Are there really no two snowflakes that are alike?

It is a common cliché that no two snowflakes are alike. Of course, for every cliché in one direction there is another in the opposite direction. Consider the infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of typewriters, eventually they will produce Hamlet. Even if you are a one in a million kind of guy, there are a thousand people just like you in China.

So, is this snowflake truism true? With the number of molecules in a snowflake and the unique and variable environmental factors that lead to the formation of a snowflake, is it conceivable that there have never been two snowflakes that have been identical? All the snowflakes in all the snowstorms in all the world in all of history, surely it is not necessarily true that no two have been identical, but is it likely that there have never been? Or is it likely that there have been?

Does the idea of identity here get rendered meaningless by quantum mechanics in which objects get blurred out? Does the entire concept rest upon classical ideas that happen to be empirically false making this a pseudo-question?

Is this really what philosophers think about when their flights are delayed and they are stuck in an airport while it is snowing? (Credit where credit is due: TheWife was ranting about this on the way through the snow to the airport…)

Is it good to have a check on the voters?

Alexander Hamilton said “The masses are asses.” Thinkers as far back as Plato agreed. Pure democracy puts power into the hands of the great unwashed. Political parties are not mobs bound together by rough ideological similarities. To be successful, we have seen in recent decades, they must have coherent policy ideas, systematic approaches to branding and concept marketing, and an intentional and well-designed approach to governing that targets key voting blocs.

It is with this in mind that our Founding Fathers created a representative democracy designed to allow the people to put representatives in power, but to give those representatives more power than the normal voter.

It is the same reasoning that the Democratic Party used in designing its selection procedure for determining a presidential candidate. Voters elect most representatives to a committee convention, but a number of party insiders, termed superdelegates, make up about 20% of those who actually pick the nominee. The idea is to provide a check on the power of the voters whose passions at a given time in history may not align with the wisdom and intentions of those creating and marketing party policy and what they perceive as the party’s (and therefore the nation’s) best interest.

In a race as tight as the current primary, this 20% may be significant, indeed, may be the tie-breaking and thus deciding factor. Does this structure undermine the democratic integrity of the process or does it simply make it more stable? Does it lead to rationality or stasis?

Second Law Silliness

Been working on the evolutionary biology track in my forthcoming philosophy of science textbook, Methods and Models, and in fairly quick order came across two instances of the argument against evolution based on entropy. It's probably worth making clear why this argument fails in a way that folks can quickly debunk it.

The argument is this: Evolution's central claim is that species adapt to environmental factors. The evolutionary description of the origin of life, therefore, takes us from species of simple one-celled organisms to more and more complex, better adapted species. Advocates of evolution hold that this process occurs in accord with the laws of nature, but the second law of thermodynamics holds that at all times disorder increases. But evolution, to the contrary, holds that over time biological order increases. Therefore, evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics and therefore cannot occur given our best understanding of the laws of nature.

First, the second law of thermodynamics holds that in a closed system, entropy tends to increase. What does this mean? Entropy is a measure of the number of possible states a system may be in. Suppose you had two wooden eggs in an egg carton and you put one in the hole on the bottom right and one in the hole on the top left. You know where those eggs are. Now you shake the carton and with each shake each egg can move one hole in any direction, but you don't know which direction. With one shake, they could still be in their original holes or each could be in one of the three surrounding holes. With two shakes, the number of holes they could be in is larger. That's an increase in entropy. Now, there's always the chance on a given shake that the eggs will be back in their original holes and the order will be restored, so entropy can spontaneously decrease, but in general it tends to increase.

We can always restore order by opening the carton and replacing the eggs where they go. That takes energy, but energy can always be used to decrease entropy. That's what happens when we clean our desks or run an air conditioner.

That is why the first clause is there in the second law -- "in a closed system." What that means is a system in which no additional energy is added because in an open system, the energy could be used to decrease entropy and increase order. So the second law only holds in systems in which no additional energy is added.

Life exists on a planet we call "The Earth" and the earth is not a closed system, there is energy added to it by a large, hot, yellow ball in the sky which goes by the technical name "The Sun." The sun brings energy to the earth and this energy is fixed by plants by photosynthesis. The plants are then eaten which brings energy to the animals that eat them and the animals that eat these animals then acquire some of that energy for themselves. Hence, energy is always being added into the system which then is used to decrease entropy in the organisms which participate in ecosystems exhibiting pressures that result in natural and sexual selection and thereby we get evolution in perfect harmony with the second law of thermodynamics.

But what if we don't look at the earth which is not a closed system, but the solar system as a whole? Since the sun is a part of the system, it is closed and since the earth is a part of it, doesn't the second law hold that there should be no life in the solar system writ large and therefore on the earth which is a part of it? No. Energy transfers within subsystems will cause there to be pockets of higher and lower entropies within the system while the overall entropy of the whole still tends to increase.

So, appeals to the second law of thermodynamics is in no way worrisome to the possibility of species adapting to changing environments by random genetic mutation and natural selection.

Liberal Fascism: An Interesting Moral Question

The word “fascism” has become ambiguous. On the one hand, there is the Benito Mussolini’s notion in which war is the natural state of man and thereby necessitates a strong central government that maintains a constant martial stance and places the interest of the state above the interests of the individual, thereby clamping down on personal liberties like political expression. Then, there is the other meaning. The one employed in loose contemporary American political parlance everywhere from the blogosphere to the floor of the Senate. In this sense, fascism is the use of social or political power instead of argumentation to decisively win a debate about a social or political issue and take the opponents’ view out of consideration. Everything from slanted news coverage to effective vocal advocacy gets decried as fascism when those on the other side perceive their perspective to be absent, belittled, or suppressed.

Jonah Goldberg’s book, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, tries to draw lines between the fascist policies and beliefs of pre-World War II dictators and the promotion of those causes most important to the left. Because there are two fascisms, there are two books in Goldberg’s book. The primary text, the one reviewers from across the political spectrum have panned, rightfully deserves it. The anachronistic analysis, the misguided accusations of guilt by association, the strawman arguments, the errors in understanding the history of the last century that have been discussed at length are there. This book is indeed the product of Goldberg being tired of hearing the word “fascist” used to refer to conservative tactics and positions. So he responded with that classic rhetorical gambit, “I know you are, but what am I?” There is, of course, good reason why this move was unsuccessful by middle school.

But there is a second book in Liberal Fascism that contains an argument that progressives should take quite seriously. Admittedly, it is buried beneath the bombast, hyperbole, and ad hominem attacks, but it is there and it raises questions that we ignore at our peril. It is the central moral question at the heart of modern American conservatism – “how much do I really have to care?”
Our political discourse is not based merely on policy disagreements, but a foundational split in the ethical questions we ask when approaching the world and governance. The moral heart of contemporary liberal thought lies in the question, “Given that we live in a world in which power and resources are distributed unequally and rewards or punishes people for accidents of birth and for their labor, how do we make changes to help all living things, especially the most vulnerable, live the best possible lives?” It is the proposed solutions to this question that informs everything from support for public education, to the push for alternative energy, to universal healthcare. Opposition to these policy objectives by conservatives is often interpreted by those of us on the left as heartlessness, avarice, and a pathological lack of empathy.

Conservative thought, however, is grounded in a related, but distinctly different moral question. Their concern is, “Given that we live in a world in which power and resources are distributed unequally, and rewards and punishes people for accidents of birth and their labor, how much am I required to do to help all living things, especially the most vulnerable, live a better life before I can just enjoy my own rewards?” Liberals assume that you have to care and ask how this care needs to be instantiated, but Goldberg is the latest in a long line of conservatives who are asking whether I do, in fact, have to care, if so, how much, and when can I stop.
We often confuse the question with the answers proposed by the right. Granted, they very often draw the line of concern far too early. But before we can dispute the answers, we need to take the question seriously. Indeed, this concern has been one of the primary forces shaping American domestic and foreign policy for the last quarter century.

Ronald Reagan’s virtuosity in plying white guilt exhaustion set he frame for our contemporary political discourse. His political descendants, spurred on by its success, became more and more enthusiastic in their allergy to compassion. Mystical powers were attributed to the marketplace that dislocated the need to care. Those who needed assistance were tautologically unworthy of it because anyone worth helping would have already helped himself. The new velvet covered social Darwinism turned aid into interference, upsetting the market forces that would ultimately save the needy. Tough love was the only way to truly love my brother as myself. And just as Nixon was swept by the spirit of Kennedy into creating the Environmental Protection Agency, so Clinton was swept by the lingering specter of Reagan to declare the demise of the era of big government and sign the telecom bill and Defense of Marriage Act.
But the floodwaters of the Gulf Coast have washed away the sheen from this image. The war in Iraq and the fiscal sword of Damocles hanging over our economy have shifted the spirit of the times. Indicators are showing a marked change in what we as a nation expect of and demand from government. The liberal question is once again being widely asked and the liberal answer may be making a comeback.

Goldberg’s book is easily written off as just the latest in conservative bluster, yet one more cheap shot designed to capitalize on the “trashing the public discourse” market created by Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly, and their ilk. One might even foresee it as a bookend to the genre as a whole should the looming post-partisan realignment come to pass.

