Though I realize I'm a little late in doing so, I wanted to make a brief comment on some of the rhetoric that came out of the rampage by Army major Dr. Hasan in Ft. Hood some time back. Some conservative commentators complained that there was too much psychoanalysis of Hasan's motives going on, as they felt this amounted to excusing what he did. Of course there is no excusing what he did, and if anyone was really doing so, they were wrong. However, this does not mean there was anything wrong with examining the factors which motivated him, including stress and perceived discrimination. When something like this happens, it is obviously necessary to understand it as thoroughly as possible, as only by doing so can we reduce the chance of similar incidents occurring in the future, even if only by a slight amount.
I have to say I didn't bother to read every article published on this story, or indeed more than a few, as I find the media's tendency to obsessively dwell on this sort of thing to be annoying. But I did note that several articles quoted Hasan as telling others that he was a Muslim first and an American second. This was cited as evidence that he was "unpatriotic", even as something that that should have tipped authorities to the fact that he might do something like what he did. Right-wingers apparently focused on it, judging from one of the subtitles at the bottom of the screen from the Sean Hannity show featured in this hilarious Daily Show clip (http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-november-12-2009/sean-hannity-apologizes-to-jon), which claim Hasan "taunted" classmates by saying he was a Muslim first. Now, first of all, I'm not big on the whole "patriotism" concept (a topic which deserves a separate essay), but even for many of those who think of themselves as very patriotic, what Hasan supposedly said should not really be such a big deal. Most conservatives in the US, for instance, consider themselves devout Christians. Are they going to say that they put a higher priority on being patriotic toward the US than on God and Jesus? Are they Americans first and Christians second? If they are being as true to their faith as most of them claim to be, then they should be Christians first and Americans second. So this supposed statement by Hasan should hardly be regarded as shocking coming from a truly religious person.
Then there is the efforts to label this a "terrorist" attack. Joe Lieberman is one who used the term, and as can be seen from the above clip, convicted felon Oliver North is another, with some prompting from Hannity, who obviously concurs. But as this blog (http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/24894) so accurately points out, these people seem confused about the definition of terrorism. Terrorism involves attacking civilian populations in order to terrorize them with a political goal in mind, usually getting the population to in turn pressure their government to change or abandon certain policies or efforts. Until it is shown that Hasan went on a rampage with some specific political goal in mind, such as getting the US to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, then his actions, while still murderous and reprehensible, can't be called terrorism. Even if he personally wanted the US to pull out of those countries, his attack can't be said to have made specifically with that goal in mind unless he made a statement to that effect before or during the assault (you can't terrorize people into doing something if you don't tell them what you want them to do).
It seems that in fact these people who call Hasan a "terrorist" are in fact equating "terrorism" with "violent, radical Islam". In other words, a radical Islamist is a terrorist, and terrorists are all radical Islamists. This is of course absurd, as there have been and are many non-Muslim terrorists, including the IRA and their Unionist enemies in northern Ireland, the Zionists who bombed that Jerusalem hotel to force the British out of Palestine in the post WWII period, the fundamentalist Christians that murder doctors who perform abortions, and arguably the Allied leaders who approved the firebombing of Dresden in WWII, just to name a few. So while there is no excuse whatever for Hasan's actions, the rhetoric of the right wing regarding them shows once again how completely irrational they can be.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Bangkok trip
It's been some time since I managed to post anything, one reason (along with preoccupation with other matters, sheer laziness, etc.) being that I was away last weekend. My wife had a meeting to attend in Bangkok, and I decided to go along. What's more, we took our daughter, who thereby had a number of firsts, including her first international trip (for that matter, her first trip out of the Taipei area) and her first airplane ride. It was a pretty short trip, probably the shortest of my many trips to Thailand, as we went on Friday and came back the following Tuesday. Not surprisingly, we didn't do much sightseeing (in fact we didn't do any, at least in the sense of going to specific tourist sights), though that wasn't a big deal, as most of the major sights of Bangkok we've seen at least once and in some cases multiple times.
The meetings my wife was attending went on all day Saturday and Sunday, and I stayed in the area of the hotel they were being held in -- the same one we were staying at -- so she could nurse the baby during their breaks. My furthest venture was to a used bookstore about 20 minutes walk away, a little way past Soi 26 on Thanon Sukhumvit (the hotel was on Soi 20). I took the baby in her stroller, which was complicated by the fact that at most intersections with sois (a soi is a lane or alley off a larger road) or driveways there was no ramp down from the sidewalk to the street, so if the curb was high, as it usually was, I had to pick up the stroller to haul it down and sometimes back up again (though when going back up it was usually possible to just push down on the back to lift the front wheels onto the curb). Also, I had to try to make sure the baby didn't get too much sun (not that a little sun is bad for anyone, but at her age she would certainly burn easily). Nevertheless, a trip of this distance proved manageable, though unfortunately, despite having a good selection, this time the bookstore only had one of the books I was looking for (on our last trip I was able to find several I was searching for there).
Much of the rest of the time we were in the hotel or at most in the soi outside. Fortunately the meeting was being held on a floor just two below the one we were staying on (though annoyingly the stairs were for emergency use only, so we had to use the elevator), and that floor (the 14th) also had the hotel's pool, which was outside on the roof of a shorter wing of the hotel. Though we didn't get to go swimming, it was nice to be able to sit outside while we were waiting for the next rest break in the meeting or while the baby was nursing. The baby was not surprisingly something of hit among many attendees of the meeting, who incidentally were human rights defenders from a wide variety of places, including Thailand, the Philippines, South Korea, various South Asian countries and Mongolia.
On the last day the three of us first moved to a cheaper hotel across the soi from the one the meeting was held in (our stay in the latter was partly subsidized only through Sunday, the night following the meeting, so we decided to save some money by switching to a cheaper place). After that we took the Skytrain (the elevated rail line -- incidentally saturated with annoying advertisements; the underground subway called the MRT is much better in this regard, though it didn't go where we were headed in this case) to the shopping district of central Bangkok. We went to the chaotic but relatively cheap MBK shopping center before heading over to the Siam Center/Discovery Center/Siam Paragon shopping complex. Though unsurprisingly I didn't find many of the Thai CDs I was looking, most being either obscure, very old, out of print, or some combination of the three, I did manage to get a few things, and my wife also found a few interesting things. For dinner we met a woman I knew from previous trips who works at Thailand's largest record company GMM Grammy as a sort of assistant to the boss. The place she chose was a pretty good Italian restaurant (she suggested it after I said I'd like to have Italian food) not far from the GMM Grammy building, and fortunately also not far from our hotel (in the other direction), which meant we could walk back.
The other two days of the trip were pretty much taken up by our flights there and back, which fortunately the baby handled fairly well, with only a little fussing. We can only hope her next international trip goes at least nearly as well.
The meetings my wife was attending went on all day Saturday and Sunday, and I stayed in the area of the hotel they were being held in -- the same one we were staying at -- so she could nurse the baby during their breaks. My furthest venture was to a used bookstore about 20 minutes walk away, a little way past Soi 26 on Thanon Sukhumvit (the hotel was on Soi 20). I took the baby in her stroller, which was complicated by the fact that at most intersections with sois (a soi is a lane or alley off a larger road) or driveways there was no ramp down from the sidewalk to the street, so if the curb was high, as it usually was, I had to pick up the stroller to haul it down and sometimes back up again (though when going back up it was usually possible to just push down on the back to lift the front wheels onto the curb). Also, I had to try to make sure the baby didn't get too much sun (not that a little sun is bad for anyone, but at her age she would certainly burn easily). Nevertheless, a trip of this distance proved manageable, though unfortunately, despite having a good selection, this time the bookstore only had one of the books I was looking for (on our last trip I was able to find several I was searching for there).
