Category Archives: politics

Introducing Political Philosophy: Some Straussian Resources

philosophy, politics

I just saw this page dedicated to Vermeer and wanted to become an art historian on the spot. There’s something marvelous about assembling and organizing information well – it really does empower students and make things easier for teachers and scholars.

Truth be told, I would love to link to resources on Vlastos or Rawls or Pocock or other schools of thought, but I don’t know them well enough. So I’m sticking to Straussian stuff, hoping someone will make a wiki on another site and we can get a collection of primary sources, secondary sources, blurbs and introductory articles going. My goal here is to get started, so I’m not aiming to be comprehensive. I’m actually aiming to be done in a half-hour.

Political Philosophy & Leo Strauss himself

Ancient Philosophy

Medieval

Modern

This isn’t a lot, I know. But I think there’s a virtue to the fact that resources by “names” are rare. A good wiki will start cataloging and reviewing papers and dissertations on topics by lesser known people. Lord knows we need that nowadays – the way academia is, you’d think there were 3 people who are allowed to read books and have opinions on them.

Xenophon, “On the Cavalry Commander”

philosophy, politics, xenophon

With thanks to Jonathan Culp

Xenophon, “On the Cavalry Commander”

On the surface, this is an exceedingly practical text. Xenophon tells us to make sure the horses in service don’t have bad legs, that the men can mount their horses, etc. There is a catch: in Memorabilia III.3, Socrates has an interlocutor who is an elected cavalry commander. Xenophon declares that he knows the presented conversation happened. This is not a claim he makes about many of his chapters. Socrates gives much of the exact same advice written in the first book of On the Cavalry Commander to the interlocutor, who comes off as extremely ignorant. As it stands, I’m developing an argument that Socrates’ practical advice in III.3 is actually about nobility and the soul. I suspect there is less truly about horses in both writings and a lot more about philosophy and human nature, some kind of direct hint about how Socrates educated Xenophon directly.

However, there is an enormous difference between Xenophon in On the Cavalry Commander and Socrates in Memorabilia III.3 that is revealed by the opening. Socrates never mentions gods or piety in giving the commander advice. He focuses on provision, training, motivation and obedience for horses and men alike. But Xenophon opens his treatise such:

The first duty is to sacrifice to the gods and pray them to grant you the thoughts, words and deeds likely to render your command most pleasing to the gods and to bring yourself, your friends and your city the fullest measure of affection and glory and advantage (Cavalry Commander 1.1).

Xenophon is not shy about repeatedly mentioning the service the commander owes to the gods. Is Xenophon more pious than Socrates? Hardly – the morality of this passage is extremely questionable. In return for giving the gods control over your thoughts, you get affection, glory and advantage. This is an attempt to bribe the gods. The “thoughts, words and deeds” that matter the most bring success, not justice or living within one’s means (contrast with: Mem. I.1.19). It is worth noting that Xenophon talks about the gods so much in his little treatise that he apologizes for it later (Cav. 9.8).

The full significance of piety in the treatise requires one to see competing claims about divinity. Xenophon is abundantly clear about the cavalry commander’s perspective. The other opinion comes about a roundabout way, as the figure of Socrates is hinted at. Xenophon’s practical advice is never just that. To take perhaps the most important example: it is sensible advice that one who wants a horse’s feet to be stronger will have it stand on large stones outside of the stable (they didn’t have horseshoes), making that horse as a matter of habit get used to the hardness (I.16). Xenophon gives a hint that this advice is central to the plan of his work, as he tells the reader that if he tries this, he will “believe in the rest of my rules.”

This passage reminds of Socrates’ hardened bare feet, one aspect of his disdain for wealth and his own continence (cf. Mem I.2.5). It only reminds, as we can only speculate. Much later in the treatise, Xenophon discusses how a thoroughly superior cavalry unit would come about, one that would make one’s opponents look like amateurs. The cavalry that will almost literally fly in difficult situations and over rough terrain – Xenophon says they will be like “birds to beasts,” the “sound from the lame” – that cavalry is trained and has hardened feet (Cav. 8.2-3). He goes further, saying that equestrian exercises are no work at all, for they are the activities where man comes closest to flight (8.6). If one is still not convinced of the value of cavalry, there is this: through war, states get happiness from the gods; no other competition among men is like it (8.7).

Our speculation is beginning to see the outline of a pattern. Men compete not just to be better than other men. They are trying to make claims over other men, trying to show that what other men could not do they can do. In other words: man is the species that is emphatically not content with being man. (One can argue that the text most Greeks know is Homer. A figure like Achilles cannot simply be ignored when reading Plato and Xenophon.) Xenophon is quietly pushing the idea that a superior warrior is near godlike while overtly pushing a more conventional piety. Not to make a bad pun, but to stay grounded, we have to try not to think about a lot of training making someone look like they can fly. We’re going to have to wonder why someone with rather tough soles would choose to stay in the city. The answer, I think, lies in an allusion near the end of the treatise. The gods, who know all things, give warnings through a variety of means; a commander must do his best to take them seriously (9.9). Socrates had the same warnings (Mem I.1.3). To a degree, to want the power of a god is to deny oneself direct access to divine knowledge. Why would someone truly godlike compete?

Some Scattered Thoughts on Syria and “Realism”

politics,

Everything below could be wrong. I’m just musing hawkishly.

As you all know, the loss of life in the Syrian civil war is at least 93,000. The crisis started March 2011 – a little over 2 years. By comparison: the AP counts 110,600 violent deaths in Iraq from 2003-2009.

Dan Drezner thinks U.S. policy in Syria is probably to let Iran and Hezbollah waste assets in a protracted engagement. He considers this a form of “realism” in foreign policy; he cites one Dan Trombly about the “strategic opportunity” this is:

Given that rapidly overthrowing Assad without major overt military action from a broad coalition of forces is a pipe dream anyway, the United States should consider contingency plans in which it works through, rather than against, the specter of protracted civil war. To be able to bleed Iran in Syria would, relative to the risks involved, be a far more significant strategic opportunity against Iranian power relative to the investment and risk than would be a major overt campaign to overthrow Assad outright. The more blood and treasure Iran loses in Syria – even if Assad stays in power longer – the weaker Iran will be.