But as progressive anticipate this wave, there is no better time than this to take Goldberg’s question seriously because it is not asked only by conservatives. Susan Wolf, for example, is a prominent contemporary ethicist best known for her essay, “Moral Saints,” in which she asks how good do we have to be to be good? Traditional ethical systems define good in terms of maximization. Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism, for example, requires each person to find that which brings the greatest balance of pleasure over pain. But Wolf asks, isn’t there a point where it is good enough without being the most? Surely a well-lived life means being able to say that an act was morally good enough for government work. “I believe that moral perfection,” she writes, “does not constitute a model of personal well-being toward which it would be particularly rational or good or desirable for a human being to strive.” But, then we are left with exactly the question that Goldberg and the American right have been asking, how good is good enough? Do I really have to be every change I want to see in the world all the time?

This is the deep and interesting question that Goldberg unfortunately buries beneath exaggeration and equivocation. His asking of it is ham-fisted at best and accompanied by a chip on his shoulder that distracts so much from it to the point where it has rendered the crucial concern all but invisible. But it is there and the question is a fundamental moral challenge that conservatives present.

How much is enough? How much is placed on our shoulders to help end climate change? How much do I have to change the way I eat, what I drive, contribute to the needy? We need to do something about Sudan, Kenya, Afghanistan, and how many others and to what degree? More than we do now, sure, but how much more? Where is the line between moral necessity and above and beyond the call of duty?

Liberals assume the need to care and in the world we live in tragedies and injustices are like a never-ending box of Kleenex, pull one out and another pops right up. What Goldberg clumsily labels fascism is the liberals’ eternal imperative to care. The conservative challenge to liberals, one that we need to take much more seriously and which is at the core of Liberal Fascism, is the question of the limits of care in a well-lived life and a morally responsible society. If progressives do retake the positions of power, we must learn from our past if we want to avoid the next Reagan revolution and the quarter century of virtual irrelevance that comes after by thinking hard about this question. It is a hard one, but a concern to which we need a coherent, well-reasoned response.

As Americans, especially those of us who have good educations and stable jobs with health insurance, we are privileged. Some of it comes from our own hand, but much of it is a result of moral luck. Goldberg can be read as asking us whether we dishonor that luck and that privilege by not appreciating it. Is there not a limit to care, a place where we can engage the joys and benefits we have? At what point are we rude and ungrateful for not appreciating what we have? Many conservatives clearly err on the side of too little care, but the challenge they pose is a legitimate one, a concern that liberals ignore at our own risk.

The New Year Starts Rat Now

Brothers, Sisters, and Transgendered Comedists Everywhere,

This week was Chinese New Year and the beginning of the year of the rat. We want to extend special Comedist greetings to our readers who are rat finks, dirty rats, rat bastards, mall rats, and those who are just stuck in the rat race.

While despised by many others, rats are quite special to Comedists as we see ourselves as fellow children of the Cosmic Comic. From the BBC:

Scientists say giggling, ticklish rats have provided them with the first credible evidence that animals unrelated to humans can laugh.

For years biologists have known that chimpanzees and even some monkeys produce a panting noise akin to human laughter.

But there is scant evidence that other animals are capable of laughter.

Now two American scientists are claiming to have discovered that rats "laugh" when tickled.

Rats can laugh. Not sure I want to be the grad student whose responsibility it was to find the ticklish spots, but it is an important discovery nonetheless. Another piece of empirical evidence for those who say that our theory of Humorous Design is unscientific because it is untestable.

But what does a rat find funny? How about this?

A tourist wanders into a back-alley antique shop in San Francisco's Chinatown. Picking through the objects on display he discovers a detailed, life-sized bronze sculpture of a rat. The sculpture is so interesting and unique that he picks it up and asks the shop owner what it costs. "Twelve dollars for the rat, sir," says the shop owner, "and a thousand dollars more for the story behind it." "You can keep the story, old man," he replies, "but I'll take the rat."

The transaction complete, the tourist leaves the store with the bronze rat under his arm. As he crosses the street in front of the store, two live rats emerge from a sewer drain and fall into step behind him. Nervously looking over his shoulder, he begins to walk faster, but every time he passes another sewer drain, more rats come out and follow him.

By the time he's walked two blocks, at least a hundred rats are at his heels, and people begin to point and shout. He walks even faster, and soon breaks into a trot as multitudes of rats swarm from sewers, basements, vacant lots, and abandoned cars. Rats by the thousands are at his heels, and as he sees the waterfront at the bottom of the hill, he panics and starts to run for the bridge.

Making a mighty leap, he jumps up onto a light post, grasping it with one arm while he hurls the bronze rat into San Francisco Bay with the other, as far as he can heave it. Pulling his legs up and clinging to the light post, he watches in amazement as the seething tide of rats surges over the breakwater into the sea, where they drown.

Shaken and mumbling, he makes his way back to the antique shop. "Ah, so you've come back for the rest of the story," says the owner.

"No," says the tourist, "but I was wondering if you have any bronze lawyers."

Or this one:

A drunk walks up to a barkeeper one day and says, "If I show you a trick will you give me a free drink?" The bartender replies, "Depends how good it is."

The drunk reaches into his pocket and pulls out a frog and places him behind the piano. The frog starts to play the sweetest jazz riff the barkeeper has ever heard. He pours the drunk his drink.

After killing his drink, the drunk says, "If I show you another trick can I have another free one?" The barkeep says "If it is anything like that last one, you can drink free all night." The drunk reaches into his other pocket, pulls out a rat, sets it on top of the piano, and the rat starts scatting along with the frog.

Impressed, the barkeeper starts to pour drinks as fast as the drunk can drink them. After several hours, a big time Hollywood agent walks in, sees the act and asks the barkeeper who it belongs to. The barkeeper points to the drunk who is passed out on the floor.

The agent wakes him up and says, "I will give you a million dollars for that act." The drunks says, "Not for sale". The agent says, "Ok, how about 100 grand for just the singing rat." The drunk says, "Deal." The agent writes the check and leaves with the rat.

The barkeeper looks at the drunk and says, "Are you nuts? You had a million bucks in your hand and you broke up the act for a 100 G's?"

The drunk says, "Relax, the frog's a ventriloquist."

Happy Year of the Rat everyone.

Live, love, and laugh,

Irreverend Steve

Promises and Care

Promises are like contracts. If you promise something to someone, they have the power to dissolve the promise, morally freeing you from the promised responsibility, if they choose. If you promise to wash someone's car and then they decide they don't want it washed or don't want you to wash it, they can simply say never mind and you are off the hook.

But suppose the promise is to someone you care about and it involves something they care about, but dissolve the promise anyway. Are you still freed from the responsibility? Say it's a grandparent whom you visit regularly and you've promised to come by twice a week. Your grandparent starts to worry that the visits are interfering with other things you are doing and tells you not to bother coming by so often. Or you promise you partner that you'll stop drinking caffeine because she reads of negative health effects, but she knows how much you enjoy your coffee, so she frees you from the promise, but you still know she'll worry about the physiological consequences. Are you still freed from the promise if the situation that led you to make the promise is about care and remains unchanged even though the promise has been dissolved?

Darwinians SHOULD Teach the Controversy

I think it is wrong for our science students not to be taught the controversy surrounding Darwinian evolution in public high schools. Of course, I'm not speaking about intelligent design creationism here, but other controversies.

I'll never forget a talk I attended in graduate school by Stephen Stanley, an early adherent of the punctuated equilibrium approach which challenged the traditional gradualist picture of the development of species. Fireworks understates the red-faced passion of the discussants. It was full-contact science and, man, was it exciting.

Like stories of riots after symphonies in the last century, the idea of scientists really worked up makes no sense to many folks today and part of that is because the scientific literacy approach to teaching science focuses less on the narrative histories of why smart people disagreed about things and how the case was eventually decided. Science is like a protracted court room drama that can keep you on the edge of your seat, yet it is largely taught as something to be grasped and applied -- skills a large minority of students will ever need and which they can be trained later at the higher levels.

If we taught science as an on-going passionate argument, as a developing conversation that is continuing to develop, it might become more engaging and less opaque. That might lead to a wider understanding of why we are discussing the questions we are now discussing and why views that were prevalent at an earlier point in the conversation were held by smart people at tat point in the discussion, but are not held by any well-informed person at this point.

Perhaps teaching real controversy as a matter of course, not presenting some phony "scientific method" whereby absolute truth pops out of a flow-charted turn the crank logical machine, but showing that at every step of the way there is passionate argumentation by real scientists challenging each other on everything would enhance understanding and interest in science. Maybe teaching real controversy could lead to not having to worry so much about being forced to teach fake controversies.

Nothing Borrowed, Nothing Lent

As we move into the Christian season of lent, it raises an interesting question. During lent, Christians live a more modest lifestyle giving up particular pleasures. Other religions also set aside times where certain physical needs are left unmet to create an experience of want. Muslims have Ramadan where for a month they do not eat at all during the day and Jews have Passover where for a week they give up any food that does not give you constipation. The idea behind it seems to be that you can't appreciate the air condition unless you spend time in the heat. Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder.