Much of the rest of the time we were in the hotel or at most in the soi outside. Fortunately the meeting was being held on a floor just two below the one we were staying on (though annoyingly the stairs were for emergency use only, so we had to use the elevator), and that floor (the 14th) also had the hotel's pool, which was outside on the roof of a shorter wing of the hotel. Though we didn't get to go swimming, it was nice to be able to sit outside while we were waiting for the next rest break in the meeting or while the baby was nursing. The baby was not surprisingly something of hit among many attendees of the meeting, who incidentally were human rights defenders from a wide variety of places, including Thailand, the Philippines, South Korea, various South Asian countries and Mongolia.
On the last day the three of us first moved to a cheaper hotel across the soi from the one the meeting was held in (our stay in the latter was partly subsidized only through Sunday, the night following the meeting, so we decided to save some money by switching to a cheaper place). After that we took the Skytrain (the elevated rail line -- incidentally saturated with annoying advertisements; the underground subway called the MRT is much better in this regard, though it didn't go where we were headed in this case) to the shopping district of central Bangkok. We went to the chaotic but relatively cheap MBK shopping center before heading over to the Siam Center/Discovery Center/Siam Paragon shopping complex. Though unsurprisingly I didn't find many of the Thai CDs I was looking, most being either obscure, very old, out of print, or some combination of the three, I did manage to get a few things, and my wife also found a few interesting things. For dinner we met a woman I knew from previous trips who works at Thailand's largest record company GMM Grammy as a sort of assistant to the boss. The place she chose was a pretty good Italian restaurant (she suggested it after I said I'd like to have Italian food) not far from the GMM Grammy building, and fortunately also not far from our hotel (in the other direction), which meant we could walk back.
The other two days of the trip were pretty much taken up by our flights there and back, which fortunately the baby handled fairly well, with only a little fussing. We can only hope her next international trip goes at least nearly as well.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
"Protecting" Marriage and Other Nonsense
Maine's recent vote overturning the state's same sex marriage law has brought this issue back to the forefront of national debate, at least temporarily. Every time I see a vote like this, I have to wonder, do all these people who voted to deny marriage rights to same sex couples have such warped moral compasses, or are they simply unable to reason clearly?
The most common argument cited by opponents of same sex marriage is that they want to "protect" traditional marriage. The question they are never able to answer logically is exactly how allowing same sex marriage will harm heterosexual marriages. One argument, if we can call it that, is that allowing different types of marriage will denigrate the "value" of traditional marriage. The argument is so vague as to be completely meaningless. How do you define the "value" of marriage in the first place? The chief value it has is the formalization of a strong family bond between two individuals, such that they can share their lives and fortunes and potentially raise children together. How would allowing people of the same sex to formalize such a bond, one which will arise between them whether or not it is officially recognized by society, hurt the bonds that heterosexual couples form? Surely the argument is not simply that if too many people are married, marriage is no longer special? If that's the case we might as well make obtaining a marriage license a long and difficult process, perhaps with probationary periods beforehand, for any kind of couple (the same would apply for the odd argument that because married couples get certain benefits from society, allowing same sex marriage would be costly to society and therefore shouldn't be allowed). But somehow I don't get the idea that these defenders of "traditional" marriage want in any way to discourage heterosexual couples from getting married or to reduce the total number of marriages. No, they simply don't want to allow homosexual couples to marry.
So what arguments do these opponents of same sex marriage put forth against it, other than out-and-out homophobia? None that are at logical, and many that are just homophobia thinly disguised. One I've heard is that homosexual marriages can't produce children. This is true, in the sense that two people of the same sex can't have a child together in the genetic sense (though it may someday be possible for lesbian couples through genetic engineering). But what of that? Many heterosexual couples can't or don't have children together either, and we don't require them to do so or invalidate their marriages because of their childlessness (the latter used to occur fairly frequently, especially among royalty, but I don't think many people would advocate making a law along such lines). What's more, homosexual couples, like childless heterosexual couples, can and do adopt children or use surrogates, and given the number of children in need of a home around the world, the more couples there are to adopt the better.
But this brings up one of the more homophobic (as well as ignorant) arguments some use against same sex marriage, namely that children raised by homosexual couples will be somehow unnatural. There is a similar argument that allowing homosexual marriage in the society will result in it being "taught in schools". The idea of it being "taught in schools" is a bit bizarre in the first place; what do they think, teachers are suddenly going to start telling children they should marry people of the same sex? At most, schools might use materials that present same sex marriage as being normal. This is what many opponents actually object to, as they don't regard same sex relationships as normal, so they don't want to see toleration of them taught or even passively encouraged. If that's not homophobia, what is it?
Furthermore, some opponents of same sex marriage seem to believe that presenting same sex relationships as normal will somehow cause more children to "become" homosexual (a similar argument is applied to children raised by same sex couples). This argument is simply ignorant, as overwhelming evidence indicates that sexual orientation is primarily a matter of nature, not nurture, so that the percentage of people who are naturally inclined to homosexuality does not vary significantly whether the society is tolerant of homosexuality or not. The only thing that varies is whether those who are by nature homosexual are open about it. In an extremely conservative society, very few if any people will be openly homosexual but there will be just as many homosexuals; they will simply hide their sexual orientation. Conversely, even in a society that treats homosexual relations as completely equal to heterosexual ones, the vast majority of people will still be heterosexual. At most, you may see an increase in open bisexuality, but this is not harmful either, as most people will still settle into a relationship based on their primary orientation, whatever that may be.
Some decry the possibility of more "experimentation" with different orientations among adolescents, but, as stated above, in the end people who are basically heterosexual (again, the vast majority) will end up in heterosexual relationships no matter what they do when they are young, and the converse is true of those who are naturally homosexual. In fact, studies indicate that quite a bit of experimentation goes on among adolescents already. I myself have heard of quite a few examples anecdotally, mostly from women (thought that might be a problem with my sample...). On the other hand, many young people will not experiment with different orientations no matter how widely accepted it becomes. Speaking for myself, I never had the least bit interest in men or boys at any time in my life, and even if I had been living in a society that was very tolerant of homosexuality (rather than the extremely homophobic one I did grow up in), I doubt I would have been inclined to experiment even a little with it. But I wouldn't be surprised to learn that many of my friends and classmates did so, nor do I think it would have harmed them. And while, due in part to the homophobic society I grew up in, I'll admit that even now I sometimes feel slightly uncomfortable around gay couples (not, however, around lesbian couples, for some reason...), I recognize that this is my problem, not theirs, and in time I hope and expect to overcome it. Unfortunately, many other people don't even recognize their own homophobia, even when it is much more severe than my own.
In the end, the opposition to same sex marriage is no different from the opposition to marriages between people of different races or "miscegenation", as they used to call it. All of the so-called arguments against same sex marriage could be (and in many cases were) applied against mixed-race marriages. What's more, recalling the legalization of mixed-race marriages (for those who don't know, only a few decades ago mixed race marriage was actually illegal in many places, unbelievable though that may sound) is just one of many analogies that help illustrate why the argument that in this debate the "will of the people" should prevail is ludicrous. If people in states like Mississippi, Alabama, or even Texas had been able to vote on state constitutional amendments outlawing mixed-race marriage or for that matter desegregated schools, they certainly would have done so. It took the courts to force the overturning of these discriminatory laws (in the case of mixed-race marriage, it was a 1967 decision by the US Supreme Court). In doing so, the courts were fulfilling one of their major functions, protecting the rights of the minority against the tyranny of the majority. Similarly, in the current fight over same sex marriage, it has been primarily the courts that have been responsible for establishing equal rights for same sex couples, often in the face of public opposition, just as desegregation was a result of court rulings which were openly opposed by most people in the South. The idea that the electorate should be allowed to vote for inequality in the same sex marriage debate makes no more sense then allowing them to vote to uphold same segregation or anti-miscegenation laws would have been. Discrimination of this sort is wrong, no matter how many people support it. We can only hope that more and more judges will do the right thing and rule against these discriminatory resolutions, and that after same sex marriage has been legal for enough time, the public at large will come to see that it is not in the least harmful to the society, and there are no grounds for their fears and prejudices.