Drezner is pretty forthright that we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel here:

Now let’s be clear: to describe this as “morally questionable” would be an understatement. It’s a policy that makes me very uncomfortable… until one considers the alternatives. What it’s not, however, is a return to liberal hawkery.

That this has been U.S. policy toward Syria I have no doubt. Forgive me while I vomit. At times I think terms like “realism” or “liberalism” or whatever are covers for the fact that we do awful things to each other and have paper-thin justifications. I don’t even know that this is about justice or saving lives, though, because I’m wondering if the costs of inaction are higher than people realize.

First of all, I need to see clear proof that this disgusting strategy is actually hurting Iran and not strengthening its hand or our other enemies in the region. It seems to me Hezbollah and things like al-Nusra are stronger and more motivated and recruiting. It seems to me this destabilizes more than just our enemies: our allies are victims of everything turning into a Sunni/Shia battle. al-Qaeda and Iran are not just fighting each other in Syria. They’re dragging everyone and their mother into that battle. Hate doesn’t simply kill itself off. It spreads like the plague the more this continues. Are terrorist groups actually getting weaker? Please provide some proof of this.

Second: when you’re the hegemon, your interests are more than you realize and your powers are direct and indirect. I’ll start with the latter. One way in which we prevent future conflicts is simply by outspending the rest of the world combined in our military budget. Similarly, there’s a lot of indirect power exerted in things like this: if the President says there’s a “red line,” and then doesn’t act like that means much, how do our allies and enemies calculate? The incentive to threaten our interests in areas we cannot easily protect grows. Power depends on the perception of power, not just the harder calculations about interests and resources.

And power to some degree does depend on trust, and trust in the larger sense depends on whether we have a vision for a stable world. This is where “the national interest” comes squarely into focus. It is true that Syria is not essential to U.S. interests at the moment. But long term? If people start thinking “hey, the U.S. let 93,000 people die in Syria while the region went to pieces despite having interests in its neighbors Turkey, Israel, Jordan and Iraq,” doesn’t our ability to be a serious broker for peace become compromised? Look, it really helps to remember what “realism” in both its ancient and modern forms is contrasted with: piety, the idea that some quasi-religious bond can unite or moderate nations in good faith. (Interestingly, it does look like, re: classical realism, no less than Thucydides thinks Spartan reverence for the laws could extend to a moderation that would help Athens.) The idea behind realism is that by taking power more seriously than faith, one can get stability and peace.

The U.S. does not get the privilege of being a completely mercenary actor. It’s not a privilege we want. We benefit hugely by being a country other countries appeal to when they have problems.

To be clear: foreign policy seems to me to be a series of tactical considerations. Sometimes you can promote the national interest and your values. Sometimes you have to make do with worse outcomes or unstable allies. There is a lot of nasty stuff that goes on in the name of utility or stability. And I confess, I’m no expert on Syria.

My complaints mainly stem from this thought: our policymakers are paralyzed with fear that Iraq will happen again. Iraq is the worst thing ever, the most terrible thing in the history of terribleness. (btw, drones and wiretapping are awesome). Enough. If you want to talk seriously about policy, you have to learn the lesson, see the costs, and move on and try to apply what you’ve learned. Emphasis on “try.” Right now, we’re running one of the ugliest policies another country could run toward another – and will we promote wholesale butchery through arms sales? – and it isn’t clear whether this makes us or anyone else better. The only thing that’s clear is that it is one less thing we have to do. Except that it isn’t, because Assad has used chemical weapons. If this is “realism,” please inform me what fantasy is.

Also: my money is that we are going to end up intervening in a big way anyway. I need to see some serious thinking not just about interests and opportunities, but also obligations and long term goals for the US.

Notes on a Lecture of Susan D. Collins – “E Pluribus Unum: Citizens, Friends, and Free Thinkers in the Ancient City”

aristotle, philosophy, politics

These are my notes; feedback appreciated, I did what I could to be clear. You can watch the original lecture here. Susan Collins teaches at the University of Houston and is the co-author of a translation of Aristotle’s Ethics. If you’re interested, an interview with her.

Can ancient thought guide current political practice? There are several complications at the start of the inquiry. For example, illiberal aspects of the past: slavery was commonplace in Classical Greece and Rome. Further, our world is so, so different that it is hard to see how two thousand year old theories could be applicable. The use of an iphone can invalidate a restaurant review made 5 minutes earlier. Doesn’t politics require some sense of stability? A continual flux of information and opinion seems overwhelming for concepts made for a world where people would lose all hope in the midst of battle because of an eclipse.

So why not leave the ancient city behind? Well, it emphasizes aspects of political life we tend to neglect. Unity is one of those. Modern democracy nowadays tends to place greater emphasis on a libertine freedom centered around the individual. There are good reasons for this, of course, but older thought may prove useful for finding a way to unity and pride in that unity which involves respect for the rights of all. Aristotle talks about a city working together for an end, for the sake of the good. Our political life doesn’t really allow for reflection on what it means to live well. Rather, it seems to emphasize simply living.

The contrast brings us to the more specific concerns of the ancient city. Family looms large in the Republic, though it is treated somewhat ironically there. Laws are a more fundamental concern for ancient thought generally, as they point to the development of virtues which shape citizens a particular way. The city has a “wholeness and rootedness” that takes man’s sociability seriously; not all law points to mechanism or artifice, creating incentives or disincentives for behavior. However, an overemphasis on law or family can make conventionality in the guise of tradition seem like it only speaks to the higher aspects of humanity. It might become hard to guard against a certain nostalgia for generations past.

Still, there are more “realistic” dimensions of the ancient city, ones that remind of modern concerns such as security. The prime example: the ancient city takes conflict seriously. Conflict is not just one city going to war with different cities, but the problem of many seeking the good within the city itself. Various associations form within the city, i.e. families, where people seek the good for themselves and their allies. Aristotle speaks of an “equal exchange of evils” where various associations and communities composing the city continually demonstrate the harshness of civic life. Hierarchy, force exerted from the more authoritative part of the city, is not just a basic necessity but perhaps even integral to whatever freedom is enjoyed in everyday life.