My question is, is that true? Do we really need to lose something, or at least do without it, to appreciate it? If we were thoughtful enough, could we appreciate what we have while still having it? Does life give you a lens such that the normal becomes invisible and you have to put yourself in unusual circumstances to focus on it?

Marc Steiner, NPR and Ratings

Guest-post from Jeff Maynes:

At the beginning of the month, Baltimore's public radio station, WYPR, lost its hallmark program, the Marc Steiner Show. Steiner play a critical role in saving public radio in Baltimore through his fund raising campaign to purchase WJHU a few years back. His show focused on issues important to both the nation and the city of Baltimore. In particular, his program shed critical light on the plight of the disadvantaged in inner city Baltimore. His show routinely displayed earnest engagement with the issues, sophisticated thinking and sensitivity. Baltimore is poorer today than it was just a week ago. Despite my respect for Steiner and his show, however, this post is not merely a eulogy for his program.

To say that WYPR lost the Marc Steiner Show is not accurate. WYPR chose to terminate his program, citing declining ratings for the show. Steiner himself disputed this account, citing boardroom politics. Let us suppose that WYPR is telling the truth, and that ratings were the primary reason driving this decision. To what extent should public radio listen to ratings?

The danger of ratings is obvious. By focusing on the mere popularity of content, and its ability to “sell,” public media loses sight of its priorities. The point of public financing for public radio is that the only standards which apply are those of journalistic integrity and a respect for the truth. One does not need to sell the truth, nor sacrifice depth merely to secure advertising dollars. If corporate sponsorship of public media becomes tied to ratings (as a consequence of the station making programming decisions based on ratings), the difference between sponsoring public media and advertising becomes blurry indeed.

In his response to WYPR's decision Steiner referred to one of the key issues for funding for public media – whether to focus on individual memberships or corporate funding. He painted a boardroom dispute over which direction to take the station on this question, with Steiner championing memberships in opposition to WYPR's board. The advantage of memberships is that the editorial influence of the financial contributors is kept minimal. The argument in favor of sponsorship is presumably a practical one, it is a more predictable and reliable way to fund a major radio operation (particularly one, as in WYPR's case, that is expanding).

In order to make a focus on memberships feasible, does a station have to pay greater attention to ratings? If a station goes after memberships as the cornerstone of their financial backing, are they forced to look for programs which will increase their membership base? Does the decision to minimize the role of ratings force public media to rely more heavily on corporate sponsors? Is this trade-off worth the advantages of minimizing corporate sponsorship? What role ought ratings play in public radio?

Bullshit or Not: Super Monday Hillary Clinton Edition

Yesterday was Superbowl Sunday and tomorrow is Super Tuesday, but today is just plain old Monday. Let's turn it up with another edition of "Bullshit or Not," shall we?

This week's quotation comes from the last Democratic Presidential debate in Los Angeles. One answer that really interested me was Senator Clinton's response to the question about her vote to authorize the President's power to go to war in Iraq:

Well, Wolf, I think that if you look at what was going on at the time -- and certainly, I did an enormous amount of investigation and due diligence to try to determine what if any threat could flow from the history of Saddam Hussein being both an owner of and a seeker of weapons of mass destruction.

The idea of putting inspectors back in -- that was a credible idea. I believe in coercive diplomacy. I think that you try to figure out how to move bad actors in a direction that you prefer in order to avoid more dire consequences.

And if you took it on the face of it and if you took it on the basis of what we hoped would happen with the inspectors going in, that in and of itself was a policy that we've used before. We have used the threat of force to try to make somebody change their behavior.

I think what no one could have fully appreciated is how obsessed this president was with this particular mission. And unfortunately, I and others who warned at the time, who said, let the inspectors finish their work, you know, do not wage a preemptive war, use diplomacy, were just talking to a brick wall.

So, the claim is that she was not really vote for war, but rather voted to reintroduce the inspectors with the threat of war purely for its coercive power, inspections with an edge.

Her argument turns on the historical nature of evidence. We didn't know then what we know now and what was reasonable to believe at that time is not what turned out to be the case. Given what we knew at the time, the decision was correct; it just turns out to have unfortunately been wrong just as in the 17th century, it was rational to believe Newton was right, but it now turns out with information we could not have had at the time that he is wrong. The vote to authorize the President to go to war could not have been reasonably believed to actually be authorizing the President to go to war as he did because at the time, with the best information we had, there was good reason to suppose the WMD were there, that the inspectors would find them if they were, that if they were not there a war would no ensue, and George W. Bush would not pull the inspectors prematurely in order to launch a war. As such, the reasonable position was to vote for authorization.

So, bullshit or not? As usual, feel free to leave a one word answer or a dissertation.

A Comedist Request

Brothers, Sisters, and Transgendered Comedists Everywhere,

This weekend, I, the Irreverend Steve, come to you for advice. I am in need of pastoral counseling from my flock.

We stand a mere eight weeks from April 1, Saint Shecky's Day, the holiest day of the Comedist year. A mere eight days later, is my 40th birthday. Faithful readers may recall a post in which I asked for suggestions for a creative mid-life crisis.

Upon careful Comedist reflection, I came to realize that there was one and only one thing that I had to do...as a true believer, I would have to stand up for my Comedist faith and that standing up requires stand-up. So, in the next eight weeks, I will be honing, editing, and practicing my routine for an open mike night, most likely at Magooby's Joke House in Baltimore. I will post details as they become known, so that anyone who cares to attend can be prepared with their best heckle lines.

I know a number of playground regulars have experience doing stand up (Lyle Bateman, for example), and that the rest of you have stand-up comics you love, so any advice? Telling jokes in a classroom full of people you can fail for not laughing is probably easier than working a real room. So, what makes for good stand-up comedy? What do you really dislike, pitfalls to avoid?

I'll leave you with a couple jokes that I decided against putting in the routine:

People are cynical about politics these days. I can't really blame them. It seems like scandal after scandal after scandal. And half of them have nothing to do with governing. Dick Cheney has a hunting accident, Bill Clinton gets a blow job...I guess it goes to show that either way, they'll shoot a friend in the face. The only only difference is whether it's making love or making war.

Of course, when you put it in that way, it doesn't seem like a hard choice. After war, some people come home with post-traumatic stress disorder where they can't believe what they just did, feel remorse and depression. After sex, on the other hand, some people come home with post-alcohol stress disorder where they can't believe who they just did, feel remorse and depression.

Still working on the A material...

Live, love, and laugh,

Irreverend Steve

Are There Still Eccentrics in Academia?

We lost a beloved member of our community at Gettysburg yesterday. Charlie Zabrowski, a professor of classics, specifically Greek, passed away from lung cancer. Charlie was unique. He taught in his academic robe. He said whatever he was thinking whenever he thought it. Even if it was not something one usually said in the particular context and even if it was not at a time when one usually said it.

I found out of his death from a colleague in the presence of a retired colleague who had been at the college for many years. Reflecting on the loss, he commented, "There went our last eccentric."

That comment stayed with me. Can you be an eccentric in higher ed anymore? Has the whole academy become so managed, so rigorous, so professionalized that the one place where one could actually be extremely strange and be comfortable that way been lost? The image of education has become based on the customer service model. The tenure and promotion process now focuses so much on research and publication that it forces hires that are safe. Can there be eccentric professors anymore?

Neo-Partisanship and Post-Partisanship

The steady-state of American politics since the 1990s has been hyper-partisanship. Conventional wisdom at the time had been that the US electorate was comprised of three main factions, activists on the left and activists on the right whose votes were unalterably Democratic and Republican and would in the end cancel each other out, and uncommitted voters in the middle who swing back and forth and decide elections. the Republican strategy was to redraw the lines, so that the swing voters were eliminated, forced into a clearly and radically divided electorate. By splitting the country in half, the idea was that an aggressive, well-funded church-based effort would get an increasing number of the conservative half out to vote, while classic suppression tactics, especially towards minorities, would diminish percentage of the Democrats half that came out to vote, thereby securing a permanent Republican majority.

The liberal and conservative worldviews differ in their basic presuppositions and the central question asked. The liberal stance towards governance is informed by the core beliefs that (a) humans are basically equal with differences being trivial, (b) power and resources are unevenly and unfairly distributed because of political, sociological, and historical reasons, and (c) a significant role of government is to help provide a world conducive to human flourishing for as many as possible. From these presuppositions the central question to be answered in approaching how to govern is "Given that the situation in the world is unjust, how can we help to correct it?"

The conservative stance towards governance, on the other hand, derives from different axioms, namely (a) humans are not necessarily equal, there are significant differences in terms of ability, effort, and commitment to traditional values, and these differences make a person more or less valuable, (b) power and resources are unequally distributed, but this inequity is fair and a result of the innate and chosen differences in ability, effort, and commitment to traditional values, indeed, the forces of the free market will always force these inequities to be where they belong, and (c) the role of the government is only to enforce contracts
and secure order, all else interferes with the natural mechanisms of the market that bring about the unequal, but fair distribution of power and resources. From these points, the conservative question to be answered by those who govern is, "Given that the situation in the world will natural tend towards justice if left alone, how can we make sure we do not hinder it?"