The most common argument cited by opponents of same sex marriage is that they want to "protect" traditional marriage. The question they are never able to answer logically is exactly how allowing same sex marriage will harm heterosexual marriages. One argument, if we can call it that, is that allowing different types of marriage will denigrate the "value" of traditional marriage. The argument is so vague as to be completely meaningless. How do you define the "value" of marriage in the first place? The chief value it has is the formalization of a strong family bond between two individuals, such that they can share their lives and fortunes and potentially raise children together. How would allowing people of the same sex to formalize such a bond, one which will arise between them whether or not it is officially recognized by society, hurt the bonds that heterosexual couples form? Surely the argument is not simply that if too many people are married, marriage is no longer special? If that's the case we might as well make obtaining a marriage license a long and difficult process, perhaps with probationary periods beforehand, for any kind of couple (the same would apply for the odd argument that because married couples get certain benefits from society, allowing same sex marriage would be costly to society and therefore shouldn't be allowed). But somehow I don't get the idea that these defenders of "traditional" marriage want in any way to discourage heterosexual couples from getting married or to reduce the total number of marriages. No, they simply don't want to allow homosexual couples to marry.
So what arguments do these opponents of same sex marriage put forth against it, other than out-and-out homophobia? None that are at logical, and many that are just homophobia thinly disguised. One I've heard is that homosexual marriages can't produce children. This is true, in the sense that two people of the same sex can't have a child together in the genetic sense (though it may someday be possible for lesbian couples through genetic engineering). But what of that? Many heterosexual couples can't or don't have children together either, and we don't require them to do so or invalidate their marriages because of their childlessness (the latter used to occur fairly frequently, especially among royalty, but I don't think many people would advocate making a law along such lines). What's more, homosexual couples, like childless heterosexual couples, can and do adopt children or use surrogates, and given the number of children in need of a home around the world, the more couples there are to adopt the better.
But this brings up one of the more homophobic (as well as ignorant) arguments some use against same sex marriage, namely that children raised by homosexual couples will be somehow unnatural. There is a similar argument that allowing homosexual marriage in the society will result in it being "taught in schools". The idea of it being "taught in schools" is a bit bizarre in the first place; what do they think, teachers are suddenly going to start telling children they should marry people of the same sex? At most, schools might use materials that present same sex marriage as being normal. This is what many opponents actually object to, as they don't regard same sex relationships as normal, so they don't want to see toleration of them taught or even passively encouraged. If that's not homophobia, what is it?
Furthermore, some opponents of same sex marriage seem to believe that presenting same sex relationships as normal will somehow cause more children to "become" homosexual (a similar argument is applied to children raised by same sex couples). This argument is simply ignorant, as overwhelming evidence indicates that sexual orientation is primarily a matter of nature, not nurture, so that the percentage of people who are naturally inclined to homosexuality does not vary significantly whether the society is tolerant of homosexuality or not. The only thing that varies is whether those who are by nature homosexual are open about it. In an extremely conservative society, very few if any people will be openly homosexual but there will be just as many homosexuals; they will simply hide their sexual orientation. Conversely, even in a society that treats homosexual relations as completely equal to heterosexual ones, the vast majority of people will still be heterosexual. At most, you may see an increase in open bisexuality, but this is not harmful either, as most people will still settle into a relationship based on their primary orientation, whatever that may be.
Some decry the possibility of more "experimentation" with different orientations among adolescents, but, as stated above, in the end people who are basically heterosexual (again, the vast majority) will end up in heterosexual relationships no matter what they do when they are young, and the converse is true of those who are naturally homosexual. In fact, studies indicate that quite a bit of experimentation goes on among adolescents already. I myself have heard of quite a few examples anecdotally, mostly from women (thought that might be a problem with my sample...). On the other hand, many young people will not experiment with different orientations no matter how widely accepted it becomes. Speaking for myself, I never had the least bit interest in men or boys at any time in my life, and even if I had been living in a society that was very tolerant of homosexuality (rather than the extremely homophobic one I did grow up in), I doubt I would have been inclined to experiment even a little with it. But I wouldn't be surprised to learn that many of my friends and classmates did so, nor do I think it would have harmed them. And while, due in part to the homophobic society I grew up in, I'll admit that even now I sometimes feel slightly uncomfortable around gay couples (not, however, around lesbian couples, for some reason...), I recognize that this is my problem, not theirs, and in time I hope and expect to overcome it. Unfortunately, many other people don't even recognize their own homophobia, even when it is much more severe than my own.
In the end, the opposition to same sex marriage is no different from the opposition to marriages between people of different races or "miscegenation", as they used to call it. All of the so-called arguments against same sex marriage could be (and in many cases were) applied against mixed-race marriages. What's more, recalling the legalization of mixed-race marriages (for those who don't know, only a few decades ago mixed race marriage was actually illegal in many places, unbelievable though that may sound) is just one of many analogies that help illustrate why the argument that in this debate the "will of the people" should prevail is ludicrous. If people in states like Mississippi, Alabama, or even Texas had been able to vote on state constitutional amendments outlawing mixed-race marriage or for that matter desegregated schools, they certainly would have done so. It took the courts to force the overturning of these discriminatory laws (in the case of mixed-race marriage, it was a 1967 decision by the US Supreme Court). In doing so, the courts were fulfilling one of their major functions, protecting the rights of the minority against the tyranny of the majority. Similarly, in the current fight over same sex marriage, it has been primarily the courts that have been responsible for establishing equal rights for same sex couples, often in the face of public opposition, just as desegregation was a result of court rulings which were openly opposed by most people in the South. The idea that the electorate should be allowed to vote for inequality in the same sex marriage debate makes no more sense then allowing them to vote to uphold same segregation or anti-miscegenation laws would have been. Discrimination of this sort is wrong, no matter how many people support it. We can only hope that more and more judges will do the right thing and rule against these discriminatory resolutions, and that after same sex marriage has been legal for enough time, the public at large will come to see that it is not in the least harmful to the society, and there are no grounds for their fears and prejudices.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
A Music Historian's Dilemma
Today I had an interesting chat with someone about popular music history research. One of the things we discussed was the problem of inaccurate information spreading when the first people to publish books on particular topics are careless in their research and everyone else copies them. Another problem we talked about is the danger of having other people use you by having you provide them with information and then publishing it without giving you credit. Both of these problems are things I've given a fair amount of thought to, though there is no simple solution to either.
If you are forced to rely on available information and that information is limited, you always run the danger of copying someone else's error. Ideally, of course, you would find some way to double check the information you obtain, but this is not always possible. For instance, while I try to check the release dates of songs and records against the original records and/or contemporary newspaper or magazine articles, sometimes this is not possible, so I'm forced to rely on something someone else has written. If you have reason to question the reliability of your source, all you can do is make clear that you are repeating what someone else has written, i.e., that any inaccuracies can be traced to them.
Conversely, when you yourself are the first to publish a definitive account of something, you have a particular responsibility to get your facts straight, as others are likely to rely on you for information. This is one reason I always feel I need to do more work before I can feel reasonably certain that what I'm writing is accurate.
