16th Street Forum

Tucson: For Once Let's Us Not Forget

2011-01-11T18:50:00.000-05:00

For Once Let’s Not Forget

The anger will subside as will the shock and outrage. Tucson will go the way of the Kennedy assassinations, the King assassination, Columbine, Long Island Railroad and the other unthinkables we have endured. It will become a painful memory that we wish we could erase from our national consciousness. However, we must never forget. When we think of becoming complacent again let’s remember a precious little girl struck down while visiting her Congresswoman or a man shielding his wife’s body giving his life to preserve hers or a brilliant woman in a hospital with part of her skull removed. With those memories let us for once act and stay vigilant.

When a politician or commentator puts crosshairs on map, when they tell people to “reload” and to take “second amendment solutions” or shoot a gun in the air and say this is what we must do to the Health Care Bill or any piece of legislation – we must remember. We must stand up immediately and demand that a civilized society will not tolerate that. These people should become immediate outcasts in normal society not awarded with votes or millions of dollars. We must demand the main stream media denounce these actions and stop elevating these people. They must be called out for what they are.

When people use their political, media or religious pulpits to spread hate against any group they must be confronted immediately and continually.

When those who spread hate and incite the deranged try to stop us from calling them out we should have MORE not LESS of a backbone to put them back in their place.

When a Congress in the pocket of the NRA tries to remove assault weapons bans so that a deranged person can get their hands of thousands of rounds of bullets and a Glock we must not allow it as we did in 2004. Those of us who believe in sensible gun control MUST be as loud as those who misinterpret the 2nd amendment for their own good – and demand a Congress that acts in our interests and safety.

AND WE MUST VOTE. Many on the Left sat and pouted this past November and now look at the balance of power in the House. While they pouted the radical Right voted. What are the chances of getting decent gun control passed a GOP House? Think back to 2004 when the assault ban legislation was allowed to lapse and there should be your answer.

So please let us not forget, let us not fall back and allow hate and incitement to again be taken as political discussion. Let us demand gun control, let us act. Retreating into our comfort zones and winking and nodding at those who hate only works until the next unthinkable act enters our pages of history.

Obama Achievements So Far

2010-08-31T12:32:00.001-04:00

Rescued US Auto industry.

* SCHIP for 4 million more children

* Ended tax benefits to corporations outsourcing American jobs.

* Passed health reform.

* Extended benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees.

* Withdrawal of 1//3 of US troops from Iraq.

* Ended stop-loss enlistment policy.

* Phased out F-22 and other costly outdated weapons systems.

* Removed restrictions on stem-cell research, and funded it.

* Funded high-speed, broadband Internet access for K-12 schools

* $789 billion economic stimulus,

* Rescued US financial and banking industry, which repaid most of TARP with interest.

* Ended US torture policy.

* EPA poised to regulate Co2

* New consumer protections from credit card industry’s predatory practices.

* Medicare may now negotiate price with drug manufacturers.

* Increased pay and benefits for military.

* Reengaged in diplomacy.

* Established a new cyber security office.

* Ended no-bid defense contracts.

* Appointment of first Latina to Supreme Court.

* $100 billion into national infrastructure and transportation system.

* $60 billion in spending and incentives for renewable and clean energy.

* Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act - equal pay for equal work for women.

* Nuclear arms deal with Russia reducing both countries` arsenals by a third.

* Global nuclear nonproliferation initiative.

* Passed Hate Crimes Prevention Act

* Passed sweeping financial regulation

Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black

2010-04-28T21:54:00.002-04:00

Thursday, April 22, 2010

"Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black" - Tim Wise

Let’s play a game, shall we? The name of the game is called “Imagine.” The way it’s played is simple: we’ll envision recent happenings in the news, but then change them up a bit. Instead of envisioning white people as the main actors in the scenes we’ll conjure - the ones who are driving the action - we’ll envision black folks or other people of color instead. The object of the game is to imagine the public reaction to the events or incidents, if the main actors were of color, rather than white. Whoever gains the most insight into the workings of race in America, at the end of the game, wins.

So let’s begin.

Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose.

Imagine that white members of Congress, while walking to work, were surrounded by thousands of angry black people, one of whom proceeded to spit on one of those congressmen for not voting the way the black demonstrators desired. Would the protesters be seen as merely patriotic Americans voicing their opinions, or as an angry, potentially violent, and even insurrectionary mob? After all, this is what white Tea Party protesters did recently in Washington.

Imagine that a rap artist were to say, in reference to a white president: “He’s a piece of shit and I told him to suck on my machine gun.” Because that’s what rocker Ted Nugent said recently about President Obama.

Imagine that a prominent mainstream black political commentator had long employed an overt bigot as Executive Director of his organization, and that this bigot regularly participated in black separatist conferences, and once assaulted a white person while calling them by a racial slur. When that prominent black commentator and his sister — who also works for the organization — defended the bigot as a good guy who was misunderstood and “going through a tough time in his life” would anyone accept their excuse-making? Would that commentator still have a place on a mainstream network? Because that’s what happened in the real world, when Pat Buchanan employed as Executive Director of his group, America’s Cause, a blatant racist who did all these things, or at least their white equivalents: attending white separatist conferences and attacking a black woman while calling her the n-word.

Imagine that a black radio host were to suggest that the only way to get promoted in the administration of a white president is by “hating black people,” or that a prominent white person had only endorsed a white presidential candidate as an act of racial bonding, or blamed a white president for a fight on a school bus in which a black kid was jumped by two white kids, or said that he wouldn’t want to kill all conservatives, but rather, would like to leave just enough—“living fossils” as he called them—“so we will never forget what these people stood for.” After all, these are things that Rush Limbaugh has said, about Barack Obama’s administration, Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama, a fight on a school bus in Belleville, Illinois in which two black kids beat up a white kid, and about liberals, generally.

Imagine that a black pastor, formerly a member of the U.S. military, were to declare, as part of his opposition to a white president’s policies, that he was ready to “suit up, get my gun, go to Washington, and do what they trained me to do.” This is, after all, what Pastor Stan Craig said recently at a Tea Party rally in Greenville, South Carolina.

Imagine a black radio talk show host gleefully predicting a revolution by people of color if the government continues to be dominated by the rich white men who have been “destroying” the country, or if said radio personality were to call Christians or Jews non-humans, or say that when it came to conservatives, the best solution would be to “hang ‘em high.” And what would happen to any congressional representative who praised that commentator for “speaking common sense” and likened his hate talk to “American values?” After all, those are among the things said by radio host and best-selling author Michael Savage, predicting white revolution in the face of multiculturalism, or said by Savage about Muslims and liberals, respectively. And it was Congressman Culbertson, from Texas, who praised Savage in that way, despite his hateful rhetoric.

Imagine a black political commentator suggesting that the only thing the guy who flew his plane into the Austin, Texas IRS building did wrong was not blowing up Fox News instead. This is, after all, what Anne Coulter said about Tim McVeigh, when she noted that his only mistake was not blowing up the New York Times.

Imagine that a popular black liberal website posted comments about the daughter of a white president, calling her “typical redneck trash,” or a “whore” whose mother entertains her by “making monkey sounds.” After all that’s comparable to what conservatives posted about Malia Obama on freerepublic.com last year, when they referred to her as “ghetto trash.”

Imagine that black protesters at a large political rally were walking around with signs calling for the lynching of their congressional enemies. Because that’s what white conservatives did last year, in reference to Democratic party leaders in Congress.

In other words, imagine that even one-third of the anger and vitriol currently being hurled at President Obama, by folks who are almost exclusively white, were being aimed, instead, at a white president, by people of color. How many whites viewing the anger, the hatred, the contempt for that white president would then wax eloquent about free speech, and the glories of democracy? And how many would be calling for further crackdowns on thuggish behavior, and investigations into the radical agendas of those same people of color?

To ask any of these questions is to answer them. Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week, that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and “American-ness” of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings.

And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit we do, on a daily basis.

Game Over.

Note to Fellow Progressives - Stop Complaining And Get Involved

2010-04-21T12:12:00.001-04:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/21/rendell-democratic-party_n_545902.html

Barbara Boxer said it best earlier this week, "I need you to be as excited as the Tea Partiers." Progressives have done little but moan about well, everything, since we got rid of Bush and placed a man with a brain in the White House. OK, yes it is a big mistake not to be having torture trials of Bush/Cheney ET. Al and the stimulus bill could have been stronger and –no- the health care bill isn't perfect. Is that reason to sit in the corner and pout? Worse, is that any reason to elect more Republicans to the House and Senate this November? Our guys are not perfect - so let's put back in the people who screwed up everything. What kind of a motto is that?

We got a health care bill passed people! No other Democratic President has ever done that. Is it perfect? No. Would we like to have a public option? Yes! BUT HE PASSED IT and he did it over a summer filled with screams of "death panels" and other nonsense.

Oh and yes - and President did something else - a little thing really....he saved the country from another Depression. Have we really forgotten what it was like in September of 2008 when we were looking in the mouth of the economic disaster? The stock market is up 6.000 points and jobs are slowly- yes slowly - coming back. Did I say President Obama averted a total collapse of our economic system? It is worth repeating, don’t you think?

Have you looked over at the Department of Education and seen any of the changes being made to our dismal education system? Take a peak you might be pleasantly surprised.

Just because President Obama didn't have a magic wand to make all of our dreams come true in sixth months, just because he isn't doing everything we want exactly as we want, are not reasons to retreat and let the lunatic right fringe dominate the political conversation and worse, elect more people to Congress. We need to continue to hold the Administration's feet to the fire on issues and once in a while say thanks for what they have done for us against a media more fascinated by the 18 percent right wing fringe than real issues. All this requires us to stay active, stay informed and stay positive.

Joan Porte

And Susan Collins displays impeccable timing!

2009-04-27T21:11:00.001-04:00

Isaiah Berlin on FDR

2008-11-06T12:23:00.002-05:00

After the election, Scott McLemee, who blogs for Inside Higher Ed, asked some folks for ideas about what the new president should read before taking office. One that particularly struck me was Eric Rauchway's recommendation of Isaiah Berlin's essay on Franklin Delano Roosevelt. (Rauchway's focus as a historian is on the Great Depression and the New Deal; he just wrote a Very Short Introduction on the topic. I love the VSI series - it's like mind candy.)

I thought that the following excerpts were particularly resonant - especially in comparing the campaign styles of Obama and McCain, and in laying out the kind of approach to politics that we hope the Obama administration will follow.

He did not sacrifice fundamental political principles to a desire to retain power; he did not whip up evil passions merely in order to avenge himself upon those whom he disliked or wished to crush, or because it was an atmosphere in which he found it convenient to operate; he saw to it that his administration was in the van of public opinion and drew it on instead of being dragged by it; he made the majority of his fellow citizens prouder to be Americans than they had been before. He raised their status in their own eyes - immensely in those of the rest of the world.…

But Roosevelt's greatest service to mankind (after ensuring the victory against the enemies of freedom) consists in the fact that he showed that it is possible to be politically effective and yet benevolent and human: that the fierce left- and right-wing propaganda of the 1930s, according to which the conquest and retention of political power is not compatible with human qualities, but necessarily demands from those who pursue it seriously the sacrifice of their lives upon the altar of some ruthless ideology, or the practice of despotism - this propaganda, which filled the art and talk of the day, was simply untrue. Roosevelt's example strengthened democracy everywhere, that is to say the view that the promotion of social justice and individual liberty does not necessarily mean the end of all efficient government; that power and order are not identical with a strait-jacket of doctrine, whether economic or political; that it is possible to reconcile individual liberty - a loose texture of society - with the indispensable minimum of organising and authority; and in this belief lies what Roosevelt's greatest predecessor once described as 'the last best hope of earth'.

The full essay is available online from the Southern Cross Review.

An Italian Example

2008-07-18T14:43:00.002-04:00

There's a line in Primo Levi's Moments of Reprieve: A Memoir of Auschwitz that I came across. Reflecting on Italy, he says:

It often happens these days that you hear people say they’re ashamed of being Italian. In fact we have good reasons to be ashamed: first and foremost, of not having been able to produce a political class that represents us and, on the contrary, tolerating for thirty years one that does not.

Now there's a fine statement of the American situation as well!

