Sometimes a news story is more noteworthy when it comes and goes without drawing a significant reaction. In a small town, murder is huge news; in Chicago, a single murder is a sign of a good day. This was the case with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's decision to lift the ban on women in combat. Sure, there were some pieces celebrating such an historic step, but on the whole, this incident passed without much notice. The forces of reaction, of which I am a proud member, were mostly silent, as if this formality is just something we will have to accept--which, I suppose, it is.
But that doesn't mean it's a good idea. Sending women into combat isn't just questionable desirable, it's manifestly stupid. Let us count the ways.
1) We've already seen what happens when we place men and women in close quarters. The women get pregnant--or sexually assaulted--and the men fight over the women. The Army's reaction has been to create this helpful website.
It's interesting that while this has been going on for years, our rejoinder is to simply insist that it shouldn't happen, and leave it at that. In the eponymous children's television program, Dora the Explorer tells Swiper: "No swiping." Whereupon, he stops. This is, so far as I can tell, our plan to prevent sexual indiscretions in the military. We must not be saying it loudly enough.
Yes, men shouldn't rape women; but men ought not kill people either. The civilizing force that prevents a man from raping a woman is very similar to that which prevents him from killing a man. But the latter is required in war, and... not without reason are war and rape close companions in the annals of conquest.
It might occur to our utopians that if we can wish away all rape, we can probably do away with war, too.
2) The same things might happen at the hands of enemy forces. If we could get Al-Qaeda to read Jezebel, I'm sure the terrorists would promise to play nice with any women soldiers they happen to capture. On the other hand, if the terrorists rape enough of our soldiers, the feminists who comprise part of Obama's base might stop fantasizing about free birth control long enough to remember that President Peace Prize is still fighting Bush's War on Terror.
3) Standards will be lowered to compensate for the physical discrepancies between male and female soldiers. Oh wait, we already did that. In civilian life, standards are often just convenient ways to weed out undesirable candidates, but in combat, it can be important to be able to carry one's pack, or help lift a wounded soldier to safety. Soon we'll be hearing all sorts of heroic stories about our G.I. Janes. And this time the stories won't be complete fabrications.
One could easily satirize women's ineffectualness in combat, but this would require Oscar Wilde's proverbial heart of stone. It might work better if a female firefighter proved unable to rescue a corpulent cat lady. Okay, so that's not much kinder, but it's certainly more humorous.
Actually, the more practical result, comes courtesy of Steve Sailer:
If more co-ed combat degrades American military
performance, it's not like the Axis is going to win WWII, it's that a
few more brave Americans will get killed in some inconclusive puttering
around in Mali or wherever.
One last point. The reason societies don't allow their women to fight in wars--except in desperate circumstances--isn't just because men are stronger than women; it's because women are more valuable. If you send off your men to die, the women will have to have more children to replace those the tribe has lost. If you send your women off to die, it's very difficult to conjure new family members from the remaining bachelors. Of course, a nation, such as ours, that cannot even be bothered to reproduce at levels sufficient to sustain itself isn't likely to appreciate this point. But I like to think that, somewhere, the ancients are laughing at us.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Monday, January 21, 2013
On not thinking clearly
When we stake out a position on a particular issue, we would like to believe that we are drawn to it by the logic that supports the side on which we come down. This is seldom the case, and not simply because humans can be led against reason by emotion. Instead, it is because the positions we take stem from the values we hold. This sounds tautological, but an example should illustrate what I mean.
Recent debates about gun control aren't really about gun control. No appeal to statistics is likely to move minds because people are really arguing about something else. Nor do the sides even really disagree about the final end: a reduction in violence is sought by all. Disagreement concerns the means by which this end will be acheived. So one side believes government can be trusted to regulate firearms, while the other puts its trust in a well-armed populace.
These positions are ultimately derived from first principles, but, more importantly, within a tradition that tries to examine the ramifications of such principles.
As the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre points out in his excellent book, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?:
It is a Cartesian error, fostered by a misunderstanding of Euclidean geometry, to suppose that first by an initial act of apprehension we can comprehend the full meaning of the premises of a deductive system and then only secondly proceed to enquire what follows from them. In fact it is only insofar as we understand what follows from those premises that we understand the premises themselves. If and as we begin from the premises, our initial apprehension will characteristically be partial and incomplete, increasing as we understand what it is that these premises do and do not entail. pp. 174-5
With this in mind, let's switch topics; instead of gun control, we're going to focus on the existence of God. These discussions tend to be pretty fruitless; with MacIntrye's insight, we can see why this is the case. After defining his terms, a well-informed theist might pull out his Summa and begin to cover Aquinas's fivefold proof for God's existence. This isn't a terrible way to go about it, but it tends to fall short as the rejoinder to a discussion of an unmoved mover is: "Who moved God?" It's not a ridiculous question, but it is rather unhelpful, in that we're thrust back upon the definitions of terms.
The genius of the Summa is not the fivefold proof, but the systematic way in which St. Thomas builds his system. We shouldn't cede ground to the agnostics and atheists and admit that Thomas's proofs are mere formalities, quick jots to move us along to meatier matters. And yet, if we pretend that this is the case, how many other things become apparent? We can't get to God's simplicity if we don't get past His existence, just as we can't get to the Secundae Partis until we finish the Prima Pars; for one part of his masterpiece depends on another, and Thomas is nothing if not thorough. His thought must be evaluated as a whole, which might not require that one read the entirety of the Summa, but it does require that one do more than reject his proofs and move on to something else.
Back to God's existence. If Thomas--and others; I am a dedicated if hopelessly amateur Thomist, but there are other theistic systems of thought, most notably that of St. Augustine--if theistic philosophers have examined the ramifications of there positions, it's far from clear that atheists and agnostics have done the same. Certainly there were philosophers who tried to do so, most famously Kant, who was not an agnostic, but philosophized like one. He rejected tradition in favor of an attempt to concoct a moral system derived from unaided reason. Yet Kant, for all his brilliance, failed, as MacIntyre pointed out:
In moral philosophy the central question which the participants in those debates had hoped to answer was: What are those principles governing action to which no rational human being can deny his or her assent? Hume's appeal to rational consensus concerning the passions, Kant's formulations of the categorical imperative and the principle of utility were all attempts to supply an answer to this question. Yet each one of these answers turned out to be susceptible of rejection by the adherents of rival answers, whose claims to rational justification were as much and as little contestable as those of its opponents. p. 176
Even more frustrating than the cavalier dismissal of theism is the arrogance of many modern atheists. Richard Dawkins is their pope, but he seems just as oblivious to the failure of the Enlightenment. Granted, they do not like what the Church has to say about sex--and here at least Freud may have a point; it is usually about sex--God must not exist. But they have not explains how we shall be moral--or what being moral will entail. It is unlikely that Dawkins will succeed where Kant failed; in fact, as MacIntrye makes clear, it's impossible. But they seem to have simply glanced over this dilemma, blithely confident that we can just take the good parts of an ethical code without all that awful shame over mild indiscretions. Unfortunately for them, that's not how traditions work.
