Steven Pinker is a famous Harvard cognitive psychologist.
By STEVEN PINKER
Published: June 10, 2010
NEW forms of media have always caused moral panics: the printing press, newspapers, paperbacks and television were all once denounced as threats to their consumers’ brainpower and moral fiber.
So too with electronic technologies. PowerPoint, we’re told, is reducing discourse to bullet points. Search engines lower our intelligence, encouraging us to skim on the surface of knowledge rather than dive to its depths. Twitter is shrinking our attention spans.
But such panics often fail basic reality checks. When comic books were accused of turning juveniles into delinquents in the 1950s, crime was falling to record lows, just as the denunciations of video games in the 1990s coincided with the great American crime decline. The decades of television, transistor radios and rock videos were also decades in which I.Q. scores rose continuously.
For a reality check today, take the state of science, which demands high levels of brainwork and is measured by clear benchmarks of discovery. These days scientists are never far from their e-mail, rarely touch paper and cannot lecture without PowerPoint. If electronic media were hazardous to intelligence, the quality of science would be plummeting. Yet discoveries are multiplying like fruit flies, and progress is dizzying. Other activities in the life of the mind, like philosophy, history and cultural criticism, are likewise flourishing, as anyone who has lost a morning of work to the Web site Arts & Letters Daily can attest.
Critics of new media sometimes use science itself to press their case, citing research that shows how “experience can change the brain.” But cognitive neuroscientists roll their eyes at such talk. Yes, every time we learn a fact or skill the wiring of the brain changes; it’s not as if the information is stored in the pancreas. But the existence of neural plasticity does not mean the brain is a blob of clay pounded into shape by experience.
Experience does not revamp the basic information-processing capacities of the brain. Speed-reading programs have long claimed to do just that, but the verdict was rendered by Woody Allen after he read “War and Peace” in one sitting: “It was about Russia.” Genuine multitasking, too, has been exposed as a myth, not just by laboratory studies but by the familiar sight of an S.U.V. undulating between lanes as the driver cuts deals on his cellphone.
Moreover, as the psychologists Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons show in their new book “The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us,” the effects of experience are highly specific to the experiences themselves. If you train people to do one thing (recognize shapes, solve math puzzles, find hidden words), they get better at doing that thing, but almost nothing else. Music doesn’t make you better at math, conjugating Latin doesn’t make you more logical, brain-training games don’t make you smarter. Accomplished people don’t bulk up their brains with intellectual calisthenics; they immerse themselves in their fields. Novelists read lots of novels, scientists read lots of science.
The effects of consuming electronic media are also likely to be far more limited than the panic implies. Media critics write as if the brain takes on the qualities of whatever it consumes, the informational equivalent of “you are what you eat.” As with primitive peoples who believe that eating fierce animals will make them fierce, they assume that watching quick cuts in rock videos turns your mental life into quick cuts or that reading bullet points and Twitter postings turns your thoughts into bullet points and Twitter postings.
Yes, the constant arrival of information packets can be distracting or addictive, especially to people with attention deficit disorder. But distraction is not a new phenomenon. The solution is not to bemoan technology but to develop strategies of self-control, as we do with every other temptation in life. Turn off e-mail or Twitter when you work, put away your Blackberry at dinner time, ask your spouse to call you to bed at a designated hour.
And to encourage intellectual depth, don’t rail at PowerPoint or Google. It’s not as if habits of deep reflection, thorough research and rigorous reasoning ever came naturally to people. They must be acquired in special institutions, which we call universities, and maintained with constant upkeep, which we call analysis, criticism and debate. They are not granted by propping a heavy encyclopedia on your lap, nor are they taken away by efficient access to information on the Internet.
The new media have caught on for a reason. Knowledge is increasing exponentially; human brainpower and waking hours are not. Fortunately, the Internet and information technologies are helping us manage, search and retrieve our collective intellectual output at different scales, from Twitter and previews to e-books and online encyclopedias. Far from making us stupid, these technologies are the only things that will keep us smart.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Shelley Fisher Fishkin - The Mark Twain Anthology
This anthology of writers on the life and works of Mark Twain published by The Library of America is ideal for the common reader like me.
There is a lovely piece by Rudyard Kipling on his visit with Twain in 1890. Mark Twain knew Helen Keller, and she write lovingly of her visit with Twain. Twain's patron William Dean Howells weighs in with his praise.
The selections range from the critical to the popular to international comments. There is Leslie Fiedler, Bernard de Voto, and T.S. Eliot's famous introduction to "Huckleberry Finn."
Toni Morrison writes of her admiration for "Huckleberry Finn" and her multiple readings over the years. Norman Mailer wrote a review of Huck Finn in 1984 in which he pretended the novel had just been published.
The anthology concludes with a piece by Roy Blount, Jr., who writes about Twain as America's first Superstar. Indeed, at the time of his death, Mark Twain was the most popular person in the country, and the most popular American in the world.
This anthology of 492 pages is indispensible for the common reader wishing to understand this country's most famous writer.
There is a lovely piece by Rudyard Kipling on his visit with Twain in 1890. Mark Twain knew Helen Keller, and she write lovingly of her visit with Twain. Twain's patron William Dean Howells weighs in with his praise.
The selections range from the critical to the popular to international comments. There is Leslie Fiedler, Bernard de Voto, and T.S. Eliot's famous introduction to "Huckleberry Finn."
Toni Morrison writes of her admiration for "Huckleberry Finn" and her multiple readings over the years. Norman Mailer wrote a review of Huck Finn in 1984 in which he pretended the novel had just been published.