As for the danger of being used, the obvious solution is to avoid giving your information to anyone else. But since sooner or later you may want information from others, you have to be willing to provide some in return. Also, ultimately the point of collecting all this information is to share it with others, so it's not like you can horde it like a miser forever. So I am usually willing to share a little information with others (but not all of my information at once), and ideally I will eventually make all of it available, though in a way that will ensure that I get credit for gathering it in the first place (and at least a little profit, if there is any to be made). But to do the latter, the first problem still has to be solved -- i.e., I want to make sure my information is as accurate as possible. This then creates a danger that others may use bits of information that I have given them or made public before I have a chance to formally publish them myself. So it seems that what I really need to do is finish my research and publish something as soon as possible.... We'll see if I can manage that.
If you are forced to rely on available information and that information is limited, you always run the danger of copying someone else's error. Ideally, of course, you would find some way to double check the information you obtain, but this is not always possible. For instance, while I try to check the release dates of songs and records against the original records and/or contemporary newspaper or magazine articles, sometimes this is not possible, so I'm forced to rely on something someone else has written. If you have reason to question the reliability of your source, all you can do is make clear that you are repeating what someone else has written, i.e., that any inaccuracies can be traced to them.
Conversely, when you yourself are the first to publish a definitive account of something, you have a particular responsibility to get your facts straight, as others are likely to rely on you for information. This is one reason I always feel I need to do more work before I can feel reasonably certain that what I'm writing is accurate.
As for the danger of being used, the obvious solution is to avoid giving your information to anyone else. But since sooner or later you may want information from others, you have to be willing to provide some in return. Also, ultimately the point of collecting all this information is to share it with others, so it's not like you can horde it like a miser forever. So I am usually willing to share a little information with others (but not all of my information at once), and ideally I will eventually make all of it available, though in a way that will ensure that I get credit for gathering it in the first place (and at least a little profit, if there is any to be made). But to do the latter, the first problem still has to be solved -- i.e., I want to make sure my information is as accurate as possible. This then creates a danger that others may use bits of information that I have given them or made public before I have a chance to formally publish them myself. So it seems that what I really need to do is finish my research and publish something as soon as possible.... We'll see if I can manage that.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Some articles on logic and beliefs
I should probably take time to write a new essay discussing at least some of the events of recent days, such as the Nobel committee's interesting selection of Barack Obama as recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. (In brief, I think it was a bit premature, and there were other candidates at least as worthy, but on the other hand it's true that he has had a major impact on the global climate just by changing many people's perception of America. What remains to be seen is whether he can really live up to such high expectations.) However, I'm feeling a bit lazy, so instead I'm just providing a few links to some old articles on a topic I find fascinating, namely people's ability (or inability) to think logically, and the resaons people believe what they believe. Many years back I started an essay of my own along similar lines, but I never finished it. One day I'll get back to it, but in the meantime here are the articles:
Health Care Debate Based on Lack of Logic
By Jeanna Bryner Senior Writer
LiveScience.com
http://www.livescience.com/culture/090826-healthcare-debate.html
People Unsure of Beliefs Are More Close-Minded
By Jeanna Bryner, Senior Writer
01 July 2009 11:38 am ET
http://www.livescience.com/culture/090701-close-minded-people.html
Monsters, Ghosts and Gods: Why We Believe
By Robert Roy Britt, LiveScience Managing Editor
18 August 2008 11:00 am ET
http://www.livescience.com/culture/080818-monsters-ghosts-gods.html
Health Care Debate Based on Lack of Logic
By Jeanna Bryner Senior Writer
LiveScience.com
http://www.livescience.com/culture/090826-healthcare-debate.html
People Unsure of Beliefs Are More Close-Minded
By Jeanna Bryner, Senior Writer
01 July 2009 11:38 am ET
http://www.livescience.com/culture/090701-close-minded-people.html
Monsters, Ghosts and Gods: Why We Believe
By Robert Roy Britt, LiveScience Managing Editor
18 August 2008 11:00 am ET
http://www.livescience.com/culture/080818-monsters-ghosts-gods.html
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
A Dialogue
Since it's been a few weeks since I posted anything and I don't have anything new written, here's an odd little dialogue that I wrote a couple of years back. It was unfinished so I added a few more lines. I was tempted to leave it open-ended or to extended it even further, but in the end I decided to give it a real closing, for better or for worse.
"If you really want to do it, then, fine, we'll do it."
"Look, if you aren't really willing...."
"I just said I was."
"You don't sound very willing."
"What do you mean? I said, okay, let's do it."
"But the way you put it...."
"'Okay' means 'okay.'"
"You said that if I really want to, then you'd go along. That sounds kind of reluctant to me."
"You said you really wanted to."
"I do, but I want you to want to, too."
"'To to too?' You lost me."
"I just mean that if you're only doing it because I want to, then it's not like you really want to."
"It was your idea."
"But the point is you don't seem very enthusiastic about it."
"What do you want me to do, jump up and down?"
"Of course not. It's just that...."
"Anyway, just because you really want to do it doesn't mean you have the right to expect me to want to do it as much as you do."
"It'd be nice if you wanted it at least a little."
"I said I'd do it."
"But that doesn't mean you want to do it; it sounds like you're only doing it to make me happy."
"Trust me, if I really didn't want to do it, I wouldn't."
"Not not wanting to do it isn't the same as wanting to do it."
"'Not not wanting?'"
"You know what I mean."
"Not really."
"Don't be obtuse."
"I'm not being obtuse, I really don't know what you're talking about."
"Look, you said you were willing...."
"Right, so what more do you want?"
"But you don't really want to."
"Like you just said yourself, I said I was willing."
"But willing doesn't mean you want to."
"What else could it mean?"
"It only means that you don't absolutely refuse. It's reluctant acquiescence."
"Did I say I was reluctant?"
"You sounded reluctant."
"In what way?"
"You just did."
"So you think you know what I'm thinking just from the way I say things?"
"Sure, I can tell."
"Well, if you can read my mind, then why bother ask me what I think in the first place?"
"I didn't say I could read your mind, I said I could guess."
"You said you could tell. That doesn't mean you guess, that means you know."
"Now you're nitpicking. Fine, I can't read your mind. So tell me, do you really want to do it or not?"
"I told you a hundred times, if you really want to do it, then fine by me."
"Arrgh, here we go again. Look, I don't want to feel like I'm forcing you to do it."
"You aren't forcing me. I wouldn't let you force me."
"But you wouldn't even do it if I didn't want to do it."
"Of course not. Why should we do it if you don't want to?"
"That's my point too. Maybe we shouldn't do it if you don't want to."
"I never said I didn't want to."
"But you never said you wanted to, either."
"Look, maybe I don't want to do it as badly as you do. Is that what you want me to say?"
"Then maybe we shouldn't do it at all."
"I know you really want to do it. So if we don't, you're going to act all moody."
"No, I won't."
"Yes, you will. You're acting that way already."
"I am not. If you don't want to do it, I can live with that."
"Ha! So you say now, but you'll mope about it forever. Anyway, I didn't say I didn't want to."
"You're sure acting like you don't."
"Oh for crying out loud, just set up the chess board and let's play."
"If you really want to do it, then, fine, we'll do it."
"Look, if you aren't really willing...."
"I just said I was."
"You don't sound very willing."
"What do you mean? I said, okay, let's do it."
"But the way you put it...."
"'Okay' means 'okay.'"
"You said that if I really want to, then you'd go along. That sounds kind of reluctant to me."
"You said you really wanted to."
"I do, but I want you to want to, too."
"'To to too?' You lost me."
"I just mean that if you're only doing it because I want to, then it's not like you really want to."
"It was your idea."
"But the point is you don't seem very enthusiastic about it."
"What do you want me to do, jump up and down?"
"Of course not. It's just that...."
"Anyway, just because you really want to do it doesn't mean you have the right to expect me to want to do it as much as you do."
"It'd be nice if you wanted it at least a little."
"I said I'd do it."
"But that doesn't mean you want to do it; it sounds like you're only doing it to make me happy."