Recent debates about gun control aren't really about gun control. No appeal to statistics is likely to move minds because people are really arguing about something else. Nor do the sides even really disagree about the final end: a reduction in violence is sought by all. Disagreement concerns the means by which this end will be acheived. So one side believes government can be trusted to regulate firearms, while the other puts its trust in a well-armed populace.
These positions are ultimately derived from first principles, but, more importantly, within a tradition that tries to examine the ramifications of such principles.
As the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre points out in his excellent book, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?:
It is a Cartesian error, fostered by a misunderstanding of Euclidean geometry, to suppose that first by an initial act of apprehension we can comprehend the full meaning of the premises of a deductive system and then only secondly proceed to enquire what follows from them. In fact it is only insofar as we understand what follows from those premises that we understand the premises themselves. If and as we begin from the premises, our initial apprehension will characteristically be partial and incomplete, increasing as we understand what it is that these premises do and do not entail. pp. 174-5
With this in mind, let's switch topics; instead of gun control, we're going to focus on the existence of God. These discussions tend to be pretty fruitless; with MacIntrye's insight, we can see why this is the case. After defining his terms, a well-informed theist might pull out his Summa and begin to cover Aquinas's fivefold proof for God's existence. This isn't a terrible way to go about it, but it tends to fall short as the rejoinder to a discussion of an unmoved mover is: "Who moved God?" It's not a ridiculous question, but it is rather unhelpful, in that we're thrust back upon the definitions of terms.
The genius of the Summa is not the fivefold proof, but the systematic way in which St. Thomas builds his system. We shouldn't cede ground to the agnostics and atheists and admit that Thomas's proofs are mere formalities, quick jots to move us along to meatier matters. And yet, if we pretend that this is the case, how many other things become apparent? We can't get to God's simplicity if we don't get past His existence, just as we can't get to the Secundae Partis until we finish the Prima Pars; for one part of his masterpiece depends on another, and Thomas is nothing if not thorough. His thought must be evaluated as a whole, which might not require that one read the entirety of the Summa, but it does require that one do more than reject his proofs and move on to something else.
Back to God's existence. If Thomas--and others; I am a dedicated if hopelessly amateur Thomist, but there are other theistic systems of thought, most notably that of St. Augustine--if theistic philosophers have examined the ramifications of there positions, it's far from clear that atheists and agnostics have done the same. Certainly there were philosophers who tried to do so, most famously Kant, who was not an agnostic, but philosophized like one. He rejected tradition in favor of an attempt to concoct a moral system derived from unaided reason. Yet Kant, for all his brilliance, failed, as MacIntyre pointed out:
In moral philosophy the central question which the participants in those debates had hoped to answer was: What are those principles governing action to which no rational human being can deny his or her assent? Hume's appeal to rational consensus concerning the passions, Kant's formulations of the categorical imperative and the principle of utility were all attempts to supply an answer to this question. Yet each one of these answers turned out to be susceptible of rejection by the adherents of rival answers, whose claims to rational justification were as much and as little contestable as those of its opponents. p. 176
Even more frustrating than the cavalier dismissal of theism is the arrogance of many modern atheists. Richard Dawkins is their pope, but he seems just as oblivious to the failure of the Enlightenment. Granted, they do not like what the Church has to say about sex--and here at least Freud may have a point; it is usually about sex--God must not exist. But they have not explains how we shall be moral--or what being moral will entail. It is unlikely that Dawkins will succeed where Kant failed; in fact, as MacIntrye makes clear, it's impossible. But they seem to have simply glanced over this dilemma, blithely confident that we can just take the good parts of an ethical code without all that awful shame over mild indiscretions. Unfortunately for them, that's not how traditions work.
Wednesday, January 09, 2013
Following Rome again
Most of the stories which bemoan the declining birthrate are from thoroughly disreputable sources, Catholics and other subversive traditionalists. But occasionally one will find a secular source that will, in the midst of a piece which celebrates the lack of fertility, note that there may possibly be some problems with a declining birth rate. I shall leave, as an exercise for the reader, the task of coming up with a list of such.
The proof of the thesis, however, lies in the fact that governments often pay married couples to have children. Such policies have not, alas, been successful. It was with great amusement that in this, as in so many other matters, we have followed the Romans:
Pat Buchanan insists that historians will one day call the birth control pill the suicide tablet of the west. In this, as in so many other matters, he is probably correct, but the simple fact is that those who do not wish to procreate, will find means to avoid it. The Romans did not need fancy pills to be overrun by the German barbarians.
On the other hand, knowledge of the means of contraception used by the Romans did not prevent the early Church from being fertile and multiplying. So there is a definite bright side here, only, it probably comes on the other side of the decline and fall of our present civilization.
The proof of the thesis, however, lies in the fact that governments often pay married couples to have children. Such policies have not, alas, been successful. It was with great amusement that in this, as in so many other matters, we have followed the Romans:
It was next proposed to relax the Papia Poppaea law, which Augustus in his old age had passed subsequently to the Julian statutes, for yet further enforcing the penalties on celibacy and for enriching the exchequer. And yet, marriages and the rearing of children did not become more frequent, so powerful were the attractions of a childless state. - Tacitus, The Annals, 3.25
Pat Buchanan insists that historians will one day call the birth control pill the suicide tablet of the west. In this, as in so many other matters, he is probably correct, but the simple fact is that those who do not wish to procreate, will find means to avoid it. The Romans did not need fancy pills to be overrun by the German barbarians.
On the other hand, knowledge of the means of contraception used by the Romans did not prevent the early Church from being fertile and multiplying. So there is a definite bright side here, only, it probably comes on the other side of the decline and fall of our present civilization.
Tuesday, January 01, 2013
2013 Reading List
And so it begins--again.