The anthology concludes with a piece by Roy Blount, Jr., who writes about Twain as America's first Superstar. Indeed, at the time of his death, Mark Twain was the most popular person in the country, and the most popular American in the world.
This anthology of 492 pages is indispensible for the common reader wishing to understand this country's most famous writer.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Libraries for All
Larra ClarkProject manager for the ALA Office for Research and Statistics
Posted: June 25, 2010 03:54 PM BIO Become a Fan Get Email Alerts Bloggers' Index
ALA Conference This Week: Libraries -- Delivering Technology for All
Share Comments What do you think of when you hear the word "library?"
Go back in time, and you may recall the card catalog, the summer reading club, stacks of books, rows of encyclopedias, maybe some microfiche, and a librarian to help you find the right resource.
Fast forward: today, libraries are a much needed and - as a new research study notes - a much utilized essential service that keeps the books and helpful librarians but also combines technology, training and tools for today's digital society.
The changing role of today's public library is on the agenda this week when thousands of librarians, authors, Friends, and library advocates of converge in Washington, D.C., for the American Library Association Annual Conference. And, there is plenty to talk about- including a new report that documents the public library's role as a community technology hub. The 2010 Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study, funded by the ALA and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, confirms recent headlines from cities and towns across the country: the majority of libraries have experienced increased use of their public computers and wireless service; supporting job seekers has become the most critical community use of library technology; and more libraries are open fewer hours. In fact, data shows that about 15 percent of all libraries - and 24 percent of urban libraries - reported decreased operating hours last year.
The report, though, brings into focus several topics several trends that may be less well-known:
The role of libraries in supporting e-government. From unemployment benefits to state tax forms, more government information and services are moving online, often without a print alternative. Seventy-nine percent of libraries (up from 54 percent one year ago) report they assisted library patrons in accessing and applying for government services. Having more options for interacting with government agencies makes sense as long as we don't forget that many people still lack easy access to computers and the Internet. And still more lack the skills to navigate complex government websites, which takes me to my second point...
The role of libraries in supporting digital literacy. Our public libraries serve everyone in the community - from babies in storytime programs to high school seniors prepping for SAT and researching financial aid, to small business owners using the library as their "home" office. This applies to computer and technology users, as well. Almost 90 percent of libraries provide formal or informal technology training to library patrons. This expertise extends from the patron establishing his first email account to the nurse who combined her health care knowledge with new technology skills gained at her local library to get hired as a Nursing Informatics Specialist.
The increasing availability of Internet services, through the library's "virtual branch" (aka the library website) 24/7. Sixty-six percent of libraries, for instance, now offer e-books to library patrons, up from 38 percent three years ago. Students can take advantage of online homework help (88%). Seventy-two percent of libraries answer reference questions now by email, text, chat or IM, so you can get help in a hurry. And almost every library, on its own or with help from the state library, provides access to licensed databases that provide everything from full-text newspaper and magazine articles to practice tests to book recommendations.
Right now libraries face funding challenges that surpass those seen even in the Great Depression. In the 1930s, cities and counties maintained or expanded their funding for public libraries, in recognition of their roles in supporting economic development, lifelong learning and free and equal access to information and resources. At the time, a representative from the Carnegie Library noted, "Impartial observers say that with the exception of those agencies giving actual relief, the public libraries of the United States are perhaps our most important public institutions during times of business depression." Some things haven't changed over the years!
People around the country can only benefit from improved library resources if library doors are open and there is adequate staff to manage and support public access. The time to speak out for our libraries is now. Find out what's happening in your state, join the national Library Advocacy Day on June 29 or simply contact your local library to see how you can get involved in supporting one of our most democratic institutions.
Posted: June 25, 2010 03:54 PM BIO Become a Fan Get Email Alerts Bloggers' Index
ALA Conference This Week: Libraries -- Delivering Technology for All
Share Comments What do you think of when you hear the word "library?"
Go back in time, and you may recall the card catalog, the summer reading club, stacks of books, rows of encyclopedias, maybe some microfiche, and a librarian to help you find the right resource.
Fast forward: today, libraries are a much needed and - as a new research study notes - a much utilized essential service that keeps the books and helpful librarians but also combines technology, training and tools for today's digital society.
The changing role of today's public library is on the agenda this week when thousands of librarians, authors, Friends, and library advocates of converge in Washington, D.C., for the American Library Association Annual Conference. And, there is plenty to talk about- including a new report that documents the public library's role as a community technology hub. The 2010 Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study, funded by the ALA and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, confirms recent headlines from cities and towns across the country: the majority of libraries have experienced increased use of their public computers and wireless service; supporting job seekers has become the most critical community use of library technology; and more libraries are open fewer hours. In fact, data shows that about 15 percent of all libraries - and 24 percent of urban libraries - reported decreased operating hours last year.
The report, though, brings into focus several topics several trends that may be less well-known:
The role of libraries in supporting e-government. From unemployment benefits to state tax forms, more government information and services are moving online, often without a print alternative. Seventy-nine percent of libraries (up from 54 percent one year ago) report they assisted library patrons in accessing and applying for government services. Having more options for interacting with government agencies makes sense as long as we don't forget that many people still lack easy access to computers and the Internet. And still more lack the skills to navigate complex government websites, which takes me to my second point...
The role of libraries in supporting digital literacy. Our public libraries serve everyone in the community - from babies in storytime programs to high school seniors prepping for SAT and researching financial aid, to small business owners using the library as their "home" office. This applies to computer and technology users, as well. Almost 90 percent of libraries provide formal or informal technology training to library patrons. This expertise extends from the patron establishing his first email account to the nurse who combined her health care knowledge with new technology skills gained at her local library to get hired as a Nursing Informatics Specialist.