A Lesson from Free Software

2008-07-16T17:28:00.002-04:00

I’ve just finished reading through Christopher Kelty’s Two Bits, which is a review of the Free Software movement from an ethnological standpoint, as well as an exploration of his concept of the ‘recursive public’. (True to the open source mission, the book is available free on the Web.) I was particularly struck, though, by the remark he makes in the Conclusion:

The Mertonian ideals [disinterestedness, communalism, organized skepticism, objectivity] are in place once more, this time less as facts of scientific method than as goals [for society]. The problem of stabilizing collective knowledge has moved from being an inherent feature of science to being a problem that needs our attention.

I think this translates into a very powerful statement about what the Forum approach can address. It can encourage the participants to strive to the ideals Robert Merton defined in the context of the scientific method, but in the context of understanding political discourse and governance. And it sets a goal of achieving stable (i.e., tested, validated, and accepted) collective historical and social knowledge with which to pursue that understanding.

Lest Ye Despair

2008-07-08T18:39:00.001-04:00

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., was fond of this quote from Finley Peter Dunne's Mr. Dooley:

I've seen the Dimmycratic party hangin' to the ropes a score iv times. I've seen it dead an' buried an' th' Raypublicans kindly buildin' a monymint f'r it... I've gone to sleep nights wonderin' where I'd throw away me vote afther this an' whin I woke up there was that crazy- headed ol' loon iv a party with its hair sthreamin' in its eyes, an' an axe in its hand, chasin' Raypublicans into th' tall grass. 'Tis niver so good as whin 'tis broke.

Isocrates, complaining and relevant

2008-06-19T12:43:00.002-04:00

The Seventh Oration of Isocrates, the Areopagiticus, is one of the great explications of classical ideas about ideal republican government. It's interesting to see, though, how he sets up the interest of his audience at the beginning, in ways that are eerily familiar to the modern ear.

Many of you are wondering, I suppose, what in the world my purpose is in coming forward to address you on The Public Safety, as if Athens were in danger or her affairs on an uncertain footing, when in fact she possesses more than two hundred ships-of-war, enjoys peace throughout her territory, maintains her empire on the sea, and has, furthermore, many allies who, in case of any need, will readily come to her aid, and many more allies who are paying their contributions and obeying her commands. With these resources, one might argue that we have every reason to feel secure, as being far removed from danger, while our enemies may well be anxious and take thought for their own safety.

Now you, I know, following this reasoning, disdain my coming forward, and are confident that with this power you will hold all Hellas under your control. But as for myself, it is because of these very things that I am anxious; for I observe that those cities which think they are in the best circumstances are wont to adopt the worst policies, and that those which feel the most secure are most often involved in danger. The cause of this is that nothing of either good or of evil visits mankind unmixed, but that riches and power are attended and followed by folly, and folly in turn by license; whereas poverty and lowliness are attended by sobriety and great moderation; so that it is hard to decide which of these lots one should prefer to bequeath to one's own children. For we shall find that from a lot which seems to be inferior men's fortunes generally advance to a better condition, whereas from one which appears to be superior they are wont to change to a worse.…

I am in doubt whether to suppose that you care nothing for the public welfare or that you are concerned about it, but have become so obtuse that you fail to see into what utter confusion our city has fallen. For you resemble men in that state of mind -- you who have lost all the cities in Thrace, squandered to no purpose more than a thousand talents on mercenary troops, provoked the ill-will of the Hellenes and the hostility of the barbarians, and, as if this were not enough, have been compelled to save the friends of the Thebans at the cost of losing our own allies; and yet to celebrate the good news of such accomplishments we have twice now offered grateful sacrifices to the gods, and we deliberate about our affairs more complaisantly than men whose actions leave nothing to be desired!

And it is to be expected that acting as we do we should fare as we do; for nothing can turn out well for those who neglect to adopt a sound policy for the conduct of their government as a whole. On the contrary, even if they do succeed in their enterprises now and then, either through chance or through the genius of some man, they soon after find themselves in the same difficulties as before, as anyone may see from what happened in our own history.…

And yet we are quite indifferent to the fact that our polity has been corrupted, nor do we even consider how we may redeem it. It is true that we sit around in our shops denouncing the present order and complaining that never under a democracy have we been worse governed, but in our actions and in the sentiments which we hold regarding it we show that we are better satisfied with our present democracy than with that which was handed down to us by our forefathers.…

And yet how can we praise or tolerate a government which has in the past been the cause of so many evils and which is now year by year ever drifting on from bad to worse? And how can we escape the fear that if we continue to progress after this fashion we may finally run aground on rocks more perilous than those which at that time loomed before us?

These excerpts are from the Speeches and Letters, sections 7.1-5,9-11,15,18; edited by George Norlin and posted by the Perseus Project at Tufts University.

The War on Terror, as seen in 1952

2008-06-18T19:57:00.001-04:00

Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History (1952):

A democracy can not, of course, engage in an explicit preventive war. But military leadership can heighten crises to the point where war becomes unavoidable.

The power of such a temptation to a nation, long accustomed to expanding possibilities and only recently subjected to frustration, is enhanced by the spiritual aberrations which arise in a situation of intense enmity. The certainty of the foe’s continued intransigence seems to be the only fixed fact in an uncertain future. Nations find it even more difficult than individuals to preserve sanity when confronted with a resolute and unscrupulous foe. Hatred disturbs all residual serenity of spirit and vindictiveness muddies every pool of sanity. In the present situation even the sanest of our statesmen have found it convenient to conform their policies to the public temper of fear and hatred which the most vulgar of our politicians have generated or exploited. Our foreign policy is thus threatened with a kind of apoplectic rigidity and inflexibility. Constant proof is required that the foe is hated with sufficient vigor. Unfortunately the only persuasive proof seems to be the disavowal of precisely those discriminate judgments which are so necessary for an effective conflict with the evil, which we are supposed to abhor.

Milestones for Iraq, set 200 years ago

2008-06-18T17:50:00.001-04:00

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), chapter 1, paragraph 13:

I must be tolerably sure, before I venture publicly to congratulate men upon a blessing, that they have really received one. Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver; and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings. I should therefore suspend my congratulations on the new liberty of France, until I was informed how it had been combined with government; with public force; with the discipline and obedience of armies; with the collection of an effective and well-distributed revenue; with morality and religion; with the solidity of property; with peace and order; with civil and social manners. All these (in their way) are good things too; and, without them, liberty is not a benefit whilst it lasts, and is not likely to continue long. The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations, which may be soon turned into complaints. Prudence would dictate this in the case of separate, insulated, private men; but liberty, when men act in bodies, is power. Considerate people, before they declare themselves, will observe the use which is made of power; and particularly of so trying a thing as new power in new persons, of whose principles, tempers, and dispositions they have little or no experience, and in situations, where those who appear the most stirring in the scene may possibly not be the real movers.

The Pursuit of Happiness

2008-06-17T16:34:00.002-04:00

I thought I'd share this painful section of Reinhold Niebuhr's The Irony of American History, originally published in 1952 (so you may feel free to substitute Iraq for Korea).

Happiness is desired by all men; and moments of it are probably attained by most men. Only moments of it can be attained because happiness is the inner concomitant of neat harmonies of body, spirit and society; and these neat harmonies are bound to be infrequent. There is no simple harmony between our ambitions and achievements because all ambitions tend to outrun achievements. There is no neat harmony between the conscious ends of life and the physical instruments for its attainment; for the health of the body is frail and uncertain…. There is no neat harmony between personal desires and ambitions and the ends of human societies no matter how frantically we insist with the eighteenth century that communities are created only for the individual. Communities, cultures and civilizations are subject to perils which must be warded off by individuals who may lose their life in the process. There are many young American men in Korea today who have been promised the ‘pursuit of happiness’ as an inalienable right. But the possession of the right brings them no simple happiness. Such happiness as they achieve is curiously mixed with pain, anxiety and sorrow. It is in fact not happiness at all. If it is anything, it may be what Lincoln called ‘the solemn joy that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.’

On making fun of bad guys

2008-05-29T17:00:00.002-04:00

In an interview with Roger Errera in 1974, later captured in the New York Review of Books (10/26/1978), Hannah Arendt cited this comment by Berthold Brecht:

The great political criminals must be exposed and exposed especially to laughter. They are not great political criminals, but people who permitted great political crimes, which is something entirely different…. If the ruling classes permit a small crook to become a great crook, he is not entitled to a privileged position in our view of history. That is, the fact that he becomes a great crook and that what he does has great consequences does not add to his stature.

Once again, we see that the best response to political sleaze is ridicule.

(Cross posted from From the Rachel)

One tyrant is much like another...

2008-01-21T14:32:00.000-05:00

Leo Tolstoy on Czar Nicholas I:

Continual brazen flattery from everybody round him, in the teeth of obvious facts, had brought him to such a state that he no longer saw his own inconsistencies or measured his actions and words by reality, logic or even by simple common sense; but was quite convinced that all his orders, however senseless, unjust, and mutually contradictory they might be, became reasonable just and mutually accordant simply because he gave them.

(from Hadji Murad)

Tolstoy on Bush

2007-12-30T14:14:00.000-05:00

From War and Peace, Vol. III, Part 3, §XXV, p. 891 in the new Pevear and Volokhonsky translation:

As long as the world has existed and people have been killing each other, no one man has ever committed a crime upon his own kind without calming himself with this same thought. This thought was le bien publique, the supposed good of other people.

For a man not gripped by passion, that good is never known; but the man who commits the crime always knows for certain what that good consists in.

We Move On; We Do Not Move On

2007-11-21T19:13:00.000-05:00

A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests. Mankind, it seems, makes a poorer performance of government than of almost any other human activity. In this sphere, wisdom, which may be defined as the exercise of judgment acting on experience, common sense and available information, is less operative and more frustrated than it should be. Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggests? Why does intelligent mental process seem so often not to function?

Barbara Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam, 1984

A Libertarian Comment

2007-11-21T19:05:00.000-05:00

F. A. Hayek, economist and philosopher, was the darling of Thatcherite conservatives, although we would call him libertarian (and he would call himself a Whig). His warning to modern conservatives, given in his essay 'Why I Am Not a Conservative', remains ever fresh.

When I say that the conservative lacks principles, I do not mean to suggest that he lacks moral conviction. The typical conservative is indeed usually a man of very strong moral convictions. What I mean is that he has no political principles which enable him to work with people whose moral values differ from his own for a political order in which both can obey their convictions.

Why do "honest public servants" need to testify under oath?

2007-03-23T13:54:00.000-04:00

China Miéville, British socialist politician and author of weird fiction:

[History]is all full. And dripping. With the corpses. Of them who trusted the incorruptible.

A Perspective from M. I. Finley

2007-03-10T12:18:00.000-05:00

Following up on issues raised by reading Thucydides, I’ve just read the first edition of M. I. Finley’s Democracy Ancient and Modern, which was published in 1973, the same year as Finley’s most famous work, The Ancient Economy. (There is an expanded, revised second edition, but not in our library.)

Born Moses Finkelstein in New York City, Finley taught at Columbia and City College, where he encountered members of the Frankfurt School who were working in exile in America, and from whom he developed an interest in the sociology of the ancient world. In 1952, he was teaching at Rutgers. He was summoned before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, where he was asked if he was a Communist. He refused to answer, and was fired. He went into his own exile, in England, teaching at Cambridge and eventually becoming a British citizen, and a knight. He died in 1986.

Democracy Ancient and Modern was written primarily to address a contemporary trend among political scientists whereby public apathy was considered a beneficial element in democracies, enabling the qualified elite to govern unhindered. Although it might be too much to associate Finley with the modern counter-movement for a fully deliberative democracy, he certainly seemed to be sympathetic with its ideals.

Although discussing the trial of Socrates, his experiences in the McCarthy era, and his observations of the contemporary Vietnam war, seem near the surface of this conclusion to the first edition.

A genuinely political society, in which discussion and debate are an essential technique, is a society full of risks. It is inevitable that, from time to time, the debate will move from tactics to fundamentals, that there will be a challenge not merely to the immediate policies of those who hold the government power but to the underlying principles, that there will be a radical challenge. That is not only inevitable, it is desirable. It is also inevitable that those interest-groups who prefer the status quo will resist the challenge, among other means by appealing to traditional, deeply rooted beliefs, myths, values, by playing on (and even summoning up) fears.

