April 8, 2012, 5:18 pm
Origin of Speciousness
I was unhappy with President Obama’s decision to call Republicans “social Darwinists” — not because I thought it was wrong, but because I wondered how many voters would get his point. How many people know who Herbert Spencer was?
It turns out, however, that right-wing intellectuals are furious, because … well, it’s a bit puzzling. One complaint is that some 19th-century social Darwinists were racists; well, lots of 19th-century people in general were racists, and racism is not the core of the doctrine. The other is that modern conservatives don’t literally want to see poor people die; so?
As Jonathan Chait says in the linked piece above, the real defining characteristic of social Darwinism is the notion that harsh inequality is both necessary and right. And that’s absolutely what today’s right believes — which is the point all the faux outrage about the Darwinist label is meant to obscure.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Obama vs. Romney: A Stark Choice
Linda HirshmanSunday, Apr 8, 2012 8:40 AM 10:36:55 CDT
Obama v. Romney: The philosopher candidates
Not since the New Deal have two candidates embodied the parties' philosophical divide as much as Romney and ObamaBy Linda Hirshman
It’s the ideology, stupid. Democrats think Americans should learn to play well with others. Republicans do not.
This should not be news. A revived conservative movement dating back to the Fifties has succeeded in locking the Republicans into the philosophy of possessive individualism that was always a strand in the American story. In turn, they have portrayed the Democrats as the collectivist Other. This election the Democrats, or at least their presidential candidate, Barack Obama, has decided he can no longer duck the fight. In a fiery speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors last week Obama put it baldly: “This is not just another run of the mill political debate. I’ve said it’s the defining issue of our time and I believe it. What leaders in both parties have traditionally understood is that the [Democratic government programs] aren’t part of some scheme to redistribute wealth from one group to another. They are expressions of the fact that we are one nation.”
Republicans, Obama charged, are engaged in an attempt to impose a “radical” change of vision on the country – “thinly veiled social Darwinism” that allows us to “think only about ourselves” and not about “our fellow citizens with whom we share a community.”
After decades of Democratic evasion, from Mike Dukakis’ “it’s about competence” to the new Democrats’ “reinventing government,” Obama chose a great moment to join the fight between individualism and community at last. This cannot be happenstance. The Republicans have chosen the perfect symbol for the Democrats to confront – the stunningly wealthy scion of a privileged family who made his fortune in the most individualistic of all capitalist enterprises – leveraged buyouts.
Mitt Romney lost no time in taking up the ideological challenge. Just days after Obama laid down the gauntlet, Romney agreed that this was the philosophy election: “This November, we will face a defining decision. Our choice will not be one of party or personality. This election will be about principle.”
And the principle is that “if you worked hard, and took some risks, that there was the opportunity to build a better life for your family and for the next generation.”
Let the great race begin: “Instead of picking winners and losers with taxpayer dollars, I will make sure that every entrepreneur gets a fair shot and that every business plays by the same rules. I will create an environment where our businesses and workers can compete and win.” And not only will the strongest Americans win, the race is wide open: “I will welcome the best and the brightest to our shores.”
Americans should be grateful to both candidates for finally giving us the choice (not the echo) as the original conservative revivalist, Barry Goldwater, presciently put it so long ago. Smart men, they both understand that it’s ideology all the way down. As we philosophers have always known (I love saying that in an election piece), political contests are ultimately about what each side counts as evidence and what the evidence tells them about what it means to be a good person.
What can people know? The Democratic vision recognizes that people can feel the pain of others. “Who are these Americans?” Obama asks, invoking that capacity. “Many are someone’s grandparents who, without Medicaid, won’t be able to afford nursing home care without Medicaid. Many are poor children. Some are middle-class families who have children with autism or Down’s Syndrome. Some are kids with disabilities so severe that they require 24-hour care. These are the people who count on Medicaid.” The Republican vision does not see pain; it sees only “success.” Romney’s characters are “risk takers,” “winners” (and “losers”) in “races” won, presumably, by the fittest, who then raise up . . . their families.
People who can see the pain of others and the risks that cannot be controlled by individual effort make one kind of politics. People who see success and think that people are responsible for protecting themselves and their families make a different kind of politics.
When the debate that Obama and Romney have revived started in western politics centuries ago people had not made their own politics for a long time. They lived under the hereditary rule of various kings and princes. So they argued mostly about what kinds of societies they should make, being human. But Americans have been governing themselves for more than two hundred years. It is an unchallenged assumption of American politics that Americans are basically the good guys. So the debate is shaping up over what kind of societies Americans do make, being American. Barack Obama called it a matter of patriotism, not human nature.