The increasing availability of Internet services, through the library's "virtual branch" (aka the library website) 24/7. Sixty-six percent of libraries, for instance, now offer e-books to library patrons, up from 38 percent three years ago. Students can take advantage of online homework help (88%). Seventy-two percent of libraries answer reference questions now by email, text, chat or IM, so you can get help in a hurry. And almost every library, on its own or with help from the state library, provides access to licensed databases that provide everything from full-text newspaper and magazine articles to practice tests to book recommendations.
Right now libraries face funding challenges that surpass those seen even in the Great Depression. In the 1930s, cities and counties maintained or expanded their funding for public libraries, in recognition of their roles in supporting economic development, lifelong learning and free and equal access to information and resources. At the time, a representative from the Carnegie Library noted, "Impartial observers say that with the exception of those agencies giving actual relief, the public libraries of the United States are perhaps our most important public institutions during times of business depression." Some things haven't changed over the years!
People around the country can only benefit from improved library resources if library doors are open and there is adequate staff to manage and support public access. The time to speak out for our libraries is now. Find out what's happening in your state, join the national Library Advocacy Day on June 29 or simply contact your local library to see how you can get involved in supporting one of our most democratic institutions.
Fastest Growing College Towns (from USA Today)
City 2009 population Avg. annual growth, 2000-2006 Avg. annual growth, 2006-2009
Ann Arbor, Mich. 112852 -0.1% -0.4%
Auburn, Ala. 57833 2.9% 2.0%
Bloomington, Ind. 71939 -0.1% 0.6%
Boulder, Colo. 100160 0.6% 0.6%
Burlington, Vt. 38647 -0.5% 0.0%
Champaign, Ill. 80286 1.6% 1.3%
Charlottesville, Va. 42218 0.4% 0.9%
Columbia, Mo. 102324 2.1% 1.7%
Corvallis, Ore. 51560 0.3% 0.9%
East Lansing, Mich. 45562 -0.2% -0.3%
Fayetteville, Ark. 77142 3.2% 2.7%
Fort Collins, Colo. 138736 1.6% 1.8%
Gainesville, Fla. 116616 0.2% 0.6%
Grand Forks, N.D. 51216 0.8% -0.3%
Greensboro, N.C. 255061 0.9% 2.0%
Knoxville, Tenn. 185100 0.5% 0.6%
Las Cruces, N.M. 93570 2.9% 2.4%
Lawrence, Kan. 92048 1.8% 1.1%
Morgantown, W.Va. 30330 1.5% 1.3%
Oxford, Miss. 17635 3.1% 2.6%
Reno, Nev. 219636 2.4% 1.4%
State College, Pa. 39898 0.7% -0.1%
Syracuse, N.Y. 138560 -0.8% -0.3%
Tempe, Ariz. 174255 0.7% 1.8%
Athens-Clarke County, Ga. 114983 1.6% 1.4%
Ann Arbor, Mich. 112852 -0.1% -0.4%
Auburn, Ala. 57833 2.9% 2.0%
Bloomington, Ind. 71939 -0.1% 0.6%
Boulder, Colo. 100160 0.6% 0.6%
Burlington, Vt. 38647 -0.5% 0.0%
Champaign, Ill. 80286 1.6% 1.3%
Charlottesville, Va. 42218 0.4% 0.9%
Columbia, Mo. 102324 2.1% 1.7%
Corvallis, Ore. 51560 0.3% 0.9%
East Lansing, Mich. 45562 -0.2% -0.3%
Fayetteville, Ark. 77142 3.2% 2.7%
Fort Collins, Colo. 138736 1.6% 1.8%
Gainesville, Fla. 116616 0.2% 0.6%
Grand Forks, N.D. 51216 0.8% -0.3%
Greensboro, N.C. 255061 0.9% 2.0%
Knoxville, Tenn. 185100 0.5% 0.6%
Las Cruces, N.M. 93570 2.9% 2.4%
Lawrence, Kan. 92048 1.8% 1.1%
Morgantown, W.Va. 30330 1.5% 1.3%
Oxford, Miss. 17635 3.1% 2.6%
Reno, Nev. 219636 2.4% 1.4%
State College, Pa. 39898 0.7% -0.1%
Syracuse, N.Y. 138560 -0.8% -0.3%
Tempe, Ariz. 174255 0.7% 1.8%
Athens-Clarke County, Ga. 114983 1.6% 1.4%
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
A Fulfilled Life
A good knowledge of English and the humanities is vital to living a fulfilled life.
-Playwright Tom Stoppard
-Playwright Tom Stoppard
Monday, June 21, 2010
The Words of John Steinbeck
"I have lost all sense of home, having moved about so much. It means to me now -- only that place where the books are kept."
- John Steinbeck
- John Steinbeck
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Stieg Larsson (2)
So now I've finished "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." It's a fun book to read though the ending is kind of a let-down. I suppose the stage is set for the next one in the series called "The Girl Who Played with Fire." Yes, I will read it and probably the third one also.
It's a long and sprawling story with lots of family history in a criminally challenged dysfunctional family that takes place in Sweden. But the key is the character of the strange (to say the least) girl named Lisbeth Salander. The bottom line is a character study of this unusual person, she with the photographic memory and computer wizardry. Hence, the title of the book.
So I will move on the next one and we'll see what I think after that one.