The dangers are well known; impiety trials are but one manifestation. “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” No doubt, but like all truisms, this one offers little practical guidance. Vigilance against whom? One answer, we have seen, is to rest one’s defences on public apathy, on the politician as hero. I have tried to argue that this is a way of preserving liberty by castrating it, that there is more hope in a return to the classical concept of governance as a continued effort in mass education. There will still be mistakes, tragedies, trials for impiety, but there may also be a return from widespread alienation to a genuine sense of community. The conviction of Socrates is not the whole story of freedom in Athens.

On Not Being Quiet

2007-02-15T14:03:00.000-05:00

We are, of course, mightily concerned about the protection of our right to freedom of speech. But we should remember that suppression of speech starts at home, in the sense of choosing not to speak. Nor are the reasons necessarily political. We are more often silent for fear of embarrassment than fear of reprisal.

I should like to suggest that, when we have some reasonable understanding of things, it is better to speak of them than to be silent. We may be wrong, but we should be confident that correction will come with no great harm done. As John Stuart Mill points out in On Liberty, we will be serving more than ourselves.

[T]he peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth produced by its collision with error.

One of the things that perpetually endears Moby-Dick to me is Melville's deep analysis of the story of Jonah, as vividly presented in Chapter 9 (The Sermon). Father Mapple's argument is that it is never enough to know the truth; we must also be tellers of the truth. I excerpt from the end of the sermon:

... and Jonah, bruised and beaten--his ears, like two sea-shells, still multitudinously murmuring of the ocean--Jonah did the Almighty's bidding. And what was that, shipmates? To preach the Truth to the face of Falsehood! That was
it!

"This, shipmates, this is that other lesson; and woe to that pilot of the living God who slights it. Woe to him whom this world charms from Gospel duty! Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters when God has brewed them into a gale! Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appal! Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness! Woe to him who, in this world, courts not dishonour! Woe to him who would not be true, even though to be false were salvation! Yea, woe to him who, as the great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is himself a castaway!"

He dropped and fell away from himself for a moment; then lifting his face to them again, showed a deep joy in his eyes, as he cried out with a heavenly enthusiasm,--"But oh! shipmates! on the starboard hand of every woe, there is a sure delight; and higher the top of that delight, than the bottom of the woe is deep. Is not the main-truck higher than the kelson is low? Delight is to him--a far,
far upward, and inward delight--who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self. Delight is to him whose strong arms yet support him, when the ship of this base treacherous world has gone down beneath him. Delight is to him, who gives no quarter in the truth, and kills, burns, and destroys all sin though he pluck it out from under the robes of Senators and Judges.

My thanks to Gutenberg for the text.

Shrink Your Ecological Footprint

2007-02-15T12:34:00.000-05:00

Ann Covalt has sent in this article from the March 12, 2006, issue of The Washington Post, written by Bridget Bentz Sizer. I've added the hotlinks.

Question: How many years does it take an environmentalist to change a light bulb? Answer: Seven, but only if he's using energy-efficient compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs. Though slightly more expensive, low-mercury CFL bulbs use less energy and last longer than standard light bulbs. Replace four standard bulbs with the CFL ones, and you'll prevent the emission of 5,000 pounds of carbon dioxide over the life of the bulbs, according to the Center for the New American Dream. The center, which has a "Turn the Tide" campaign (www.newdream.org/tttoffline/actions.php), also estimates that you'll save $100 on your energy bill over the same time period. Though consumers complained of the harsh quality of early CFL bulbs, more recent models have softened the light. A 25-watt CFL bulb emits the same amount of light as a standard 100-watt bulb. And these days, CFL bulbs are sold almost everywhere standard light bulbs are sold.

Comedienne Lily Tomlin tells a story about buying a wastebasket: "The cashier put it in a bag. I brought it home. I took it out of the bag. I crumpled up the bag and tossed it in the wastebasket." The joke works because of its absurdity -- Tomlin generates trash even as she buys a receptacle for the trash -- but also because it taps into a larger truth; each year Americans use an estimated 100 billion plastic shopping bags. Reusablebags.com, a Web site dedicated to reducing the use of disposable shopping bags, estimates that most plastic shopping bags wind up in landfills, where they take 1,000 years to decompose. So next time you're at the grocery store, consider bagging your goods in reusable canvas bags instead of paper or plastic. If you currently bring home 10 grocery bags each week that's a saving of 520 plastic bags each year.

Arsenic, mercury and lead are the kinds of toxins that lead to emergency phone calls to the poison control hotline, but did you know that they might also be in your old cell phone? The EPA estimates that 700 million cell phones containing 250,000 tons of toxic waste already have been discarded in American landfills. Next time you get a new cell phone, try donating your old one instead of tossing it. The National Zoo has partnered with Eco-Cell, a nonprofit based in Louisville, Ken., to collect visitors' unwanted cell phones, batteries and accessories. Eco-Cell will donate up to $15 to the Friends of the National Zoo for every working cell phone collected -- working phones will be refurbished and passed on to low-income people, while "dead" phones will be recycled according to EPA guidelines. Not planning a trip to the zoo? Call Eco-Cell at 888- 326-3357 or visit their Web site (www.eco-cell.org) to learn how to donate a phone.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.

The Energy Diet

2007-02-15T11:10:00.000-05:00

Ann Covalt has sent in this item from the October 5, 2006, issue of the New York Times, written by Andrew Postman. I've added some hotlinks.

I'VE tried to be responsible.

I've thought pro-green thoughts and occasionally even done pro-green things. I've run the dishwasher and washer-dryer only with full loads. I've recycled, as ordered, though like every New Yorker I've ever met, I suspect the system does more good for our feelings than for the environment. I've shaved while showering, although I can't remember anymore whether that's a good or a bad thing.

I've been too busy to do much more, though, and too confused and overwhelmed by all the eco hype out there, and too inflexible to seriously change my lifestyle. No way am I hanging clothes out to dry on a clothesline. I won't drive more slowly -- as President Bush, like past presidents, has urged Americans to do to save gas -- and neither will you, and neither will anyone. And I recently bought a flat-screen high-def 37-inch TV, an energy-Hoover you'll have to pry from my cold, dead hands; if you haven't seen an N.F.L. game on something like that, my friend, you might as well watch curling.

But the morning after I saw Al Gore's ''An Inconvenient Truth,'' I was spurred to action. I bought 50 compact fluorescent light bulbs -- 50 -- intent on replacing every incandescent one in my home. The new bulbs were supposed to be 67 percent more efficient and last up to 15 times longer. Unfortunately, the ones I bought also cast a considerably colder light, so I aborted my plan after just two bulbs when I realized the quality of light they emitted reminded me of a bus station bathroom.

In the weeks since, I dispatched the six cartons of unused C.F.L.'s to the basement, and my guilt grew alarmingly. As the father of three very young children, I had to do something -- but something I would actually follow through with, something that would take minimal effort. Then, two weeks ago, while eating a doughnut and watching the scintillatingly clear images of Mets and Yankees scampering across my TV screen, I saw what I needed to do.

Flipping channels, I came across the news that Bill Clinton's Global Initiative had just ended with Richard Branson, the British mogul, pledging $3 billion to fight climate change over the next decade. On another channel, Mayor Bloomberg stood at a podium in California and announced, to my pride and delight, his sweeping eco-initiative for New York: the city's carbon emissions would be measured, an Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability would be created. Meanwhile, the man standing next to him, Governor Schwarzenegger, was set to sign legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for his state -- the world's 12th largest contributor of such gases -- at a level the federal government had continually rejected. Everyone was chipping in, even Arnold, the first civilian ever to drive a Hummer. I took another bite of doughnut.

And that's when it came to me. I should go on a diet.

A half-ton diet.

I knew, having taken the ''Calculate Your Impact'' survey on climatecrisis.net, the companion Web site for the Gore movie, that our household produced some 19,100 pounds of CO2 last year, 4,100 pounds more than the national average. (The concept of a ''pound'' of gas is a nebulous one -- depending on the pressure and temperature, it can fill a thimble or a stadium -- so maybe it's best portrayed this way: one pound of CO2 is what's released per each mile driven, or each mile flown per person; it's what's produced to heat five gallons of water.)

For easier math, I rounded my number to 20,000 pounds, or 10 tons. As a family, as a household, couldn't we drop a half-ton, a mere 5 percent of our weight? That's 10 pounds for a 200-pounder to lose, 6 for a 120-pounder.

Absolutely. It was a goal, one I could stick to. Ambitious as it sounded, it was, amazingly, not excessive. I could keep living generally the way I wanted. I gave myself eight hours, no more, to lose the weight. In a world where texting passes for conversation and hooking up for a relationship, perhaps I'd just defined the new activism. Very little pain, not insignificant gain.

Mindy Pennybacker, the editor of The Green Guide and thegreenguide.com, was also enthusiastic about my plan. ''Americans have too much weight in many ways, so it's a metaphor that makes sense,'' she said when I called her. ''If it motivates you because it's familiar and part of your everyday life, that's terrific.''

''It's all about attitude,'' said Laurie David, the founder of the Stop Global Warming Web site (stopglobalwarming.org) and a board member of the National Resources Defense Council. ''Change one or two things, you end up changing four or five things. You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. Before you know it, you start influencing people around you.''

Like most dieters, I cut deals with myself. If you're trying to lose real weight, you vow, say, to give up beer and ice cream but retain your pizza rights. Since I was trying to emit less CO2, I vowed to lower the thermostat at night by one degree -- not two, as often recommended by tree-huggers -- a tweak I expected none of us would notice. (That saved 79 pounds; each degree equals approximately 315 pounds of CO2; turning it down only at night, for the six colder months, or 1/4 times 315). In return? No more guilt over TV size.

Friends I called for suggestions understood my deal-making. Judy said she never used electrical kitchen appliances -- ''Opening a can is something I'm able to do'' -- but was still not ready to swap Vaseline for non-petroleum eye-makeup remover. Victoria said she saw a young mother with her baby in some sort of recycled paper diaper that did not look at all absorbent. ''My baby is wearing Pampers, probably one of the most wasteful things I do,'' she said. Then again, as much as she loves S.U.V.'s -- the way they feel and handle -- she and her husband realized that if they bought one they would be ostracized by half their circle. They bought a station wagon that gets three times the mileage.

I vowed to quit my profligate morning habit of turning on the shower and leaving the bathroom, not returning until several minutes after the water was hot. On the flip side, once I stepped into the shower I was not going to turn the experience into a 60-second spasm of sudsing and rinsing. Two minutes shower going unnecessarily times 2.5 gallons per minute times 365 morning showers times three ounces of CO2 produced per gallon of hot water equals 342 pounds. (My calculations, here and elsewhere, were made with the help of experts at the National Resources Defense Council and The Green Guide, several credible Web sites and a few smart relatives who grew up to be physicists and engineers.)

When washing white loads, I'd switch from the warm/warm cycle to warm/cold, comfortable that neither I nor my wife would notice the difference. (We didn't.) Sixty-two pounds saved.

Four hundred and eighty-three total pounds, 30 seconds of effort to reprogram the thermostat, two no-brainer decisions. Maybe my diet was riddled with compromises, but it was working.

I found further validation for my lack of rigor. ''When people equate efficiency with discomfort and sacrifice -- like when Jimmy Carter put on a sweater and encouraged Americans to lower the thermostat -- they shy away from it,'' said Bill Prindle, the deputy director of the nonprofit American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. ''A month later they're back to their old ways. We need to ask people to act from their values'' -- meaning fundamentals like ''physical security, clothing, food and shelter, including thermal comfort.''

I felt certain I could unearth more savings in what Danny Seo, an eco-expert with a TV show, a Sirius radio show and a series of books all titled ''Simply Green,'' described to me as ''bad habits we don't even realize are bad habits.'' For example, was it really energy-wiser, as I'd often heard, to leave a light or computer on for the few minutes you're out of the room, rather turning it off and then on again?

''Total myth,'' Mr. Prindle said. ''Actually, I think that's a projection. Because it takes me more work to shut it off, people think, then it must generally require more energy. It's like the better-to-leave-the-car-idling theory.''