Read
Read
Whose Justice? Which Rationality? - Alasdair MacIntyre
The Illustrated London News - 1917-1919 - G. K. Chesterton
The Annals - Tacitus
In the Basement of the Ivory Tower - Professor X
David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
Ugly as Sin - Michael S. Rose
The Illustrated London News - 1917-1919 - G. K. Chesterton
The Annals - Tacitus
In the Basement of the Ivory Tower - Professor X
David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
Ugly as Sin - Michael S. Rose
Men at Arms - Evelyn Waugh
Officers and Gentlemen - Evelyn Waugh
Religion and the Rise of Western Culture - Christopher Dawson
Plutarch - Lives (Vol. I of II)
Eichmann in Jerusalem - Hannah Arendt
Unconditional Surrender - Evelyn Waugh
The Agony and the Ecstasy - Irving Stone
God's Revolution - Benedict XVI
Carry On, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
What's Wrong With the World - G. K. Chesterton
The Superstition of Divorce - G. K. Chesterton
Plutarch - Lives (Vol. II of II)
A Secular Age - Charles Taylor
Eugenics and Other Evils - G. K. Chesterton
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Folkways and Mores - William Graham Sumner
The Great Deformation - David Stockman
Literary Converts - Joseph Pearce
The Little Way of Ruthie Leming - Rod Dreher
The Painted Word - Tom Wolfe
The Corrections - Johnathan Franzen
Unknown Quantity - John Derbyshire
The Stripping of the Altars - Eamon Duffy
Peer Gynt - Henrik Ibsen
The Idea of Progress - J. B. Bury
The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction - Alan Jacobs
Parliament of Whores - P. J. O'Rourke
Men on Strike - Helen Smith
The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner
The Rise of American Civilization (Vol I of II) - Charles and Mary Beard
Ireland - Paul Johnson
The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
Salt of the Earth - Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
The Jungle Book - Rudyard Kipling
Summa Theologica - Thomas Aquinas (Vol. IV of V)
The Rise of American Civilization (Vol II of II) - Charles and Mary Beard
Aquinas - Frederick Copleston
Gates of Fire - Steven Pressfield
Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile - Joseph Pearce
The Gulag Archipelago (Vol. II of III) - Alexander Solzhenitsyn
The Fourth Turning - William Strauss and Neil Howe
The Cambridge Medieval History Series (Vol. III of VIII)
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
The Art of Manliness: Classic Skills and Manners for the Modern Man - Brett and Kate McKay
The Gulag Archipelago (Vol. III of III) - Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Why Read? - Mark Edmundson
The Quest for Shakespeare - Joseph Pearce
The Inimitable Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Henry IV Part I - Shakespeare
Henry IV Part II - Shakespeare
Henry V - Shakespeare
Henry VI Part I - Shakespeare
Henry VI Part II - Shakespeare
Shakespeare's Kings - John Julius Norwich
Henry VI Part III - Shakespeare
The History of Music - Cecil Gray
Through Shakespeare's Eyes - Joseph Pearce
The Merchant of Venice - Shakespeare
Travels in Hyperreality - Umberto Eco
Lost in the Cosmos - Walker Percy
For Men Only - Shaunti and Jeff Feldhahn
For Women Only - Shaunti Feldhahn
The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom
A Jacques Barzun Reader
War in European History - Michael Howard
Lepanto - G. K. Chesterton (edited by Dale Ahlquist)
The Descent of Man - Charles Darwin
Religion and the Rise of Western Culture - Christopher Dawson
Plutarch - Lives (Vol. I of II)
Eichmann in Jerusalem - Hannah Arendt
Unconditional Surrender - Evelyn Waugh
The Agony and the Ecstasy - Irving Stone
God's Revolution - Benedict XVI
Carry On, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
What's Wrong With the World - G. K. Chesterton
The Superstition of Divorce - G. K. Chesterton
Plutarch - Lives (Vol. II of II)
A Secular Age - Charles Taylor
Eugenics and Other Evils - G. K. Chesterton
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Folkways and Mores - William Graham Sumner
The Great Deformation - David Stockman
Literary Converts - Joseph Pearce
The Little Way of Ruthie Leming - Rod Dreher
The Painted Word - Tom Wolfe
The Corrections - Johnathan Franzen
Unknown Quantity - John Derbyshire
The Stripping of the Altars - Eamon Duffy
Peer Gynt - Henrik Ibsen
The Idea of Progress - J. B. Bury
The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction - Alan Jacobs
Parliament of Whores - P. J. O'Rourke
Men on Strike - Helen Smith
The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner
The Rise of American Civilization (Vol I of II) - Charles and Mary Beard
Ireland - Paul Johnson
The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
Salt of the Earth - Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
The Jungle Book - Rudyard Kipling
Summa Theologica - Thomas Aquinas (Vol. IV of V)
The Rise of American Civilization (Vol II of II) - Charles and Mary Beard
Aquinas - Frederick Copleston
Gates of Fire - Steven Pressfield
Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile - Joseph Pearce
The Gulag Archipelago (Vol. II of III) - Alexander Solzhenitsyn
The Fourth Turning - William Strauss and Neil Howe
The Cambridge Medieval History Series (Vol. III of VIII)
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
The Art of Manliness: Classic Skills and Manners for the Modern Man - Brett and Kate McKay
The Gulag Archipelago (Vol. III of III) - Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Why Read? - Mark Edmundson
The Quest for Shakespeare - Joseph Pearce
The Inimitable Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Henry IV Part I - Shakespeare
Henry IV Part II - Shakespeare
Henry V - Shakespeare
Henry VI Part I - Shakespeare
Henry VI Part II - Shakespeare
Shakespeare's Kings - John Julius Norwich
Henry VI Part III - Shakespeare
The History of Music - Cecil Gray
Through Shakespeare's Eyes - Joseph Pearce
The Merchant of Venice - Shakespeare
Travels in Hyperreality - Umberto Eco
Lost in the Cosmos - Walker Percy
For Men Only - Shaunti and Jeff Feldhahn
For Women Only - Shaunti Feldhahn
The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom
A Jacques Barzun Reader
War in European History - Michael Howard
Lepanto - G. K. Chesterton (edited by Dale Ahlquist)
The Descent of Man - Charles Darwin
2012 book breakdown
Last year was the first year I kept track of all the books I read. I was curious to know how many I managed to read. If I did my math correctly, I read 75 books this past year, or about 1.5 a week. It's not a bad pace, but considering how little time I devote to writing or socializing, I could probably do better. Or else I could try to write and socialize more, though the latter especially strikes me as a desperate measure.
Only fifteen of these books were novels; a full third of that total came courtesy of George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones. I should probably read more fiction, but if given a choice between a classic novel and a history book, I reliably choose the latter. There's nothing especially wrong with this, but fiction, at least the good stuff, stimulates the imagination.
I thought about giving the breakdown by ratings like Vox does, but I don't feel competent to rate the classics, of which I read a fair amount. Even if a Platonic dialogue strikes me as middling, it's still Plato, which makes it rather better than middling and me a moron. So instead, here are some of my favorites that aren't already part of the western canon.
The first three come courtesy of Will and Ariel Durant's lifetime reading list:
Three mostly contemporary pieces of non-fiction:
Bad Religion - Ross Douthat - As Chesterton is said to have said, "When men stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing, they believe in anything." American apostasy has not ushered in a new enlightenment, but has shed religion for nonsense which is worse in every conceivable way.
Family and Civilization - Carle Zimmerman - This book was actually first published in the 40's, but I read a recently republished abridgement. Zimmerman draws on Greek and Roman history to demonstrate that, far from progressing towards a more enlightened way of (not) marrying, we're following in the decadent footsteps of our deceased predecessors.
Only fifteen of these books were novels; a full third of that total came courtesy of George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones. I should probably read more fiction, but if given a choice between a classic novel and a history book, I reliably choose the latter. There's nothing especially wrong with this, but fiction, at least the good stuff, stimulates the imagination.
I thought about giving the breakdown by ratings like Vox does, but I don't feel competent to rate the classics, of which I read a fair amount. Even if a Platonic dialogue strikes me as middling, it's still Plato, which makes it rather better than middling and me a moron. So instead, here are some of my favorites that aren't already part of the western canon.
The first three come courtesy of Will and Ariel Durant's lifetime reading list:
Renaissance in Italy - John Addington
Symonds - Seven volumes, about 2000 pages of small type in my version, but worth every page. Symonds prose is strikingly beautiful.
A History of Ancient Greek Literature -
Gilbert Murray - A short book that covers its subject rather completely. I can see this being a valuable reference guide for many years to come.