From 2012, Obama has the better argument, as a society of some empathy and collective risk management and opportunity creation has been the norm at least since the Progressive movement of the early twentieth century and certainly since Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in 1933. Predictably, then Obama calls the current Republican ideological crusade “an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country.” Not surprisingly, Romney harks back to a mistier America, where his “grandfather” pulled himself up by his bootstraps and started the Romney family success drama.
To the Republican ideology, American politics since the New Deal at least is a usurpation, not a genuine expression of American character. Not coincidentally, constitutional lawyers around the country are holding their collective breath waiting to see if an ideologically conservative majority of the Supreme Court will reverse the health care law and roll back the understanding of the constitution that made the New Deal possible as a first step in restoring the old order.
The election is the second.
New Deal analogies are rampant these days. This is not hyperbole. Not since the election of 1932 has the direction of America’s future been so starkly contested. Let the wild rumpus begin.
Obama v. Romney: The philosopher candidates
Not since the New Deal have two candidates embodied the parties' philosophical divide as much as Romney and ObamaBy Linda Hirshman
It’s the ideology, stupid. Democrats think Americans should learn to play well with others. Republicans do not.
This should not be news. A revived conservative movement dating back to the Fifties has succeeded in locking the Republicans into the philosophy of possessive individualism that was always a strand in the American story. In turn, they have portrayed the Democrats as the collectivist Other. This election the Democrats, or at least their presidential candidate, Barack Obama, has decided he can no longer duck the fight. In a fiery speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors last week Obama put it baldly: “This is not just another run of the mill political debate. I’ve said it’s the defining issue of our time and I believe it. What leaders in both parties have traditionally understood is that the [Democratic government programs] aren’t part of some scheme to redistribute wealth from one group to another. They are expressions of the fact that we are one nation.”
Republicans, Obama charged, are engaged in an attempt to impose a “radical” change of vision on the country – “thinly veiled social Darwinism” that allows us to “think only about ourselves” and not about “our fellow citizens with whom we share a community.”
After decades of Democratic evasion, from Mike Dukakis’ “it’s about competence” to the new Democrats’ “reinventing government,” Obama chose a great moment to join the fight between individualism and community at last. This cannot be happenstance. The Republicans have chosen the perfect symbol for the Democrats to confront – the stunningly wealthy scion of a privileged family who made his fortune in the most individualistic of all capitalist enterprises – leveraged buyouts.
Mitt Romney lost no time in taking up the ideological challenge. Just days after Obama laid down the gauntlet, Romney agreed that this was the philosophy election: “This November, we will face a defining decision. Our choice will not be one of party or personality. This election will be about principle.”
And the principle is that “if you worked hard, and took some risks, that there was the opportunity to build a better life for your family and for the next generation.”
Let the great race begin: “Instead of picking winners and losers with taxpayer dollars, I will make sure that every entrepreneur gets a fair shot and that every business plays by the same rules. I will create an environment where our businesses and workers can compete and win.” And not only will the strongest Americans win, the race is wide open: “I will welcome the best and the brightest to our shores.”
Americans should be grateful to both candidates for finally giving us the choice (not the echo) as the original conservative revivalist, Barry Goldwater, presciently put it so long ago. Smart men, they both understand that it’s ideology all the way down. As we philosophers have always known (I love saying that in an election piece), political contests are ultimately about what each side counts as evidence and what the evidence tells them about what it means to be a good person.
What can people know? The Democratic vision recognizes that people can feel the pain of others. “Who are these Americans?” Obama asks, invoking that capacity. “Many are someone’s grandparents who, without Medicaid, won’t be able to afford nursing home care without Medicaid. Many are poor children. Some are middle-class families who have children with autism or Down’s Syndrome. Some are kids with disabilities so severe that they require 24-hour care. These are the people who count on Medicaid.” The Republican vision does not see pain; it sees only “success.” Romney’s characters are “risk takers,” “winners” (and “losers”) in “races” won, presumably, by the fittest, who then raise up . . . their families.
People who can see the pain of others and the risks that cannot be controlled by individual effort make one kind of politics. People who see success and think that people are responsible for protecting themselves and their families make a different kind of politics.
When the debate that Obama and Romney have revived started in western politics centuries ago people had not made their own politics for a long time. They lived under the hereditary rule of various kings and princes. So they argued mostly about what kinds of societies they should make, being human. But Americans have been governing themselves for more than two hundred years. It is an unchallenged assumption of American politics that Americans are basically the good guys. So the debate is shaping up over what kind of societies Americans do make, being American. Barack Obama called it a matter of patriotism, not human nature.