"Trust me, if I really didn't want to do it, I wouldn't."
"Not not wanting to do it isn't the same as wanting to do it."
"'Not not wanting?'"
"You know what I mean."
"Not really."
"Don't be obtuse."
"I'm not being obtuse, I really don't know what you're talking about."
"Look, you said you were willing...."
"Right, so what more do you want?"
"But you don't really want to."
"Like you just said yourself, I said I was willing."
"But willing doesn't mean you want to."
"What else could it mean?"
"It only means that you don't absolutely refuse. It's reluctant acquiescence."
"Did I say I was reluctant?"
"You sounded reluctant."
"In what way?"
"You just did."
"So you think you know what I'm thinking just from the way I say things?"
"Sure, I can tell."
"Well, if you can read my mind, then why bother ask me what I think in the first place?"
"I didn't say I could read your mind, I said I could guess."
"You said you could tell. That doesn't mean you guess, that means you know."
"Now you're nitpicking. Fine, I can't read your mind. So tell me, do you really want to do it or not?"
"I told you a hundred times, if you really want to do it, then fine by me."
"Arrgh, here we go again. Look, I don't want to feel like I'm forcing you to do it."
"You aren't forcing me. I wouldn't let you force me."
"But you wouldn't even do it if I didn't want to do it."
"Of course not. Why should we do it if you don't want to?"
"That's my point too. Maybe we shouldn't do it if you don't want to."
"I never said I didn't want to."
"But you never said you wanted to, either."
"Look, maybe I don't want to do it as badly as you do. Is that what you want me to say?"
"Then maybe we shouldn't do it at all."
"I know you really want to do it. So if we don't, you're going to act all moody."
"No, I won't."
"Yes, you will. You're acting that way already."
"I am not. If you don't want to do it, I can live with that."
"Ha! So you say now, but you'll mope about it forever. Anyway, I didn't say I didn't want to."
"You're sure acting like you don't."
"Oh for crying out loud, just set up the chess board and let's play."
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Reputation and Reality
Anyone who reads a lot of history, as I do, will frequently encounter assessments of historical figures, both in terms of their deeds and their characters. Historians will provide opinions as to whether a particular political or military leader was "good" in the sense that they fulfilled their role successfully, and whether they were "good" as far as their character was concerned, that is, whether they were humane and just or cruel and arbitrary. Even those who do not read much history will encounter such judgements regarding the reputation of historical figures; indeed many people will make such judgements themselves -- or more likely they will regurgitate judgements that they have learned from others. But, as should be obvious to anyone who spends a few moments' thought on the issue, historical reputations are usually based on a very narrow and often misleading set of facts, and are indeed often somewhat divorced from reality. The unreliability of many opinions regarding the reputations of historical figures is made clear by the fact that different sources can reach diametrically opposed conclusions about the same person. This can even be seen when the person in question is someone who is only recently dead, such as Ronald Reagan or (to take a pop culture example) Michael Jackson. Even cases where there seems to be a relative consensus among most sources, such as the Roman emperor Caligula, sometimes upon close examination are not that clear cut.
Many historical figures have wildly diverging reputations, with a number of different factors behind the variation. At the most basic level, the actual facts of a person's life are often unclear and sometimes end up being wildly distorted. For instance, the Chinese emperor Qin Shihuang almost certainly did not have a mountain painted red (the color worn by condemned criminals) because he was angry at the god of the mountain for impeding his progress, the claim that the emperor Caligula tried to have his horse made consul is dubious, and most of the more lurid stories about Edgar Allen Poe's personal life were invented by a rival who claimed to have been made his literary executor (and who was widely reputed to be a dishonest, unpleasant person). Regarding Caligula (whose real name was Gaius Caesar, Caligula being a nickname), he now has a very infamous reputation, and even many historians say that he was probably tyrannical or insane or both, but some others have suggested that he was in fact a fairly decent emperor whose biggest mistake was badly antagonizing Rome's senatorial class, the class from which the Roman historians who later wrote about him came, such that his deeds were distorted or even made up entirely to vilify him. Other examples abound, such as the Chinese emperor Wang Mang, who was vilified by the historians of the Later Han dynasty which replaced his regime, or Richard III of England, whose record was distorted by members of the court of the man who overthrew him, Henry VII, to the point that they invented fictions about his appearance, such as the claim that he was hunchbacked (an image which Shakespeare unfortunately popularized).
Then there are facts that are certainly or at least probably true but open to varying interpretations, such as the time when Alexander of Macedon (commonly called Alexander "the Great", a name which in itself carries subjective notions about the reputation he deserved) killed his friend Cleitus in a rage. The two were drunk and trading insults, but exactly what was said, who was being more aggressive, what motivated the quarrel, and whether there were underlying motives involved are all subject to some dispute. To take another example, I recently read a book about a Texas family (one that I happened to be descended from) during the period between Texas's declaration of independence from Mexico and the end of the US Civil War. Sam Houston, who was the victor in the battle which won Texan independence, as well as serving as the president of Texas, as a senator, and as governor of the state after it joined the US, is frequently mentioned in the book, as he lived nearby and was an acquaintance of a number of the people in the family. While most people today view Houston positively, this book takes a more negative view, citing among other things his frequent drunkenness and his ambition. Towards the end of his life, Houston lost most of his popularity in Texas due to his opposition to the state's secession from the Union before the Civil War. This account takes the view that his sole or at least primary reason for his position was that he had ambitions to run for US president, something which obviously couldn't happen if Texas left the Union. While Houston clearly was ambitious, it is also quite possible that he opposed secession out of principle or simply because, as he said himself, it was a bad idea that would result in a war that the South would lose. Without getting inside his head, we obviously can't know what his true motivation was, and so whether his motivation was positive or negative is clearly a matter of interpretation (even aside from the issue of whether one agrees with the position he took or not). Similarly, Abraham Lincoln's actions during the Civil War led him to be considered either a savior and liberator (by most Northerners and African-Americans) or an undemocratic tyrant (by many white Southerners). In this case, the same actions were being viewed from drastically different perspectives, leading to contrasting interpretations.
But perhaps the most crucial deciding factor governing a historical figure's reputation is emphasis; that is to say, which events and actions one chooses to focus on when evaluating the person. In many cases, the way a person is generally regarded is based on how they acted with regard to a single event, with the result that someone with an otherwise solid record may be viewed negatively due to one major blunder, or someone who was highly flawed may be seen favorably due to success with regard to a particularly important event. An example of the latter is Winston Churchill, whose successful leadership of Britain in World War II is what is generally remembered about him. What is less remembered is that he was a diehard imperialist who called Gandhi a "half-naked fakir", and as British colonial secretary he was largely responsible for the creation of Iraq, a country with arbitrarily drawn borders containing three different ethnic groups who didn't get along, making him directly responsible for problems that plague the Middle East to this day. Often different people will focus on different events in the life of the same individual. Ronald Reagan is viewed by many conservatives as a great president due to his perceived victory in the Cold War (though how much credit he deserves for that is debatable) as well as his taxation and social policies. Of course those same policies are strongly criticized by liberals, who are also more likely to focus on events like the Iran-Contra scandal, Reagan's support for dictators like Pinochet and Saddam Hussein, and his frequent ignorance of what was going on around him. Likewise, after the recent death if Michael Jackson, his fans focused on his musical legacy (though how great that is obviously remains subjective), while his detractors focused on his alleged pedophilia (though it should be remembered that he was found not guilty) and his eccentricity. And after Ted Kennedy died, while the majority of people talked about his achievements as a legislator and his long-time struggle for various liberal causes, some detractors chose to dwell on the 1969 Chappaquiddick incident, in which he drove a car into a tidal channel and left his young woman passenger behind to drown while he escaped. Though many of those who raise this incident wildly exaggerate in their criticism, some going so far as to call Kennedy a murderer when even the worst possible interpretation of the facts shows that the woman's death was accidental, he was still guilty of serious negligence at best. But this of course begs the question of how much good someone has to do to balance out one or more major mistakes or evil deeds.