These differences feed into the resulting hyper-partisanship which can be characterized by two properties: (1) framing issues so that the presuppositions of the other side are implicitly deemed false making competing positions seem absurd, and (2) vilifying opponents so that policy differences are seen as character flaws, treasonous, or insane. By dehumanizing the other side, by failing to even consider the meaningfulness of their point of view and creating strawman arguments out of their every proposal, we come to what we know as politics as unusual.

There have been two movements arising to counter this:

Neo-Partisanship

There is a group of politicians, some from each party, whose approach has been largely dubbed in the media "bi-partisan" or occasionally "non-partisan." This group including Senators Joe Lieberman and John McCain, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg appear at first glance to cross the partisan divide and therefore stand in stark opposition to the harmful hyper-partisanship of the current political context.

This is, however, false. Because we have a winner take all, rather than a parliamentary, system, we are forced to have two strong parties and this gives us a reflexive binary understanding of politics where we wrongly think of polarization into two points of view as natural and necessary. A third view point would have to be non-partisan since partisan has to be either right or left and this is neither. In a parliamentary system where you have a large number of parties, each with different, but strident positions, this knee-jerk duality does not occur.

What we see from this group is not bi-partisan or non-partisan at all, but an approach that is every bit as hyper-partisan; I therefore propose we call it neo-partisanship. Their presuppositions are (a) the majority is almost always right and the majority of people are neither liberal nor conservative, but agree with virtually all of the policy positions they advocate, (b) liberals and conservatives are always wrong by virtue of being liberals and conservatives, the best policy positions are always those that lie at the mean between the liberal and conservative extremes, (c) rancorous, passionate debate is a bad thing that only inflames and empowers the liberals and conservatives and therefore should be quelled by the consensus of the majority. Their central question in governing is "How do we marginalize those who would raise the traditional policy debates, so that the mean between the extremes proceeds unhindered?"

In pursuit of their goals, they are every bit as hyper-partisan in that they also frame the debates so that liberal and conservative viewpoints are immediately treated as nonsensical and they vilify and attempt to marginalize those whom they see as extremists on both sides. This is not a step away from partisan rancor, but a new partisan movement trying to quash the other two.

Post-Partisanship

The term "post-partisan" has been thrown around recently without much thought as to what it actually means. Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee are often pointed to as examples of this post-partisan trend. The records and the campaigns of these people are clearly partisan, so what makes their approach appear post-partisan? (I will not assert that either is, in fact, post-partisan, but set it up as a open question worth considering.)

Post-partisanship is not a rejection of partisanship per se, but rather the explicit rejection of hyper-partisanship. A new frame is placed on issues that is based on presuppositions accounting for the intuitions of both liberals and conservatives: (a) humans are basically equal with differences being trivial, (b) power and resources are unevenly and unfairly distributed because of political, sociological, and historical reasons, although within this context people generally work hard and deserve the fruits of their labor, and (c) the role of government is to find the balance between the need to help those who are vulnerable and granting maximal freedom to those who are less so. On this approach, the question of governance is "How much and how best do we help?" From the liberal worldview we have the central notion that government is there to help create the preconditions for widespread human flourishing, from the conservative side we have the question about the limit of the government in executing that role.

Unlike neo-partisanship, this is not connected with a single set of narrowly tailored policy positions. One can advocate a strongly liberal post-partisan position or a strongly conservative post-partisan position; but in doing so, one is implicitly acknowledging the validity of the concerns of the other side and setting out in good faith an answer to their central question. This humanizes the opponent and takes their views seriously while still allowing for the passionate debate needed in a functioning democracy. A post-partisan politic is still very much a partisan affair, but one that allows for a broad range of viewpoints and one that does not suffer from the ills of hyper-partisanship.

The answers to our woes is not to emulate Solomon and advocate cutting the political baby in half. The answer here is every bit as bad as the answer there. We do not need to get rid of partisan bickering, we just need to reform it so that it is effective and performs the role we demand of it, to force all sides to sharpen their views, to have their excesses and flaws exposed and corrected, and to give rise to new, innovative ways to make the country and the world the best place for all. It will be vibrant, it will be messy, it will be uncomfortable. We do not pull punches in a post-partisan world, we just stop all the hitting below the belt. We need not fear a fair fight, indeed, we need to begin to create it.

Why I Teach

I generally don't respond to memes, but (1) I was tagged on this one by someone whose blog I love, Dr. Free Ride of Adventures in Ethics and Science and (2) it's an interesting question: "Why do you teach and why is academic freedom critical to that effort?"

Why do I teach? Four reasons. My dad always told me growing up that it was important for me to find a job that I love, that I do well, and that pays the bills. I always thought that "and that makes a difference" needed to be added to the list. Teaching does all four for me.

I love teaching. I love the things I get to talk about. i love interacting with minds that are just awakening to the problems that have been wrestled with for centuries. I love being able to stretch my own mind and make connections that I never would have outside of the classroom. I love the energy and the laughter and the spontaneity of conversations that you think you've had a hundred times, but always take a slightly different path. One reason I teach is for the sheer joy of it.

I teach, in part, because I'm allowed to. There is a sense of achievement and I think I'm pretty good at it, at least good enough to make it worth doing.

I also teach because it pays the bills. It is a job and one that, while the pay isn't anywhere near what some of my contemporaries make, still allows me to live comfortably with my family.

Finally, I do think that I make a difference by teaching. In the world's most powerful democracy, I teach critical thinking and ethics. Seems a bit relevant. I reach hundreds of minds and think that at least some of them may be a bit more thoughtful and deliberative as a result of what I do.

As for academic freedom, it is more relevant to how I teach than what I teach. As regular readers know, I invite students to ask any question at the beginning of each class. Literally any question, no topic is off limit. And no matter what the topic, I am honest in discussing my thoughts about it. I do so in a way that clearly sets out the arguments on both sides and why I find one side more convincing. I try to model the deliberative process and this means not pulling punches, not trying to be falsely neutral, being honest, even when it means clearly stating my views on a controversial issue. It is the process and not the conclusion that is essential to convey and nothing is more appropriate than showing how the process works in the hardest, most contentious of cases. The job of educators is to create citizens with open, but rigorous minds who have the fortitude to apply them to tough cases and if we are afraid to do it in the classroom, they too will take the easy path. Academic freedom mean that I actually can do what a teacher is meant to do.

So, I hate this part especially, but let me tag Aspazia at Mad Melancholic Feminista, Lumpenprof at Lumpenprofessoriat, Aaron at One Flew East, and Sage at Persephone's Box. But I'd be very interested in the thoughts of those playground playfriends who don't blog themselves (anymore, in some cases), who teach at any level. Why do you do it and how are you affected by academic freedom?

On Weakman Arguments

Great article over at Scientific American Mind by Yvonne Raley and Bob Talisse called "Getting Duped." In it they play with a question I've broached here in slightly different terms in the past. They look at a variant of the strawman fallacy wherein you actually can find an opponent pushing a weak view.

A strawman argument reconstructs the opponent's view to be weaker than it is. In logic, we have what we call the principle of charity, wherein one must argue against the strongest interpretation of your opponent's argument. But suppose you have many opponents, and you don't misconstrue anyone's argument, they just give a weaker version.

In what Talisse dubs a weak man argument, a person sets up the opposition’s weakest (or one of its weakest) arguments or proponents for attack, as opposed to misstating a rival’s position as the straw man argument does.

You may not be picking on the scarecrow, but you are the logical equivalent of the cowardly lion. It may be true that you've avoided the strawman charge by giving a faithful representation to your opponent's reasoning, but in taking an opponent who is not at the top of the intellectual weight class, by cherry picking the low hanging fruit (is it a mixed metaphor if both metaphors make the same reference?), is it still a violation of the principle of charity? You are not being uncharitable to the opponent you've selected to respond to.

The obvious line is that while you may not be uncharitable to the one opponent, you are being uncharitable to the whole of the other side by elevating that clearly flawed view above the other stronger arguments and therefore wrongly denigrating the position as a whole. Well done, Yvonne and Bob.

But there's another question that seem to come out of it and I'm not sure what I think about it. What do you think: Can your opponent be proud and refuse your argumentative charity and if so, are you then committing a strawman or weakman fallacy by taking them at their flawed word?

When Is Philosophy Appropriate?

There was an interesting discussion over at The Nonsequitur, one of my favorite blogs out there, a couple weeks ago about teaching philosophy before college. Certainly, it is not a good thing that we wait until university-level education to begin people -- those few who elect to take it --thinking about foundational questions. If we want a more reflective, thoughtful culture, surely it is a good idea to incorporate philosophy into regular curricula so that students get both exposure and training in deep thought.

I think two of the reasons it is not taught earlier is that we see secondary education, especially in this test-crazy era, as vo-tech training for middle management jobs. We are preparing students for the work force, not creating interesting, interested citizens with round and lively minds. Second, schooling is as much about keeping order as it is educating and arming students with the ability to challenge their teachers, parents, and what's being taught by both is threatening.

Of course, these are actually reasons why philosophy should be taught, but the question is at what age? When should children ideally begin their philosophical education. Plato, of course, argued that children shouldn't be educated in this way, that we need to wait for a mature brain. Developmental psychology paints a picture of a brain that develops in stages, starting more concrete and advancing towards abstract concepts. To make this anecdotal, when did you start being philosophical? When in your own development would it have been effective to introduce you to the world of philosophy?