It's a long and sprawling story with lots of family history in a criminally challenged dysfunctional family that takes place in Sweden. But the key is the character of the strange (to say the least) girl named Lisbeth Salander. The bottom line is a character study of this unusual person, she with the photographic memory and computer wizardry. Hence, the title of the book.
So I will move on the next one and we'll see what I think after that one.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Stieg Larsson
I don't read many mass market books, but I couldn't help but notice this author, a Swede who has written 3 crime novels that take place in Sweden. Since Larsson passed away in 2004, he may be done writing, but who knows. I have started on the first one called The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. His third one is currently Number #1 on the NY Times fiction bestseller list.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Twain & Shakespeare
According to Michael Shelden, Mark Twain became obsessed with William Shakespeare near the end of his life. He joined the unending chorus of people who have wondered if Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare. That debate continues to this day. Twain was apparently dubious that one man could have written all of Shakespeare's works.
It seems that Twain was trying to put himself on the same level as the Bard. Shakespeare is generally considered the greatest writer in the English language. I get the impression from Shelden's book that Twain thought he deserved equal billing.
Twain pointed out that we know very little about Shakespeare's life whereas Twain's life was a open book and his best writing mostly derived from the experiences of his life. Twain's literature flowed from his life.
As Shelden writes: "Though he didn't have a Hamlet or a Macbeth to his credit, the story of his life was second to none, and the literature that had flowed from it was pretty good, too."
It seems that Twain was trying to put himself on the same level as the Bard. Shakespeare is generally considered the greatest writer in the English language. I get the impression from Shelden's book that Twain thought he deserved equal billing.
Twain pointed out that we know very little about Shakespeare's life whereas Twain's life was a open book and his best writing mostly derived from the experiences of his life. Twain's literature flowed from his life.
As Shelden writes: "Though he didn't have a Hamlet or a Macbeth to his credit, the story of his life was second to none, and the literature that had flowed from it was pretty good, too."
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
I finally have read Austen.
I thoroughly like the book. I think I like it more because I have seen two movie versions than I would have otherwise.
The prose is more contemporary than I anticipated. Austen began writing the novel in 1796. I was afraid the story would seem antiquated; instead, it resonates today and will remain timeless. Thankfully, the prose is not as dull as Dickens or as retch-inducing as Edith Wharton's House of Mirth.
I wonder why the book has been so influential. I can only figure it is as classic a tale of love as it gets. Romeo and Juliet overcome their families for love; Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy overcome class status for love. Are there better romances in literature than these?
I am tickled by the decorum of manners that existed in the society of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Their lives are governed by propriety and civility.
I thoroughly like the book. I think I like it more because I have seen two movie versions than I would have otherwise.
The prose is more contemporary than I anticipated. Austen began writing the novel in 1796. I was afraid the story would seem antiquated; instead, it resonates today and will remain timeless. Thankfully, the prose is not as dull as Dickens or as retch-inducing as Edith Wharton's House of Mirth.
I wonder why the book has been so influential. I can only figure it is as classic a tale of love as it gets. Romeo and Juliet overcome their families for love; Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy overcome class status for love. Are there better romances in literature than these?
I am tickled by the decorum of manners that existed in the society of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Their lives are governed by propriety and civility.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Michael Shelden - Mark Twain: Man in White (3)
"At some point (1909) Harpers Bazaar asked Twain to write a short essay on 'the turning point in my life. He didn't like the premise because he didn't believe that anyone's life had just one 'turning point.' As he saw it, there was 'a long chain of turning points' in each person's history, and no link in this intricate chain meant much without the others. Looking back over the events of his early life, he saw five or six crucial links---or turning points---starting with the day his mother 'apprenticed me to a printer.' His vagabond life as a young printer led to adventures along the great wateways of the American frontier, which aroused his interest in becoming a steamboat pilot. When 'boats stopped running' during the early days of the Civil War, he went farther West and caught 'the silver fever' in Nevada. When he didn't stike it rich, he traded a miner's shovel for a journalist's pen and made a name for himself in the West, which inspired him to try his luck as an author back East."
-Michael Shelden, p. 384
-Michael Shelden, p. 384
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
Southern Conservatism vs. Western Conservatism
The Southern Cuckoo
03 Jun 2010 11:30 am
Steinglass does a Western conservatism post mortem:
The individualist Western conservatism Mr Goldwater articulated is one of the great strands in American political thinking. It is quite distinct from Southern conservatism, and has less room for the politics of racial resentment. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, when George Bush and John McCain supported immigration reform and Republicans were winning substantial Hispanic votes, it appeared that this brand of conservatism might achieve cross-racial appeal. But in the past five years, that promising trend has been crushed. And now, in many areas of the West where racial diversity is re-emerging, one sees Western conservatism becoming very focused on racial politics indeed.
It's always worth recalling that the Republican party's historic conservatism, from Lincoln to Eisenhower, was not based in the South. Nixon changed that. For a while, the fusionism worked, primarily under the sunny Californian, Ronald Reagan. But the South is so strong an identity, so powerful a cultural force, that it inevitably becomes the cuckoo in any nest. And the South is hard to comprehend without the racial politics which has defined it and thus contemporary Republicanism. This has proven fatal to a coherent governing conservatism, in my view. And it is deadly for conservatism's future as something other than cultural reaction and denial of the shifting nature of 21st century geo-politics.