This latter question is an extremely vital one when it comes to evaluating historical figures, but the answer is necessarily subjective. A close examination of any person's history will reveal both good and bad, even in the best and worst individuals. Obviously in some cases the evil deeds so far outweigh any good ones that a negative assessment is a given, with people like Hitler and Stalin being among the most obvious examples. For figures that are less prominent, a single egregiously evil deed will outweigh any positives, such as the unfortunately numerous cases of perpetrators of bloody massacres of innocent people, including Reginald Dyer (responsible for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in India), Ernest Medina (the highest-ranking officer at the My Lai massacre), and the various white civilians and soldiers responsible for massacres of Native Americans. On the other hand, some individuals did sufficient good that, at least in most people's minds, their virtues clearly outweigh any faults. But in most cases, there are enough examples of both good and bad deeds that one could easily go either way in an overall assessment, depending as suggested above on the weight given to different deeds. Does Augustus Caesar's competent rulership and establishment of Pax Romana outweigh his utter ruthlessness and responsibility for numerous killings? Do Alexander's impressive military achievements and spread of Greek civilization outweigh his drunkenness, fits of rage, and occasional tyrannical behavior? Do Tang Empress Wu Zetian's able executive skills and defiance of patriarchal tradition outweigh her supposed cruelty and use of secret police against dissent? By modern standards, the answer would probably be no in all those cases, but nevertheless an objective assessment would have to acknowledge both the good and the bad, as well as the unfortunate fact that ruthlessness and cruelty were standard behavior for rulers and leaders in those times. Ultimately, when judging historical figures, we should remember that no one is perfect (or even perfectly bad), and we should try to get as much information as possible, both positive and negative, before reaching even a tentative conclusion.
Many historical figures have wildly diverging reputations, with a number of different factors behind the variation. At the most basic level, the actual facts of a person's life are often unclear and sometimes end up being wildly distorted. For instance, the Chinese emperor Qin Shihuang almost certainly did not have a mountain painted red (the color worn by condemned criminals) because he was angry at the god of the mountain for impeding his progress, the claim that the emperor Caligula tried to have his horse made consul is dubious, and most of the more lurid stories about Edgar Allen Poe's personal life were invented by a rival who claimed to have been made his literary executor (and who was widely reputed to be a dishonest, unpleasant person). Regarding Caligula (whose real name was Gaius Caesar, Caligula being a nickname), he now has a very infamous reputation, and even many historians say that he was probably tyrannical or insane or both, but some others have suggested that he was in fact a fairly decent emperor whose biggest mistake was badly antagonizing Rome's senatorial class, the class from which the Roman historians who later wrote about him came, such that his deeds were distorted or even made up entirely to vilify him. Other examples abound, such as the Chinese emperor Wang Mang, who was vilified by the historians of the Later Han dynasty which replaced his regime, or Richard III of England, whose record was distorted by members of the court of the man who overthrew him, Henry VII, to the point that they invented fictions about his appearance, such as the claim that he was hunchbacked (an image which Shakespeare unfortunately popularized).
Then there are facts that are certainly or at least probably true but open to varying interpretations, such as the time when Alexander of Macedon (commonly called Alexander "the Great", a name which in itself carries subjective notions about the reputation he deserved) killed his friend Cleitus in a rage. The two were drunk and trading insults, but exactly what was said, who was being more aggressive, what motivated the quarrel, and whether there were underlying motives involved are all subject to some dispute. To take another example, I recently read a book about a Texas family (one that I happened to be descended from) during the period between Texas's declaration of independence from Mexico and the end of the US Civil War. Sam Houston, who was the victor in the battle which won Texan independence, as well as serving as the president of Texas, as a senator, and as governor of the state after it joined the US, is frequently mentioned in the book, as he lived nearby and was an acquaintance of a number of the people in the family. While most people today view Houston positively, this book takes a more negative view, citing among other things his frequent drunkenness and his ambition. Towards the end of his life, Houston lost most of his popularity in Texas due to his opposition to the state's secession from the Union before the Civil War. This account takes the view that his sole or at least primary reason for his position was that he had ambitions to run for US president, something which obviously couldn't happen if Texas left the Union. While Houston clearly was ambitious, it is also quite possible that he opposed secession out of principle or simply because, as he said himself, it was a bad idea that would result in a war that the South would lose. Without getting inside his head, we obviously can't know what his true motivation was, and so whether his motivation was positive or negative is clearly a matter of interpretation (even aside from the issue of whether one agrees with the position he took or not). Similarly, Abraham Lincoln's actions during the Civil War led him to be considered either a savior and liberator (by most Northerners and African-Americans) or an undemocratic tyrant (by many white Southerners). In this case, the same actions were being viewed from drastically different perspectives, leading to contrasting interpretations.
But perhaps the most crucial deciding factor governing a historical figure's reputation is emphasis; that is to say, which events and actions one chooses to focus on when evaluating the person. In many cases, the way a person is generally regarded is based on how they acted with regard to a single event, with the result that someone with an otherwise solid record may be viewed negatively due to one major blunder, or someone who was highly flawed may be seen favorably due to success with regard to a particularly important event. An example of the latter is Winston Churchill, whose successful leadership of Britain in World War II is what is generally remembered about him. What is less remembered is that he was a diehard imperialist who called Gandhi a "half-naked fakir", and as British colonial secretary he was largely responsible for the creation of Iraq, a country with arbitrarily drawn borders containing three different ethnic groups who didn't get along, making him directly responsible for problems that plague the Middle East to this day. Often different people will focus on different events in the life of the same individual. Ronald Reagan is viewed by many conservatives as a great president due to his perceived victory in the Cold War (though how much credit he deserves for that is debatable) as well as his taxation and social policies. Of course those same policies are strongly criticized by liberals, who are also more likely to focus on events like the Iran-Contra scandal, Reagan's support for dictators like Pinochet and Saddam Hussein, and his frequent ignorance of what was going on around him. Likewise, after the recent death if Michael Jackson, his fans focused on his musical legacy (though how great that is obviously remains subjective), while his detractors focused on his alleged pedophilia (though it should be remembered that he was found not guilty) and his eccentricity. And after Ted Kennedy died, while the majority of people talked about his achievements as a legislator and his long-time struggle for various liberal causes, some detractors chose to dwell on the 1969 Chappaquiddick incident, in which he drove a car into a tidal channel and left his young woman passenger behind to drown while he escaped. Though many of those who raise this incident wildly exaggerate in their criticism, some going so far as to call Kennedy a murderer when even the worst possible interpretation of the facts shows that the woman's death was accidental, he was still guilty of serious negligence at best. But this of course begs the question of how much good someone has to do to balance out one or more major mistakes or evil deeds.