The Feast of Saint W.C.

Brothers, Sisters, and Transgendered Comedists Everywhere,

This week would see the 127th birthday of W.C. Fields, the famed alcoholic misanthrope. He had the rare ability to play a completely detestable character that you could not help but love. He is the ultimate in the role played so wonderfully these days by Bill Murray and Steve Carrell.

He left home and began performing at 18 taking a juggling act to Vaudeville. And quite the juggler he was.

But it was his appearances in film and on radio that created the character we came to love so much. The down on his luck drunk who hates kids and dogs, love wine, women, and song, well, at least wine and women. A guy who admits no flaws even when you can't help but stare right at them. A con man with a tongue as sharp as his patience is short who is always scamming for something.

It was a character that in parts resembled his real self. While he never drank in his younger days to keep his juggling abilities sharp, in his later years he did turn to the bottle enthusiastically and in the end it claimed his life. He also harbored deep bigotries, a misogynist and racist who in his will left a sum of money to start an orphanage that would be restricted to white children. A master at his craft, but a truly flawed character.

He suffered as an adult from rosacea, an illness which gave him the characteristic flush cheeks and bulbous nose that made him so recognizable.

We leave you today with some famous lines from W. C. Fields:

"How well I remember my first encounter with The Devil's Brew. I happened to stumble across a case of bourbon--and went right on stumbling for several days thereafter."

"I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally."

"The movie people would have nothing to do with me until they heard me speak in a Broadway play, then they all wanted to sign me for the silent movies."

"Business is an establishment that gives you the legal, even though unethical, right to screw the naive--right, left, and in the middle."

"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain unless you've used up all the other four-letter words."

"During one of my treks through Afghanistan, we lost our corkscrew. We were compelled to live on food and water for several days."

"Marriage is better than leprosy because it's easier to get rid of."

"Start every day off with a smile and get it over with."

"It's hard to tell where Hollywood ends and the D.T.'s begin."

"Say anything that you like about me except that I drink water."

Have a great weekend everyone.
Live, love and laugh,

Irreverend Steve

Do You Have To Do Something To Do Something Good?

Whenever I teach ethics, one point in Kant's discussion that always gives rise to an interesting conversation is his claim that for an act to be of moral worth, it cannot serve any positive purpose for the person who does it. Even if it just makes you feel good, that's enough to to say that the act is selfish and not of moral worth.

"Suppose then the mind of this friend of mankind to be clouded over with his own sorrow so that all sympathy with the lot of others is extinguished, and suppose him still to have the power to benefit others in distress, even though he is not touched by their trouble because he is sufficiently absorbed with his own; and now suppose that, even though no inclination moves him,any longer, he nevertheless tears himself from this deadly insensibility and performs the action without any inclination at all, but solely from duty -- then for the first time his action has genuine moral worth."

Moral worth, to Kant, requires your being pathologically unable to experience empathy and yet have an anal retentive attachment to duty. O.k., sure, a bit over the top.

But we could more charitably interpret the point (and, of course, there is reason in the text to do so) such that if there is possible gain, we may be glad the person does it and we may encourage them to do it, but it is only when there is sacrifice that we truly know the person deserves praise for doing something morally good.

So, this brings up a question I was asked by a student yesterday. Suppose we think not of acts that bring some benefit to the person who does them, but also acts that require no sacrifice. For example, my long distance service, Working Assets, donates a portion of their proceeds to good causes. I make no more long distance phone calls than I would have, I do nothing I wasn't going to do anyway. But I am in some way benefiting the world. It is a desirable act, it is an act worth encouraging, but is it a good act?

Similarly with recycling. We still consume the same amount. We still throw it into a can. We just throw it into the blue can on the left. We've done nothing different, yet we made a small difference. Is that act, therefore, deserving of moral praise? Do you have to do some thing to have done something morally good?

Pity Party: Who Do You Feel Sorry For Today?

We haven't had a pity party here in a while, so we're overdue.

This week I feel sorry for the makers of roller coasters. Thanks to the stock market, they have joined the first baker who sliced bread, the ship-builders who gave us the Titanic, and the engineers who designed the Hindenburg as creators of the world's most worn-out metaphors.

I feel sorry for George W. Bush's speech writers. They've got his last State of Union address to write, a historical document that will be analyzed for generations and for it they are restricted to only using variants of the word "quack."

Finally, I feel sorry for Fred Thompson. He was hailed as the savior of the GOP when he was considering a run and now he leaves having attracted very little voter support. What does it say about our country when a aged, white, conservative actor who speaks of the Soviet Union can no longer be made President of the United States of America?

So, who do you feel sorry for this week?

What Is/Ought To Be the Purpose of Science Education?

I've been reading classic texts in alchemy the last few days. Interesting stuff. It's for the textbook in the history and philosophy of science that I am working on and the central idea is to have students pick the science of their interest and look at its historical development through the lens of classic readings in the history of the philosophy of science. That way one can see whether it is the scientific method itself that has evolved, our understanding of it, or both.

What really strikes me in doing this project is how little connected science teaching is with the history of science. We don't teach in science classes so much as we train in science classes. As such, the historical narrative is eliminated. I think that this is unfortunate because it would allow students to see science more as a process than as a monolithic set of facts and connecting bridge theories to remember. It would also humanize the field, showing how scientific beliefs do not arise out of nothing, but from social and historical influences that would truly show science as embedded within culture and therefore demonstrate why it is crucial to understand.

Why this disconnect of science education and the history of science? One answer is socio-political. Our contemporary means of educating science students comes from the Cold War with its push to develop as many young scientists and engineers as possible. You train rather than teach to fill a cultural imperative. We needed technical professionals at a high rate to keep from being overrun by the Soviet menace and so the history was seen as something we couldn't afford. Crank out those scientists.

Another take comes from philosophers like Paul Feyerabend and sociologists like Steve Fuller who argue that the dissociation of science from its history is intentional. the purpose is to hide the embarrassing elements and construct an artificial sense that science is perfectly rational and therefore is superior to all other social institutions. Scientists, therefore, place themselves in a star chamber, where they and they alone are the holders of Truth.

Is there a good reason to teach history of science? Should we change the way we teach science that is less geared towards training? The how follows from the why. If we want to rethink science education, we first need to determine the purpose that education is designed to achieve. So why should we teach science?

Is Getting Your Mind Blown a Religious Experience?

Thinking back over the UMass conference a few months back, Unbroken Chain, one moment still stands out. It was during the first day's panel on the Grateful Dead and religious experience. During the q&a, someone told the story of going to a festival with dear friends and their son who was a heavy metal fan, always making fun of his hippie parents and their friends.

During Buddy Guy's performance, the kid wanders down by the stage and hangs out watching. After Buddy's set, the kid comes back with his eyebrows raised and his eye wide open, clearly confused. He looks at the family friend and says, "I don't know how to explain what just happened to me." Grinning, the friend responds, "We have words for that. We say, 'Man, that was heavy. It just blew my mind.'" The kid shook his head yes and said, "You guys always sounded so stupid saying that."

We've all had that experience, having something blow our minds...some of us while having the great pleasure of listening to Buddy Guy. Kant draws a distinction between those things that are merely beautiful and those that are sublime. The beautiful pleases us, while the sublime overwhelms us. This seems to be the sort of thing we are talking about here. (I dare you to find someone else who puts Kant and Buddy Guy in the same paragraph.)

Is getting your mind blown akin to or the same as a religious experience? Many things in nature can lead to such experiences, for example, a stunning sunset, a amazing natural setting like the Grand Canyon, a close encounter with certain animals, but they can also be created in human environments, especially when encountering art. Is music specially well-suited to do it more so than other art forms? Are there certain types of music, say, improvisational music, like jazz, blues, or rock jam music, which offer a more direct connection to the psyche of the creating artists and therefore make it more likely to have your mind blown when you submerge yourself fully in the music?

On Clintocracy

kpbuck99 asked yesterday,

Just what is it that you have against Clinton? I keep following your blog and I don't believe you have clearly mentioned why you dislike her, unless I missed something.

Fair enough. Here's why I think the the country will be in deep doo-doo if Clinton gets the nomination.

The first thing to realize is that the President is not a person. We have this leftover monarchic picture of the lone ruler sitting in a throne in the Oval Office dictating the way the country runs. The fact is the President is a team, a group of individuals performing a number of roles all needed to keep a very large government operating. This team is made up of close friends and trusted advisers of the team captain whose name appears on the ballot, but by pulling that lever, pushing that electronic touch-screen button, or hanging that chad, what you are really voting for is the team as a whole.

When you understand it that way, Obama's skin color, Hillary's ovaries, McCain's time as a POW, Edward's father's occupation, Romney's Mormonism, and the rest of the nonsense we are given to concentrate on is nothing but a distraction. The real question is what is the team, as a team, going to do for the country. In the case of the Clintons, we've already seen who the team is, how they work, and what happens when you let that team do what they do...and the results are not pretty.