From 2012, Obama has the better argument, as a society of some empathy and collective risk management and opportunity creation has been the norm at least since the Progressive movement of the early twentieth century and certainly since Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in 1933. Predictably, then Obama calls the current Republican ideological crusade “an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country.” Not surprisingly, Romney harks back to a mistier America, where his “grandfather” pulled himself up by his bootstraps and started the Romney family success drama.
To the Republican ideology, American politics since the New Deal at least is a usurpation, not a genuine expression of American character. Not coincidentally, constitutional lawyers around the country are holding their collective breath waiting to see if an ideologically conservative majority of the Supreme Court will reverse the health care law and roll back the understanding of the constitution that made the New Deal possible as a first step in restoring the old order.
The election is the second.
New Deal analogies are rampant these days. This is not hyperbole. Not since the election of 1932 has the direction of America’s future been so starkly contested. Let the wild rumpus begin.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
The Babe Ruth Biography (2)
Finally, I think Babe Ruth would have been fun to be around, but I wouldn't want him as a friend based on what I read in the Leigh Montville biography. He would be too much trouble. His take on bowling late in life is interesting. He wasn't interested in his score; all he cared about was simply knocking down pins. He would bowl and bowl and bowl just to add up his total pinfall. Very strange, if you ask me!
A Universe from Nothing? (2)
By Lawrence M. Krauss
April 1, 2012
The illusion of purpose and design is perhaps the most pervasive illusion about nature that science has to confront on a daily basis. Everywhere we look, it appears that the world was designed so that we could flourish.
The position of the Earth around the sun, the presence of organic materials and water and a warm climate — all make life on our planet possible. Yet, with perhaps 100 billion solar systems in our galaxy alone, with ubiquitous water, carbon and hydrogen, it isn't surprising that these conditions would arise somewhere. And as to the diversity of life on Earth — as Darwin described more than 150 years ago and experiments ever since have validated — natural selection in evolving life forms can establish both diversity and order without any governing plan.
As a cosmologist, a scientist who studies the origin and evolution of the universe, I am painfully aware that our illusions nonetheless reflect a deep human need to assume that the existence of the Earth, of life and of the universe and the laws that govern it require something more profound. For many, to live in a universe that may have no purpose, and no creator, is unthinkable.
But science has taught us to think the unthinkable. Because when nature is the guide — rather than a priori prejudices, hopes, fears or desires — we are forced out of our comfort zone. One by one, pillars of classical logic have fallen by the wayside as science progressed in the 20th century, from Einstein's realization that measurements of space and time were not absolute but observer-dependent, to quantum mechanics, which not only put fundamental limits on what we can empirically know but also demonstrated that elementary particles and the atoms they form are doing a million seemingly impossible things at once.
And so it is that the 21st century has brought new revolutions and new revelations on a cosmic scale. Our picture of the universe has probably changed more in the lifetime of an octogenarian today than in all of human history. Eighty-seven years ago, as far as we knew, the universe consisted of a single galaxy, our Milky Way, surrounded by an eternal, static, empty void. Now we know that there are more than 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe, which began with the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. In its earliest moments, everything we now see as our universe — and much more — was contained in a volume smaller than the size of a single atom.
And so we continue to be surprised. We are like the early mapmakers redrawing the picture of the globe even as new continents were discovered. And just as those mapmakers confronted the realization that the Earth was not flat, we must confront facts that change what have seemed to be basic and fundamental concepts. Even our idea of nothingness has been altered.
We now know that most of the energy in the observable universe can be found not within galaxies but outside them, in otherwise empty space, which, for reasons we still cannot fathom, "weighs" something. But the use of the word "weight" is perhaps misleading because the energy of empty space is gravitationally repulsive. It pushes distant galaxies away from us at an ever-faster rate. Eventually they will recede faster than light and will be unobservable.
This has changed our vision of the future, which is now far bleaker. The longer we wait, the less of the universe we will be able to see. In hundreds of billions of years astronomers on some distant planet circling a distant star (Earth and our sun will be long gone) will observe the cosmos and find it much like our flawed vision at the turn of the last century: a single galaxy immersed in a seemingly endless dark, empty, static universe.
Out of this radically new image of the universe at large scale have also come new ideas about physics at a small scale. The Large Hadron Collider has given tantalizing hints that the origin of mass, and therefore of all that we can see, is a kind of cosmic accident. Experiments in the collider bolster evidence of the existence of the "Higgs field," which apparently just happened to form throughout space in our universe; it is only because all elementary particles interact with this field that they have the mass we observe today.