These more realistic dimensions, when considered in the context of what seem to be idealistic notions, raise fundamental questions. What does it mean to live in common? To have a shared life? What could any of this have to do with force?

It helps to treat ancient political philosophy as somewhat practical, as continuous with problems raised in ancient history that Plato and Aristotle were very familiar with. Herodotus gives us story after story about different peoples with different customs. His “inquiry” – the word we translate as history – focuses on them as they are all about to be conquered by the Persians. It seems some notion of Greek freedom and prudence is opposed to this imperialism. Thucydides, however, starts from the problem of Greek empire. People are far less important in his account than the destruction of war and fatal acts.

Thus, we can see flux and conflict as an “intellectual frame” for the ancient city. For example, consider the first book of the Republic: religion, foreigners, sophists, tyranny and force are all brought up to open a book that will give us an ideal city of sorts. The dialogue Charmides has Socrates back from service at the siege at Potidea, dealing with half-baked notions of philosophy from Critias and Charmides, who are associates of his and wannabe tyrants. Aristotle tells us in the Politics that without law and justice, man becomes the worst of the animals. He must have virtue.

Now Aristotle gives us a distinctively political basis for virtue. He lays heavy emphasis on reciprocity, as evidenced by the discussion of “the equal exchange of evils” above and the famous “ruling and being ruled in turn” of the opening of the Politics. But he also talks about the need to exchange goods for community, the fullness and full implications of “a common way of life.”

This brings us to an “ancient realism,” where themes of flux and force and also community reside. One has to wonder about what true community could be in the face of so much conflict. The “architectonic power” of ancient community sees freedom as stemming from authority. The “closed” society, local and strictly moral as opposed to universal and tolerant, is where law shapes mores and gives a way of life. Law requires reverence and piety.

But the establishment of a pious authority obviously does not make anyone free on its own. Ancient realism wonders how the city encompasses community, family, friends; the question of nature, however, emerges as one moves back to the individual and asks about the ends of the city. A diversity of political communities are comprehended by law. In the city, more natural communities are united by law; friendship matters at least as much as having an armed camp. Aristotle at times speaks of philosophy in the same breath as gambling and exercise. It seems like as one gets a friendlier, better city united by law, philosophy is more susceptible to being attacked by it. Why does anyone need knowledge?

Philosophy doesn’t despair. The activity of philosophy is what enabled the more natural basis for the city to be brought forth. The freedom that is philosophy stays somewhat hidden, but is ever present. As long as people can see conflict and disagreement as natural and work with it politically, they can see the higher possibility philosophy represents – that something positive or meaningful about our nature might be understood.

The Impersonal University

academia, politics, , ,

For this discussion: Mike Rice, the administration and Rutgers faculty | Preserving class at Princeton

When I first started in political philosophy, I wondered about the French “liberty, equality, fraternity” versus the whole of American history. All of American history is the tension between liberty and equality, with we the people at various times emphasizing one to the detriment of the other and, in the end, both. Missing, in my experience, is any serious sloganeering on behalf of fraternity. We get plenty about factions fighting each other as the inevitable consequence of liberty from Madison, but not a lot about how we are bound together in a positive way as Americans. I always thought the key issue was this: fraternity is nice and definitely worth having – any political order worth a damn will foster it – but the nepotism and cronyism it can lead to can be a real problem for a republic, especially one that is taking in a diversity of peoples and interests.

In any case, I’ve linked to two pieces above which got me thinking about fraternity and the university. The latter is fairly straightforward. Ross Douthat argues that elite universities exist to preserve an elite class, that the diversity they say they’re striving for is a sham. He talks about the Ivies and others of this status being a social club for rich kids with powerful connections to meet other rich kids. Granted, this is all implicit in the term “meritocracy” – I am reading a bit into Douthat’s critique. It isn’t that our rich, powerful elites fail to work hard or eschew education. They do work hard and take their education seriously. This may make the advantages they have that much more powerful. It becomes that much harder to have class mobility.

I don’t know how much I care for Douthat’s column as a prescription for anything. (The general complaint is noted.) To me, the issue is whether everyone can live comfortably, be educated well, and “rule and rule in turn.” I’ve always been less ticked off at Harvard and Yale’s privileges and more concerned that other schools don’t treat their students well at all (i.e. there are plenty of elites at select fraternities and sororities in state schools, who have an entirely different experience at college than the guy sitting in the library reading all the Kant he can). A major reason I write is that those of us who are being educated owe it to everyone else to explain what we’re doing in school. Equality can come about through a lot of small, positive things. There’s no need for class warfare unless one has identified some awful, terrible corruption that shows no sign of going away.

The other article, though, points to an awful, terrible corruption being perpetrated on everyone in the United States of America. What I’ve been complaining about to friends regarding Mike Rice has mostly been this: how many people covered for this clown’s abuse and tolerated it for how long because of money? Of course, what goes on in college sports – whether we’re talking about coaches or administrators or boosters or whatever – is so mercenary that one would be hard pressed to use the term “fraternal” to describe any aspect of it. The primary reason for Mike Rice’s “rehab” was to secure getting into the Big Ten, which as we all know involves money with lots of tax breaks because we’re talking college here, and thus is far more important than curing cancer or teaching Shakespeare or the million and one other things a university is supposed to do.

Still, “so mercenary” is the key phrase from my rant. Both Princeton and Rutgers show how exploitative the university as a whole is. Either it is working to help perpetuate the Future Oligarchs of America (I believe that is a registered trademark) or it has a crass notion of school/local pride that it uses to generate advertising revenue (you will all not be surprised that ESPN is not very popular on campus). Either we claw our way to the top or emphasize mindlessness as the key to solidarity. There has to be something else worth aiming for here.

After all, it’s difficult to learn things and working together is a necessity. My Greek sucks and I do need help translating things in Xenophon. And hearing from people who know better on different topics than me is always useful. At the least, it’s a reminder that one always has to work for an education and that work never stops. It has to be continual and one does depend on what others have worked on carefully because we can’t fact check everything. We depend on each other to know. There is a basis for real fraternity in this Enlightenment country. One day, we may discover that.

