity if it is considered acceptable in his social circle? If a person wants to eat a deep-dish pizza every day and play video games until his thumbs drop off, what business is that of anyone else?
The fundamental problem is that Western society is fast abandoning the concept of personal discipline, of measuring oneself against a standard which he must struggle to attain. In particular, we learn to immediately gratify our emotional impulses (especially sexual impulses), rather than controlling them and channeling them towards a higher use. There is no more place for the sublime. There is no example of the exceptional moral paragon which we are encouraged to emulate. Whereas before we could imitate Washington's honesty, Lincoln's steely resolve in the cause of anti-slavery, Franklin's homespun wisdom, now we are constantly reminded that these dead white guys are all flawed men and not worth paying attention to.
It is very hard work to seek moral and ethical improvement; not for nothing does the Bible speak of "refinement," being passed through the fires of the crucible to emerge purer on the other side. Now there is less and less reason for the average citizen to go through the effort. And this sloth is extending past the moral realm and into the material. Each generation has a poorer work ethic than the last; each has a larger obesity problem; each accumulates more debt. The mere presence of our abundance is excuse enough for citizens to gorge; that they could train themselves to hold back from immediate gratification seems laughable. Our society no longer teaches the young to accept hardship. Our wills are weak and flabby, unused to hard strain.
Not for nothing is the bulk of the U.S. military made up of the deeply religious. They are increasingly the only communities willing to shoulder the burden. They are the only communities who not only dedicate themselves to a higher purpose and to civic virtue, but actually accept significant limits on their behavior in the process.
The specific problem of our unbunded sexual impulses is, I think, a primary contributor to our societal enervation. Sex is not simply a method of cooperative amusement; it is an incredibly powerful innate drive. It is the source of much of our emotional vitality. And how the sex drive is cultivated will have dramatic effects on a personality. If you are used to gratifying every urge, not willing to let even the slightest sexual tension accumulate, then you will lose a great source of emotional power and discipline. Not for nothing did the Victorians refer to orgasm as a "little death." Almost every program of spiritualism calls for periods of abstinence, because of the dramatic power that will accumulate during these periods: power which can then be applied in your daily life. Recall the movie Raging Bull, in which the protagonist avoids orgasm in the days leading up to a big fight. Recall, too, that in Orwell's 1984 the Party sought to suppress sexual activity to keep its members at a constant fever pitch of frenetic energy.
And yet in the West, every institution for channeling and controlling the sex drive has been devalued. Premarital sex is commonplace; adultery is shrugged off. Masturbation was even encouraged by Surgeon General Elders, under the most apropos of presidents. This is one part of the reason why the young seek ever-more-extreme diversions: when the pinnacle of primal experiences has become commonplace, life loses some of its color.
Compare the preceding with Islam. Much like traditional Judaism, Islam sees no distinction between government and religion; indeed, it is the duty of government to enforce the dictates of religion. Muslims must discipline their dietary habits according to the laws of halal, must pray five times daily, and — perhaps most importantly — must severely control their sexual behavior (at least in theory, though this is more rigorously enforced on women than men). Across entire societies, material goods are seen not as the prime societal good, but as a means for attaining the true good: submission to Allah. There is very little "doing what one likes" in Islam in the sense which it is found in the West; all Muslims have a duty to continually perfect themselves (as they understand the term), and activities that detract from that goal are condemned. Here, we have a society founded on discipline, submission to a greater good, and continual focus on serving Allah. Is it any surprise that the most fanatical should look at the West with contempt, even as the outputs of Western culture are eagerly consumed?
I fear that so long as Western culture permits the soft nihilism of "doing what one likes" instead of restoring the concepts of discipline and self-perfection as civic virtues, that the secular Western world will fall. In its place will rise the deeply religious communities of all stripes, those with the fortitude and will to fight for their beliefs. Religious commitment is already associated with high birthrates, compared to more secular populations; if only religious communities are prepared to fight in their own defense — or, more ominously, as an aggressor — then it is only a matter of time before secularism passes from the earth.
(Is this all a gross generalization? Absolutely. There are many secular stalawarts, just as there are many religious sluggards. But demographics are all about generalizations; and demography is destiny.)
Will the secular world meet the challenge? Or has it already become too enervated to escape its own nihilistic implosion?
8/29/2006
Quote of the Day
Now I have a great sympathy for Muslims that face demands that they assimilate; it's on the front pages of all the newspapers in London this weekend. Even if you wanted to, even if you wanted to, how would you assimilate with say, Canadian national identity? You can't assimilate with a nullity, which is what the modern multicultural state boils down to. It's much easier to dismantle a society than put anything new and lasting in it place. And across much of the developed world, that's what's going on right now.--Mark Steyn, keynote address of his recent Australia tour.
Hat tip: New Sisyphus
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