Most surprising of all, combining the ideas of general relativity and quantum mechanics, we can understand how it is possible that the entire universe, matter, radiation and even space itself could arise spontaneously out of nothing, without explicit divine intervention. Quantum mechanics' Heisenberg uncertainty principle expands what can possibly occur undetected in otherwise empty space. If gravity too is governed by quantum mechanics, then even whole new universes can spontaneously appear and disappear, which means our own universe may not be unique but instead part of a "multiverse."
As particle physics revolutionizes the concepts of "something" (elementary particles and the forces that bind them) and "nothing" (the dynamics of empty space or even the absence of space), the famous question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" is also revolutionized. Even the very laws of physics we depend on may be a cosmic accident, with different laws in different universes, which further alters how we might connect something with nothing. Asking why we live in a universe of something rather than nothing may be no more meaningful than asking why some flowers are red and others blue.
Perhaps most remarkable of all, not only is it now plausible, in a scientific sense, that our universe came from nothing, if we ask what properties a universe created from nothing would have, it appears that these properties resemble precisely the universe we live in.
Does all of this prove that our universe and the laws that govern it arose spontaneously without divine guidance or purpose? No, but it means it is possible.
And that possibility need not imply that our own lives are devoid of meaning. Instead of divine purpose, the meaning in our lives can arise from what we make of ourselves, from our relationships and our institutions, from the achievements of the human mind.
Imagining living in a universe without purpose may prepare us to better face reality head on. I cannot see that this is such a bad thing. Living in a strange and remarkable universe that is the way it is, independent of our desires and hopes, is far more satisfying for me than living in a fairy-tale universe invented to justify our existence.
Lawrence M. Krauss is director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University. His newest book is "A Universe From Nothing."
Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times
April 1, 2012
The illusion of purpose and design is perhaps the most pervasive illusion about nature that science has to confront on a daily basis. Everywhere we look, it appears that the world was designed so that we could flourish.
The position of the Earth around the sun, the presence of organic materials and water and a warm climate — all make life on our planet possible. Yet, with perhaps 100 billion solar systems in our galaxy alone, with ubiquitous water, carbon and hydrogen, it isn't surprising that these conditions would arise somewhere. And as to the diversity of life on Earth — as Darwin described more than 150 years ago and experiments ever since have validated — natural selection in evolving life forms can establish both diversity and order without any governing plan.
As a cosmologist, a scientist who studies the origin and evolution of the universe, I am painfully aware that our illusions nonetheless reflect a deep human need to assume that the existence of the Earth, of life and of the universe and the laws that govern it require something more profound. For many, to live in a universe that may have no purpose, and no creator, is unthinkable.
But science has taught us to think the unthinkable. Because when nature is the guide — rather than a priori prejudices, hopes, fears or desires — we are forced out of our comfort zone. One by one, pillars of classical logic have fallen by the wayside as science progressed in the 20th century, from Einstein's realization that measurements of space and time were not absolute but observer-dependent, to quantum mechanics, which not only put fundamental limits on what we can empirically know but also demonstrated that elementary particles and the atoms they form are doing a million seemingly impossible things at once.
And so it is that the 21st century has brought new revolutions and new revelations on a cosmic scale. Our picture of the universe has probably changed more in the lifetime of an octogenarian today than in all of human history. Eighty-seven years ago, as far as we knew, the universe consisted of a single galaxy, our Milky Way, surrounded by an eternal, static, empty void. Now we know that there are more than 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe, which began with the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. In its earliest moments, everything we now see as our universe — and much more — was contained in a volume smaller than the size of a single atom.
And so we continue to be surprised. We are like the early mapmakers redrawing the picture of the globe even as new continents were discovered. And just as those mapmakers confronted the realization that the Earth was not flat, we must confront facts that change what have seemed to be basic and fundamental concepts. Even our idea of nothingness has been altered.
We now know that most of the energy in the observable universe can be found not within galaxies but outside them, in otherwise empty space, which, for reasons we still cannot fathom, "weighs" something. But the use of the word "weight" is perhaps misleading because the energy of empty space is gravitationally repulsive. It pushes distant galaxies away from us at an ever-faster rate. Eventually they will recede faster than light and will be unobservable.
This has changed our vision of the future, which is now far bleaker. The longer we wait, the less of the universe we will be able to see. In hundreds of billions of years astronomers on some distant planet circling a distant star (Earth and our sun will be long gone) will observe the cosmos and find it much like our flawed vision at the turn of the last century: a single galaxy immersed in a seemingly endless dark, empty, static universe.