Napoleon - Emil Ludwig - I'm loathe to sympathize with someone like Napoleon, but Ludwig manages to evoke this sentiment in the reader without denigrating to sycophancy.
Three mostly contemporary pieces of non-fiction:
Bad Religion - Ross Douthat - As Chesterton is said to have said, "When men stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing, they believe in anything." American apostasy has not ushered in a new enlightenment, but has shed religion for nonsense which is worse in every conceivable way.
The Revolt of
the Elites - Christopher Lasch - He points out that our meritocrats have all of the vices of the aristocrats they have replaced, with none of the virtues. Alas, Lasch passed away some years ago, as he would have had much to contribute to the current crisis caused by the meritocrats.
Family and Civilization - Carle Zimmerman - This book was actually first published in the 40's, but I read a recently republished abridgement. Zimmerman draws on Greek and Roman history to demonstrate that, far from progressing towards a more enlightened way of (not) marrying, we're following in the decadent footsteps of our deceased predecessors.
And one novel, because I do so read fiction:
Reamde - Neal Stephenson - I think the Baroque Cycle is still his best, but this is expertly planned and executed. Stephenson is still very much at the top of his game, which is good, because if he loses his fastball, I'm going to need to find a new favorite living novelist.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Our Dark Ages
"The densest of the medieval centuries - the six hundred
years between, roughly, A.D. 400 and A.D. 1000 - are still widely known as the
Dark Ages. Modern historians have abandoned that phrase, one of them writes,
"because of the unacceptable value judgment it implies." Yet there
are no survivors to be offended. Nor is the term necessarily pejorative. Very
little is clear about that dim era." - William Manchester, A World Lit Only by Fire, p. 3
Thus the historian begins his study of the late medieval period culminating--and closing--with Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe. There is seemingly little evidence that the Dark Ages will be returning anytime soon, if not in the pejorative sense--the resurgence of barbarism--certainly in an absence of information about our own era. Indeed, with the continuous communication provided by the Internet in the Age of Twitter, it seems a jest to suspect that they could ever return, at least in this sense.
I offer a few points by way of consideration. But first, we should be aware that the mere accumulation of data doesn't exclude a lack of clarity about the world in which we live. Actually, the immense quantity of data makes it necessary to search among the chaff for the useful wheat. This is a difficult task, the demands of which should not be understated.
For now I'll give but two indicators for my tentative proposal. We start with a paradox: politics becomes more important, even as its utility becomes increasingly dubious. It's totally unclear what either political party is capable of achieving at a federal level, yet this has only increased the fervor with which we seek to elect the right people. This is partially because the State touches every aspect of society, but it's also because very few of our institutions have maintained a healthy existence apart from it. Marriage is doing very badly, we've abandoned traditional religion for worrisome heresies, we even bowl alone.
Politics works no better than our other institutions--in fact, it has probably fared worse--but it has become, to borrow a colloquialism, too big too fail. But because it does not work, we relate to it in ways that are hard to rationalize. The most common technique is to ghettoize ourselves among those who agree with us. Both the left and the right are guilty of this--as are libertarians, and probably socialists, too. This last presidential election provided an interesting example.
Nate Silver, a stat geek, calculated the chances that either candidate would win the presidential election. As the probably of an Obama reelection increased, the right turned on Silver, insisting that he was a partisan hack, and that polls that showed that Romney was dead even were far more accurate. We all know what happened: Silver was vindicated and the right graciously admitted as much. I kid; our politics are too poisonous for charity. The right insisted--what else?--that massive voter fraud had prevented Romney from winning.
I'm actually sympathetic to this assessment, in some respects, only: 1) I'd like to see some proof of the accusation; and 2) if the Democrats are capable of stealing elections so easily, and without negative ramifications, why on earth should anyone devote any time or money to the political process?
It will be interesting to see what historian make of this particular period. This disengagement from reality is, I argue, an indication that the Dark Ages may not be so far away as we think.
The second indicator again involves politics, specifically the issue of gun control. No one has offered an explanation that I have seen as to what laws would have prevented the CT tragedy. And, in fact, focusing on this sort of tragedy makes little sense. Only a small portion of gun deaths occur when someone decides to gun down children at a school; such crimes are the apotheosis of outliers.
Now, the mere presence of guns is clearly not the cause of crime, as our most thinly populated states are rife with firearms. A far better explanation for gun deaths can be had by examining the demographic data. The link explains what everyone knows, but what no one can say: certain groups of people commit violent crimes at a higher rate.
For now, these explanations are still available to us, but when one considers the sheer number of imbeciles who believe, with apparent seriousness, that guns are the real problem, one begins to realize that our own grasp of reality may be far more tenuous than it appears. Which is not to say that the Dark Ages are upon us, only that dimness seems to be encroaching on our ostensibly enlightened time.
Thus the historian begins his study of the late medieval period culminating--and closing--with Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe. There is seemingly little evidence that the Dark Ages will be returning anytime soon, if not in the pejorative sense--the resurgence of barbarism--certainly in an absence of information about our own era. Indeed, with the continuous communication provided by the Internet in the Age of Twitter, it seems a jest to suspect that they could ever return, at least in this sense.
I offer a few points by way of consideration. But first, we should be aware that the mere accumulation of data doesn't exclude a lack of clarity about the world in which we live. Actually, the immense quantity of data makes it necessary to search among the chaff for the useful wheat. This is a difficult task, the demands of which should not be understated.
For now I'll give but two indicators for my tentative proposal. We start with a paradox: politics becomes more important, even as its utility becomes increasingly dubious. It's totally unclear what either political party is capable of achieving at a federal level, yet this has only increased the fervor with which we seek to elect the right people. This is partially because the State touches every aspect of society, but it's also because very few of our institutions have maintained a healthy existence apart from it. Marriage is doing very badly, we've abandoned traditional religion for worrisome heresies, we even bowl alone.
Politics works no better than our other institutions--in fact, it has probably fared worse--but it has become, to borrow a colloquialism, too big too fail. But because it does not work, we relate to it in ways that are hard to rationalize. The most common technique is to ghettoize ourselves among those who agree with us. Both the left and the right are guilty of this--as are libertarians, and probably socialists, too. This last presidential election provided an interesting example.
Nate Silver, a stat geek, calculated the chances that either candidate would win the presidential election. As the probably of an Obama reelection increased, the right turned on Silver, insisting that he was a partisan hack, and that polls that showed that Romney was dead even were far more accurate. We all know what happened: Silver was vindicated and the right graciously admitted as much. I kid; our politics are too poisonous for charity. The right insisted--what else?--that massive voter fraud had prevented Romney from winning.
I'm actually sympathetic to this assessment, in some respects, only: 1) I'd like to see some proof of the accusation; and 2) if the Democrats are capable of stealing elections so easily, and without negative ramifications, why on earth should anyone devote any time or money to the political process?
It will be interesting to see what historian make of this particular period. This disengagement from reality is, I argue, an indication that the Dark Ages may not be so far away as we think.