03 Jun 2010 11:30 am
Steinglass does a Western conservatism post mortem:
The individualist Western conservatism Mr Goldwater articulated is one of the great strands in American political thinking. It is quite distinct from Southern conservatism, and has less room for the politics of racial resentment. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, when George Bush and John McCain supported immigration reform and Republicans were winning substantial Hispanic votes, it appeared that this brand of conservatism might achieve cross-racial appeal. But in the past five years, that promising trend has been crushed. And now, in many areas of the West where racial diversity is re-emerging, one sees Western conservatism becoming very focused on racial politics indeed.
It's always worth recalling that the Republican party's historic conservatism, from Lincoln to Eisenhower, was not based in the South. Nixon changed that. For a while, the fusionism worked, primarily under the sunny Californian, Ronald Reagan. But the South is so strong an identity, so powerful a cultural force, that it inevitably becomes the cuckoo in any nest. And the South is hard to comprehend without the racial politics which has defined it and thus contemporary Republicanism. This has proven fatal to a coherent governing conservatism, in my view. And it is deadly for conservatism's future as something other than cultural reaction and denial of the shifting nature of 21st century geo-politics.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Election Results
Ron Sparks rolled over Congressman Artur Davis 62% to 38% to win the Democratic nomination for Alabama's Governor. Davis was vying to be the state's first African American nominee for Governor. Davis angered state Democrats by voting against health care reform and he did not pursue the endorsement of the state's black organizations, and he paid dearly. Sparks is running mainly on regulating gambling in the state.
Bradley Byrne, former state senator and head of the state's 2-yr. junior colleges, claimed one of the runoff spots on the Republican side. He will face either Tim James, son of the former Governor Fob James, or newcomer, Dr. John Bentley, a Tuscaloosa physician. There will be a recount since the vote difference between James and Bently is only a hundred and something votes. Bentley vote surprised everybody. Everybody thought it would be between Byrne and James.
Of course I will vote the straight Democratic ticket in November. I certainly hope that Tim James doesn't win. He is the one true idiot in the race.
Bradley Byrne, former state senator and head of the state's 2-yr. junior colleges, claimed one of the runoff spots on the Republican side. He will face either Tim James, son of the former Governor Fob James, or newcomer, Dr. John Bentley, a Tuscaloosa physician. There will be a recount since the vote difference between James and Bently is only a hundred and something votes. Bentley vote surprised everybody. Everybody thought it would be between Byrne and James.
Of course I will vote the straight Democratic ticket in November. I certainly hope that Tim James doesn't win. He is the one true idiot in the race.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
So You Still Want to Choose Your Senator?
By DAVID FIRESTONE
31 May 2010
New York Times
Few members of the Tea Party have endorsed Rand Paul’s misgivings about the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but a surprising number are calling for the repeal of an older piece of transformative legislation: the 17th Amendment. If you don’t have the Constitution on your smartphone, that’s the one adopted in 1913 that provides for direct popular election of United States senators.
Allowing Americans to choose their own senators seems so obvious that it is hard to remember that the nation’s founders didn’t really trust voters with the job. The people were given the right to elect House members. But senators were supposed to be a check on popular rowdiness and factionalism. They were appointed by state legislatures, filled with men of property and stature.
A modern appreciation of democracy — not to mention a clear-eyed appraisal of today’s dysfunctional state legislatures — should make the idea unthinkable. But many Tea Party members and their political candidates are thinking it anyway, convinced that returning to the pre-17th Amendment system would reduce the power of the federal government and enhance state rights.
Senate candidates have to raise so much money to run that they become beholden to special interests, party members say. They argue that state legislators would not be as compromised and would choose senators who truly put their state’s needs first.
Around the country, Tea Party affiliates and some candidates have been pressing for repeal — though there also has been a lot of hasty backtracking by politicians once the voters realized the implications. In Idaho, two candidates in last month’s Republican primary for the First District House seat said they favored repeal, including the winner, Raul Labrador. Steve Stivers, the Republican candidate in an Ohio Congressional race, said he wanted to repeal the amendment, until his Democratic opponent, Representative Mary Jo Kilroy, made an issue of it, after which he seemed to back off.
Utah, the only state that refused to ratify the amendment, remains a particular hotbed of prelapsarian sentiment. Tim Bridgewater, who ousted Senator Robert Bennett of Utah as the Republican candidate in that race, blasts the 17th Amendment on his Web site: “We traded senators who represent rights of states for senators who represent the rights of special interest groups.”
The Utah State Senate, which seems to have been fuming at the loss of its power for the last 97 years, approved a bill in March reminding the political parties that they are welcome to consult with legislators when choosing candidates for the United States Senate, especially in regard to their feelings about states’ rights and federalism.
Fortunately, repeal will never happen. Still, there is something bracing in the eccentric quest of these advocates, who may know their constitutional history better than most Americans.
To Madison, Hamilton and most of the other authors of the Constitution, allowing states to appoint the Senate was the linchpin of the entire federalist system and the real reason there are two houses of Congress. It may be true that appointed senators, accountable only to state legislators, would never approve of many useful federal mandates designed to put the national interest above local parochialism — including everything from the minimum wage to the new health care reform law.
Not enough Americans vote. But, fortunately, almost all like the idea that they can, a thoroughly modern sentiment that will confine this elitist notion to the fringes. That means Tea Partiers who are infuriated by the health care law and everything else now going on in Washington can no longer look to James Madison for a bailout. Their best remedy is the one they seem to spurn: a vote at the ballot box.
31 May 2010
New York Times
Few members of the Tea Party have endorsed Rand Paul’s misgivings about the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but a surprising number are calling for the repeal of an older piece of transformative legislation: the 17th Amendment. If you don’t have the Constitution on your smartphone, that’s the one adopted in 1913 that provides for direct popular election of United States senators.