Out of this radically new image of the universe at large scale have also come new ideas about physics at a small scale. The Large Hadron Collider has given tantalizing hints that the origin of mass, and therefore of all that we can see, is a kind of cosmic accident. Experiments in the collider bolster evidence of the existence of the "Higgs field," which apparently just happened to form throughout space in our universe; it is only because all elementary particles interact with this field that they have the mass we observe today.
Most surprising of all, combining the ideas of general relativity and quantum mechanics, we can understand how it is possible that the entire universe, matter, radiation and even space itself could arise spontaneously out of nothing, without explicit divine intervention. Quantum mechanics' Heisenberg uncertainty principle expands what can possibly occur undetected in otherwise empty space. If gravity too is governed by quantum mechanics, then even whole new universes can spontaneously appear and disappear, which means our own universe may not be unique but instead part of a "multiverse."
As particle physics revolutionizes the concepts of "something" (elementary particles and the forces that bind them) and "nothing" (the dynamics of empty space or even the absence of space), the famous question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" is also revolutionized. Even the very laws of physics we depend on may be a cosmic accident, with different laws in different universes, which further alters how we might connect something with nothing. Asking why we live in a universe of something rather than nothing may be no more meaningful than asking why some flowers are red and others blue.
Perhaps most remarkable of all, not only is it now plausible, in a scientific sense, that our universe came from nothing, if we ask what properties a universe created from nothing would have, it appears that these properties resemble precisely the universe we live in.
Does all of this prove that our universe and the laws that govern it arose spontaneously without divine guidance or purpose? No, but it means it is possible.
And that possibility need not imply that our own lives are devoid of meaning. Instead of divine purpose, the meaning in our lives can arise from what we make of ourselves, from our relationships and our institutions, from the achievements of the human mind.
Imagining living in a universe without purpose may prepare us to better face reality head on. I cannot see that this is such a bad thing. Living in a strange and remarkable universe that is the way it is, independent of our desires and hopes, is far more satisfying for me than living in a fairy-tale universe invented to justify our existence.
Lawrence M. Krauss is director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University. His newest book is "A Universe From Nothing."
Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times
Friday, April 6, 2012
The Social Darwin Republicans
by Jonathan Chair
Maybe make it clear that "social Darwinism" doesn't imply agreement with Darwin.
Today at 4:55 PM 149CommentsIt’s Okay — Call Republicans Social DarwinistsBy Jonathan Chair/ Three days after President Obama used the term “social Darwinism,” the phrase continues to rankle conservatives. David Brooks, Geoffrey Norman and Mitt Romney adviser Greg Mankiw all find the phrase (which I defended) to be a vicious smear.
Part of the problem here is that both Brooks and Mankiw have different views of what Social Darwinism means. Mankiw defines it as a belief “that the strongest or fittest should survive and flourish in society, while the weak and unfit should be allowed to die.” Brooks describes it as “a 19th-century philosophy that held, in part, that Aryans and Northern Europeans are racially superior to brown and Mediterranean peoples.”
Neither definition describes the philosophy of Paul Ryan and the Republican budget. But neither really captures the meaning of the term “social Darwinist,” either. I managed to track down and look over my old copy of Richard Hofstadter’s “Social Darwinism in American Thought,” and it describes a fairly wide range of right-wing thought. But the main guiding principle is a defense of the free market as a moral arbiter, rather than merely a tool for creating wealth. Just as natural selection allows better-adapted species to thrive and poorly adapted ones to die out, the free market rewards talent and hard work and punishes laziness or lack of talent, in a perfect or near-perfect way.
He quotes William Graham Sumner, who wrote, “'the strong’ and ‘the weak’ are terms which admit of no definition unless they are made equivalent to the industrious and the idle, the frugal and the extravagant.” Conservatives have been echoing that logic repeatedly the last few years. And their embrace of health care as an earned privilege rather than a right actually comes perilously close to endorsing the more radical versions of social Darwinism.
Now, it is true that some social Darwinists took the Darwinian model to its full, literal implications. Others took the idea and applied it in racist ways, and to relations between nations. But not all of them did, and this was not the essence of their belief system. The essence was a more figurative translation of the principles of natural selection onto the workings of the marketplace, justifying it as a system that rewarded virtue and punished vice. That principle is pretty closely echoed by Mankiw, who writes:
People should get what they deserve. A person who contributes more to society deserves a higher income that reflects those greater contributions. Society permits him that higher income not just to incentivize him, as it does according to utilitarian theory, but because that income is rightfully his.
Mankiw objects that I should use this quote to describe his views, because he also allows for the possibility of some transfers from rich to poor. But of course, many of the social Darwinists endorsed charity for the poor, which is obviously incompatible with the belief that the poor should die off for the good of society.