The second indicator again involves politics, specifically the issue of gun control. No one has offered an explanation that I have seen as to what laws would have prevented the CT tragedy. And, in fact, focusing on this sort of tragedy makes little sense. Only a small portion of gun deaths occur when someone decides to gun down children at a school; such crimes are the apotheosis of outliers.
Now, the mere presence of guns is clearly not the cause of crime, as our most thinly populated states are rife with firearms. A far better explanation for gun deaths can be had by examining the demographic data. The link explains what everyone knows, but what no one can say: certain groups of people commit violent crimes at a higher rate.
For now, these explanations are still available to us, but when one considers the sheer number of imbeciles who believe, with apparent seriousness, that guns are the real problem, one begins to realize that our own grasp of reality may be far more tenuous than it appears. Which is not to say that the Dark Ages are upon us, only that dimness seems to be encroaching on our ostensibly enlightened time.
Monday, December 10, 2012
The decline of debate
Steve Sailer has an excellent post up over at his blog. He writes:
Much of the intellectual progress the world has made over the millennia is due to men managing to turn argument into sport rather than either a test of popularity or of physical strength.
Two points here: 1) this attitude is rare, both historically, in that few periods of time have treated disagreements as other than a personal affront; and 2) men here should be read in the exclusive sense, i.e. excluding women. Anyone who has attempted to discuss things with women is familiar with their tendency to personalize every issue.
This second point is made more clear when Steve continues, quoting Alastair Roberts:
Granted immunity from this process [of debate as sport], sensitivity-driven and conflict-averse contexts seldom produce strong thought, but rather tend to become echo chambers. Even the good ideas that they produce tend to be blunt and very weak in places. Even with highly intelligent people within them, conflict-averse groups are poor at thinking. Bad arguments go unchecked and good insights go unhoned and underdeveloped. This would not be such a problem were it not for the fact that these groups frequently expect us to fly in a society formed according to their ideas, ideas that never received any rigorous stress testing.
For confirmation, I suggest reading the sycophantic drivel bouncing around the echo chamber of your favorite feminist blog. It would be unfair to blame women entirely for this; many men are similarly ill-equipped to handle the rigors of debate. Still, I think we could fairly categorize the sensitivity-driven approach as feminine, while debate as sport is essentially masculine.
Roberts does a good job of highlighting the shortcomings of the feminine approach. I think it would be instructive to examine some of the benefits to the masculine alternative. The fact that ancient Greece and ascendant Britain perfected this model of discourse is probably not an accident. One may still find it this type of discourse in strange corners of the Internet, and in small circles of people, if one is fortunate enough to know enough holdouts to the dictates of the Zeitgeist, it has become exceedingly rare.
This is all very befuddling to me because I have a hard time imagining that debate could be anything other than sport. Taking offense over a difference of opinion is, in my estimation, petty and absurd. This would not be the first time I have discovered that what I perceived as transparently true is almost universally doubted, but it is unfortunate all the same. Sailer, who no doubt came to this realization many decades before me, is to be commended for expressing so clearly what I had only half grasped:
In general, the contemporary mode of emotionalism and herding is the human default. The great ages of intellectual progress via debate were rare social constructs, and it's not surprising that they easily break down.
Much of the intellectual progress the world has made over the millennia is due to men managing to turn argument into sport rather than either a test of popularity or of physical strength.
Two points here: 1) this attitude is rare, both historically, in that few periods of time have treated disagreements as other than a personal affront; and 2) men here should be read in the exclusive sense, i.e. excluding women. Anyone who has attempted to discuss things with women is familiar with their tendency to personalize every issue.
This second point is made more clear when Steve continues, quoting Alastair Roberts:
Granted immunity from this process [of debate as sport], sensitivity-driven and conflict-averse contexts seldom produce strong thought, but rather tend to become echo chambers. Even the good ideas that they produce tend to be blunt and very weak in places. Even with highly intelligent people within them, conflict-averse groups are poor at thinking. Bad arguments go unchecked and good insights go unhoned and underdeveloped. This would not be such a problem were it not for the fact that these groups frequently expect us to fly in a society formed according to their ideas, ideas that never received any rigorous stress testing.
For confirmation, I suggest reading the sycophantic drivel bouncing around the echo chamber of your favorite feminist blog. It would be unfair to blame women entirely for this; many men are similarly ill-equipped to handle the rigors of debate. Still, I think we could fairly categorize the sensitivity-driven approach as feminine, while debate as sport is essentially masculine.
Roberts does a good job of highlighting the shortcomings of the feminine approach. I think it would be instructive to examine some of the benefits to the masculine alternative. The fact that ancient Greece and ascendant Britain perfected this model of discourse is probably not an accident. One may still find it this type of discourse in strange corners of the Internet, and in small circles of people, if one is fortunate enough to know enough holdouts to the dictates of the Zeitgeist, it has become exceedingly rare.
This is all very befuddling to me because I have a hard time imagining that debate could be anything other than sport. Taking offense over a difference of opinion is, in my estimation, petty and absurd. This would not be the first time I have discovered that what I perceived as transparently true is almost universally doubted, but it is unfortunate all the same. Sailer, who no doubt came to this realization many decades before me, is to be commended for expressing so clearly what I had only half grasped:
In general, the contemporary mode of emotionalism and herding is the human default. The great ages of intellectual progress via debate were rare social constructs, and it's not surprising that they easily break down.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Feminist lunacy
Feminism is one of the shibboleths of our time; criticism of it cannot be brokered. Mere skepticism is often enough to reveal oneself to be afraid of women who do more than make sandwiches and have babies. Yet it must be denounced as the grave threat to civilization that it is.
At heart, feminism is at war with biology, for nature is a cruel mistress who imposes desires within us based on our sex, desires that cannot be eradicated even after years of indoctrination in the schools. Concomitantly, the other great enemy of the feminist is the nuclear family, for the family provides a constant reminder of the complementarity of the sexes, thereby compelling our embittered sisters to recall that biology has not yet been overthrown.
Here we find a good example of the feminist--hat tips to GL Piggy and Heartise--bereft of logic or common sense, arrogantly adamant that reality must be as she wishes it to be:
The show [MTV's Teen Mom] does not attempt radical advocacy, but it does understand that the most fundamental patterns in American life can’t be covered up. Teen motherhood, single motherhood, unmarried cohabitation—these are not plagues or social ills that pose a threat to the otherwise normal structures of everyday life. They are our new social reality.
The argument, so far as one exists, is that because marriage is increasingly unpopular, it is no longer normal, so we must normalize these poor imitations of that vital social institution. A cursory examination of the findings of the social scientists would reveal that single parenthood is disastrous for children. See: anywhere. But we already knew this. The reason children of single mothers were mocked as bastards was to emphasize that having a child out of wedlock was an anti-social and harmful act. Once the child had been born, mother and relations would do their best to raise the child, but no one would consider pretending that this was some newfangled ideal.
In the future, it would appear that we will all be bastards. Which is reasonable shorthand for the ways things worked in our pagan and barbarian past. The writer may console herself with the pleasant thought that if she plays her cards well, she may find a spot in the harem of a powerful male.