Let me take you to a time far away. It was called the 90s. The Clinton team came into office and for the first part of their first year in office, they were Democrats. They did things like try to challenge institutions with histories of bigotry, like the military's explicit ban on gay and lesbian members. This was one of the last places where something like Jim Crow still existed, actual written rules designed to clearly and openly discriminate. They tried to tackle a health care system that was (and remains broken). And they got their heads handed to them.

As a result, they turned from Democrats into Clintoncrats. They decided that the key to all future action would be whatever served the interests of their team, not the interests of the Democratic party and not what served the interest of the American people.

The Republican Party, since the 80s, has been a coalition of three interest groups: (a) the corporate/limited government wing advocates for whatever is perceived by leaders of major industries to be in the best interest of their bottom line including, but not limited to, minimizing regulation, even when it saves innocent lives, limiting taxes, especially on the wealthiest, eliminating any government program that helps the environment or those who need help, (b) the militaristic wing has stood for a "muscular" or "Reaganesque" foreign policy" that considers the use of military force a tool to be used whenever convenient to coerce or change the governments in other countries in order to assure they act in accord with what they perceive as American interests (often those determined by the corporate wing), and (c) the religious conservative wing that demands policies dictated by a particular brand of Christian literalism which is infused with a deep jingoistic nationalism making flag burning and preventing gay marriage equally religiously and politically imperative. The Democrats, on the other hand, were supposed to be the ones who fought against corporate interests for the interests of the working people and consumers, the ones who fought for a foreign policy where war was a last option which could be avoided by fostering a world where justice, opportunity, and hope led people to be less militant, a country where pluralism and respect for difference allowed us to be our best selves integrated with those whose worldviews differ from our own. Reagan had made these virtues seem like vices, convinced Americans that government was always the problem and never part of the solution, made racism, classism, and homophobia fashionable, and we were in desperate need of someone who would stand up for the real virtues again.

Instead, the Clintons brought onto the team a Republican strategist named Dick Morris whose notion of triangulation would reign supreme. Triangulation meant taking those points where the Republicans were the strongest, adopting their rhetoric and half of their policy, pointing to Democrats who cared about the issue and making them out to be out of touch idealists who should be mocked, and in the end standing for absolutely nothing so that the majority of American people who have a knee-jerk "they're both wrong" reaction would identify with you. Underneath it all is the belief that the American population is made up of three parts: one part will vote Democratic no matter what, one part will vote Republican come hell or high water (although they believe they will be raptured away moments before either or both), and the third will swing back and forth. Whoever captures them, they argue, wins. So the key, they thought, was to only care about this vast "middle" and pretend these are the independent moderates -- actually they are people who don't really think very much about politics at all and are influenced by spectacle. but spectacle requires money and by triangulating, the effect is that Clintoncrats could now push corporate interests and help themselves to half of the money that had been flowing generously into Republican coffers for decades. So, they could be pro-corporate while pretending to be "moderate" thereby gaining the votes of those they were harming.

This is what gave us things like the telecom bill. There is a stunning advantage to those in power, so the central idea behind Clintocracy was to take their power and use it to erase the differences between the two parties.

And thus, to gain a second term in the White House, Clintocrats displaced the Democrats. The effect was an interesting one. Short term it worked perfectly. Clinton got his second term even with the whole Lewinski debacle spurted daily across the newspapers and tv screens of every American. The Clintons sold the Democratic party to corporate interests and political consultants for re-election.

But it was the political equivalent of New Coke, which for our younger readers, was rolled out when Pepsi was taking over an increasing market share from Coke which had long dominated the cola market. The New Coke tasted exactly like Pepsi, but was labeled as Coke, the idea being that it would then attract everyone. It flopped like no one's business. The Democrats were swept out of Congress in the midterm elections of 1994. In the 2000 Presidential election, a large number of Democrats fed up with not having a Democratic party fled to Ralph Nader's campaign that was based on everything the Democratic party used to stand for, and those independent moderates voted based upon who they would rather have a beer with since, after all, such a criterion makes perfect sense when there is no difference between the parties as Clintocracy was so intent on showing. When the election was handed to Bush, the Clintoncrats still occupied their places in Congress where people like Joe Lieberman, Tom Daschle, and Hillary made sure that they would guarantee to lead the Democrats to defeat after defeat and give Bush everything he wanted.

They may not have been in the majority, but they were now firmly entrenched in the Establishment and that guaranteed them power, fame, and money, and given that Clintocracy gave up policy desires, that really was all they wanted and even in the minority they had it. Non-elected members of the team like Joe Klein, Paul Begala, James Carville, George Stephanopolous, and Lawrence Summers all found themselves in grand shape with the Democrats being a non-party. They didn't care that the Democrats would lose and lose and lose, they still won no matter what. All they had to do was to keep the great unwashed, the Democrats out of the Clintoncrat party structure which replaced it.

But then in 2004, something happened. Democrats got pissed. They'd had enough and they mounted a brief insurrection against Clintocracy. A rebel-rouser named Howard Dean, a medical doctor turned Governor from the land of Ben and Jerry (hallowed be thy names) told the people of the Democratic party that they had the power, he stood up and demanded accountability bellowing

What I want to know is what in the world so many Democrats are doing supporting the President's unilateral intervention in Iraq?

What I want to know is what in the world so many Democrats are doing supporting tax cuts, which have bankrupted this country and given us the largest deficit in the history of the United States?

What I want to know is why the Congress is fighting over the Patient's Bill of Rights? The Patient's Bill of Rights is a good bill, but not one more person gets health insurance and it's not 5 cents cheaper.

What I want to know is why the Democrats in Congress aren't standing up for us, joining every other industrialized country on the face of the Earth in providing health insurance for every man, woman and child in America.

What I want to know is why so many folks in Congress are voting for the President's Education Bill-- "The No School Board Left Standing Bill"-- the largest unfunded mandate in the history of our educational system!

And he was therefore eliminated by the Clintocrats and the media and replaced by a sleeping aid you usually can only get by prescription who in classic Clintoncrat style parroted Republican talking points at Dean in the debates and on the stump.

Then two things happened. First, the facade that Bush had perpetuated was washed away with the flood waters of Katrina. When the levees broke, so did Bush's hold on power. Bush's Watergate was literally a gate for water. Republicans had control of all of the government and every bit of it has been a disaster. Modern American conservatism has shown itself to be a complete failure in every realm. An American city has been practically wiped off the map. Our international standing is in the toilet. The economy is teetering precariously on the verge of something very, very scary. Jobs are gone. It is not a good time to be a Republican.

Second, Howard Dean, who lost in his bid for the Presidential nomination was made head of the Democratic party committee, replacing Clintoncrat Terry McAuliffe. Under McAuliffe, the Democratic party sought money and thereby gave influence to a small number of big money donors, funneled that money up to the Clintoncrat faithful in the consulting world, focused only on seventeen states while ignoring the rest of the country (remember that map showing a stripe of blue in the northeast, another along the west coast, and a couple dots in the north), and repeatedly got trounced in election after election after election at all levels, blaming the defeats on the Democrats who refused to be Clintoncrats. Dean changed that and commenced his 50-state strategy which built up the party infrastructure everywhere, which sought Democrats to run for everything from dog catcher and school board to Congress, even in the most heavily Republican districts. He brought the people back into the party and spread the wealth around to places that had never seen it under McAuliffe. It was ridiculed mercillously by the Clintoncrats...and it worked. That is the reason we were able to capitalize and now have majorities in both Houses.

Dean's tagline was "I want my party back." And it turns out that when he and the rest of us got it back, we have been able to take a couple of steps in the right direction. We are in a place where the utter disgrace that has been Bush conservatism could allow us to once again have a Democratic party that could begin to make the country and world a place in which people flourish, a place of justice and respect, and equality. We are finally out of the shadow of Reagan and at a juncture where a reformed progressive party could make a difference. The possibility of handing that moment back over to the Clintoncrats makes me want to cry.

I oppose Hillary Clinton for two reasons: first, under her, government will once again stand for nothing except protecting the interests of the Clintoncrats. Consumers will see more work like the telecom bill. Gays, lesbians, and other oppressed members of our society will see more work like the Defence of Marriage Act. The world and the people in it will suffer for restoring this team to power. Second, the take-away message to the DC insiders will be that you can still win elections by running against those Democrats who care about the environment, helping the vulnerable, the right to choose, fairness and equality, everything that is good and right. Once again, the Democratic party will become Clintoncrat and become invisible, poll-driven, and meaningless. We will abandon the political discourse to the greedy, bigoted, and nationalistic, and the Democratic party will again lose power. My prediction is that if Clinton wins the Presidency, the Dems will lose half their advantage in Congress in the first mid-term election and control of at least one chamber in the following Presidential race.

We've seen it before. We know what they do. We know how they are. We know what will happen. We've seen it before. Any Democrat who supports the Clinton team and doesn't expect to be stabbed in the back, kicked in the teeth, and thrown under the bus is a damned fool. The best analogy I can give you is Carrie Fisher's character in The Blues Brothers. She's been jilted, left at the alter. She finally is about to get her long-sought after revenge, but Jake takes off his sunglasses and once again she is smitten, giving herself over to him...and what happens? She's used and rejected, carelessly dropped in a sewer. If you really think that the Clinton team won't do it to us again, I've got some real estate in Florida for you...boy, oh, boy do I have real estate in Florida for you.