Briefly Noted: Leo Strauss, “German Nihilism”

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Leo Strauss, “German Nihilism” (in Interpretation Vol. 26 No. 3 Spring 1999)

1. At first, the value of Strauss’ lecture seems to be that of a historical document. It is delivered in 1941 shortly after the fall of France and before it is clear the U.S. will enter war. Strauss, a German Jew, asserts that virtually no one in Germany liked the Weimar Republic; it was considered merely an Anglo-French imposition. He wonders to what degree one can consider the German youth that embraced Nazism nihilistic.

This last question creates an historical and theoretical discussion. The German youth come close to nihilism; they have a nihilism of a sort. To say they have no moral purpose is to ignore the will to sacrifice inherent in their militarism. Where they are nihilistic – they are certainly at a point which can be termed evil – is in their rejection of Enlightenment. They do think reason the enemy, as Western democracy and communism both came from Enlightenment thought. Their arguments are almost exclusively in terms of history: i.e., if you say a “natural law” exists which means their desire for self-preservation has reasonable bounds, they might argue that “natural law” was followed and therefore comprehended by early modern notions of the “law of nature.” This kind of thinking makes the use of reason itself a historical development. For them, there is a peculiarly German way that is neither Western democracy or communism. Heidegger speaks of it in “Introduction to Metaphysics” when he talks about Germany being between the West and Russia. Spengler talks about a “Faustic” science, asserting that there can be nationalist science.

That German way involves some all-too-powerful notions that concern morality. So much for concern with morality: in a way that casual observers  of hypocrisy can’t at all see, a more rigorous thinker must confront its leading to the most evil acts. In Germany’s case, the following seems to have happened. Their militarism wasn’t simply aggression. Cities go to war to preserve a way of life, to preserve their identity and virtue. Morality depends on what is more “closed” than “open.” Complete universality and tolerance must of necessity render morality obsolete. Western democracy certainly has pretensions to that universality and tolerance. Perhaps worse in their mindset is communism. Not that class and inequality aren’t problems, but full equality is not a solution as much as the end of history. Think of the dumbest, crudest person one knows satisfying all his base desires and that alone being the goal of society. There is no way to reprimand him or call him to something higher.

I do think Strauss’ discussion in this lecture needs to be supplemented with his later essay, the Preface to Spinoza’s Critique of Religion. Independent of its theoretical themes, i.e. whether Spinoza’s hope that a secular, enlightened Europe could be more peaceful and embrace Jews fully, the essay does an excellent job demonstrating how much hatred Germany had for the Jews over its history. It is hard to believe that any idea could have stopped that much hate. In “Daybreak,” Nietzsche hoped for the day all anti-Semites would be shot. For our purposes, the Preface helps further a convincing picture of pre-WWII Germany: a country with a lot of military power and aggression, humiliated, only able to “unite” on what it hates.

2. That’s the historical discussion, as far as I’m concerned. You probably think it is quite theoretical, but Strauss turns to what could have moderated or educated the young Germans who turned to Nazism. That’s where things get really, really interesting.

Strauss cites Churchill’s rhetoric, particularly the “Their Finest Hour” speech, as perhaps being able to save Germany from choosing Hitler. Trouble is, Churchill is British and this is well after the outbreak of war. The peculiar thing about Churchill’s speech is that it is delivered after the fall of France, after England was lucky to salvage its forces from the fighting there. In other words, Strauss is pointing to Churchill’s magnanimous, noble rhetoric as instructive as how one deals with defeat as a part of life. (For later: one of the amazing things about Churchill in this speech is how he levels with the UK about how many troops they have and how the fighting will go. Our politicians, by contrast, can’t even talk to us about the budget without fudging numbers. We are in dire need of statesmen.)

Strauss does not really dwell on the “noble.” Instead, he continues in the latter half of his lecture from a thread left hanging earlier. He had alluded to how the youth of Germany were only educated in history and progress and did not have more traditional, classical teachers who could work with the ambitious and potentially unscrupulous. But later, Strauss spends a lot of time talking about how while the Nazis may have a culture, they certainly do not have civilization. Civilization involves some respect for reason, not just an aesthetic pride. Not the fine arts, not creation or production, but the idea of discovery unites science and morals and puts them on a higher level. This is not to say there is a natural law. It is more to say that reason functions to work to the truly universal, emphasis on “work” and “truly.” There are trade-offs and the twin pillars of Western thought – Jerusalem and Athens – certainly collide and contradict each other, when not having some contradictory elements within themselves.

One might think Strauss’ moral rhetoric excellent, but wonder how it is theoretical. I actually think the basis for an investigation of nobility is being put forth. The trick is to see that Churchill’s rhetoric works for reasons a bit too close to the pride animating the Nazis. The real difference is that Churchill’s rhetoric has, as an end, grace and strength in defeat. Still, it is prone to some utterly inhuman perversions, such as the firebombing of Dresden or this crap that thankfully did not see the light of day during the war. I wonder about defeat – a limit on man, a lack of success – not merely as a moral guide but as the basis of anything theoretical. Socrates’ knowledge of ignorance was just that. Strauss ends his essay with a line from the Aeneid justifying imperium: “to spare the vanquished and crush the arrogant.” One might wonder about self-construction as a species, where mercy is extended by those aspiring to rule in what is hopefully a moment of self-recognition.

Let’s talk about the ways fundamentalists can abuse each other and create a society of 10 year olds

education, politics,

I don’t think the author meant to be bullying, and I do think this attempts to be more satirical than mean, but experience has taught me that this is not innocuous in the least

So that link above is a really good look at where I go to school. A lot of things I’ve struggled to explain to you can be seen very clearly through it. I should say that as far as I can tell, most women on campus dress modestly or decently and there was little or no need for the editorial’s call for – well, I’ll let the author explain:

…“long skirt” signifies more than a daily clothing choice; it is a frame of mind that values modesty for the sake of holiness. You can be a long skirt, and you should encourage all the women in your life to adopt the modesty and prudence of long skirtness for the sake of their beauty and the benefit of everyone who has to look at them.