There is nothing wrong with teenage or single motherhood. The things children need: economic livelihood, emotional support and an education, are not dependent on a nuclear family structure. Poverty is poverty whether it’s endured by two people or four. A couple cannot raise a child better than one can. Once we get rid of the idea that marriage is the privileged form of cohabitation and that women cannot raise children without the help of a man—ideas that the Left has been working to eradicate for decades—there is no reason that a teen should not be financially and emotionally assisted for her choice to have a family.
This is what Nietzsche called the transvaluation of values: the virtues become vices, and the vices become virtues. There is so much idiocy here that it's hard to cut through, it helps to change out single motherhood for other anti-social behaviors, as, for instance: There is nothing wrong with sharing needles. Thus does a feminist "argue". Note that in cases where it is obvious, no lies are necessary: There is nothing wrong with assisting at a homeless shelter--where, I hesitate to add, unwed mothers form a sizable portion of the... home disabled, I think we're supposed to call them.
We get to the heart of the matter in that last sentence: "there is no reason that a teen should not be financially and emotionally assisted for her choice to have a family." Feminism advocates irresponsibility in that it insists that women have the right to do as they please--full stop. Yet with rights, come duties. My right to private property carries with it a duty to use that property virtuously. Single mothers possess a duty to their bastard spawn; before becoming pregnant, they have a duty to refrain from sexual intercourse if they will be unable to provide for that child in a responsible way, which is to say, if they are unmarried.
As an aside, these duties apply to men as well. But women have always been the sexual gatekeepers since the consequences of poor choices fall disproportionally on them. Such facts were readily understood before the Great War on Biology.
Single parenthood depends on a generous welfare State, which takes from the productive members of society, and redistributes these wages to single mothers. Since feminists have no inclination to actually live autonomously, they have replaced the horrid husband with the State. Instead of supporting a wife and children, a productive man must hand over a portion of his paycheck to women he does not know, to care for children he did not sire.
Sometimes, one gets the impression that our present societal arrangement must be a Swiftian satire.
The consequences of the subsidization of irresponsibility are twofold. First, marriage will continue to be looked upon as a luxury good: the underclass will have children without bothering to marry; the upper classes will continue to tie the knot at expensive ceremonies; they may even have a child or two. For more on this, see Charles Murray's excellent book: Coming Apart. This bifurcation is very bad for the underclass, a point which should become clear once the EBT allowance is cut by a bankrupt Government.
Second, productivity will decline. The economic progress that we take for granted depends on a small portion of men--and yes, they are mostly men. Beneath these men of genius, are a large number of, again, mostly men, who, while not responsible for giant leaps of progress, help in their own small way. They do their job diligently and honestly, partially because of their bourgeois virtues, but also because they either wish to attract a mate for whom they can provide, or, because they have a mate for whom they are providing. If men become disinterested in this--as the asinine essayist thinks they should, and as some men are thinking, though for completely different reasons--productivity will necessarily decrease. Men will work only to provide them with what they need.
This should cause our feminist to tremble with fear, for we are much closer to our civilization's end than her blissful ruminations on the destruction of the family would suggest. Then again, if she realized the relationship between the family--those little platoons of which Burke wrote--and civilization at large, she wouldn't be a feminist.
At heart, feminism is at war with biology, for nature is a cruel mistress who imposes desires within us based on our sex, desires that cannot be eradicated even after years of indoctrination in the schools. Concomitantly, the other great enemy of the feminist is the nuclear family, for the family provides a constant reminder of the complementarity of the sexes, thereby compelling our embittered sisters to recall that biology has not yet been overthrown.
Here we find a good example of the feminist--hat tips to GL Piggy and Heartise--bereft of logic or common sense, arrogantly adamant that reality must be as she wishes it to be:
The show [MTV's Teen Mom] does not attempt radical advocacy, but it does understand that the most fundamental patterns in American life can’t be covered up. Teen motherhood, single motherhood, unmarried cohabitation—these are not plagues or social ills that pose a threat to the otherwise normal structures of everyday life. They are our new social reality.
The argument, so far as one exists, is that because marriage is increasingly unpopular, it is no longer normal, so we must normalize these poor imitations of that vital social institution. A cursory examination of the findings of the social scientists would reveal that single parenthood is disastrous for children. See: anywhere. But we already knew this. The reason children of single mothers were mocked as bastards was to emphasize that having a child out of wedlock was an anti-social and harmful act. Once the child had been born, mother and relations would do their best to raise the child, but no one would consider pretending that this was some newfangled ideal.
In the future, it would appear that we will all be bastards. Which is reasonable shorthand for the ways things worked in our pagan and barbarian past. The writer may console herself with the pleasant thought that if she plays her cards well, she may find a spot in the harem of a powerful male.
There is nothing wrong with teenage or single motherhood. The things children need: economic livelihood, emotional support and an education, are not dependent on a nuclear family structure. Poverty is poverty whether it’s endured by two people or four. A couple cannot raise a child better than one can. Once we get rid of the idea that marriage is the privileged form of cohabitation and that women cannot raise children without the help of a man—ideas that the Left has been working to eradicate for decades—there is no reason that a teen should not be financially and emotionally assisted for her choice to have a family.
This is what Nietzsche called the transvaluation of values: the virtues become vices, and the vices become virtues. There is so much idiocy here that it's hard to cut through, it helps to change out single motherhood for other anti-social behaviors, as, for instance: There is nothing wrong with sharing needles. Thus does a feminist "argue". Note that in cases where it is obvious, no lies are necessary: There is nothing wrong with assisting at a homeless shelter--where, I hesitate to add, unwed mothers form a sizable portion of the... home disabled, I think we're supposed to call them.
We get to the heart of the matter in that last sentence: "there is no reason that a teen should not be financially and emotionally assisted for her choice to have a family." Feminism advocates irresponsibility in that it insists that women have the right to do as they please--full stop. Yet with rights, come duties. My right to private property carries with it a duty to use that property virtuously. Single mothers possess a duty to their bastard spawn; before becoming pregnant, they have a duty to refrain from sexual intercourse if they will be unable to provide for that child in a responsible way, which is to say, if they are unmarried.
As an aside, these duties apply to men as well. But women have always been the sexual gatekeepers since the consequences of poor choices fall disproportionally on them. Such facts were readily understood before the Great War on Biology.
Single parenthood depends on a generous welfare State, which takes from the productive members of society, and redistributes these wages to single mothers. Since feminists have no inclination to actually live autonomously, they have replaced the horrid husband with the State. Instead of supporting a wife and children, a productive man must hand over a portion of his paycheck to women he does not know, to care for children he did not sire.
Sometimes, one gets the impression that our present societal arrangement must be a Swiftian satire.
The consequences of the subsidization of irresponsibility are twofold. First, marriage will continue to be looked upon as a luxury good: the underclass will have children without bothering to marry; the upper classes will continue to tie the knot at expensive ceremonies; they may even have a child or two. For more on this, see Charles Murray's excellent book: Coming Apart. This bifurcation is very bad for the underclass, a point which should become clear once the EBT allowance is cut by a bankrupt Government.