This latter question is an extremely vital one when it comes to evaluating historical figures, but the answer is necessarily subjective. A close examination of any person's history will reveal both good and bad, even in the best and worst individuals. Obviously in some cases the evil deeds so far outweigh any good ones that a negative assessment is a given, with people like Hitler and Stalin being among the most obvious examples. For figures that are less prominent, a single egregiously evil deed will outweigh any positives, such as the unfortunately numerous cases of perpetrators of bloody massacres of innocent people, including Reginald Dyer (responsible for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in India), Ernest Medina (the highest-ranking officer at the My Lai massacre), and the various white civilians and soldiers responsible for massacres of Native Americans. On the other hand, some individuals did sufficient good that, at least in most people's minds, their virtues clearly outweigh any faults. But in most cases, there are enough examples of both good and bad deeds that one could easily go either way in an overall assessment, depending as suggested above on the weight given to different deeds. Does Augustus Caesar's competent rulership and establishment of Pax Romana outweigh his utter ruthlessness and responsibility for numerous killings? Do Alexander's impressive military achievements and spread of Greek civilization outweigh his drunkenness, fits of rage, and occasional tyrannical behavior? Do Tang Empress Wu Zetian's able executive skills and defiance of patriarchal tradition outweigh her supposed cruelty and use of secret police against dissent? By modern standards, the answer would probably be no in all those cases, but nevertheless an objective assessment would have to acknowledge both the good and the bad, as well as the unfortunate fact that ruthlessness and cruelty were standard behavior for rulers and leaders in those times. Ultimately, when judging historical figures, we should remember that no one is perfect (or even perfectly bad), and we should try to get as much information as possible, both positive and negative, before reaching even a tentative conclusion.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Warped Politics
I'm thinking it's about time to address some of the political nonsense that has been going on recently in the two countries I've spent most of my life in, the US and Taiwan. Of course politics is always full of absurd characters and ridiculous statements, but we've reached some new lows lately.
In the US, the big debate is over health care, but for the moment I don't intend to address this particular issue at length, but rather some of the rhetoric the extreme right wing has been directing at President Obama and his administration. Of course the latest example of this to make the news was the Republican from South Carolina actually loudly accusing Obama of lying when the latter was making a speech to a joint session of Congress. Now there are a couple of issues involved here. The first is of course whether Wilson's accusation (namely that Obama's statement that the reform he supported would not provide care for illegal immigrants) was true. The facts seem to indicate that it was not, as the current bills specifically exclude require proof of legal status. Of course some illegal immigrants may manage to take advantage of the system, but that is quite different from having a bill which would purposely encompass them. But then there is the second issue involved -- even if it was true that Obama's statement was not accurate, was the time and place appropriate from calling him on it? On this issue there is the greatest amount of agreement among reasonable people of both parties, who generally acknowledge that it is not considered good form for legislators to heckle the president in this kind of setting. So why does Rep. Wilson suddenly think it's acceptable for him to do so, abandoning civil discourse for the type of shouting that's been seeing lately at town hall meetings across the US? In my view, it is symptomatic of the bizarre, deep seated hatred the extreme right has for Obama, something that's surfaced again and again in the past few months.
First you had the idiotic birthers, who claimed that there was some doubt that Obama was born in the US, which was the intellectual equivalent of questioning whether humans landed on the Moon, whether the Holocaust happened, or even whether WWII was a real historical event. What was ridiculous was that a few conservative media figures seemed to give credence to this nonsense, though to be fair it must be noted that even some of the most extreme ones (such as Limbaugh and Coulter) dismissed the birthers' claims out of hand, as any sane person should.
Then there was Glenn Beck, who made the bizarre claim that Obama hated white people, despite the fact that his mother and the grandmother he was closest to were both white, he grew up more among white people than among blacks, and he himself is half white. Of course his borderline slander was strongly criticized, so seemingly partly out of revenge, he targeted one of Obama's advisors, Van Jones. Jones was accused of being a communist, of insulting Republicans, and of supporting a petition regarding 9/11 which asserted the government was responsible. Now I can't claim to have investigated these claims in detail, but from what I've seen they were frankly no big deal (certainly no worse than Beck's own ridiculous statement about Obama). First off, if Jones did ever say he was a "communist", I suspect he meant in the general sense, that is to say he considered a society where most property and capital was owned by the community rather than corporations and individuals (Jones is a community activist, after all). This type of "communism", while not popular among libertarians and the wealthy, is hardly sinister. Jones did call Republicans axxholes in a speech, but frankly many of them are, and in any case he said he himself was one in the same speech. As for the 9/11 petition, my understanding is that it simply called for an investigation on whether government officials might have known an attack was imminent. While I personally doubt this was the case, the idea is not completely absurd (as opposed to actually claiming the government was behind it, which is ludicrous); after all, to this day there are credible historians who suspect the Roosevelt administration may have had advance knowledge of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In any event, Jones has said he disagreed with the contents of the petition. So Beck himself is allowed to make ridiculous attacks on Obama but Obama's advisors are not permitted to have opinions that are basically reasonable, if slightly controversial? Give me a break.
Yet another recent incident was Obama's recent speech to school children. Without apparently having any knowledge of the content of the planned speech, rightwingers asserted that Obama planned to "indoctrinate" American school children with "socialist" ideas. Leaving aside the fact that socialism is not necessarily a bad thing, and that American children are already indoctrinated with questionable ideas that rightwingers support, such as nationalism (and if they had their way, they'd be indoctrinated with others such as Christianity and "intelligent design"), these paranoid claims revealed once again a bizarre fear and hatred of Obama, as if he could somehow poison children just by talking to them -- and talking to them only once. The idea that it's terrible for the US president to give a speech to school children is disturbingly strange; presidents have given this type of speech before, and no one got excited about it. And the actual speech, from what I've seen, was the noncontroversial type you'd expect to be given in this context. So what are these people getting excited about?
I generally try not to be like some liberals who manage to find racism as a subtext in almost everything, but in this case I'm beginning to wonder if it might be a factor in all the vitriol. Certainly many of the people we've heard the worst sorts of attacks from are mostly of the type whose racial sensitivity is somewhat questionable. Wilson of South Carolina, for instance, though I don't think he's truly representative of the average person of his state, unfortunately may typify a certain segment of the population (after all, South Carolina is not exactly known for liberals or for racial harmony). Beck of course actually accused Obama of being a racist, but an observant person will be aware that people who are particularly quick to make this type of accusation against others are often guilty of it themselves.
I suspect that the extremists' vitriol comes from a combination of factors. First, they are generally prone to this kind of thing, especially if someone they consider even slightly liberal is in the White House (after all, Clinton didn't escape this kind of attack). Second, they particularly fear Obama because of his popularity and his obvious rhetorical skills. Finally, they consider his background unusually threatening, because aside from being part African (the racism factor), he spent a lot of time abroad (horror of horrors!) and he used to be (shudder) a community activist (run for your lives!). Levity aside, though, this type of warped thinking seems to be far to prevalent in the US nowadays.
In Taiwan, meanwhile, the former president Chen Shuibian, the only non-KMT president in the nation's history, was convicted along with his wife, his children and several close confidants of graft by a district court. So what kind of sentence did he and his wife get? A life sentence. That's right, a life sentence for graft. Now don't get me wrong, I think corruption is bad and should be punished, especially if the guilty party is a national leader. What's more, I think Chen was probably guilty of something. But life? Normally people get life sentences for rape and attempted murder. I've never heard of anyone getting a life sentence for corruption, outside of countries like China, where they execute people for graft among many other things (actually in the case of corrupt officials, they are really executed for being unlucky enough to picked out as an example when the government decides to make people think they are doing something about corruption, and for belonging to the wrong political faction). No Taiwanese politician has ever gotten anything close to a life sentence for corruption. The notoriously corrupt KMT ran the country for 50 years, treating all of Taiwan like party property (or the property of the dictator Chiang Kai-shek and his family, which was also guilty of far worse crimes than corruption), and no KMT politician has received a sentence like this. What's more, Chen had his civil rights annulled for life, meaning he can't vote or run for office. By contrast, a few years ago a known gangster was able to run as an independent for the legislature from prison while serving a brief sentence (not a life sentence, of course) and won. A Taidong politician from the KMT who won the election for county commissioner was forced to surrender his position due to a conviction for corruption (again, the sentence he received was much milder than Chen's), he turned the office over to his wife (actually his ex-wife, as he divorced to get around a law forbidding him to appoint a family member to take his place). She in turn was accused of using county funds to take frequent trips abroad, but just a day after Chen was convicted, the prosecutor's office declined to indict her. Anyone aware of such cases or with even a basic knowledge of Taiwan's political situation and history can't help but see Chen's sentence as a blatantly political one. The irony is this will allow Chen to legitimately claim to be a martyr, a role he has already been overly eager to see himself in.