There were other bad habits that were just as easy to break. A friend suggested this quickie: Call retailers to get them to stop sending the print catalogs to which our house had become addicted. I chose 10 -- L. L. Bean, Crate & Barrel, J. Crew, Eddie Bauer, Garnet Hill, Design Within Reach, Lands' End, Restoration Hardware, Hammacher Schlemmer and the Company Store. (Originally I'd included Williams-Sonoma, but my wife vetoed that idea.) It took me 22 minutes total to cancel them -- eight phone calls and two e-mails. Ninety (the average number of pages) times 12 (number of issues per year we seem to get) times 10 (retailers) equals 10,800 pages. Since my research shows that one tree produces about 25,000 pages of the coated, lower-end virgin paper used in most catalogs, I'd just saved 43 percent of one tree. One tree produces 260 pounds of oxygen, 43 percent of that is 112 pounds, which converts to 154 pounds of CO2 saved.

Everyone but me seemed to know about ''vampires'' -- those energy suckers plugged into the wall when not in use (toasters, coffeemakers, hair dryers, cellphone chargers), consuming energy in standby mode. The easiest solution? Pull out individual plugs or, particularly for areas near computers and home entertainment equipment with lots of components, plug everything into a power strip (with surge protector) and, when done for the night or weekend, flip off the illuminated switch. Doing that would save me about 115 pounds annually on the computer, about 200 pounds on the TV, DVD and VCR. (Cable and satellite boxes draw huge amounts of energy, but turning them off may result in considerable reboot delays. I'm not going to turn mine off every night, but I might when I go on vacation.)

My boys and I drove to Lowe's for surge protectors as well as a thermal insulating blanket for our 75-gallon hot-water heater; wrapping it, every expert I spoke with told me, significantly reduces the massive heat loss, especially in winter. (Newer water heaters tend to have higher levels of insulation built in.) The largest blanket they carried, though, was for a 60-gallon tank, and a check of their Web site (and, later, of the Home Depot's) also showed no blanket for a tank our size. Forget it, then; this was the lazy man's diet, minimum effort.

On our way to the cashier, we passed an aisle with motion sensors, and I remembered my brother had them in his bathrooms, where they shut off the lights soon after people left. They seemed an easy enough item to buy and install. I called my brother, Marc. ''Be honest,'' I said. ''Will there be re-wiring?'' My brother, an astrophysicist, said no, there wouldn't be; then something to the effect that, unless I was too stupid to remove a light switch plate and put another one on, I was fully capable.

''Wait,'' I said. ''Why does anyone need a motion sensor in their bathroom? Don't people turn the light on when they go in and turn it off when they leave?''

''Ah,'' he said. ''You don't have teenagers yet.''

Scratch the motion sensors, at least for six more years.

I was now up to 952 pounds, more than 90 percent of the way to my goal. Okay; I was ready to turn back to the C.F.L.'s. I decided I could tolerate the cool white ones in two places only: our outside vestibule (60 watts replaced with 13 watts, with the same number of lumens, or brightness), and one overhead fixture in my office (75 watts replaced with 19), where its effect was neutralized by incandescent track lighting. They were lights that were on much more often than most. Together, they would save me, annually, about 300 pounds in 20 minutes, including shopping time.

Three hundred pounds. No typo. Two bulbs.

I wasn't done, though -- soon but not yet. I learned from Laurie David of Stop Global Warming that it makes almost no sense to rinse dishes in very hot water when they're just going into a dishwasher to be rinsed in even hotter water. I would hereby skip that step, plus I'd also hand-wash dirty dishes created after 10 o'clock (no real chore since I find it relaxing). Should buy us two loads weekly, down to four instead of six -- or 200 pounds saved for the year.

And I would have to give up my screensaver habit, much as I loved images of my children floating across my line of sight while I thought up sentences. In screensaver mode, my computer still draws a lot of power, according to David Goldstein, the energy program director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. He advised that by changing my settings so that computer and display both go to sleep when inactive for 10 minutes (as opposed to my original setting of three hours), I would save about 250 pounds annually. It took me 30 seconds to click on the Apple icon, then ''System Preferences,'' then ''Energy Saver.''

Seventeen hundred pounds dropped in 68 minutes -- a little more than one of the eight hours I'd allowed for. All that would be required of me in the future was 10 seconds nightly to shut off two power strip switches and five to 10 minutes, every now and then, of pleasant dishwashing.

I ought to be done with it now -- even if my numbers were a bit off, I'd blown past my goal, after all, a dangerous thing to do early on with a diet. But maybe Ms. David is right: make one change, soon you're ready to make three. Maybe one day soon I'll be ready to change a whole floor's worth of light bulbs; I learned after buying my 50 bulbs that it's possible to find C.F.L.'s that cast a warm glow, and the Green Guide's helpful light bulb product report suggests that C.F.L.'s have been improving. Danny Seo says that Ikea carries lighting fixtures that handsomely mask the shortcomings of C.F.L.'s, with tinted glass or a strip of wood veneer. Maybe we'll replace a roll or six of virgin toilet paper with post-consumer waste napkins -- maybe. This is all I'm willing to do right now. Don't look for me to carpool at elevators.

Then again, I can't help but wonder how much I might accomplish if I actually put in more effort than a garden slug. I'm intrigued by what a friend, an architect, told me: That if just one teensy change were made to New York City -- if all black roofs were painted white or silver, a simple, surprisingly inexpensive fix -- the financial and energy savings would be jaw-dropping, not to mention that it would severely reduce the possibility of blackouts and brownouts. Relatively meager effort, monster bang for the buck.

So, like, I don't know, maybe some weekend soon we all just get brushes and roof paint, fan out across the city, and just do it and get it over with? And afterward everyone comes by my place to watch the World Series on my big old flat-screen?

The Green Web -- Footnotes to Andrew Postman's article

www.thegreenguide.com This guide has in-depth product reports (on light bulbs, diapers and so on), blogs and a comfy feeling; especially good on health and nutrition.

www.dannyseo.typepad.com Mr. Seo, an eco-friendly designer, blogs about ways to greenify your home, inside and out.

www.energystar.gov Good conversion data is available here. Also, while some may find their eyes glazing over at descriptions of Energy Star-rated appliances, it's interesting to check out differences between what you have and what's available now.

www.aceee.org The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy offers refreshingly straightforward information for both regular folks and wonks.

www.nrdc.org The National Resources Defense Council weighs in with good policy papers on almost every aspect of the environment -- air, water, cities, waste, etc.

www.stopglobalwarming.org This site lets users join the Stop Global Warming Virtual March (in about as much time as it takes to read this sentence twice). It also has consumer tips.

Cutting Back - How one man dropped 1,700 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions
Activity	Inconvenience Factor	Annoyance Factor	Time Required	Cost	Reduction in CO2 emissions (pounds/year)
Turn the thermostat down 1 degree at night in winter	Reprogram thermostat	None expected	30 seconds	None	79
Don’t leave the bathroom while the shower heats up	None	None	None	None	342
Wash whites with warm/cold cycle	None	None	None	None	62
Cancel delivery of print catalogs	8 phone calls, 2 e-mails	None	22 minutes	None	154
Buy and put in 2 cool white compact fluorescent bulbs in non-annoying places	Install bulbs (but won’t have to install again for about 80 years)	Light less warm, but in unobtrusive places	20 minutes	$4 more than for 2 regular bulbs, but they last longer	300
Buy 2 power strips with surge protectors, turn them off at night	Trip to hardware store, plug in	Turn off at night and on in the morning	25 minutes, plus 10 seconds per day	$33	315
Hand-wash any dishes made dirty after dinner	None	Extra time for dishwashing, but I enjoy the reverie	5–10 minutes some nights	None	200
Set computer to “sleep” sooner	Modify “System Preferences”	A few extra seconds to get going after a lull	20 seconds	None	250

Ronald Dworkin on the "24 Scenario"

2007-02-06T17:15:00.000-05:00

In his latest book, Is Democracy Possible Here?, legal scholar Ronald Dworkin proposes a framework for analyzing political issues that is based on two "principles of human dignity." Principle #1 – “the principle of intrinsic value – holds that each human life has a special kind of objective value. It has value as potentiality; once a human life has begun, it matters how it goes." Principle #2 – “the principle of personal responsibility – holds that each person has a special responsibility for realizing the success of his own life, a responsibility that includes exercising his judgment about what kind of life would be successful for him." In the book, he looks at how analyses based on these principles would play out for several important contemporary issues.

One of the issues he studies is the question of human rights for suspected terrorists. After a long analysis of the Guantanamo problem, he turns briefly to what I call the "24 Scenario." Suppose we have captured a terrorist, and we know he has planted a nuclear bomb, ready to explode. Is it permissible to let our hero, Jack Bauer, torture the villain in order to find the location of the bomb, so that millions could be saved? Dworkin's treatment is quite interesting:

Let us now accept, if only for the sake of this discussion, that it is morally permissible to violate human rights in a sufficiently grave emergency like this one. Then our question becomes: how grave must the emergency be?

Remember our premises. ...[We] damage ourselves, not just our victim, when we ignore his humanity, because in denigrating his intrinsic value we denigrate our own. We compromise our dignity and our self-respect. So we must put the hurdle of emergency very high indeed. We must take care not to define "emergency" as simply "great danger" or to suppose that any act that improves our own security, no matter how marginally, is for that reason justified. We must hold to a very different virtue: the old-fashioned virtue of courage. Sacrificing self-respect in the face of danger is a particularly shameful form of cowardice. We show courage in our domestic criminal law and practice: we increase the statistical risk that each of us will suffer from violent crime when we forbid preventive detention and insist on fair trials for everyone accused of crime. We must show parallel courage when the danger comes from abroad because our dignity is at stake in the same way. ...

We are in great danger of falling into the trap [of]… thinking that anything that improves America’s security, however marginally or speculatively, is wise policy. That makes a terrified prudence the only virtue we recognize; it sacrifices courage and dignity to a mean and cowardly prejudice that our own security is the only thing that matters. We do not make that mistake in our own lives or our own domestic law, and it is not plain that the danger from terrorism is greater, all in all, than the dangers from drugs, serial killers, and other crimes. But the threat to our dignity is certainly greater now, and we must stand together to defeat that greater danger. The metaphor of balancing rights against security is, as I have said, very misleading. A different metaphor would be much more appropriate: we must balance our security against our honor. Are we now so frightened that honor means nothing?

Web Resources on Global Warming

2007-02-05T18:51:00.000-05:00

This post strings together a number of useful links to Web resources on the topic of global climate change and what the individual can do to address it. This is a modification of the post in From the Rachel, done on Saturday; it includes additional information provided by Ann Covalt.

I note in passing that the phrase ‘global climate change’ is preferred over ‘global warming.’ From the perspective of atmospheric science, what is actually going on is the retention of energy in the global weather system, energy that normally would have leaked out (hence the preferred term of some scientists, ‘global heating’). As a result, there are various predicted effects, such as an increase in the global average surface temperature (‘global warming’, which is of course also a measured effect), an increase in the extremes of weather phenomena, like storms (not yet fully established as a measured effect), and shifts in the long-term weather patterns in various parts of the planet (‘climate change’). So, ‘global climate change’ is kind of a compromise that satisfies most.

Education and Information

There are some good overviews to the science, in addition to what we’ve already seen in An Inconvenient Truth. For example, there are introductions by the Koshland Science Museum, and by the Pew Center. The science historian Spencer Weart has an extensive review from a historical standpoint. There are also very useful reports prepared by the Congressional Research Service. Unfortunately, these are not generally made available to the public – unless you have good friends in low places, like the Federation of American Scientists, or, for this subject, the National Council for Science and the Environment. Of course, many of the other organizations mentioned below also have explanatory material. (And, many of the sites identified for one resource also have links to other types of resources, so I’ve tried to spread the listings out among the topics.)

At a more advanced level, you might as well go to the scientists actually doing the work. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the UN-sponsored structure in the news this week; their most important products are the Assessment Reports, of which the Third (Climate Change 2001) can be accessed from their publication page. For an excellent summary of the latest report – the Summary for Policy Makers of Working Group #1 – check out Andrew Dessler’s post on Gristmill. Within the US, the key organization is the US Climate Change Science Program, whose most recent annual report to Congress is only a few months old. In addition, you can get a climate perspective on short term events from the NOAA Climate Prediction Center.