Allowing Americans to choose their own senators seems so obvious that it is hard to remember that the nation’s founders didn’t really trust voters with the job. The people were given the right to elect House members. But senators were supposed to be a check on popular rowdiness and factionalism. They were appointed by state legislatures, filled with men of property and stature.
A modern appreciation of democracy — not to mention a clear-eyed appraisal of today’s dysfunctional state legislatures — should make the idea unthinkable. But many Tea Party members and their political candidates are thinking it anyway, convinced that returning to the pre-17th Amendment system would reduce the power of the federal government and enhance state rights.
Senate candidates have to raise so much money to run that they become beholden to special interests, party members say. They argue that state legislators would not be as compromised and would choose senators who truly put their state’s needs first.
Around the country, Tea Party affiliates and some candidates have been pressing for repeal — though there also has been a lot of hasty backtracking by politicians once the voters realized the implications. In Idaho, two candidates in last month’s Republican primary for the First District House seat said they favored repeal, including the winner, Raul Labrador. Steve Stivers, the Republican candidate in an Ohio Congressional race, said he wanted to repeal the amendment, until his Democratic opponent, Representative Mary Jo Kilroy, made an issue of it, after which he seemed to back off.
Utah, the only state that refused to ratify the amendment, remains a particular hotbed of prelapsarian sentiment. Tim Bridgewater, who ousted Senator Robert Bennett of Utah as the Republican candidate in that race, blasts the 17th Amendment on his Web site: “We traded senators who represent rights of states for senators who represent the rights of special interest groups.”
The Utah State Senate, which seems to have been fuming at the loss of its power for the last 97 years, approved a bill in March reminding the political parties that they are welcome to consult with legislators when choosing candidates for the United States Senate, especially in regard to their feelings about states’ rights and federalism.
Fortunately, repeal will never happen. Still, there is something bracing in the eccentric quest of these advocates, who may know their constitutional history better than most Americans.
To Madison, Hamilton and most of the other authors of the Constitution, allowing states to appoint the Senate was the linchpin of the entire federalist system and the real reason there are two houses of Congress. It may be true that appointed senators, accountable only to state legislators, would never approve of many useful federal mandates designed to put the national interest above local parochialism — including everything from the minimum wage to the new health care reform law.
Not enough Americans vote. But, fortunately, almost all like the idea that they can, a thoroughly modern sentiment that will confine this elitist notion to the fringes. That means Tea Partiers who are infuriated by the health care law and everything else now going on in Washington can no longer look to James Madison for a bailout. Their best remedy is the one they seem to spurn: a vote at the ballot box.
Primary Day in Alabama
Turnout appeared light as I voted at the Pelham Civic Center this morning. I thought long and hard about the governor's race and ended up voting for Artur Davis. He is in a dogfight with Ron Sparks. Davis would be Alabama's first African American Governor. It won't happen, but I hope he's the Democratic nominee in order to flush out the Republican racists. That will be a sight to see. I'm concerned that Tim James will be our next Governor. The man is an idiot pure and simple.
Thank Goodness the Confederacy Was Defeated
Texas Monday, May 31, 2010 19:01 ET
Texas textbooks and the truth about the Confederacy
Texas is right: We should teach kids about Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy. But let's tell the whole story
By Michael Lind
The Texas State Board of Education, the most astringently reactionary body since the Spartan Ephorate, has decreed that textbooks for the schoolchildren of Texas are to include Confederate President Jefferson Davis’s inaugural address along with the first inaugural of Abraham Lincoln.
This controversy holds particular interest for me. I am a fifth-generation native of Texas. One ancestor of mine had his farm in Georgia incinerated by Gen. Sherman. Another came to Texas in the federal army of occupation of Gen. Custer. One of the last things that my late grandfather said to me was: "Sam Houston was a traitor to the South!" The Civil War ended in 1865, but clearly its meaning is still contested in the 21st century.
By all means, let schoolchildren in Texas read Jefferson Davis’s inaugural address. But there should be more material from the Confederate side of the conflict than that. For generations, apologists for the Confederacy have claimed that secession was really about the tariff, or states’ rights, or something else -- anything other than preserving the right of some human beings to own, buy and sell other human beings.
That being the case, the education of schoolchildren in my state should include a reading of the Cornerstone Speech made by Alexander Stephens, the vice-president of the Confederacy, on March 21, 1861. With remarkable candor, Stephens pointed out that whereas the United States was founded on the idea, enshrined in Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, that "all men are created equal," the new Confederacy was founded on the opposite conception:
The prevailing ideas entertained by [Thomas Jefferson] and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically ... Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.
Let the children of Texas compare what Stephens had to say about natural rights and human equality with Lincoln’s views on the subject, and contrast the ideals of the American and Confederate Foundings. That should make for interesting classroom discussions.
Let Texas schoolchildren, as well, read the Confederate Constitution. It is surely the most bizarre constitution ever adopted. It is a copy of the U.S. Constitution, rewritten to cripple the central government. The Confederate Constitution bans the government of the new federation from spending money on infrastructure, with a few exceptions like harbors and lighthouses, and prevents the new government of the South from fostering industry.
With a central government that was deliberately weakened at its formation, how did the Confederacy expect to prevail in a war against the forces of the Union? The answer is that the rich oligarchy of slave lords who ruled the South hoped that the British empire would intervene to secure their region’s independence, just as France had intervened in the American Revolution to help the United States win its independence from Britain.