All this nonsense is almost enough to make one of those people who tries to ignore politics entirely. Unfortunately, I'm very aware of the truth of the statement which goes "you can ignore politics, but politics won't ignore you". So I'll continue to concern myself with what's happening, as bad as it may get.
In the US, the big debate is over health care, but for the moment I don't intend to address this particular issue at length, but rather some of the rhetoric the extreme right wing has been directing at President Obama and his administration. Of course the latest example of this to make the news was the Republican from South Carolina actually loudly accusing Obama of lying when the latter was making a speech to a joint session of Congress. Now there are a couple of issues involved here. The first is of course whether Wilson's accusation (namely that Obama's statement that the reform he supported would not provide care for illegal immigrants) was true. The facts seem to indicate that it was not, as the current bills specifically exclude require proof of legal status. Of course some illegal immigrants may manage to take advantage of the system, but that is quite different from having a bill which would purposely encompass them. But then there is the second issue involved -- even if it was true that Obama's statement was not accurate, was the time and place appropriate from calling him on it? On this issue there is the greatest amount of agreement among reasonable people of both parties, who generally acknowledge that it is not considered good form for legislators to heckle the president in this kind of setting. So why does Rep. Wilson suddenly think it's acceptable for him to do so, abandoning civil discourse for the type of shouting that's been seeing lately at town hall meetings across the US? In my view, it is symptomatic of the bizarre, deep seated hatred the extreme right has for Obama, something that's surfaced again and again in the past few months.
First you had the idiotic birthers, who claimed that there was some doubt that Obama was born in the US, which was the intellectual equivalent of questioning whether humans landed on the Moon, whether the Holocaust happened, or even whether WWII was a real historical event. What was ridiculous was that a few conservative media figures seemed to give credence to this nonsense, though to be fair it must be noted that even some of the most extreme ones (such as Limbaugh and Coulter) dismissed the birthers' claims out of hand, as any sane person should.
Then there was Glenn Beck, who made the bizarre claim that Obama hated white people, despite the fact that his mother and the grandmother he was closest to were both white, he grew up more among white people than among blacks, and he himself is half white. Of course his borderline slander was strongly criticized, so seemingly partly out of revenge, he targeted one of Obama's advisors, Van Jones. Jones was accused of being a communist, of insulting Republicans, and of supporting a petition regarding 9/11 which asserted the government was responsible. Now I can't claim to have investigated these claims in detail, but from what I've seen they were frankly no big deal (certainly no worse than Beck's own ridiculous statement about Obama). First off, if Jones did ever say he was a "communist", I suspect he meant in the general sense, that is to say he considered a society where most property and capital was owned by the community rather than corporations and individuals (Jones is a community activist, after all). This type of "communism", while not popular among libertarians and the wealthy, is hardly sinister. Jones did call Republicans axxholes in a speech, but frankly many of them are, and in any case he said he himself was one in the same speech. As for the 9/11 petition, my understanding is that it simply called for an investigation on whether government officials might have known an attack was imminent. While I personally doubt this was the case, the idea is not completely absurd (as opposed to actually claiming the government was behind it, which is ludicrous); after all, to this day there are credible historians who suspect the Roosevelt administration may have had advance knowledge of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In any event, Jones has said he disagreed with the contents of the petition. So Beck himself is allowed to make ridiculous attacks on Obama but Obama's advisors are not permitted to have opinions that are basically reasonable, if slightly controversial? Give me a break.
Yet another recent incident was Obama's recent speech to school children. Without apparently having any knowledge of the content of the planned speech, rightwingers asserted that Obama planned to "indoctrinate" American school children with "socialist" ideas. Leaving aside the fact that socialism is not necessarily a bad thing, and that American children are already indoctrinated with questionable ideas that rightwingers support, such as nationalism (and if they had their way, they'd be indoctrinated with others such as Christianity and "intelligent design"), these paranoid claims revealed once again a bizarre fear and hatred of Obama, as if he could somehow poison children just by talking to them -- and talking to them only once. The idea that it's terrible for the US president to give a speech to school children is disturbingly strange; presidents have given this type of speech before, and no one got excited about it. And the actual speech, from what I've seen, was the noncontroversial type you'd expect to be given in this context. So what are these people getting excited about?
I generally try not to be like some liberals who manage to find racism as a subtext in almost everything, but in this case I'm beginning to wonder if it might be a factor in all the vitriol. Certainly many of the people we've heard the worst sorts of attacks from are mostly of the type whose racial sensitivity is somewhat questionable. Wilson of South Carolina, for instance, though I don't think he's truly representative of the average person of his state, unfortunately may typify a certain segment of the population (after all, South Carolina is not exactly known for liberals or for racial harmony). Beck of course actually accused Obama of being a racist, but an observant person will be aware that people who are particularly quick to make this type of accusation against others are often guilty of it themselves.
I suspect that the extremists' vitriol comes from a combination of factors. First, they are generally prone to this kind of thing, especially if someone they consider even slightly liberal is in the White House (after all, Clinton didn't escape this kind of attack). Second, they particularly fear Obama because of his popularity and his obvious rhetorical skills. Finally, they consider his background unusually threatening, because aside from being part African (the racism factor), he spent a lot of time abroad (horror of horrors!) and he used to be (shudder) a community activist (run for your lives!). Levity aside, though, this type of warped thinking seems to be far to prevalent in the US nowadays.
In Taiwan, meanwhile, the former president Chen Shuibian, the only non-KMT president in the nation's history, was convicted along with his wife, his children and several close confidants of graft by a district court. So what kind of sentence did he and his wife get? A life sentence. That's right, a life sentence for graft. Now don't get me wrong, I think corruption is bad and should be punished, especially if the guilty party is a national leader. What's more, I think Chen was probably guilty of something. But life? Normally people get life sentences for rape and attempted murder. I've never heard of anyone getting a life sentence for corruption, outside of countries like China, where they execute people for graft among many other things (actually in the case of corrupt officials, they are really executed for being unlucky enough to picked out as an example when the government decides to make people think they are doing something about corruption, and for belonging to the wrong political faction). No Taiwanese politician has ever gotten anything close to a life sentence for corruption. The notoriously corrupt KMT ran the country for 50 years, treating all of Taiwan like party property (or the property of the dictator Chiang Kai-shek and his family, which was also guilty of far worse crimes than corruption), and no KMT politician has received a sentence like this. What's more, Chen had his civil rights annulled for life, meaning he can't vote or run for office. By contrast, a few years ago a known gangster was able to run as an independent for the legislature from prison while serving a brief sentence (not a life sentence, of course) and won. A Taidong politician from the KMT who won the election for county commissioner was forced to surrender his position due to a conviction for corruption (again, the sentence he received was much milder than Chen's), he turned the office over to his wife (actually his ex-wife, as he divorced to get around a law forbidding him to appoint a family member to take his place). She in turn was accused of using county funds to take frequent trips abroad, but just a day after Chen was convicted, the prosecutor's office declined to indict her. Anyone aware of such cases or with even a basic knowledge of Taiwan's political situation and history can't help but see Chen's sentence as a blatantly political one. The irony is this will allow Chen to legitimately claim to be a martyr, a role he has already been overly eager to see himself in.
All this nonsense is almost enough to make one of those people who tries to ignore politics entirely. Unfortunately, I'm very aware of the truth of the statement which goes "you can ignore politics, but politics won't ignore you". So I'll continue to concern myself with what's happening, as bad as it may get.
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