The Humor of Laughing

Brothers, Sisters, and Transgendered Comedists Everywhere,

This weekend we talk about humor and laughing. Not unusual topics for a Comedist homily, but this weekend we put the comedic cart before the horse. Usually the laughing comes as a result of the humor, but what if the laughing IS the humor.

We tend to laugh when we hear laughter. This is one of the reasons why laugh tracks are used to prop up poorly written mass produced sit-coms, those heretical impostors for true comedy. Laugh tracks are to Comedism what indulgences were to Catholicisms, false attempts to circumvent authentic paths to righteousness.

But they work. Laughter is itself funny. Some particular laughs are funny. My old friend Reed had the most contagious high pitched cackle. When Reed laughed, everyone laughed. But while some laughs are funnier than others, perhaps the funniest is the uncontrollable belly laugh. Even though that baby is laughing in German, people who don't speak a single word of the language surely find that funny.

Second only to the uncontrollable belly laugh, however, is the stifled laugh. Laughs that are allowed to come out because of the context. The harder someone tries not to laugh, the funnier it is. Think of the classic "Bigus Dickus" scene from Life of Brian or Carol Burnett and Dick Van Dyke trying not to laugh at Tim Comway's Siamese elephant story.

We laugh for many different reasons. Sometimes it's an odd juxtaposition -- the male chihuahua trying to mount the female great dane. Sometimes it's because we have certain expectations and we are shocked when something different comes about -- this was pretty much every single gag in Benny Hill. Sometimes it's because our brains are caught between competing interpretations and trying unsuccessfully to rectify them -- traditional set up/punchline style jokes. But here, it is the laughing itself that brings about the laughing. It is humor without a focus, it is the funny without the object of funny. It is the essence of pure humor, a step towards Comedic enlightenment, a perfect state of hilarity in which one is in touch with the unmediated funny-in-itself, "der Witz an sich" as Schopenhauer once put it after putting a whoopie cushion on Hegel's chair in a faculty meeting. The laugh that is both subject and object. The disembodied guffaw. The belly laugh without a belly. It is truly the chuckle of God.

We can laugh so hard we lose our bodily functions -- think milk through the nose. This is the first step to true Comedist holiness where you laugh so hard that you lose your body itself. Be the laugh, my dear friends, be the laugh.

Live, love, and laugh,

Irreverend Steve

Bullshit or Not?: Benjamin Franklin Edition

There's an old sketch film called Amazon Women on the Moon and one of the bits is a parody of the old Leonard Nimoy show, "In Search Of..." called, "Bullshit or Not?" with the tagline "Bullshit or not? You decide." It's a line I like so much that I've stolen it for an irregular series of posts.

Let's continue with the Ben Franklin theme. Here's a sentiment from Franklin,

It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.

Protestant work ethic glamorizing twaddle or Marxist/Hegelian insight?

Bullshit or not? As usual, feel free to leave a one word response or a dissertation.

Benjamin Franklin on the Passing of Gas

Today is Benjamin Franklin's birthday. One of the first great American intellectuals, it would be untoward to let this day pass without considering some of his deeper thoughts. So, for your edification, I bring you Franklin's essay, "To the Royal Academy of *****" written in 1781 on the topic of the passing of gas. Yes, these are the actual words of one of this nation's founding farters, I mean, founding fathers.

GENTLEMEN,

I have perused your late mathematical Prize Question, proposed in lieu of one in Natural Philosophy, for the ensuing year, viz. "Une figure quelconque donnee, on demande d’y inscrire le plus grand nombre de fois possible une autre figure plus-petite quelconque, qui est aussi donnee". I was glad to find by these following Words, "l’Acadeemie a jugee que cette deecouverte, en eetendant les bornes de nos connoissances, ne seroit pas sans UTILITE", that you esteem Utility an essential Point in your Enquiries, which has not always been the case with all Academies; and I conclude therefore that you have given this Question instead of a philosophical, or as the Learned express it, a physical one, because you could not at the time think of a physical one that promis’d greater_Utility.

Permit me then humbly to propose one of that sort for your consideration, and through you, if you approve it, for the serious Enquiry of learned Physicians, Chemists, &c. of this enlightened Age. It is universally well known, That in digesting our common Food, there is created or produced in the Bowels of human Creatures, a great Quantity of Wind.

That the permitting this Air to escape and mix with the Atmosphere, is usually offensive to the Company, from the fetid Smell that accompanies it.

That all well-bred People therefore, to avoid giving such Offence, forcibly restrain the Efforts of Nature to discharge that Wind.

That so retain’d contrary to Nature, it not only gives frequently great present Pain, but occasions future Diseases, such as habitual Cholics, Ruptures, Tympanies, &c. often destructive of the Constitution, & sometimes of Life itself.

Were it not for the odiously offensive Smell accompanying such Escapes, polite People would probably be under no more Restraint in discharging such Wind in Company, than they are in spitting, or in blowing their Noses.

My Prize Question therefore should be, To discover some Drug wholesome & not disagreable, to be mix’d with our common Food, or Sauces, that shall render the natural Discharges of Wind from our Bodies, not only inoffensive, but agreable as Perfumes.

That this is not a chimerical Project, and altogether impossible, may appear from these Considerations. That we already have some Knowledge of Means capable of Varying that Smell. He that dines on stale Flesh, especially with much Addition of Onions, shall be able to afford a Stink that no Company can tolerate; while he that has lived for some Time on Vegetables only, shall have that Breath so pure as to be insensible to the most delicate Noses; and if he can manage so as to avoid the Report, he may any where give Vent to his Griefs, unnoticed. But as there are many to whom an entire Vegetable Diet would be inconvenient, and as a little Quick-Lime thrown into a Jakes will correct the amazing Quantity of fetid Air arising from the vast Mass of putrid Matter contain’d in such Places, and render it rather pleasing to the Smell, who knows but that a little Powder of Lime (or some other thing equivalent) taken in our Food, or perhaps a Glass of Limewater drank at Dinner, may have the same Effect on the Air produc’d in and issuing from our Bowels? This is worth the Experiment. Certain it is also that we have the Power of changing by slight Means the Smell of another Discharge, that of our Water. A few Stems of Asparagus eaten, shall give our Urine a disagreable Odour; and a Pill of Turpentine no bigger than a Pea, shall bestow on it the pleasing Smell of Violets. And why should it be thought more impossible in Nature, to find Means of making a Perfume of our Wind than of our Water?

For the Encouragement of this Enquiry, (from the immortal Honour to be reasonably expected by the Inventor) let it be considered of how small Importance to Mankind, or to how small a Part of Mankind have been useful those Discoveries in Science that have heretofore made Philosophers famous. Are there twenty Men in Europe at this Day, the happier, or even the easier, for any Knowledge they have pick’d out of Aristotle? What Comfort can the Vortices of Descartes give to a Man who has Whirlwinds in his Bowels! The Knowledge of Newton’s mutual Attraction of the Particles of Matter, can it afford Ease to him who is rack’d by their mutual Repulsion, and the cruel Distensions it occasions? The Pleasure arising to a few Philosophers, from seeing, a few Times in their Life, the Threads of Light untwisted, and separated by the Newtonian Prism into seven Colours, can it be compared with the Ease and Comfort every Man living might feel seven times a Day, by discharging freely the Wind from his Bowels? Especially if it be converted into a Perfume: For the Pleasures of one Sense being little inferior to those of another, instead of pleasing the Sight he might delight the Smell of those about him, & make Numbers happy, which to a benevolent Mind must afford infinite Satisfaction. The generous Soul, who now endeavours to find out whether the Friends he entertains like best Claret or Burgundy, Champagne or Madeira, would then enquire also whether they chose Musk or Lilly, Rose or Bergamot, and provide accordingly. And surely such a Liberty of Expressing one’s Scent-iments, and pleasing one another, is of infinitely more Importance to human Happiness than that Liberty of the Press, or of abusing one another, which the English are so ready to fight & die for. -- In short, this Invention, if compleated, would be, as Bacon expresses it, bringing Philosophy home to Mens Business and Bosoms. And I cannot but conclude, that in Comparison therewith, for universal and continual UTILITY, the Science of the Philosophers above-mentioned, even with the Addition, Gentlemen, of your "Figure quelconque" and the Figures inscrib’d in it, are, all together, scarcely worth a

FART-HING.

Happy birthday, Ben, the first American comedian.

Why Lieberman Will Be the GOP VP Nominee

I was a little surprised at the reaction Monday to my prediction that Joe Lieberman would be McCain's selection for VP. Let me explain why I think it is pretty much a done deal.

(1) Politically simpatico

Their positions on most issues, especially foreign policy, are very much in line. Often a VP has to spend time explaining how he now supports someone who differs from his own stated positions on x, y, and z, but in this case the two are very much in agreement on most issues.

Additionally, having left the Democratic party (when he lost the primary last time around, he formed his own party, Independent Democrats for Lieberman), he fancies himself the same sort of maverick fighting against the excesses of his party as McCain gets built up by the press.