Another useful method for keeping up on current events is to check out what the climate scientists themselves are saying. The prominent group blogs are Real Climate and World Climate Report. Stephen Schneider uses his personal web site as a library of useful documents. For quirkier takes, there’s John Fleck and Ross Gelbspan. For a contrarian (but not knee-jerk skeptical) viewpoint, check out the loyal opposition, the Roger Pielkes, father and son. The best general environmental site covering the news is Grist; you can subscribe to a free daily e-newsletter. And finally, don’t neglect what our own local meteorologists are saying.

There are lots of good books on the subject. My current favorite (because it is the one I’ve read most recently) is The Rough Guide to Climate Change by Robert Henson.

Politics – High Level Actions

There are a lot of activities going on in which individuals can participate. Most immediately, there is the April 14th, National Day of Climate Action, organized by StepItUp2007. And if you don’t want to risk the weather, you can add your signature to the Stop Global Warming Virtual March. Contact your representatives to support the McCain-Lieberman Bill, which is the best thing Congress has to offer so far.

Speaking of Congress, you may want to keep an eye on the daily struggles against obfuscation and inactivity in both legislative and executive branches. Particularly useful for this are Chris Mooney’s blog – he wrote The Republican War on Science, and is bringing out a new book on climate change and hurricanes – and Rick Piltz’s Climate Science Watch – he’s a veteran of both the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and the US Climate Change Science Program.

There are plenty of organizations engaged in a range of climate related actions. Greenpeace has an initiative to reduce CO2 emissions by half by 2050. Vote Solar presses actions at federal, state, and local levels. And then there’s the League of Conservation Voters, Project Vote Smart, the Alliance to Save Energy, Environmental Defense, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the American Solar Energy Society, the American Wind Energy Association, the Interstate Renewable Energy Council, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, and Friends of the Earth.

If that’s not enough, you can find other groups via the World Directory of Environmental Organizations.

Politics – Community Actions

There are several organizations focusing on making a difference at the community level. Closest to home is the Arlington Initiative to Reduce Emissions, which is actually a good model for a county-level activity. It would be good to see things like it in the other DC-area suburbs. The County is also working with Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment to promote the 2007 Green Living Challenge, encouraging individuals to complete 16 conservation actions by Halloween. Boulder CO recently passed a Climate Action Plan; they also have tax rebates for using solar power. Other relevant activities are the US Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement, the US Green Building Council, the Sustainable Buildings Industry Council, and Fresh Energy.

Personal Conservation – General

But what, you ask, can we do to reduce our own feelings of responsibility? (And I guarantee that the more you study this, the more you realize that any civilization has an impact on the earth, and a responsibility to address it, both individually and collectively.) Fortunately, any sufficiently advanced civilization will have Wikipedia; there are two rather good overviews of both individual and political actions for addressing climate change under the headings of Mitigation of Global Warming and Climate Change Response. There are also some handy checklists to follow, prepared by Environmental Defense, Al Gore’s Climate Crisis organization, StopGlobalWarming.org, and Grist.

Personal Conservation – Carbon Calculation

One thing you will want to do is figure out just how bad your personal impact on the environment is, so you can get a sense of how much you have to clean up your act. There are many carbon calculators out there, at StopGlobalWarming.org, Climate Crisis, [SafeClimate], the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, Resurgence, Carbonfund.org, and The Conservation Fund.

Personal Conservation – Optimize Your Home Energy Use

There are two major things you can do to reduce your carbon footprint. The first is to improve the energy efficiency of your home. Depending on how bad you are when you start, and how aggressive you are in correcting it, you can reduce your home carbon load by 13 to 18%. You’ll probably want to start by doing an energy audit, following something like the DOE Home Energy Saver. Then nibble away at things; the DOE Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy site provides a good structure and checklist. Don’t be as warm in the winter or as cool in the summer as you have been. Turn down the water heater (both for showers and laundry). Check your insulation, and caulk your windows. There are several comprehensive consumer guides to help out, run by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, Consumer Reports, and your friendly neighborhood federal government. Shop green. And change to compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Of course, there are major changes you can make by remodeling and rebuilding. A good starting place is Home Energy, but you’re probably as well off by starting with Google. There is a good overview of sustainable architecture and design at the National Building Museum Green House site, which accompanies a major museum exhibit (running through June 3).

For general green consumer tips, check out Consumer Reports, the ACEEE Consumer Guide, the Alliance to Save Energy Consumer site, and the NRDC Guide to Green Living.

Personal Conservation – Optimize Your Transportation

The other really big thing you can do is reduce your driving impact. By cutting back your personal consumption of gasoline, you can cut your carbon load by something like 10%. Ideas? Well, you could walk, ride a bike (check out Commuter Connections, the Arlington Bike Commuting Page, and the Washington Area Bicyclist Association Commuter Mentors), telecommute (DOE has a page on this, but you might also look at articles here and here), or share the car (as in the Arlington Car Sharing Program, or Flexcar). You could get rid of your gas guzzler and buy a less guilt-ridden vehicle, following the advice of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, or Yahoo (working with Environmental Defense), or the feds. Don’t forget to maintain it properly. And when you travel, why not rent a hybrid?

Speaking of travel, there are companies that actually work with you to offset your car or plane CO2 output by investing in recovery methods (like planting trees in Brazil). Some are independents, like TerraPass. Some are travel agencies, like Travelocity. And some offer offsets for home use as well, like Climate Care.

Personal Conservation – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

This may not be obvious, but there is a significant carbon impact from making all the packaging that you use, and from getting rid of it when you’re done with it. The typical estimate is that you can reduce your carbon footprint by 5% if you can recycle half your trash. There’s lots of advice on the web about recycling, and about reducing use of grocery bags, etc. One nice site to check out is freecycle, which can also help you deal with that clutter problem.

Personal Conservation – Purchase Green Tags

Needless to say, it would be far better if what energy you used came from renewable sources (sun, wind, wave, geothermal – Aristotle may have been on to something). Much better than burning coal, which is truly demonic from the standpoint of global climate change. But few states allow you to select your power source. Instead, you can buy tradable renewable energy certificates, or ‘green tags.’

Federal law says that, whenever the prices are equal, power suppliers must prefer the renewable source over the nonrenewable. Of course, the prices are never equal, and renewable sources are often not available in your locality. But what counts is the power in the national power grid. If you buy a green tag, that cost gets added to the cost of your nonrenewable power to make it equal to that of a renewable source. That means that, as your local power distributor is giving you evil power, it is committed to purchasing the equivalent amount of good power and putting that into the grid, to be available elsewhere. Another way to think of it is that, for the cost of the green tag, you are providing a discount on the cost of the equivalent amount of renewable power somewhere, so that it will have preference when someone in the vicinity served by that renewable source needs it. You can check into green tags at buyGREEN.net, at the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, at Virginia Interfaith Power and Light, or at the DOE/EPA site.

Green Business and Green Investment

We should not forget that, while the hand of the market may be invisible, the conscience need not be. The most prominent business group in the news recently is the US Climate Action Program, which has published a blueprint for market-driven climate protection. There are a number of other efforts promoting more earth-friendly business activities, including the Social Investment Forum, Ceres, [Safe Climate] for Business, the World Wildlife Fund, and the Center for Energy & Climate Solutions.

Nicholas Kristof recently (New York Times, 1/30/07) highlighted several social entrepreneurs who have established self-sustaining operations that serve social needs. One of these, Easy Being Green, is an Australian group that distributes “Climate Saver Packs” (energy-efficient light bulbs and water-saving shower heads) to households. In return, the householders sign over the resulting energy credits to Easy Being Green, which then trades them as carbon credits.

Last Thoughts

Living green can be… interesting. You will need support groups. Keep an eye on TreeHugger Blog, the Green Options Blog (which is getting underway this month), and Global Cool. And drink with like-minded friends; Green Drinks DC is having its inaugural imbibe Tuesday at 6 PM at Zaytinya, at the Gallery Place Metro stop.

Interview with Vladimir Sorokin

2007-02-05T14:55:00.000-05:00

The latest Spiegel Online includes an interview with Russian novelist Vladimir Sorokin, on the occasion of his latest novel, Day of the Oprichnik. The interview is a stark reminder of the difficulties within the current Russian state; we may think that things are bad here, but...

One comment in particular caught my eye.

The citizen lives in each of us. In the days of Brezhnev, Andropov, Gorbachev and Yeltsin, I was constantly trying to suppress the responsible citizen in me. I told myself that I was, after all, an artist. As a storyteller I was influenced by the Moscow underground, where it was common to be apolitical. This was one of our favorite anecdotes: As German troops marched into Paris, Picasso sat there and drew an apple. That was our attitude -- you must sit there and draw your apple, no matter what happens around you. I held fast to that principle until I was 50. Now the citizen in me has come to life.

Back in Business

2007-02-04T13:31:00.000-05:00

Just thought I'd add a post to indicate that the previous difficulties with Blogger have been resolved, and the 16th Street Forum is now running under the new Blogger software, administered by Google. As far as I can tell, group privileges remain the same. If anyone else wants to be able to post, contact me and I'll add you to the list. Of course, everyone can post in the Comments to previous posts.

Background on the IPCC Report

2007-02-02T09:12:00.000-05:00

Today’s news is full of the latest results from the international assessment of the projected climate situation. As the report itself is still not available online, it seemed appropriate to lay out some background about what is and isn’t going to be in it.

The report comes from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was established by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) in 1988. Its charter is “to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. The IPCC does not carry out research nor does it monitor climate related data or other relevant parameters. It bases its assessment mainly on peer reviewed and published scientific/technical literature.”

The IPCC has three working groups that assess the scientific aspects of the climate system and climate change; assess the vulnerability of socio-economic and natural systems to climate change, the negative and positive consequences of climate change, and the options for adapting to it; and assess options for limiting greenhouse gas emissions and otherwise mitigating climate change. It also runs a Task Force that inventories the release of greenhouse gases internationally.

On a roughly six-year timescale, the IPCC releases an Assessment Report that gives the most up-to-date status that can be agreed upon by the working group members. The Third Assessment Report, Climate Change 2001, is available online.

The news today is about the release of the report from Working Group I, on the science issues. Much of the report is devoted to the observational evidence from surface and atmospheric temperatures, from changes in the cryosphere (the poles, glaciers, etc.), and from changes in the oceans. The big news-making part is the section on modeling the climate system, with the concomitant projections on how the climate is likely to change in the coming century.

Working Group II, which addresses the current and projected impacts on ecosystems, on water and food supplies, on health, on industry, and on relocations, will release its report after a meeting April 2 – 5, in Brussels. It has already submitted a draft report last month. Working Group III, which focuses on mitigation actions, will meet on its final report April 30 – May 3, in Bangkok, but will release a draft on February 12. A final synthesis report will go out for review during the summer, and will be the subject of the full IPCC meeting November 12 – 16, in Valencia, Spain.

So, the primary emphasis of today’s news is the growing consensus on the man-made component of climate change – the Working Group committed to a 90% likelihood that human activity is the dominant factor – and the smaller range of uncertainties on the changes projected by the ensemble of climate models.

Short summary: we’re screwed. Details will follow.

Lessons from Thucydides - Part 3

2007-01-29T20:44:00.000-05:00

In my previous posts – here and here – I commented on the interesting similarities between debates during the Peloponnesian War, as recounted by Thucydides in The History of the Peloponnesian War, and modern political debates. I looked at the arrogant rush to invade Sicily in 413 BCE, and at the cheapening of political discourse during the debate on the punishment of the Mitylenean revolt in 427.

There is an additional element of relevance in the Mitylenean debate on the question of capital punishment – not surprising, given that the question at hand was whether to execute the entire adult male population!

As in the last post, the debate is between Cleon and Diodotus, in Book 3, Chapter IX; as before, I am using the Richard Crawley translation posted on the MIT Internet Classics Archive.

Cleon first argues that the crime of the Mityleneans is thoroughly heinous and thus deserving of the severest penalty. Furthermore, the penalties they had seen others suffer had been insufficient to deter them.

[I]t is deliberate and wanton aggression; an attempt to ruin us by siding with our bitterest enemies; a worse offence than a war undertaken on their own account in the acquisition of power. The fate of those of their neighbours who had already rebelled and had been subdued was no lesson to them; their own prosperity could not dissuade them from affronting danger; but blindly confident in the future, and full of hopes beyond their power though not beyond their ambition, they declared war and made their decision to prefer might to right, their attack being determined not by provocation but by the moment which seemed propitious. … . Let them now therefore be punished as their crime requires, and do not, while you condemn the aristocracy, absolve the people.