As I wrote before, “social Darwinism” is a contested term. In its most important ways I think it describes the philosophy of the current Republican Party pretty well.
Maybe make it clear that "social Darwinism" doesn't imply agreement with Darwin.
Today at 4:55 PM 149CommentsIt’s Okay — Call Republicans Social DarwinistsBy Jonathan Chair/ Three days after President Obama used the term “social Darwinism,” the phrase continues to rankle conservatives. David Brooks, Geoffrey Norman and Mitt Romney adviser Greg Mankiw all find the phrase (which I defended) to be a vicious smear.
Part of the problem here is that both Brooks and Mankiw have different views of what Social Darwinism means. Mankiw defines it as a belief “that the strongest or fittest should survive and flourish in society, while the weak and unfit should be allowed to die.” Brooks describes it as “a 19th-century philosophy that held, in part, that Aryans and Northern Europeans are racially superior to brown and Mediterranean peoples.”
Neither definition describes the philosophy of Paul Ryan and the Republican budget. But neither really captures the meaning of the term “social Darwinist,” either. I managed to track down and look over my old copy of Richard Hofstadter’s “Social Darwinism in American Thought,” and it describes a fairly wide range of right-wing thought. But the main guiding principle is a defense of the free market as a moral arbiter, rather than merely a tool for creating wealth. Just as natural selection allows better-adapted species to thrive and poorly adapted ones to die out, the free market rewards talent and hard work and punishes laziness or lack of talent, in a perfect or near-perfect way.
He quotes William Graham Sumner, who wrote, “'the strong’ and ‘the weak’ are terms which admit of no definition unless they are made equivalent to the industrious and the idle, the frugal and the extravagant.” Conservatives have been echoing that logic repeatedly the last few years. And their embrace of health care as an earned privilege rather than a right actually comes perilously close to endorsing the more radical versions of social Darwinism.
Now, it is true that some social Darwinists took the Darwinian model to its full, literal implications. Others took the idea and applied it in racist ways, and to relations between nations. But not all of them did, and this was not the essence of their belief system. The essence was a more figurative translation of the principles of natural selection onto the workings of the marketplace, justifying it as a system that rewarded virtue and punished vice. That principle is pretty closely echoed by Mankiw, who writes:
People should get what they deserve. A person who contributes more to society deserves a higher income that reflects those greater contributions. Society permits him that higher income not just to incentivize him, as it does according to utilitarian theory, but because that income is rightfully his.
Mankiw objects that I should use this quote to describe his views, because he also allows for the possibility of some transfers from rich to poor. But of course, many of the social Darwinists endorsed charity for the poor, which is obviously incompatible with the belief that the poor should die off for the good of society.
As I wrote before, “social Darwinism” is a contested term. In its most important ways I think it describes the philosophy of the current Republican Party pretty well.
The Babe Ruth Biography
Leigh Montville – The Big Bam
This is the definitive biography of Babe Ruth for our time.
Little is known of the George Herman Ruth, Jr.’s early years. The main thing is that his home life must not have been good, and he was taken to live in the St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys at the age of 7. Why did his parents take him to a place for orphans and wayward boys? According to this book, we don’t know.
Luckily for the Babe, he was sent to a place where sports was big. He had ample opportunity to play baseball, and play and play and play he did.
Early in life at this school for boys, his racial heritage was questioned. Did Babe Ruth have a black heritage? Was he a black man? This is the biggest revelation in this book. I had no idea this was an issue in his life. The question, if it is a legitimate question, has never been answered conclusively.
The author uses the word “fog” where little is known about Ruth’s life. His life, particularly his early life, is like a jigsaw puzzle with many pieces missing. Those missing pieces will likely always be missing. The fog rolls in at many points in Ruth’s life.
He started as a pitcher, was a good pitcher, played some outfield for the Red Sox, but when he was traded to the Yankees in 1920 in the most famous baseball trade in history (for the Red Sox “The Curse of the Bambino), he became a full-time right fielder.
There was his glorious career with the Yankees. He was a great baseball player, maybe the best to ever play the game, certainly the most famous baseball player of all time. Yet he was less than a sterling human being. He was hyperactive. According to this book, he had to be active all the time. He couldn’t sit still. He was not a good husband and father. He was estranged from his wife Helen when she perished in a fire in 1929. He was rarely around his daughter Dorothy. He married a second time to a lady named Claire, to whom he was married when he died in 1948. He was much closer to Claire’s daughter than his own natural daughter. Great baseball player no doubt; less than a great human being.