Second, productivity will decline. The economic progress that we take for granted depends on a small portion of men--and yes, they are mostly men. Beneath these men of genius, are a large number of, again, mostly men, who, while not responsible for giant leaps of progress, help in their own small way. They do their job diligently and honestly, partially because of their bourgeois virtues, but also because they either wish to attract a mate for whom they can provide, or, because they have a mate for whom they are providing. If men become disinterested in this--as the asinine essayist thinks they should, and as some men are thinking, though for completely different reasons--productivity will necessarily decrease. Men will work only to provide them with what they need.
This should cause our feminist to tremble with fear, for we are much closer to our civilization's end than her blissful ruminations on the destruction of the family would suggest. Then again, if she realized the relationship between the family--those little platoons of which Burke wrote--and civilization at large, she wouldn't be a feminist.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Election redux
It's been almost two weeks since the Most Important Election Ever(TM). After years of campaigning and some $6 billion spent on the presidential race alone, nothing has changed. President Obama gets another term; he and his Democratic Senate will have to contend with a Republican House. Three cheers for gridlock!
Armchair quarterbacks like to look at the data set an election provides and extrapolate forward to come up with trends. For instance, because the Republicans lost this presidential election, they are destined to wander for decades in the political wilderness. This argument is based on the demographic reality: to wit, minority groups vote heavily for Democrats, and as these minority groups are growing as a share of the electorate, Republicans will never win another election again.
This argument assumes that Mitt Romney could have been an effective nominee, if only the electorate were different. In a sense this is true, as one could hypothetically restrict the suffrage to ensure Republican victory. But this lets Romney off the hook far too easily. Given our electorate, the Republicans could have run a better nominee. The demographic angle is important, but it's also worth discussing the larger problem facing the GOP. The party no longer seems to know what it stands for.
I base this on the evidence that of the nominees for the Republican party, Romney was arguably the best standard bearer--and he was a very bad one. I'll refrain from my usual insistence that Ron Paul ought to have been the nominee; plainly, the party faithful aren't interested in sound money and non-interventionism. Paul articulates a coherent vision, but it's not one the party is interested in embracing at this moment in history. There's a lesson here to be sure: it's possible that a GOP that wasn't wedded to the warfare state would do better in the polls, but the neo-con establishment isn't even willing to consider such heresy.
The reason Romney was such a mediocre nominee is that, like his party, he lacked principles. He had taken both sides on virtually every important issue; his flip-flops made John Kerry seem like a paragon of consistency. During the race for the Republican nomination, he ran to the right when confronted with his liberal stances on everything from abortion, to guns, to healthcare. In the debates with the President, he ran back to the middle, in the process, revealing himself to be a duplicitous panderer. Only an abysmal performance by the President in the first debate--and an amusing overreaction from the panicked leftist media--prevented the election from being a landslide. In hindsight, it was never really much of a race.
As an aside, less discussed was the inconsistency of Romney's running mate, Paul Ryan. Ostensibly a fiscal hawk, Ryan had voted for every spending increase during the Bush presidency. The debt crisis would have eventually sapped the surplus, but Medicare Part D and an expensive war in Iraq accelerated the trend. The Republican refusal to see the Bush years as the disaster they were still hurts the party. Clinton's appearance at the Democratic convention reminded Americans of better times, thereby helping Obama. Bush, meanwhile, was far away from his party's convention. Like Jimmy Carter, the electorate sees Bush II as a hapless loser.
Back to the story: Romney's defeat is somewhat surprising in that, by all accounts, Obama has been a lousy president. His policies have managed to obscure the nature of our recession, but a meaningful recovery has failed to materialize. But one does not switch horses midstream without a compelling reason. Romney failed in this respect. His vague bromides to leadership and job creation simply weren't persuasive.
This is partially because the GOP has but one answer to the issue of jobs. For Republicans, it's always 1980, and there's nothing that can't be fixed with a good tax cut. I'm not enthusiastic about paying taxes, but it's simply not the case that cutting taxes always leads to job growth. Cutting income tax, moreover, has limited appeal for those who do not pay income tax. At present, our overwhelming debt is the largest obstacle to economic growth. Neither party possesses a credible plan to reduce it, let alone pay it off.
The best Romney could offer by way of fiscal responsibility was the possibility of a balanced budget during the last year of his second term. Colloquially, the Republicans were peeing on our legs, insisting that it was raining. If this is the best the GOP can do, I can't see the point of having a conservative party. It may be that anything more radical would be unpalatable to the American people, but when faced with two profligate parties, the citizens were behaving rationally in voting for the man who promised them more things. For if the debt matters, we are doomed--with either party. But if the debt doesn't matter, why would we not allow the government to spend as much money as possible?
Until the Republicans can make a coherent case against debt, and offer a practical program to reduce it, they offer nothing to fiscal conservatives. Naturally, the take away has not been to reexamine the ideological underpinnings of the movement, but to flout neo-con Marco Rubio as the Great Hispanic Hope to turn the party's electoral fortunes around. Not for nothing is the Republican Party called the Stupid Party.
Armchair quarterbacks like to look at the data set an election provides and extrapolate forward to come up with trends. For instance, because the Republicans lost this presidential election, they are destined to wander for decades in the political wilderness. This argument is based on the demographic reality: to wit, minority groups vote heavily for Democrats, and as these minority groups are growing as a share of the electorate, Republicans will never win another election again.
This argument assumes that Mitt Romney could have been an effective nominee, if only the electorate were different. In a sense this is true, as one could hypothetically restrict the suffrage to ensure Republican victory. But this lets Romney off the hook far too easily. Given our electorate, the Republicans could have run a better nominee. The demographic angle is important, but it's also worth discussing the larger problem facing the GOP. The party no longer seems to know what it stands for.
I base this on the evidence that of the nominees for the Republican party, Romney was arguably the best standard bearer--and he was a very bad one. I'll refrain from my usual insistence that Ron Paul ought to have been the nominee; plainly, the party faithful aren't interested in sound money and non-interventionism. Paul articulates a coherent vision, but it's not one the party is interested in embracing at this moment in history. There's a lesson here to be sure: it's possible that a GOP that wasn't wedded to the warfare state would do better in the polls, but the neo-con establishment isn't even willing to consider such heresy.
The reason Romney was such a mediocre nominee is that, like his party, he lacked principles. He had taken both sides on virtually every important issue; his flip-flops made John Kerry seem like a paragon of consistency. During the race for the Republican nomination, he ran to the right when confronted with his liberal stances on everything from abortion, to guns, to healthcare. In the debates with the President, he ran back to the middle, in the process, revealing himself to be a duplicitous panderer. Only an abysmal performance by the President in the first debate--and an amusing overreaction from the panicked leftist media--prevented the election from being a landslide. In hindsight, it was never really much of a race.
As an aside, less discussed was the inconsistency of Romney's running mate, Paul Ryan. Ostensibly a fiscal hawk, Ryan had voted for every spending increase during the Bush presidency. The debt crisis would have eventually sapped the surplus, but Medicare Part D and an expensive war in Iraq accelerated the trend. The Republican refusal to see the Bush years as the disaster they were still hurts the party. Clinton's appearance at the Democratic convention reminded Americans of better times, thereby helping Obama. Bush, meanwhile, was far away from his party's convention. Like Jimmy Carter, the electorate sees Bush II as a hapless loser.