The problem with this kind of talk isn’t that a lack of modesty is a good thing. The problem is that there are a lot of people who are, to say the least, not-very-nice hiding behind this sort of rhetoric. I’ve known fundamentalist families and friends who will yell at anyone over anything. I don’t think I need to spell out where and how I’ve met them. And while no school should be connected to what at times might be termed “abuse,” the unfortunate reality is that a university’s culture can reinforce some of the worst things human beings can do to each other.

In this case, it absolutely is the case that this kind of talk encourages self-hate and paranoia over nothing. Witness this comment:

This article really made me re-think about what I’m wearing. I don’t usually wear leggings, but I do wear semi-fitted to fitted pants (which the majority of the world wears now). Still, it made me aware of the fact that I need to exercise modesty.

I hope this is a joke, because it has absolutely nothing to do with faith or treating people well or loving justice or walking humbly with one’s God. The way it is written, it seems to have everything to do with jumping through arbitrary hoops and saying that’s the essence of faith. What’s at play is fundamentalist peer pressure. I’m not saying the author of the comment shouldn’t be more aware of what she already wants to do, i.e. be more modest. If that’s what she wants, fine. I can see how that might generate something people would consider holy. But it looks to me that the article has achieved something that can only be called sinister.

There’s an additional problem. Not only is there implicit (and in some cases, explicit – read some of the comments by the article’s defenders) bullying. It’s also the case that now, instead of talking about whether French intervention in Mali will be successful or Platonic thoughts about justice carry over into Augustine, we’re stuck on this. All of a sudden, in one bold stroke, everything a school tries to be intellectually is gone. And the price is more than intellectual. After all, what’s happening is some form of bullying. What is lost as an educational institution is any sense of maturity.

We lose the ability to produce people who can talk about relevant issues. We lose the ability to seriously critique the worst aspects of our culture. We lose the ability to create leaders who can be trusted by everyone. Does it surprise you that the article sounds like a number of people who are thought to be unelectable? What makes someone unelectable is when they create an “us” vs. “them” with no credible reconciliation of the gap. That was what made Romney’s “47%” remark fatal: there’s no real attempt to try and say “we.” There’s only “good” and “bad” with one group always being “bad.”

No one’s saying there can’t be a more conservative culture or calls for decency. But this is what you get on a conservative campus, and yes, it probably is related to the GOP’s current problems. To be blunt: I couldn’t stand Leftist causes at state university. But at least those Leftist causes were aware, in large part, that there were other people in the world and that those other people deserved better. What is so striking about the next generation of conservatives, from what I can see, is an almost endless amount of self-absorption. As if morality were only a personal code of conduct – as if “love thy neighbor” was an option.

Conservative Self-Pity and the Demagoguery that Enables It: A Response to Mark Levin

politics

I vote Republican and have given money to GOP candidates. I’ve worked on one campaign in a fairly substantial role and I was happy to chip in when I could in smaller ways throughout the years for the cause.

I am going to continue voting Republican, but I want a different party, one not overcome by fear and anger, one that can reach out to all Americans and be seen by the world over as something positive. That means something about conservatism as it is articulated has to change. In what follows, I’m going to take apart a rant of Mark Levin’s point-by-point and leave nothing standing. It is a rant representative of an over-hyped frustration that could not possibly be uttered in a country less free, one not as willing to let radio demagogues make obscene amounts of money by stoking people’s worst fears and hatred.

I wish I could hit a “reset” button on all conservative media once and for all. There’s so much implicit and explicit racism out there, hatred for anyone different, get-tough rhetoric that doesn’t even come close to understanding the very real pain of others, conspiracy theory that shows no shame in accusing everyone and everything of plotting murder and theft that someone has to say enough. (Today on my facebook feed: someone seriously accused the President of trying to stage a kidnapping of the Libyan ambassador.) The worst part about all this hate is that it dresses itself up with flag-waving and Bible-quoting. I want my country back, and I want those who profit off hate to have some small doubt that Judgement Day will go well for them.

Mr. Levin’s rant is here, for those who want to follow along.

1. The Pretense of Theory

Mr. Levin’s rant moves so fast that one has trouble seeing what his complaint is. In one sentence, he says the government is run by lilliputians – tiny, trivial people. Then he right away says the President exercises no less than imperial authority and implies that the media is under his control:

But I’m just telling you, from an emotional point of view, it is just so damned infuriating to see the greatest country on the face of the earth run by a bunch of lilliputians, who are constantly attacking it from within. No discussion on the news programs about an imperial president exercising an authority he does not have under our constitution.

You could say this is a trivial complaint I’m raising. But remember that a number of right-wingers look to Mr. Levin to teach them what Tocqueville and the Federalist say about liberty. That sort of discussion turns on theoretical points like this: Would it be better for a government to be incompetent or efficient as regards our freedom? (The Federalist, btw, comes out very clearly in favor of a strong, efficient executive: “secrecy and dispatch.”)

So maybe the President is incompetent and tyrannical: who knows? Who cares? Levin’s whole game – the game of all conservative media nowadays – is that no matter what you think, you’re ready to vent. The venting is what’s important. It keeps you listening for hours upon hours every day, instead of reading books or talking to people or enjoying sunshine. It keeps people younger than 30 far, far away from conservative causes, has turned off every single minority in the United States, and perhaps worst of all, filters down into the indoctrination of a number of children. Trust me on this: no amount of conservative complaints about “leftist mind control” compare to what I’ve seen happen in isolated communities on the right.

2. Call everyone Hitler so you can ignore the fact they actually have to govern

There is, of course, no serious argument of how the President is actually “attacking [America] from within.” I assume, given Levin’s statement about the Second Amendment that follows, that this is about guns:

No discussion about all the lives saved and all the people protected as a result of the Second Amendment. Nothing. They continue to perpetuate the lie, the big lie that somehow, some new regulation, some new government fiat would have prevented what happened in Newtown, Connecticut. And then they pretend that they’re for law enforcement. They pretend that they’re hard on crime when they’re not.