After he retired from baseball after the 1935 season, Ruth tried his best to get a managing job. He was briefly the first base coach of the Dodgers, but a managerial job never came his way. Nobody in baseball wanted to hire the great Babe Ruth as manager. Was he not smart enough? Was he not stable enough? Was it racial? I have never heard this one before.
He was considered a big kid, a spoiled kid all of his life. Because he was Babe Ruth, he played by his own rules and got away with it. At least he was open with his money unlike Joe DiMaggio. Yes, he was a spoiled brat but more likeable than Joe D. P. 120
All of his life there were questions about his racial heritage. Before reading this book, I had no idea this was the case. This suspicion might have kept him from getting a managerial job, for it is obvious he would have taken whatever was offered him.
“The question of race would linger. Was the Babe, by legal definition, a black man? He had the bad words for as long as he played. He had been handed the wrongful stereotype that would be attached to the black athlete---the natural talent, abilities transmitted by the touch of God, not acquired through industry and intelligence. He never had a chance to manage a team. So many of the pieces fit. If not a black man, he had been touched by the prejudices against the black man.
The truth? The fog settled in for one last time.” P. 365
He did not work a regular job after retiring from baseball. He played a lot of golf, hunted, fished, and even took up bowling!
Babe Ruth died of cancer on August 16, 1948, age 53, passing away in his sleep. He died on the same day as Elvis Presley.
“The fascination with career and life continues. He is a bombastic, sloppy hero from our bombastic, sloppy history, origins undetermined, a folk tale of American success. His moon face is as recognizable today as it was when he stared out at Tom Zachary on a certain September afternoon in 1927.” P. 367
This is the definitive biography of Babe Ruth for our time.
Little is known of the George Herman Ruth, Jr.’s early years. The main thing is that his home life must not have been good, and he was taken to live in the St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys at the age of 7. Why did his parents take him to a place for orphans and wayward boys? According to this book, we don’t know.
Luckily for the Babe, he was sent to a place where sports was big. He had ample opportunity to play baseball, and play and play and play he did.
Early in life at this school for boys, his racial heritage was questioned. Did Babe Ruth have a black heritage? Was he a black man? This is the biggest revelation in this book. I had no idea this was an issue in his life. The question, if it is a legitimate question, has never been answered conclusively.
The author uses the word “fog” where little is known about Ruth’s life. His life, particularly his early life, is like a jigsaw puzzle with many pieces missing. Those missing pieces will likely always be missing. The fog rolls in at many points in Ruth’s life.
He started as a pitcher, was a good pitcher, played some outfield for the Red Sox, but when he was traded to the Yankees in 1920 in the most famous baseball trade in history (for the Red Sox “The Curse of the Bambino), he became a full-time right fielder.
There was his glorious career with the Yankees. He was a great baseball player, maybe the best to ever play the game, certainly the most famous baseball player of all time. Yet he was less than a sterling human being. He was hyperactive. According to this book, he had to be active all the time. He couldn’t sit still. He was not a good husband and father. He was estranged from his wife Helen when she perished in a fire in 1929. He was rarely around his daughter Dorothy. He married a second time to a lady named Claire, to whom he was married when he died in 1948. He was much closer to Claire’s daughter than his own natural daughter. Great baseball player no doubt; less than a great human being.
After he retired from baseball after the 1935 season, Ruth tried his best to get a managing job. He was briefly the first base coach of the Dodgers, but a managerial job never came his way. Nobody in baseball wanted to hire the great Babe Ruth as manager. Was he not smart enough? Was he not stable enough? Was it racial? I have never heard this one before.
He was considered a big kid, a spoiled kid all of his life. Because he was Babe Ruth, he played by his own rules and got away with it. At least he was open with his money unlike Joe DiMaggio. Yes, he was a spoiled brat but more likeable than Joe D. P. 120
All of his life there were questions about his racial heritage. Before reading this book, I had no idea this was the case. This suspicion might have kept him from getting a managerial job, for it is obvious he would have taken whatever was offered him.
“The question of race would linger. Was the Babe, by legal definition, a black man? He had the bad words for as long as he played. He had been handed the wrongful stereotype that would be attached to the black athlete---the natural talent, abilities transmitted by the touch of God, not acquired through industry and intelligence. He never had a chance to manage a team. So many of the pieces fit. If not a black man, he had been touched by the prejudices against the black man.
The truth? The fog settled in for one last time.” P. 365
He did not work a regular job after retiring from baseball. He played a lot of golf, hunted, fished, and even took up bowling!
Babe Ruth died of cancer on August 16, 1948, age 53, passing away in his sleep. He died on the same day as Elvis Presley.