Back to the story: Romney's defeat is somewhat surprising in that, by all accounts, Obama has been a lousy president. His policies have managed to obscure the nature of our recession, but a meaningful recovery has failed to materialize. But one does not switch horses midstream without a compelling reason. Romney failed in this respect. His vague bromides to leadership and job creation simply weren't persuasive.
This is partially because the GOP has but one answer to the issue of jobs. For Republicans, it's always 1980, and there's nothing that can't be fixed with a good tax cut. I'm not enthusiastic about paying taxes, but it's simply not the case that cutting taxes always leads to job growth. Cutting income tax, moreover, has limited appeal for those who do not pay income tax. At present, our overwhelming debt is the largest obstacle to economic growth. Neither party possesses a credible plan to reduce it, let alone pay it off.
The best Romney could offer by way of fiscal responsibility was the possibility of a balanced budget during the last year of his second term. Colloquially, the Republicans were peeing on our legs, insisting that it was raining. If this is the best the GOP can do, I can't see the point of having a conservative party. It may be that anything more radical would be unpalatable to the American people, but when faced with two profligate parties, the citizens were behaving rationally in voting for the man who promised them more things. For if the debt matters, we are doomed--with either party. But if the debt doesn't matter, why would we not allow the government to spend as much money as possible?
Until the Republicans can make a coherent case against debt, and offer a practical program to reduce it, they offer nothing to fiscal conservatives. Naturally, the take away has not been to reexamine the ideological underpinnings of the movement, but to flout neo-con Marco Rubio as the Great Hispanic Hope to turn the party's electoral fortunes around. Not for nothing is the Republican Party called the Stupid Party.
Saturday, November 03, 2012
On birthrates
A deeply troubling report was released by the CDC. CNS News summarizes:
More than 40 percent of all babies born in the country last year, the report said, were born to unmarried women.
This is very bad news. Although this rate didn't change substantially from the previous year, we'll need to see a significant drop before optimism is warranted. Anecdotally, there are no doubt plenty of good single parents, but they face almost insurmountable obstacles in trying to raise children without help. The evidence is clear: single parenthood is disastrous for children.
So naturally we're going to spend much of our time arguing over whether or not the 1-2% of the population that is homosexual should be allowed to get married. It's almost as America is a ridiculous nation.
The report continues:
However, among women 35-39 years old, [the birthrate] increased from 45.9 per 100,000 to 47.2. Among women 40-44, it increased from 10.2 to 10.3. And among women from 45-54, it held steady at 0.7 per 100,000.
These gains aren't substantial. I could run the numbers to prove it, but that would require me to remember something from statistics, a class which I attended infrequently. But if there is a story here, it's that Americans continue to have children later in life. There are some very obvious reasons why this is a bad idea: younger people have more energy and are more durable, etc., but there's also a demographic angle that merits investigation.
Birthrate is useful metric, but it conflates dissimilar goods through the crudeness of its model. A child born to a teenager is not the same as a child born to a forty year-old. We can make this clear if we take two extreme sample populations: A, in which the women have, on average, 2 children, at an average age of 20; and B, in which the women also have, on average, 2 children, but at an average age of 40.
For the sake of simplicity, we'll assume that the children arrive precisely at the average date--so there is no variation in our sample, and everyone is, evidently, having twins. This assumption is absurd, but it helps the model, and it doesn't detract from the point I wish to convey. We'll also assume that people die precisely at the age of 80, and for the same reasons.
If we start each population with 100 people, and if I did my math right, the populations look like this over a century's time:
Even though the birthrates are the same, population A is growing, while population B will remain stable at 200. Now, the average progressive would look at this model and be amazed at the responsibility of population B--and be horrified at the rabbit-like behavior of population A. If it prevents them from having children, so much the better.
But the salient point is that not all births are created equal. This is as heretical as it is logically sound. A society thrives when its citizens are married before they have children, but it also thrives when these married people have children at a younger age. Or, anyway, the population increases, which means that there are more younger works to pay into the bankrupt Social Security fund, and to pay taxes to fund Medicare and so forth. And to maybe even help the economy grow.
It's important to pay attention to the birthrate, but the crude statistic can be misleading as well. Just as GDP reflects the economic state of the country in question, so the birthrate gives some idea as to the nation's long term sustainability. But only some idea.
More than 40 percent of all babies born in the country last year, the report said, were born to unmarried women.
This is very bad news. Although this rate didn't change substantially from the previous year, we'll need to see a significant drop before optimism is warranted. Anecdotally, there are no doubt plenty of good single parents, but they face almost insurmountable obstacles in trying to raise children without help. The evidence is clear: single parenthood is disastrous for children.
So naturally we're going to spend much of our time arguing over whether or not the 1-2% of the population that is homosexual should be allowed to get married. It's almost as America is a ridiculous nation.
The report continues:
However, among women 35-39 years old, [the birthrate] increased from 45.9 per 100,000 to 47.2. Among women 40-44, it increased from 10.2 to 10.3. And among women from 45-54, it held steady at 0.7 per 100,000.
These gains aren't substantial. I could run the numbers to prove it, but that would require me to remember something from statistics, a class which I attended infrequently. But if there is a story here, it's that Americans continue to have children later in life. There are some very obvious reasons why this is a bad idea: younger people have more energy and are more durable, etc., but there's also a demographic angle that merits investigation.
Birthrate is useful metric, but it conflates dissimilar goods through the crudeness of its model. A child born to a teenager is not the same as a child born to a forty year-old. We can make this clear if we take two extreme sample populations: A, in which the women have, on average, 2 children, at an average age of 20; and B, in which the women also have, on average, 2 children, but at an average age of 40.
For the sake of simplicity, we'll assume that the children arrive precisely at the average date--so there is no variation in our sample, and everyone is, evidently, having twins. This assumption is absurd, but it helps the model, and it doesn't detract from the point I wish to convey. We'll also assume that people die precisely at the age of 80, and for the same reasons.
If we start each population with 100 people, and if I did my math right, the populations look like this over a century's time:
| Year | A | B |
| 0 | 100 | 100 |
| 20 | 200 | 100 |
| 40 | 400 | 200 |
| 60 | 800 | 200 |
| 80 | 1500 | 200 |
| 100 | 2800 | 200 |
Even though the birthrates are the same, population A is growing, while population B will remain stable at 200. Now, the average progressive would look at this model and be amazed at the responsibility of population B--and be horrified at the rabbit-like behavior of population A. If it prevents them from having children, so much the better.
But the salient point is that not all births are created equal. This is as heretical as it is logically sound. A society thrives when its citizens are married before they have children, but it also thrives when these married people have children at a younger age. Or, anyway, the population increases, which means that there are more younger works to pay into the bankrupt Social Security fund, and to pay taxes to fund Medicare and so forth. And to maybe even help the economy grow.
It's important to pay attention to the birthrate, but the crude statistic can be misleading as well. Just as GDP reflects the economic state of the country in question, so the birthrate gives some idea as to the nation's long term sustainability. But only some idea.
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