Then, in an argument that could have been taken from a modern op-ed, Cleon asserts that failure to apply the strongest penalty in this case will only encourage others to commit similar crimes.

Consider therefore: if you subject to the same punishment the ally who is forced to rebel by the enemy, and him who does so by his own free choice, which of them, think you, is there that will not rebel upon the slightest pretext; when the reward of success is freedom, and the penalty of failure nothing so very terrible?

Diodotus, in his response, notes that the attempt to use punishment for its supposed deterrent effect has only led to harsher and harsher punishments; the death penalty is but the last step in the cycle, and that only because there is nothing worse to apply. Yet still, crimes happen.

Now of course communities have enacted the penalty of death for many offences far lighter than this: still hope leads men to venture, and no one ever yet put himself in peril without the inward conviction that he would succeed in his design. Again, was there ever city rebelling that did not believe that it possessed either in itself or in its alliances resources adequate to the enterprise? All, states and individuals, are alike prone to err, and there is no law that will prevent them; or why should men have exhausted the list of punishments in search of enactments to protect them from evildoers? It is probable that in early times the penalties for the greatest offences were less severe, and that, as these were disregarded, the penalty of death has been by degrees in most cases arrived at, which is itself disregarded in like manner.

The end-point, then, is the realization that the death penalty is no deterrent, because of the many factors in human nature that inevitably lead to crime.

Either then some means of terror more terrible than this must be discovered, or it must be owned that this restraint is useless; and that as long as poverty gives men the courage of necessity, or plenty fills them with the ambition which belongs to insolence and pride, and the other conditions of life remain each under the thraldom of some fatal and master passion, so long will the impulse never be wanting to drive men into danger. Hope also and cupidity, the one leading and the other following, the one conceiving the attempt, the other suggesting the facility of succeeding, cause the widest ruin, and, although invisible agents, are far stronger than the dangers that are seen. Fortune, too, powerfully helps the delusion and, by the unexpected aid that she sometimes lends, tempts men to venture with inferior means; and this is especially the case with communities, because the stakes played for are the highest, freedom or empire, and, when all are acting together, each man irrationally magnifies his own capacity. In fine, it is impossible to prevent, and only great simplicity can hope to prevent, human nature doing what it has once set its mind upon, by force of law or by any other deterrent force whatsoever.

What can be done?

We must not, therefore, commit ourselves to a false policy through a belief in the efficacy of the punishment of death, or exclude rebels from the hope of repentance and an early atonement of their error. … And how can it be otherwise than hurtful to us to be put to the expense of a siege, because surrender is out of the question; and if we take the city, to receive a ruined town from which we can no longer draw the revenue which forms our real strength against the enemy? We must not, therefore, sit as strict judges of the offenders to our own prejudice, but rather see how by moderate chastisements we may be enabled to benefit in future by the revenue-producing powers of our dependencies; and we must make up our minds to look for our protection not to legal terrors but to careful administration.

This is the point at which many readers become unhappy, as the argument Diodotus puts forward appears to concentrate on base utility. Indeed, within the rhetorical framework available to him, which includes the nature and emotional state of his audience, this may have been his only clear course. But from the modern standpoint, I think it also holds up if we think thusly: If you no longer have an option that deters crime, then you are better off concentrating on containing it. And, if you no longer have a means for addressing the moral state of the criminal, then you are better off opting for a course that best satisfies your own moral interests. If the death penalty cannot deter others from killing, then you yourself might as well adopt the course that preserves your own moral state, and not kill.

Lessons from Thucydides - Part 2

2007-01-28T19:59:00.000-05:00

In my previous post on The History of the Peloponnesian Wars, I talked about the eerie similarities between the arguments of Nicias and Alcibiades on the Sicilian Expedition of 415 – 413 BCE and the arguments advanced for the more recent invasion of Iraq. In this post, I want to look at one of the most notorious episodes of the war: the plan to execute the entire adult male population of Mitylene in punishment for their revolt against Athens. The debate on this decision provides some insight on modern concerns about the quality of debate in the public sphere.

The story is told in Book 3, Chapter IX; as before, I am using the Richard Crawley translation posted on the MIT Internet Classics Archive. Mitylene was the capitol of Lesbos, the famous island off the Ionian coast (i.e., modern-day Anatolian Turkey). (By the way, there is a nice presentation of the geographical context of The History done up by Gutenkarte – an open-source geographic test browser that works with Project Gutenberg e-texts.) The Mityleneans had been part of the Athenian alliance, but pulled out and joined up with the Spartans.

Some Mitylenean envoys explained their decision to an assembly at Olympia. Seeing the Athenians growing as an empire, they feared that Athens would eventually no longer allow them to remain an independent ally.

Now the only sure basis of an alliance is for each party to be equally afraid of the other; he who would like to encroach is then deterred by the reflection that he will not have odds in his favour. Again, if we were left independent, it was only because they thought they saw their way to empire more clearly by specious language and by the paths of policy than by those of force. Not only were we useful as evidence that powers who had votes, like themselves, would not, surely, join them in their expeditions, against their will, without the party attacked being in the wrong; but the same system also enabled them to lead the stronger states against the weaker first, and so to leave the former to the last, stripped of their natural allies, and less capable of resistance. But if they had begun with us, while all the states still had their resources under their own control, and there was a centre to rally round, the work of subjugation would have been found less easy. Besides this, our navy gave them some apprehension: it was always possible that it might unite with [Sparta] or with some other power, and become dangerous to Athens. The court which we paid to their commons and its leaders for the time being also helped us to maintain our independence. However, we did not expect to be able to do so much longer, if this war had not broken out, from the examples that we had had of their conduct to the rest. … [T]o condemn us for being the first to break off, because they delay the blow that we dread, instead of ourselves delaying to know for certain whether it will be dealt or not, is to take a false view of the case.

In 427 BCE, the Athenians attacked and pushed the Spartans out. The question then arose: how best to punish Mitylene for its disloyalty?

Athens was at that time lead by Cleon, the first prominent member of the commercial class (he was a tanner) to become strategos. He had been a long-term opponent of the previous leader, Pericles, and a strong proponent of the war with Sparta. A popular orator, Cleon took over soon after the death of Pericles from the plague in 429. (Thucydides, who had been a great admirer of Pericles, did not treat Cleon well in The History.) True to his brutal nature (as Thucydides would have it), Cleon encouraged the Athenians “to put to death not only the prisoners at Athens, but the whole adult male population of Mitylene, and to make slaves of the women and children.”

This order was sent to Paches, the commander of the fleet that retook Mitylene. But the next day, the Athenian assembly regretted the extremity of their decision, and decided to reconsider.

The morrow brought repentance with it and reflection on the horrid cruelty of a decree, which condemned a whole city to the fate merited only by the guilty. … An assembly was therefore at once called, and after much expression of opinion upon both sides, Cleon, son of Cleaenetus, the same who had carried the former motion of putting the Mitylenians to death, the most violent man at Athens, and at that time by far the most powerful with the commons, came forward again and spoke…

Cleon’s speech, as reconstructed by Thucydides, conveys the crude power of his rhetorical style, and in particular, his hostility to thoughtful analysis.

[O]rdinary men usually manage public affairs better than their more gifted fellows. The latter are always wanting to appear wiser than the laws, and to overrule every proposition brought forward, thinking that they cannot show their wit in more important matters, and by such behavior too often ruin their country; while those who mistrust their own cleverness are content to be less learned than the laws, and less able to pick holes in the speech of a good speaker; and being fair judges rather than rival athletes, generally conduct affairs successfully. These we ought to imitate, instead of being led on by cleverness and intellectual rivalry to advise your people against our real opinions.

He then goes on to use an all-too-familiar trick, casting doubt on the motives of the opposition.

For myself, I adhere to my former opinion, and wonder at those who have proposed to reopen the case of the Mitylenians, … I wonder also who will be the man who … will pretend to show that the crimes of the Mitylenians are of service to us, and our misfortunes injurious to the allies. Such a man must plainly either have such confidence in his rhetoric as to adventure to prove that what has been once for all decided is still undetermined, or be bribed to try to delude us by elaborate sophisms.

This ploy is immediately familiar; more impressively, it has seemed so throughout history. For example:

As this is a mode of dealing with questions both of public concern and of private morality, not less common at present than it was in the time of the Peloponnesian war – to seize upon some strong and tolerably wide-spread sentiment among the public, to treat the dictates of that sentiment as plain common sense and obvious right, and then to shut out all rational estimate of coming good and evil as if it were unholy or immoral, or at best mere uncandid subtlety – we may well notice a case in which Kleon employs it to support a proposition now justly regarded as barbarous.

This is from George Grote, A History of Greece, London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, Vol. VI, pp. 340-341 – published in 1849!

Having hinted that those arguing for a more lenient sentence have probably been bribed to do so, Cleon proceeds with his arguments. I should point out that the sophistry to which he refers was a legitimate issue for the Athenians of the time. Plato records the social disruption created by the newly developed methods of argumentation that did not require any commitment to the implications of their results (most notably in the Euthydemus, but also in the Meno). Indeed, it was the accusation that Socrates was such a Sophist (as in Aristophanes’ lampooning in The Clouds) that lent both force and irony to his trial and eventual execution. From the standpoint of a contemporary Athenian, Cleon’s insinuation was not much different from a modern accusation of collusion with terrorists.

After him Diodotus, son of Eucrates, who had also in the previous assembly spoken most strongly against putting the Mitylenians to death, came forward and spoke…

A moment of respect, please, as this is apparently the only time Diodotus appears in recorded history. Although his argument for mercy is based on expedience rather than morality, his direct response to Cleon’s insinuations still resonates.

I do not blame the persons who have reopened the case of the Mitylenians, nor do I approve the protests which we have heard against important questions being frequently debated. I think the two things most opposed to good counsel are haste and passion; haste usually goes hand in hand with folly, passion with coarseness and narrowness of mind. …

What is still more intolerable is to accuse a speaker of making a display in order to be paid for it. If ignorance only were imputed, an unsuccessful speaker might retire with a reputation for honesty, if not for wisdom; while the charge of dishonesty makes him suspected, if successful, and thought, if defeated, not only a fool but a rogue. The city is no gainer by such a system, since fear deprives it of its adisers; although in truth, if our speakers are to make such assertions, it would be better for the country if they could not speak at all, as we should then make fewer blunders. The good citizen ought to triumph not by frightening his opponents but by beating them fairly in argument; and a wise city, without over-distinguishing its best advisers, will nevertheless not deprive them of their due, and, far from punishing an unlucky counselor, will not even regard him as disgraced. In this way successful orators would be least tempted to sacrifice their convictions to popularity, in the hope of still higher honors, and unsuccessful speakers to resort to the same popular arts in order to win over the multitude.

This is not our way; and, besides, the moment that a man is suspected of giving advice, however good, from corrupt motives, we feel such a grudge against him for the gain which after all we are not certain he will receive, that we deprive the city of its certain benefit. Plain good advice has thus come to be no less suspected than bad; and the advocate of the most monstrous measures is not more obliged to use deceit to gain the people, than the best counselor is to lie in order to be believed. The city and the city only, owing to these refinements, can never be served openly and without disguise; he who does serve it openly being always suspected of serving himself in some secret way in return.

In tracking down information on this subject, I encountered an online article by Paula Debnar with a lengthy discussion of the rhetorical ploys in this debate. Early on, she notes that Thucydides seems to be using it to focus on the weaknesses of the democratic method that come from the debasement of debate.

Especially striking is the attention both speakers pay to the shortcomings of the Athenian assembly, in particular to the pernicious effects of sophisticated rhetoric on political debate. The extreme rhetorical self-consciousness of the two speeches led Gomme to conclude that “the quarrel between Diodotos and Kleon is as much about how to conduct debate in the ekklesia as about the fate of Mytilene.

– from “Diodotus’ Paradox and the Mytilene Debate (Thucydides 3.37–49),” Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, 2000, vol 143, p. 161.

(The reference is to A.W. Gomme, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, II (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956)

The issue continues to be relevant to the American polis.

Lessons from Thucydides - Part 1

2007-01-27T15:34:00.000-05:00

Nicholas Kristof has drawn the connection between the American invasion of Iraq and the Athenian invasion of Sicily. The similarities are eerie, although I will argue in subsequent posts that there are many uncanny presentiments for us in Thucydides. In this post, I thought I would look in more detail at the argument over the Sicilian Expedition.