When the British declined the offer, the geniuses in charge of the Confederacy realized that they would have to win their independence with their own resources. This was no easy thing to do in a wannabe country that prided itself on its absence of factories and banks. But they tried anyway. They threw libertarianism overboard and mobilized for war. They instituted a draft. They passed an income tax and inflated the currency to push citizens into higher brackets. Lacking a native Southern capitalist class, they put generals and colonels in charge of government-owned factories and munitions plants.
But conscription, taxation and state socialism were not enough. Too many Southern men were avoiding the draft or deserting, to say nothing of slaves who ran away to freedom or to join the U.S. Army. And there was the resistance. In the semi-mythical "free state of Jones" in Mississippi, in the Big Thicket in East Texas, in the Texas German Hill Country, rebels fought the rebellion, in the name of the United States or their own rights. The tradition of anti-Confederate resistance survived in the South after the war, to inspire Radical Republican "scalawags," populists, socialists and New Deal Democrats. The Southern right and the Northern left have erased the resisters from history. But not all of us have forgotten them.
Toward the end of the war, Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis came up with a plan. Following Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, they proposed to save the Confederacy by freeing and arming slaves. In "Confederate Emancipation: Southern Plans to Free and Arm Slaves During the Civil War," Bruce Levine quotes some typical responses. Brig. Gen. Clement H. Stevens: "If slavery is to be abolished then I take no more interest in our fight." Gov. Zebulon Vance of North Carolina: "Our independence is chiefly desirable for the preservation of our political institutions, the principal of which is slavery." Once it became clear that the only way to save slavery and anti-statism in the South was to abolish slavery and adopt statism, the malfunctioning Confederate Mind short-circuited completely.
That is what my fellow Texans of younger generations should learn about the Lost Cause. Under British protection, the CSA might have evolved into a squalid banana republic run by landlords for the benefit of investors and industrialists in Britain. Without British protection, the CSA might have survived as a proto-fascist regime, with an economy of permanent war socialism and a government run by colonels. In either case, the victory of the Confederacy would have been far worse for most white and black Southerners than its well-deserved defeat. For ensuring that I would be born in the United States of America instead of a broken-down failed state that combined the least attractive features of apartheid-era South Africa and death squad-era Honduras, I say: Thank you, President Lincoln, and thank you, Gen.Grant.
So let the students of Texas read the inaugural address of Jefferson Davis, and the Cornerstone Speech of Alexander Stephens, and the Confederate Constitution. And let the readings conclude with the speech that Texas Gov. Sam Houston gave on Sept. 22, 1860, in my home town of Austin, the state capital. Houston had led the successful Texan revolt against Mexico in 1836 and had served as president of the Republic of Texas, then as a United States senator after Texas was admitted to the Union. His final campaign, before he was deposed from office by the Confederates, was his failed attempt to prevent the secession of Texas from the United States.
In front of that audience in Austin, the haggard old soldier mocked the claim that the rights of the Southern states were threatened in any way by the North:
Our forefathers saw the danger to which freedom would be subjected, from the helpless condition of disunited States; and, to "form a more perfect Union," they established this Government. They saw the effect of foreign influence on rival States, the effect of dissensions at home, and to strengthen all and perpetuate all, to bind all together, yet leave all free, they gave us the Constitution and the Union. Where are the evidences that their patriotic labor was in vain? Have we not emerged from an infant’s to a giant’s strength? Have not empires been added to our domain, and States been created? All the blessings which they promised their posterity have been vouchsafed; and millions now enjoy them, who without this Union would to-day be oppressed and down-trodden in far-off foreign lands!
What is there that is free that we have not got? Are our rights invaded and no government ready to protect us? No! Are our institutions wrested from us and other foreign to our taste forced upon us? No! Is the right of free speech, a free press, or free sufferage taken from us?
Has our property been taken from us and the government failed to interpose?
No, none of these! The rights of the States and the rights of individuals are still maintained. We have yet the Constitution, we have yet a judiciary, which has never been appealed to in vain -- we have yet just laws and officers to administer them; and an army and navy, ready to maintain any and every constitutional right of the citizen. Whence then this clamor about disunion? Whence this cry of protection to property or disunion, when even the very loudest in the cry, declared under their Senatorial oaths, but a few months since, that no protection was necessary? Are we to sell reality for a phantom?
Class dismissed.
Michael Lind is policy director of the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation and author of "What Lincoln Believed: The Values and Convictions of America’s Greatest President."
Texas textbooks and the truth about the Confederacy
Texas is right: We should teach kids about Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy. But let's tell the whole story
By Michael Lind
The Texas State Board of Education, the most astringently reactionary body since the Spartan Ephorate, has decreed that textbooks for the schoolchildren of Texas are to include Confederate President Jefferson Davis’s inaugural address along with the first inaugural of Abraham Lincoln.
This controversy holds particular interest for me. I am a fifth-generation native of Texas. One ancestor of mine had his farm in Georgia incinerated by Gen. Sherman. Another came to Texas in the federal army of occupation of Gen. Custer. One of the last things that my late grandfather said to me was: "Sam Houston was a traitor to the South!" The Civil War ended in 1865, but clearly its meaning is still contested in the 21st century.
By all means, let schoolchildren in Texas read Jefferson Davis’s inaugural address. But there should be more material from the Confederate side of the conflict than that. For generations, apologists for the Confederacy have claimed that secession was really about the tariff, or states’ rights, or something else -- anything other than preserving the right of some human beings to own, buy and sell other human beings.