(2) McCain's Problem

McCain has a problem in that a large segment of the base, the Christian Evangelical social conservative wing and the movement does not like him. He ran as a centrist in 2000 against Bush and made a lot of enemies among the party faithful. His "I'm a maverick" schtick, false as it is, has been clearly a case of running against social conservatives and these are true believers who see the world as black and white, us and them, good and evil, and McCain has been clear in saying I am them.

He needs to bring them in because of their numbers and get out the vote machinery, but he can't pander in the usual ways, such as choosing Huckabee as his running mate, because his entire appeal is based on being the great hero of the moderates who stands up against right wing with "straight talk" and that would fly in the face of the entire strategy.

McCain, like Lieberman, is convinced of the universal truth of the Clinton/Dick Morris model -- there is a third of the population who will vote Democratic no matter what, a third that will vote Republican come hell or high water (although many expect to be raptured away before the high water arrives), and a third who vote one way or the other. This group in the middle is crucial because whoever captures them wins. Never mind that this picture is false, but it is what guides their thinking.

McCain needs to win over this fictional third without alienating the sure GOP third. Lieberman is the key. Social conservatives LOVE him because he is an orthodox Jew who takes half their Bible as seriously as they do and he is a hawk on Israel. You cannot underestimate the power of the apocalyptic narrative that guides Christian conservatives in this country. Their Dominionist beliefs require a country called Israel to exist in order for Jesus to return and as such they have a virulently anti-Semitic, but unbelievably powerful Zionism woven into their theology. Politically conservative Israeli politicians spend more time with these folks than they do with American Jews who tend to be more liberal, because the right wingers give more money and support for military action. The idea of having Lieberman as veep is akin to having born again Bush a seat above. It solves McCain's religious conservative problem without alienating the centrists.

(3) The Power of a FoxNews Democrat

At a time when Republicans are weak because of the incompetence of Bush, McCain is going to have to attack Democratic proposals. At a time when voters really want change, how do you make them afraid of change? Having a FoxNews Democrat like Lieberman is the key. He can say, I was one of them until wackos like this with their far out ineffective policy proposals drove me out of the party. The voters will think, "Hey if a Democrat says that the Democrats plans won't work, he must be telling the truth." And there is nothing that Joe Lieberman loves to do more than bash Democrats. He would make the perfect hatchet man.

(4) The Making History Response

Whether it is Obama or (please, no) Clinton, McCain would be fighting the "a vote for the Democrats is a vote to change history" story line. By picking someone who is/was a Democrat would itself be making history with a supposed unity government in our winner take all system. The GOP could therefore counter-balance the narrative that they are opposing the forward tide of history.

(5) The Mainstream Media Would Fall Over Themselves

The mainstream media has a collective crush on John McCain. He can do no wrong, even when he does wrong. They love him almost as much as the love the imaginary "moderate" position they've created (which is really mainstream conservatism). Reporters have nothing but disdain for what they see as hayseeds on the right and those obnoxious do-gooders on the left. The David Broders of the world would do nothing but trumpet the glory of the NEW AMERICAN POLITIC here (never mind, again, that is is nothing but mainstream conservatism) and the death of progressivism. And if we've learned nothing else about how politics work, we have seen that Washington insiders live and die by the meaningless opinions of the tiny village of DC-based, cocktail party circuit, pundits. They would go bananas, and that would be a major factor.

So there's the case. Where am I wrong?

Going Meta

I try not to write too much about the activity of blogging itself, but yesterday we passed a milestone here. The 100,000th person came to the playground. That really is a pretty amazing thing, something that probably merits some self-reflection...well, that and the fact that I'm a philosopher in the business of self-reflection.

Sure, many found it accidentally, others to defend Ayn Rand or laboratory classes, but regardless of how they may have stumbled their way here, they were here...one hundred thousand of them. I have professional articles that probably have only been read by me and the journal's referees, but a few jokes and some off-beat questions and a tenth of a million hits. Pretty bizarre.

It seems to say something about the democratic nature of the blogosphere that some shmoe off the street can put up some ideas and have them so widely accessed without the explicit approval of some gatekeeper. Of course, that's an over simplification. The traffic has been affected by links from folks like Peter Daou, Helmut, Dr. Free Ride, and especially Aspazia, who are older, better established and wider read. But one could argue that this is more of a pecking order than a formal structure where well defined power relations determine one's status and thereby the size of one's e-megaphone.

Or, one could argue the other direction. Chris Bowers has an interesting piece arguing that among progressive political blogs, there is an emerging hierarchy with a short head of a few very powerful, very well read blogs and a long tail of small hobby blogs like this one. The few elite blogs are forming a sort of establishment unto themselves such that

"roughly 1% of progressive, political blogs that receive over 95% of all progressive blogosphere traffic, and the 99% of progressive political blogs that receive less than 5% of all progressive, political blogosphere traffic."

No doubt, this is also true in other segments of the blog world. This de-democratization seems akin to the new wave of large corporate organic farms in that the movement in that both cases what made them attractive was not only the product they offered, but the escape from traditional sources and means of production. You were not only getting interesting opinions or pesticide-free food, but you were supporting the little guy who had been shut out previously, folks that you want to support and keep on the scene.

But while the share of those of us in the long tail may be small, it is hardly insignificant. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the number 100,000. The question then can be reframed in terms of intellectual insularity. Are these the same people with the same ideas, beliefs, and preconceptions just lining to and reading others who agree with them? There is some evidence to suggest that this sort of thing is the norm.

But, for some reason, I have the sense that this is not the case here. I have a policy of reciprocal blogrolling -- if you blogroll me, I'll blogroll you. As a result, I have some sense (not the best sample, admittedly) of who is reading, at least among those who also have their own blogs. I like to browse the blogs on the blogroll and you learn a lot about folks from what they write, and many are unlike me in a number of ways. There are openly atheist, Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, Jewish, and Buddhist bloggers on the list. Conservative, liberal, libertarian, and moderate blogs. White, Asian-American, African-American, and Caribbean bloggers there of a wide range of ages, occupations, and educational backgrounds. And this is just what I've been able to pick up from occasionally reading the folks who link here. I did not set out to achieve this, like I say, it came to me by finding out who enjoys playing on the playground enough to link here.

I've never hidden my own views, but the same time I've always tried to make this blog about the questions, rather than about my view, leaving space for conversation and welcome anyone of any viewpoint as long as you are willing to play nicely and have your own view subjected to the critical scrutiny of all the other play friends here. What I find the most rewarding is not the being read, but the resulting conversation -- something I often stay out of. I don't want it to be about me and I don't want to seem heavy handed, after all, I just had my say up top. I've truly loved the fact that friends, family, colleagues, and folks I've never met mingle, joke, engage in passionate discussions here. It really is like the best dinner I've ever thrown with no dishes to clean up.

So, let me end, as usual, with a question. When do the posts lead you to comment or not? For those who are regulars, is there one sort of post that makes you leap right to the keyboard? For those who are once in a while commenters, what is it for you? For the lurkers, and I lurk on many blogs that I read daily and never comment upon myself, is there something keeping you from feeling comfortable enough to type what you are thinking?

Thanks everyone for making this so much fun every day.

Name That Ticket

O.k. prognosticators, time to pull out the crystal ball. Who will be the Democratic and Republican nominees for President and Vice President (that is, President in charge of vice), who will win, and, as a tie-breaker, what percentage of the popular vote will they garner? The person who comes closest will receive one year's free subscription to Philosophers' Playground and the honor of a free guest post following the election.*

My guess is Obama/Webb over McCain/Lieberman with 52% of the popular vote. What say you, my friends?











*Void where prohibited. No purchase necessary. One entry per person. Anyone can put up a guest post anytime, just send it to me.

The Feast of Saint Mack

Brothers, Sisters, and Transgendered Comedists Everywhere,

This week we celebrate the birthday of Mack Sennett who would be one hundred and twenty three. He is most famously the brain behind the Keystone Kops which introduced the comic car chase and pie fight into our comedic vocabulary.

In his honor, this weekend let us offer up some policeman jokes:

1st Officer: "Guess who I pulled over in a traffic stop the other day?"
2nd Officer: "Who?"
1st Officer: "Janet Jackson!"
2nd Officer: "Speeding?"
1st Officer: "Nah, she had one headlight out."

How many cops does it take to throw a man down the stairs?
None. He fell.

Finally, my favorite:

At the end of a two week trip to the US by the Pope, His Holiness is given a day off and is asked what he would like to do. "You know," he says, "it may sound strange, but I'd really like to drive for a while. I'm always getting driven everywhere, I'd like to get back behind the wheel." So, the Pope and the driver of his limo and takes off. Used to driving in Germany with no speed limit on the Autobahn, he gets pulled over. The officer approaches the driver's side window and the Pope rolls it down apologizing for any traffic infraction.

The cop goes back to his car and picks up the radio, asking to talk to the chief. "Chief," he says, "I've got a problem. I pulled over someone really important and I don't know what to do."

"Is it the governor?" asks the Chief.

"More important," says the cop.

"Senator Wellby again?" asks the Chief.

"More important," says the cop.

"Who is it?" asks the Chief.

"I have no idea," says the cop, "but it's got to be someone BIG...the Pope is his chauffeur."

Your favorites police jokes?

Have a great week everyone...and, hey, let's be careful out there.

Live, love, and laugh,

Irreverend Steve