You will recall that the wars between the Athenian coalition and the Spartan coalition lasted from 431 to 404 BCE. It is generally felt that a foolish Athenian decision to capitalize on its advantage over the Spartans in 415 by attacking Syracuse led, thanks to an overwhelming defeat in 413, to the overthrow of the Athenian government in 411 and its eventual loss of the war. The arguments for and against invasion are summarized by Thucydides in Book 6 of The History of the Peloponnesian War. (I shall be quoting from the online version maintained by the MIT Internet Classics Archive, using the translation of Richard Crawley.)

The anti-invasion argument was made by Nicias, who spoke despite the fact that the decision to invade had already been made and despite (or perhaps because of) his position as one of the selected leaders of the fleet. Kristof does not go into Nicias’s speech, so I will.

Nicias first stated that he spoke from neither fear nor eagerness for glory.

[I]ndividually, I gain in honour by such a course, and fear as little as other men for my person- not that I think a man need be any the worse citizen for taking some thought for his person and estate; on the contrary, such a man would for his own sake desire the prosperity of his country more than others- nevertheless, as I have never spoken against my convictions to gain honour, I shall not begin to do so now, but shall say what I think best.

And then, he goes directly to the nub of the argument.

Against your character any words of mine would be weak enough, if I were to advise your keeping what you have got and not risking what is actually yours for advantages which are dubious in themselves, and which you may or may not attain. I will, therefore, content myself with showing that your ardour is out of season, and your ambition not easy of accomplishment.

I affirm, then, that you leave many enemies behind you here to go yonder and bring more back with you.

Of course, the Athenians were not on the lookout for establishing democracy in the far west. Syracuse was a Greek colony and the point of the expedition was to reconquer and hold it. Nicias was firm on the difficulties.

[The Sicilians, even if conquered, are too far off and too numerous to be ruled without difficulty. Now it is folly to go against men who could not be kept under even if conquered, while failure would leave us in a very different position from that which we occupied before the enterprise.

Thus, if it were necessary to go, it would not be wise to linger.

The Hellenes in Sicily would fear us most if we never went there at all, and next to this, if after displaying our power we went away again as soon as possible. We all know that that which is farthest off, and the reputation of which can least be tested, is the object of admiration; at the least reverse they would at once begin to look down upon us, and would join our enemies here against us.

One might even think that Thucydides anticipated the Clinton surplus and Ahmed Chalabi in Nicias’s speech.

We should also remember that we are but now enjoying some respite from a great pestilence and from war, to the no small benefit of our estates and persons, and that it is right to employ these at home on our own behalf, instead of using them on behalf of these exiles whose interest it is to lie as fairly as they can, who do nothing but talk themselves and leave the danger to others, and who if they succeed will show no proper gratitude, and if they fail will drag down their friends with them.

Nicias closes with a call to courage.

I, in my turn, summon any of the older men … not to let himself be shamed down, for fear of being thought a coward if he do not vote for war, but, remembering how rarely success is got by wishing and how often by forecast, to leave to them the mad dream of conquest, and as a true lover of his country, now threatened by the greatest danger in its history, to hold up his hand on the other side… [T]he virtue of men in office is briefly this, to do their country as much good as they can, or in any case no harm that they can avoid.

Alcibiades was the archetypal slimy villain, changing sides whenever it suited him and leading the enthusiastic Athenians into a terribly mistaken expedition. He argues that the Athenians must help their allies in Sicily, both to maintain their empire and (with chilling presentiment) because enemies must be fought in foreign lands to keep them from coming over to fight in the homeland.

They are our confederates, and we are bound to assist them, without objecting that they have not assisted us. We did not take them into alliance to have them to help us in Hellas, but that they might so annoy our enemies in Sicily as to prevent them from coming over here and attacking us. It is thus that empire has been won, both by us and by all others that have held it, by a constant readiness to support all, whether barbarians or Hellenes, that invite assistance; since if all were to keep quiet or to pick and choose whom they ought to assist, we should make but few new conquests, and should imperil those we have already won.

Accordingly, he favors preemptive war.

Men do not rest content with parrying the attacks of a superior, but often strike the first blow to prevent the attack being made. And we cannot fix the exact point at which our empire shall stop; we have reached a position in which we must not be content with retaining but must scheme to extend it, for, if we cease to rule others, we are in danger of being ruled ourselves. Nor can you look at inaction from the same point of view as others, unless you are prepared to change your habits and make them like theirs.

Alcibiades thus promises victory and the worth of war.

Be convinced, then, that we shall augment our power at home by this adventure abroad, and let us make the expedition, and so humble the pride of the Peloponnesians by sailing off to Sicily, and letting them see how little we care for the peace that we are now enjoying; and at the same time we shall either become masters, as we very easily may, of the whole of Hellas through the accession of the Sicilian Hellenes, or in any case ruin the Syracusans, to the no small advantage of ourselves and our allies.

Oh how wrong he was.

TR on Criticising the President

2007-01-23T11:26:00.000-05:00

The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly as necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.

from Theodore Roosevelt, 1918, "Lincoln and Free Speech"

Louis Brandeis on Freedom of Speech

2006-12-18T22:28:00.000-05:00

From his dissenting opinion in Gilbert v. Minnesota, 254

U.S.

325 (1920):

Full and free exercise of this right by the citizen is ordinarily also his duty; for its exercise is more important to the nation than it is to himself. Like the course of the heavenly bodies, harmony in national life is a resultant of the struggle between contending forces. In frank expression of conflicting opinion lies the greatest promise of wisdom in governmental action; and in suppression lies ordinarily the greatest peril.

From his concurring opinion in Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927):

Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the state was to make men free to develop their faculties, and that in its government the deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary. They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that without free speech and assembly discussion would be futile; that with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government.

Louis D. Brandeis Gives a Warning

2006-12-06T22:44:00.000-05:00

Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.

- From his dissenting opinion in Olmstead v.

U.S.

, 277

U.S.

438 (1928)

A Recommendation

2006-11-09T10:24:00.000-05:00

Think carefully about how things feel right now. Commit it all to memory. Remember always that we CAN make a difference!

Advice

2006-11-06T10:13:00.000-05:00

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change;
the realist adjusts the sails.
 William Arthur Ward, writer and college administrator (1921-1994)

Media Ownership Rules

2006-10-20T11:29:00.000-04:00

A message from Freepress.net, passed on from Joan Porte…

The Federal Communications Commission announced on Jan. 7 that the U.S. Solicitor General will not appeal the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals decision in Prometheus Radio Project vs. Federal Communications Commission to the Supreme Court.

That decision rejected the FCC rules issued in June 2003 that would have significantly loosened media ownership caps (details). Barring the unlikely event that the Supreme Court takes up the case anyway, the FCC now must go back to the drawing board and restart the entire rulemaking process.

We haven’t won yet. The industry lobbyists and their allies on the commission will try to sneak the same policies through the back door. The only thing that will stop them is if the millions of Americans who opposed media consolidation in 2003 remain vigilant.

Now is the time to demand the FCC take citizen input seriously. Add your voice!

Join thousands of other citizens in insisting that the FCC hold a public hearing in their states. With enough people taking direct action, the FCC will have no choice but to hear our message: Media should serve the public interest — not the bottom line of big corporations.

GO TO

http://freepress.net/rules/

to demand a hearing in VA

Over the past few months, Members of the FCC have taken part in official public hearings and unofficial town meetings in selected cities across the country. These hearings have provided a critical forum for average citizens to talk back to the FCC and the media in their communities. To ensure citizen input in its policymaking, the FCC should hold similar events in all 50 states.

Demand the FCC listen to citizens when it makes policy!

Demand an official hearing in Virginia!

The Tao of Governing

2006-10-19T08:56:00.000-04:00

Stephen Mitchell has translated the Tao Te Ching of Lao-tzu with a degree of poetic reinterpretation. Here are verses 60 and 61, which give Taoist advice to those who govern:

Verse 60:
Governing a large country
is like frying a small fish.
You spoil it with too much poking.

Center your country in the Tao
and evil will have no power.
Not that it isn't there,
but you'll be able to step out of its way.

Give evil nothing to oppose
and it will disappear by itself.

Verse 61:

When a country obtains great power,
it becomes like the sea:
all streams run downward into it.
The more powerful it grows,
the greater the need for humility.
Humility means trusting the Tao,
thus never needing to be defensive.

A great nation is like a great man:
When he makes a mistake, he realizes it.
Having realized it, he admits it.
Having admitted it, he corrects it.
He considers those who point out his faults
as his most benevolent teachers.
He thinks of his enemy as the shadow that he himself casts.

If a nation is centered in the Tao,
if it nourishes its own people
and doesn't meddle in the affairs of others,
it will be a light to all nations in the world.

It’s a lovely translation, although very different in places from more literal ones. For example, James Legge’s translation of Verse 61, available online:

The Attribute of Humility.

1. What makes a great state is its being (like) a low-lying, down-flowing (stream);-- it becomes the centre to which tend (all the small states) under heaven.

2. (To illustrate from) the case of all females:-- the female always overcomes the male by her stillness. Stillness may be considered (a sort of) abasement.

3. Thus it is that a great state, by condescending to small states, gains them for itself; and that small states, by abasing themselves to a great state, win it over to them. In the one case the abasement leads to gaining adherents, in the other case to procuring favour.

4. The great state only wishes to unite men together and nourish them; a small state only wishes to be received by, and to serve, the other. Each gets what it desires, but the great state must learn to abase itself.

I would have thought that Mitchell’s reinterpretation of Verse 61 was a specific rebuke to the current administration, were it not that it was published in 1988.

Lewis Lapham said:

2006-10-16T09:16:00.000-04:00

Dissent is what rescues democracy from a quiet death behind closed doors.

Abraham Lincoln on Preventive War

2006-10-02T13:19:00.000-04:00

Another cross-posting From the Rachel:

Abraham Lincoln, a freshman Congressman, was quite aggressive in criticizing President Polk in 1848 for the initiation of the Mexican War. Back in Illinois, his law partner, William Herndon, wrote to express concern that he was going too far. Herndon argued that the president must be the “sole judge” of whether it is necessary to engage in a preventive attack. In a letter to Herndon dated 2/15/1848, Lincoln replied:

Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purposes, and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect after having given him so much as you propose. If to-day he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, “I see no probability of the British invading us”; but he will say to you, “Be silent; I see it, if you don’t.”

The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons: kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions, and they resolved to frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter and places our President where kings have always stood.

Further discussion of this may be found in Geoffrey R. Stone's Perilous Times.

Before the CAFE Standards

2006-08-18T22:02:00.000-04:00

I've been reading Joyce Chaplin's biography of Benjamin Franklin as scientist, The First Scientific American. The section on the Franklin stove is particularly interesting, as it turns out that Franklin's explanation of the design doubled as an opportunity to explain his theories on why heating air made it move. It was an elegant combination of the theoretical and the practical, and it made money too. (Well, not for Franklin. Although he didn't make it a general rule, he felt that it was improper to profit himself by his inventions.)

But what really caught my eye was his awareness of the impact of the growing American population on the forests. "As the Country is more clear'd and settled, [wood] will of course grow scarcer and dearer." An important advantage of the Franklin fireplace was that it consumed far less wood than ordinary fireplaces. Franklin noted that the alternative to striving for fuel efficiency was an expensive internal market for wood, or an expensive import traffic in coal from overseas. "We leave it to the Political Arithmetician to compute, how much Money will be sav'd to a Country, by its spending two thirds less of Fuel."

Franklin's pamphlet, Account of the New Invented Pennsylvanian Fire-Places, was published in 1744.

Searching for Democratic Roots

2006-08-15T18:47:00.000-04:00

Sean Wilentz's The Rise of American Democracy concentrates on that period in American history during which the recognizable framework of the modern American political system developed. This includes the formation of the first loyal opposition party (by Jefferson and Madison), the formation of the populist Democratic party (by Jackson), and the formation of the modern Republican party (leading to the election of Lincoln). It's a useful resource for 'radical' Democrats, in the sense of those who are searching for the roots of the party's political stances.