So let’s talk about those executive orders the President’s been considering. The story on Drudge, of course, was that the President was going to outright ban guns. Everyone should know this is laughable. Weigel reports that what the President was working with was 3 “tweaks” of current law: more active prosecution of people who are already prohibited from purchasing guns, having a permanent ATF director, getting other feds to report mental health records. That was what prompted Drudge to post a picture of Hitler and Stalin over a headline about “executive orders” on guns.

Levin seems to have a talent for talking right past contradictions. Guns obviously can make policing harder in some circumstances, easier in others (i.e. if you live out in the middle of nowhere, you should have a gun and know how to use it). It would seem that if we’re talking about executive orders to make the government more efficient at tracking and prosecuting people already banned from having guns, then we’re talking about a government that is working to be “hard on crime.” As for Newtown: I literally have had conservative friends tell me that the only reason it was news was that liberals wanted to make guns look bad. Not a single, serious thought that maybe people in the media are actually people and were horrified just like anyone else with a pulse. I don’t know that “liberals” have problems with guns because they’re emotional and hate guns. I think they’re serious people responding to a serious problem. I may not like their solution, but at the same time, countries where you hear of massacre after massacre are countries with names like “Syria” and “Afghanistan.”

3. I thought Jesus said something about visiting him in prison. Apparently that has nothing to do with modern conservatism.

Levin now gets to the closest he possibly can to an argument. Liberals are soft on crime and want to take away your guns. By implication (he doesn’t say this, that would involve making an argument), their fear of violence is going to punish the good and reward the bad:

We have evidence over one decade after another of how the very same people pushing for gun control against law-abiding American citizens support radical left-wing judges who are soft on criminals, support weakened sentencing rules, decriminalizing this and that. Since when was Obama strong on fighting crime? Since when has Obama supported law enforcement? But here he is, you know, ‘we have to stop gun violence.’ No, we have to stop violent criminals.

You can see very clearly this is no argument. This is just “we let criminals walk around free.” Btw, it’s absolutely not true: we have the highest incarceration rate in the world – we throw everyone and their mother in prison. It is estimated one-third of those in prison are non-violent offenders. We get, as a result, a slightly lower crime rate than we would otherwise have. It isn’t anything to brag about: it injures many communities as well as many individuals. And don’t think for a second that we don’t throw people in prison that have no business being there. A get-tough-on-crime attitude invariably means people will have to face the legal system for all the wrong reasons.

To make things worse – and shame on modern conservatism for ever letting children think this way – I remember having a discussion about prison reform with a few friends. A young man joined in, who was seriously thinking of being a priest. We were talking about the AIDS rate of the prison population and recidivism programs we’d heard about. He listened, and without the slightest pretense of a joke, he declared that to solve crime, people should be thrown in prison and the key should be thrown away. (His ideological background: army brat & more conservative than Pat Buchanan). I’ll never forget that: the hate you spew and indulge in spreads to every corner.

Levin’s argument depends on a luxury. You can’t sit around feeling sorry for yourself, feeling like things are going to hell, unless you have time for self-pity. Therein lies my biggest problem with modern conservative media: it fosters an attitude of victimization that is usually completely unfounded. People are being trained to lie to themselves for the cause. Meanwhile, people who have real problems on the right and the left suffer.

Also, it goes without saying: “how many guns does one need to stand up to violent criminals” is the question, not Levin’s declaration that the government wants to take away your guns and let you be eaten by whomever comes along.

4. Why does the radio host have to hint that the government is out to take everything away?

Levin does not end his rant subtly. He wonders why we need a national gun database. In doing so, he calls the VP a “moron,” because that’s a classy way to talk about policy when we have the problem that every other day we have shootings. Obviously no one might be able to use info about guns with reports about mental health to check in with people before anything happens. Nope. He implies that it’s all an excuse for something more sinister, something I’ve heard from the Right nonstop for 10 years now (remember when we were all supposed to be in FEMA camps? Remember when that didn’t happen? No? I have gold to sell you…):

Now, there’s a fury in me — I’m just being honest with you — that I’m trying to contain. Biden, the moron Senator from Delaware, taking his train back and forth and back and forth on Amtrak. Oh wow, what a guy. Anyway, so they may do by executive fiat — I’m trying to read between the lines — a national gun database. Now, why would we need a national gun database? Well, listen, we need to know who has the weapons, at all times, and how many weapons they have and what weapons they have. How come? Why? The guy that killed all those people in Newtown, Connecticut, we know who he was and we know who had the weapons, his mother. So what does this national database have to do with anything? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Oh, okay, but we need one anyway, right? To prevent what exactly? To prevent what?

Levin’s not going to complete this thought on the radio. He can’t. He’s built up to some version of “they’re coming for you,” but he can’t say that because his job is to sucker you into giving him your money and time every day, not get caught in an investigation. He’s either a nutcase or a scumbag. Right now, I don’t really care which: he’s dishonest and hurting my party and my country. None of this ranting is going to stop gun control. It makes all those who go “yeah! Levin’s right” be sighed at by the rest of America. And I’ve been really clear that it offends and hurts a host of others, from minorities who do have to deal with discrimination on an everyday level to homeschooled kids who hear this and only this from their parents nonstop for 18 years.

Enough.

Bioshock 2: Libertarianism, Transhumanism and the Will to Believe

philosophy, politics, , ,

Spoilers galore ahead

1. I finished Bioshock 2 last night. While I wasn’t a huge fan of the opening – mind control makes you shoot yourself in the head 30 seconds into the game, then you resurrect 10 years later – the idea of Rapture (the city you explore) is one of the best premises I’ve come across in a long while.

Some background, familiar to those of you who’ve played the first Bioshock. Rapture is an underwater city created in the 50′s by ultra rich Ayn Rand fanatics who want to live entirely independent of government. They get their wish and for a little while things go smoothly to a degree. There’s all the capitalism one could want and some issues with class and indoctrination, but nothing fatal.