That being the case, the education of schoolchildren in my state should include a reading of the Cornerstone Speech made by Alexander Stephens, the vice-president of the Confederacy, on March 21, 1861. With remarkable candor, Stephens pointed out that whereas the United States was founded on the idea, enshrined in Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, that "all men are created equal," the new Confederacy was founded on the opposite conception:
The prevailing ideas entertained by [Thomas Jefferson] and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically ... Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.
Let the children of Texas compare what Stephens had to say about natural rights and human equality with Lincoln’s views on the subject, and contrast the ideals of the American and Confederate Foundings. That should make for interesting classroom discussions.
Let Texas schoolchildren, as well, read the Confederate Constitution. It is surely the most bizarre constitution ever adopted. It is a copy of the U.S. Constitution, rewritten to cripple the central government. The Confederate Constitution bans the government of the new federation from spending money on infrastructure, with a few exceptions like harbors and lighthouses, and prevents the new government of the South from fostering industry.
With a central government that was deliberately weakened at its formation, how did the Confederacy expect to prevail in a war against the forces of the Union? The answer is that the rich oligarchy of slave lords who ruled the South hoped that the British empire would intervene to secure their region’s independence, just as France had intervened in the American Revolution to help the United States win its independence from Britain.
When the British declined the offer, the geniuses in charge of the Confederacy realized that they would have to win their independence with their own resources. This was no easy thing to do in a wannabe country that prided itself on its absence of factories and banks. But they tried anyway. They threw libertarianism overboard and mobilized for war. They instituted a draft. They passed an income tax and inflated the currency to push citizens into higher brackets. Lacking a native Southern capitalist class, they put generals and colonels in charge of government-owned factories and munitions plants.
But conscription, taxation and state socialism were not enough. Too many Southern men were avoiding the draft or deserting, to say nothing of slaves who ran away to freedom or to join the U.S. Army. And there was the resistance. In the semi-mythical "free state of Jones" in Mississippi, in the Big Thicket in East Texas, in the Texas German Hill Country, rebels fought the rebellion, in the name of the United States or their own rights. The tradition of anti-Confederate resistance survived in the South after the war, to inspire Radical Republican "scalawags," populists, socialists and New Deal Democrats. The Southern right and the Northern left have erased the resisters from history. But not all of us have forgotten them.
Toward the end of the war, Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis came up with a plan. Following Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, they proposed to save the Confederacy by freeing and arming slaves. In "Confederate Emancipation: Southern Plans to Free and Arm Slaves During the Civil War," Bruce Levine quotes some typical responses. Brig. Gen. Clement H. Stevens: "If slavery is to be abolished then I take no more interest in our fight." Gov. Zebulon Vance of North Carolina: "Our independence is chiefly desirable for the preservation of our political institutions, the principal of which is slavery." Once it became clear that the only way to save slavery and anti-statism in the South was to abolish slavery and adopt statism, the malfunctioning Confederate Mind short-circuited completely.
That is what my fellow Texans of younger generations should learn about the Lost Cause. Under British protection, the CSA might have evolved into a squalid banana republic run by landlords for the benefit of investors and industrialists in Britain. Without British protection, the CSA might have survived as a proto-fascist regime, with an economy of permanent war socialism and a government run by colonels. In either case, the victory of the Confederacy would have been far worse for most white and black Southerners than its well-deserved defeat. For ensuring that I would be born in the United States of America instead of a broken-down failed state that combined the least attractive features of apartheid-era South Africa and death squad-era Honduras, I say: Thank you, President Lincoln, and thank you, Gen.Grant.
So let the students of Texas read the inaugural address of Jefferson Davis, and the Cornerstone Speech of Alexander Stephens, and the Confederate Constitution. And let the readings conclude with the speech that Texas Gov. Sam Houston gave on Sept. 22, 1860, in my home town of Austin, the state capital. Houston had led the successful Texan revolt against Mexico in 1836 and had served as president of the Republic of Texas, then as a United States senator after Texas was admitted to the Union. His final campaign, before he was deposed from office by the Confederates, was his failed attempt to prevent the secession of Texas from the United States.
In front of that audience in Austin, the haggard old soldier mocked the claim that the rights of the Southern states were threatened in any way by the North:
Our forefathers saw the danger to which freedom would be subjected, from the helpless condition of disunited States; and, to "form a more perfect Union," they established this Government. They saw the effect of foreign influence on rival States, the effect of dissensions at home, and to strengthen all and perpetuate all, to bind all together, yet leave all free, they gave us the Constitution and the Union. Where are the evidences that their patriotic labor was in vain? Have we not emerged from an infant’s to a giant’s strength? Have not empires been added to our domain, and States been created? All the blessings which they promised their posterity have been vouchsafed; and millions now enjoy them, who without this Union would to-day be oppressed and down-trodden in far-off foreign lands!
What is there that is free that we have not got? Are our rights invaded and no government ready to protect us? No! Are our institutions wrested from us and other foreign to our taste forced upon us? No! Is the right of free speech, a free press, or free sufferage taken from us?
Has our property been taken from us and the government failed to interpose?
No, none of these! The rights of the States and the rights of individuals are still maintained. We have yet the Constitution, we have yet a judiciary, which has never been appealed to in vain -- we have yet just laws and officers to administer them; and an army and navy, ready to maintain any and every constitutional right of the citizen. Whence then this clamor about disunion? Whence this cry of protection to property or disunion, when even the very loudest in the cry, declared under their Senatorial oaths, but a few months since, that no protection was necessary? Are we to sell reality for a phantom?
Class dismissed.
Michael Lind is policy director of the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation and author of "What Lincoln Believed: The Values and Convictions of America’s Greatest President."
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