I was struck by the timelessness of this statement of principle made by Andrew Jackson as part of his 1832 message accompanying his veto of the rechartering of the Bank of the United States:

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes… Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society – the farmers, mechanics, and laborers – who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government.

A core mission of the Democratic party has always been to stand against the injustice of a Government that focuses on making "the rich richer and the potent more powerful."

Caution from a Conservative

2006-08-15T10:12:00.000-04:00

"One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results." - Milton Friedman

Echoes of the Past

2006-08-14T09:58:00.000-04:00

In the category of déjà vu all over again, we draw attention to the remarks of Daniel Webster, delivered in Congress in 1813, as the war began to turn sour.

Utterly astonished at the declaration of war, I have been surprised at nothing since. … Unless all history deceives me, I saw how it would be prosecuted when I saw how it was begun. There is in the nature of things and unchangeable relation between rash counsels and feeble execution.

(Annals of Congress, 13^th Congress, 2^nd session, pp. 943-944; as cited by Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy, p. 159)

<>Webster’s dissatisfaction arose in part from the realization that one of the major presumptions of the initial war effort – that the invasion of Canada would be assisted by a substantial number of anti-British Canadians, who would flock to support the American forces, greeting them as liberators – was mostly wishful thinking.

(cross-posted from From the Rachel)

A Historical Note

2006-08-12T21:32:00.000-04:00

Several states (e.g., California and New York) have recently begun initiatives to regulate carbon emissions, thereby taking the initiative against global warming that has not been taken up by the industry-beholden Congress. Those of us who grew up during the battles for civil rights do not normally associate state legislatures with progressive vision. Yet, in the early days of the republic...

In 1792, James Madison (“A Candid State of Parties”, National Gazette, Sept. 26, 1792) was worried about the fledgling Republican party. Why, if the Republicans truly represented the interests of the majority - "the mass of people in every part of the union, in every state, and of every occupation" - why didn’t they win every election? Indeed, why couldn't they get their voters to the polls to turn out the rascally Federalists? Turnout in national elections was only 1 in 4 eligible voters, significantly lower than in state or local elections.

John Taylor (A Definition of Parties; or, The Effects of the Paper System Considered, Philadelphia, 1794) blamed the special interests. With the setting up of Hamilton's Bank of the United States, government securities were available not only for commercial activity, but also for speculation. Those who benefited from paper-based schemes were, according to Taylor, exercising undue influence over the Congress, and (by propaganda and patronage) over the electorate.

It's no wonder they're so good at it; they've had 220 years of practice!

Taylor's manuscript was well circulated in Virginia, and impressed such worthies as Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe. They paid particular heed to his recommended solution, which was to encourage the state legislatures to take a more active role in running the country. Of course, that was in a time when state legislatures could exert more control, through the election of senators and the selection of presidential electors.

Nowadays, the linkage is different, but the approach remains sensible. Control of the state legislature means control of redistricting, strong local organization means strong turnout, and so on. Not all politics is local, but the kind we can really have a say in is.

A sidenote: This rumination is rooted in further reading in Sean Wilentz's The Rise of American Democracy. I really like this book.

"Marriage Protection Amendment"

2006-07-17T11:58:00.000-04:00

Hi - could you take a minute and look at the so-called "MarriageProtection Amendment" that will be on the ballot in Virginia thisNovember? The first line is sadly a blatant attempt to rewrite thewords of Thomas Jefferson to restrict rights and freedoms in America -certainly not what we are supposed to stand for:"That only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriagevalid in or recognized by this Commonwealth and its politicalsubdivisions."HOWEVER, it is the rest of the amendment that will affect the livesof all heterosexual Virginians, particularly the single, widowed andelderly."This Commonwealth and its political subdivisions shall not createor recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarriedindividuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities,significance or effects of marriage. Nor shall this Commonwealth andits political subdivisions create or recognize another union,partnership, or other legal status to which is assigned the rights,benefits, obligations, qualities or effects of marriage."Do you know elderly heterosexuals living with a member of theopposite sex but not married - in order to protect their pensions?This amendment will threaten the contracts they sign together forhouses and cars and worse, any medical directives they sign on behalfof one another. Their treatment will be just like gay partners whocannot speak on behalf of their companion in a medical crisis - theirwishes will go unmet at the hospital!Do you know elderly heterosexuals living with a one or group ofpeople of the same sex - as many older single, widowed and divorcedwomen are now doing? Well the same thing will happen to them...buyinga house together - speaking for the other person in a medical crisis -- all legally threatened by this amendment.This is no "Marriage Protection Amendment". It is a Big BrotherAmendment - designed by the radical right to punish anyone not livingthe way they deem appropriate. There are reports from states thatalready exacted such laws of heterosexual elderly couples losingtheir rights - don't let this happen in Virginia!Please vote no to the Amendment in November and pass this along to 10of your friends NOW! This is not a matter of "just" patriotism -protecting what America has always stood for until recently –freedom. You could be protecting their nest eggs AND saving theirlives in a medical emergency at some point in the future!Thanks,Joan__._,_.___

Wilentz on Democracy

2006-07-03T22:14:00.000-04:00

I’ve started going through Sean Wilentz’ history of the United States between 1800 and 1860, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln, and was struck by this paragraph in the preface:

Democracy appears when some large number of previously excluded, ordinary persons – what the eighteenth century called “the many” – secure the power not simply to select their governors but to oversee the institutions of government, as officeholders and as citizens free to assemble and criticize those in office. Democracy is never a gift bestowed by benevolent, farseeing rulers who seek to reinforce their own legitimacy. It must always be fought for, by political coalitions that cut across distinctions of wealth, power, and interest. It succeeds and survives only when it is rooted in the lives and expectations of its citizens, and continually reinvigorated in each generation. Democratic successes are never irreversible.

Coffee Houses and Salons

2006-05-24T15:32:00.000-04:00

I am listening to a Modern Scholar lecture on the Enlightenment which contains a background on the growth of coffee houses in salons. It seems like we are in some good company - with a long history houses flourished in Constantinople in the early 16th C. and spread across Europe - most flourished in the UK and Germany. Because they were places where private individuals came together regardless of class and the political discussions that arose from the coffee house's were "radical" Monarchists were not too happy with them. Soon people began to read papers and treatises and exchange vast ideas at these coffee houses! There was even a push to make clergymen come to them so that people could ask them questions which they could not do in churches.
Salons are French inventions - originally word means a room where one reposes or has dinners of signifying. They came to true power after the Revolution to replace the congregations at courts. When the Philisophes come into power in the 18th century salon no longer becomes a place just for repose and become the weekly gathering of intelligentsia - they were usually attended by upper class women - who needed an outlet from every day life. They evolved into a place for political discussion - usually of the nonconformist type - but were more affected and more for the upper classes...

Move on House Party Thursday

2006-05-23T14:07:00.000-04:00

Dear MoveOn member,
This Thursday evening, thousands of us are gathering in living rooms across the county to help pick the three big positive ideas that MoveOn will campaign for in 2006. There's a party near you: want to join us?
House parties are fun—you get a good group of folks from your neighborhood, refreshing conversation about the stuff we care about, and an easy way to make a difference while coming together.
But Thursday's parties are particularly important. We'll be helping to decide the three big picture goals for America that we most want to share with voters, and then make happen. It's an important decision, and we'd love for you to join us—and bring a friend!
You can find your local party and sign up to attend by clicking below:
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1818&search_zip=22201
There's currently 3 Positive Agenda house parties scheduled near you. Here are the details for the closest party:

Introduction to Bullshit

2006-05-22T19:35:00.000-04:00

At our next meeting, we will be talking about Harry Frankfurt's little black book, On Bullshit. As an introduction, here is a revision of some posts from my personal blog (From the Rachel).

Bullshit has been out for a little more than a year, with surprisingly little play in the blogs that I read, although Frankfort has been interviewed a lot on radio and TV. Of course, it is well known in philosophical circles already, because the book itself is actually a repackaging of an article that Frankfurt originally did as a contribution to a 1986 seminar series at Yale. He published it in The Raritan Review, and collected it with other essays in his 1988 book The Importance of What We Care About. Ian Malcolm, an editor at Princeton University Press, decided to republish it to bring it to a wider audience. Frankfurt talked about the origin of the essay with the New York Times on Feb. 14, 2005; Malcolm described the republication in a comment at Crooked Timber the following day.

Frankfurt’s definition of bullshit is precise:

[A] statement … grounded neither in a belief that it is true nor, as a lie must be, in a belief that it is not true. It is just this lack of connection to a concern with truth – this indifference to how things really are – that I regard as of the essence of bullshit.

and

This is the crux of the distinction between [the bullshitter] and the liar. Both he and the liar represent themselves falsely as endeavoring to communicate the truth. The success of each depends upon deceiving us about that. But the fact about himself that the liar hides is that he is attempting to lead us away from a correct apprehension of reality; we are not to know that he wants us to believe something he supposes to be false. The fact about himself that the bullshitter hides, on the other hand, is that the truth-values of his statements are of no central interest to him; what we are not to understand is that his intention is neither to report the truth nor to conceal it. This does not mean that his speech is anarchically impulsive, but that the motive guiding and controlling it is unconcerned with how the things about which he speaks truly are.

Indeed, much of the book is devoted to traditional philosophical analysis leading to that definition, arrived at by worrying about common definitions, usage, and historical examples.

For the politically minded, Frankfurt’s assessment of the dangers of bullshit is chillingly prescient:

Both in lying and in telling the truth people are guided by their beliefs concerning the way things are. These guide them as they endeavor either to describe the world correctly or to describe it deceitfully. For this reason, telling lies does not tend to unfit a person for telling the truth in the same way that bullshitting tends to. Through excessive indulgence in the latter activity, which involves making assertions without paying attention to anything except what it suits one to say, a person’s normal habit of attending to the ways things are may become attenuated or lost.

and

[The bullshitter] does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.

Why is there so much bullshit? Could be politics; could be 24-hour news networks; could be talk shows (radio or TV); could be blogs.

Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about. Thus the production of bullshit is stimulated whenever a person’s obligations or opportunities to speak about some topic exceed his knowledge of the facts that are relevant to that topic. This discrepancy is common in public life, where people are frequently impelled – whether by their own propensities or by the demands of others – to speak extensively about matters of which they are to some degree ignorant. Closely related instances arise from the widespread conviction that it is the responsibility of a citizen in a democracy to have opinions about everything, or at least everything that pertains to the conduct of his country’s affairs. The lack of any significant connection between a person’s opinions and his apprehension of reality will be even more severe, needless to say, for someone who believes it his responsibility, as a conscientious moral agent, to evaluate events and conditions in all parts of the world.

As I said, when you remember that this essay was written in 1986, its prediction of the degraded standards of modern public life is depressingly perfect – although he attributes it to a loss of confidence in notions of objectivity.

One response to this loss of confidence has been a retreat from the discipline required by dedication to the ideal of correctness to a quite different sort of discipline, which is imposed by pursuit of an alternative ideal of sincerity. Rather than seeking primarily to arrive at accurate representations of a common world, the individual turns toward trying to provide honest representations of himself. Convinced that reality has no inherent nature, which he might hope to identify as the truth about things, he devotes himself to being true to his own nature. It is as though he decides that since it makes no sense to try to be true to the facts, he must therefore try instead to be true to himself.

This concept is not new. For example, in the Preface to Cantos VI-VIII of Don Juan, Byron inserted a quote from Voltaire that my Penguin edition translates as:

The more depraved our conduct it, the more guarded words become; we believe we can regain with words what we have lost in character.

Byron, of course, was defending his poem against charges of blasphemy. But Frankfurt says that, whenever we attempt to defend our character, or even define it, we are driven inevitably to bullshit.

As conscious beings, we exist only in response to other things, and we cannot know ourselves at all without knowing them. Moreover, there is nothing in theory, and certainly nothing in experience, to support the extraordinary judgment that it is the truth about himself that is the easiest for a person to know. Facts about ourselves are not peculiarly solid and resistant to skeptical dissolution. Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial – notoriously less stable and less inherent than the natures of other things. And insofar as this is the case, sincerity itself is bullshit.

Welcome

2006-05-21T13:32:00.000-04:00

The 16th Street Forum is an informal gathering to enjoy ideas, politics, and food. This blog is intended to provide focus to some of our discussions, preserve some of our opinions, and share some of our ideas and suggestions with the greater world. We welcome comments from all readers.