Then people find a sea slug that when mixed with their blood gives them super powers. The rich quickly become angels and demons of a sort and the poor are relegated to merely human status. The problems don’t just stem from the scarcity of superpower blood additive; the more of the substance one has, the more powerful one can theoretically be. This leads to people pretty much eating each other. A former gangster, in the name of getting more additive for the people, finds a way to mass produce the stuff and stages a rebellion against the city’s founder. Things get bloody quickly and the whole city becomes an insanity-filled ruin. The substance isn’t perfect and deforms people over time. It certainly does not promise immortality just yet.

As a critique of libertarianism and Objectivism, Bioshock’s plot is powerful. I’m really amazed gamers can play this and not have doubts about some of the views popular in the gaming community. I remember attending libertarian events. There was always ranting about how bad government was and almost no thought about how low some individuals we knew were actually going. The assumption was once the evil government was removed, whatever is left is good. Bioshock just explodes that: power is real and people want it. Take away restraints and those who have advantages will abuse them for any number of reasons. When there’s no formal order, everyone can become more fearful and paranoid. For all its problems, law protects us from each other.

2. The setup of a fallen Rapture is not without nuance. Bioshock 2 presents the educational amusement park dominated by Rapture’s founder, Andrew Ryan. The voice of Ryan and several animatronic Ryans preach the evils of the surface to children in exhibit after exhibit. Government takes away from honest, hardworking farmers, stifles scientific progress, prevents artistic free expression. As you explore the area, Ryan Amusements, you encounter the audio diaries of several of the major characters. One of the gentlemen who wanted to create the park wanted a genuine amusement park, a place where children could have fun. His vision seems to have been completely appropriated. Ryan himself, though, expresses doubts about the mode of education involved. He concedes grudgingly that the approach of Ryan Amusements as a whole works. The larger tension of how freedom and education reconcile is driving the darker emotions on display. Aristotle does not think children or animals have rational choice. If Aristotle is even close to being right, the consequences for an immediately practicable political ideology are huge, and not just for the children being indoctrinated. The doctrine itself is in a way pretending that freedom is a one-size-fits-all proposition.

Bioshock 2 concerns Sofia Lamb, a psychiatrist with a literally cult following. Ryan and the former gangster are dead following the first game, and Rapture was a dystopia then. Now her cult “runs” what’s left of an already that much more wrecked Rapture, with drug addict super powered post-humans everywhere. She once accused Ryan of unleashing the egoism of everyone in the city. Given where one finds that accusation, it might be thought a comment on Ryan creating a cult of personality. Ryan saw her cult as a collectivist menace. Both run cults of personality but seem willing to accept that irony. Ryan thinks of what he’s achieved as liberty. A little egoism never hurt anyone, as long as they’re free.

With Lamb, the problem runs deeper. She sees self-awareness as pain and greed. Utopian individuals are possible, but they need to be completely disinterested. Her cult of personality is a stepping stone to a greater good. She’s using it to collect more of the superpower substance for her daughter. Her daughter will have near infinite mental resources and powers. She can be the first citizen of a true utopia. It’s weird: in game, Lamb comes off as shrill, menacing and insane. Writing out what she’s after – hey, if we get rid of self-interest, aren’t these superpowers usable? – makes her project look a lot more feasible and interesting. Give the superpowerful family ties and selflessness: that’s not just a perfect society, but an angelic realm, no?

3. Why this can’t work is tricky. The conventional narrative, given by the game: the rarity of the superpowered substance required a new race specifically devoted to having the sea slug in them, producing and storing the stuff in their bodies, collecting it from corpses lying around the city. This was the Little Sisters: genetically modified to have it pump through their veins and lacking any superpower besides regeneration, as well as mentally conditioned to see the world as roses no matter how bleak it is. “Little Sisters” are loyal to a fault to “Big Daddies,” behemoths designed to defend them to the death while they harvest/produce/store.

Lamb’s daughter for a complex set of reasons was turned into a Little Sister. This turned out to be a blessing for her mother’s plan, as it meant she could process a large amount of the substance without becoming deformed or insane. But it also meant that she became attached to a “Big Daddy” – you, the player in Bioshock 2 – and since she has some issues with Mom, is trying to get you to rescue her.

The larger issue is “What is family?” and Bioshock 2 doesn’t disappoint. You, as a Daddy, are almost entirely a construct of your own daughter. Lamb’s make-a-family project has a lot of validity to it – again, this is very hard to see while playing – and it looks like the daughter picked that much up from Mom. Your daughter resurrects you using the system set up to empower her. The choices you make as a player are prompts conditioned by the fact you have to attempt a rescue and, in it, learn her history.

It’s a very strange circumstance: a parent almost entirely created by a child, one who has to learn a child just to act himself. Even stranger is the outcome, where the daughter learns from how you act. Who she grows up to be is completely dependent on what you do in game. What is the difference between “almost entirely” (your daughter’s construction) and “entirely?” (her moral formation)

4. If I knew the answer to that, I’d be a lot richer. Suffice to say the question on my mind is how the libertarian framework created the collectivist, religious one. It would be easy to limit that inquiry to “conditions:” the failure of libertarianism on a practical level created the need for something more egalitarian. The story of Rapture allows for that explanation. I don’t think it’s good enough.

It’s not good enough because people’s attachment to what looks like order in game is too convincing. In the midst of death and destruction and a complete lack of anything like civility, people are that much more in awe of someone with a title or some kind of power. Again, I don’t think that’s just “hey, when you’ve got no power, you make the person who does a god,” although that’s sort of true. Nor is it nostalgia from memories of a time things were more ordered, although that might be true.

Something about self-awareness leads to a deeper consideration, but it isn’t clear why. Lamb and Ryan and everyone else in Rapture are right to emphasize the utility of reason. Who cares if you know more about yourself through a book? What’s more important is that knowledge can benefit all or be used to increase your pleasure or pride. Yet the daughter wants self-awareness above all and her mother thinks she is a monster for this.

I can’t tell you what freedom is, but I can see what hesitation is. Independent of any moral concerns, hesitation – reason as restraint – seems to be the flip side of reason as utility. Self-awareness may be nothing more than pain and greed ultimately. But we like to think that it is about our sitting in judgment of ourselves, having some control over who we are. Maybe that’s the real reason why a cult with no pretense to anything divine, only an earthly hope, takes over in Rapture. Only Lamb really believes in a selfless order. All those in awe of her might respect the fact she has the distance to think about things and put them together for herself, to form something appropriate.

Let’s Talk a Little about Sports in American Life

education, politics

1. To those of you outside the United States who are curious: we do not just have professional sports leagues like the NFL and NBA. Nor are there just minor league teams, like the farm teams each associated with a Major League Baseball team.

No, we also have collegiate athletics. There are plenty of student-athletes who work hard for their grades and accomplishment in their sport. Some of the competition yields Olympians in things like fencing and track.

However, there’s also the spectacle of college football and basketball. Both sports attract large fan bases and some of the players make it into the NFL and NBA. There’s an enormous amount of money to be made and none of it has anything to do with education. The universities that participate are technically non-profit, enjoying some rather nice tax exemptions. The labor is unpaid and is often notorious for caring about things other than classes. Not so long ago, a booster (someone who gives money and support to a sports program) at the University of Miami acknowledged that he paid for prostitutes for football players. Visit that link and you can see a picture of the school’s president accepting a check from him.

Some argue that the money a university makes through sports goes into their educational mission. It’s safe to say there’s enough corruption and fudged numbers that it’s hard to determine. There’s every incentive to hide any deficit the Athletics Department might have. Safe to say, winning programs make money, losing programs not so much.

I’d like to tell you this sort of thing is confined to “sports factory” schools, but think about the fact that “sports factory” is a term I can use for an institution of higher education which makes sense to you. That tells you a lot about where our values lie. Tax shelters for rich administrators, bread and circuses for everyone, a complete breakdown in what an education means. More on this in a second.

2. Josh sent me two links recently which only make a call for reform that much more potent. The problem, as you probably intuit, is much larger than very profitable (for some) college sports. The city of Oakland in California just fired 25% of its police force, even as it is the 5th most crime-ridden city in the nation. It did not touch the money – $17 million – it gives the Oakland Raiders.

You could say, “haha, that’s Oakland,” but that’s again missing the bigger picture. In the United States of America, the NFL is a non-profit:

In the eyes of the IRS, the National Football League is considered a nonprofit outfit. Just like the United Way. Read that again. The NFL — a league that makes roughly $9 billion in revenue per season and will collected [sic] a guaranteed $27 billion in television money over the next decade — enjoys the same tax breaks as, say, your local chamber of commerce, because both are classified as 501(c)6 organizations.

The article I got that information about the NFL from is so important I’ll link it again. It is true the NFL and its various franchises are paying some taxes. However, there’s an enormous amount that is tax deductible and a lot of information that can’t be accessed. For more discussion about how professional teams operate: “Let’s Eliminate Sports Welfare.”

3. At this point you’re probably thinking “those Americans have a really unhealthy obsession with sports.” I’m not sure about this. Yes, there are some grotesque examples of hooliganism: fans of school teams and professional teams who curse and taunt and fight during games, riot after games. Still, fan awfulness in soccer/football globally is very hard to top.

I don’t know how obsessive we are as the American people. I think this: a few are really into sports and a few are really profiting. For most of us, sports are a default – there aren’t any new episodes of Adventure Time on; maybe we’re tired of practicing guitar. We’ll flip channels and watch someone throw a pass.

My guess is that if you say to someone “hey, your tax dollars are going for so-and-so’s new stadium” and give them a magic button to stop the flow of those dollars, they’ll hit that button the majority of the time. Even die-hard fans will probably say the tax base shouldn’t be burdened with what they love privately.

Still, one can imagine plenty of people going “meh” because they’ve got other things to do and think about. Right now, complacency favors the entrenched interest, even as we are undergoing a terrible recession where states are taking federal money for welfare and using it to patch other holes in their budget.

4. The genius of the American system, though, is that all you have to do is get a representative of some sort to make this his cause. Most really do care about governing well (fiscal cliff shenanigans notwithstanding). They don’t want to be remembered as a stooge of corporate interests or ideologues who couldn’t work with or for anyone. That’s where awareness and saying “hey, stop sports welfare” over and over come in. Give the idea enough cultural currency and the fix will follow.

There’s a bit more that isn’t quite an addendum. When we throw all these resources into sports at the collegiate level, we lose a lot in terms of education. It’s not clear that we create literate citizens at the university level:

A 2006 study from the American Institutes for Research found that only 31 percent of adults with bachelor’s degrees are proficient in “prose literacy”–being able to compare and contrast two newspaper editorials, for example.

We throw a lot of resources into sports. Again, I don’t know we do this consciously. To argue against those misplaced resources, in my mind, is a boon to the humanities. I don’t quite agree with everything Bill James says here, but his focus on the obvious shouldn’t be neglected:

American society could and should take lessons from the world of sports as to how to develop talent. How is it that we have become so phenomenally good, in our society, at developing athletes?

First, we give them the opportunity to compete at a young age.

Second, we recognize and identify ability at a young age.

Third, we celebrate athletes’ success constantly. We show up at their games and cheer. We give them trophies. When they get to be teenagers, if they’re still good, we put their names in the newspaper once in a while.

Fourth, we pay them for potential, rather than simply paying them once they get to be among the best in the world.The average city the size of Topeka produces a major league player every 10 or 15 years. If we did the same things for young writers, every city would produce a Shakespeare or a Dickens or at least a Graham Greene every 10 or 15 years. Instead, we tell the young writers that they should work on their craft for 20 or 25 years, get to be really, really good—among the best in the world—and then we’ll give them a little bit of recognition.

We might be a bit better at identifying and rewarding achievement and diversity in the sciences. We can certainly encourage people to do more hands-on things like shop. But anyone who argues that we read or write too much, spend too much time preserving and evaluating the past, thinking about how best to express ourselves – anyone who says that is an idiot. You would think with all the writing and speaking on the Internet we’d have a more literate generation than ever before. I think a lot of people try and create some wonderful content. Imagine what they could create in a world that took literature, philosophy, history seriously.