“The fascination with career and life continues. He is a bombastic, sloppy hero from our bombastic, sloppy history, origins undetermined, a folk tale of American success. His moon face is as recognizable today as it was when he stared out at Tom Zachary on a certain September afternoon in 1927.” P. 367
Sunday, April 1, 2012
A Quantum Theory of Mitt Romney
A Quantum Theory of Mitt Romney
By DAVID JAVERBAUM
Published: March 31, 2012
THE recent remark by Mitt Romney’s senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom that upon clinching the Republican nomination Mr. Romney could change his political views “like an Etch A Sketch” has already become notorious. The comment seemed all too apt, an apparent admission by a campaign insider of two widely held suspicions about Mitt Romney: that he is a) utterly devoid of any ideological convictions and b) filled with aluminum powder.
The famous “Schrödinger’s candidate” scenario. For as long as Mitt Romney remains in this box, he is both a moderate and a conservative.
may have been unfortunate, but Mr. Fehrnstrom’s impulse to analogize is understandable. Metaphors like these, inexact as they are, are the only way the layman can begin to grasp the strange phantom world that underpins the very fabric of not only the Romney campaign but also of Mitt Romney in general. For we have entered the age of quantum politics; and Mitt Romney is the first quantum politician.
A bit of context. Before Mitt Romney, those seeking the presidency operated under the laws of so-called classical politics, laws still followed by traditional campaigners like Newt Gingrich. Under these Newtonian principles, a candidate’s position on an issue tends to stay at rest until an outside force — the Tea Party, say, or a six-figure credit line at Tiffany — compels him to alter his stance, at a speed commensurate with the size of the force (usually large) and in inverse proportion to the depth of his beliefs (invariably negligible). This alteration, framed as a positive by the candidate, then provokes an equal but opposite reaction among his rivals.
But the Romney candidacy represents literally a quantum leap forward. It is governed by rules that are bizarre and appear to go against everyday experience and common sense. To be honest, even people like Mr. Fehrnstrom who are experts in Mitt Romney’s reality, or “Romneality,” seem bewildered by its implications; and any person who tells you he or she truly “understands” Mitt Romney is either lying or a corporation.
Nevertheless, close and repeated study of his campaign in real-world situations has yielded a standard model that has proved eerily accurate in predicting Mitt Romney’s behavior in debate after debate, speech after speech, awkward look-at-me-I’m-a-regular-guy moment after awkward look-at-me-I’m-a-regular-guy moment, and every other event in his face-time continuum.
The basic concepts behind this model are:
Complementarity. In much the same way that light is both a particle and a wave, Mitt Romney is both a moderate and a conservative, depending on the situation (Fig. 1). It is not that he is one or the other; it is not that he is one and then the other. He is both at the same time.
Probability. Mitt Romney’s political viewpoints can be expressed only in terms of likelihood, not certainty. While some views are obviously far less likely than others, no view can be thought of as absolutely impossible. Thus, for instance, there is at any given moment a nonzero chance that Mitt Romney supports child slavery.
Uncertainty. Frustrating as it may be, the rules of quantum campaigning dictate that no human being can ever simultaneously know both what Mitt Romney’s current position is and where that position will be at some future date. This is known as the “principle uncertainty principle.”
Entanglement. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a proton, neutron or Mormon: the act of observing cannot be separated from the outcome of the observation. By asking Mitt Romney how he feels about an issue, you unavoidably affect how he feels about it. More precisely, Mitt Romney will feel every possible way about an issue until the moment he is asked about it, at which point the many feelings decohere into the single answer most likely to please the asker.
Noncausality. The Romney campaign often violates, and even reverses, the law of cause and effect. For example, ordinarily the cause of getting the most votes leads to the effect of being considered the most electable candidate. But in the case of Mitt Romney, the cause of being considered the most electable candidate actually produces the effect of getting the most votes.
Duality. Many conservatives believe the existence of Mitt Romney allows for the possibility of the spontaneous creation of an “anti-Romney” (Fig. 2) that leaps into existence and annihilates Mitt Romney. (However, the science behind this is somewhat suspect, as it is financed by Rick Santorum, for whom science itself is suspect.)
What does all this bode for the general election? By this point it won’t surprise you to learn the answer is, “We don’t know.” Because according to the latest theories, the “Mitt Romney” who seems poised to be the Republican nominee is but one of countless Mitt Romneys, each occupying his own cosmos, each supporting a different platform, each being compared to a different beloved children’s toy but all of them equally real, all of them equally valid and all of them running for president at the same time, in their own alternative Romnealities, somewhere in the vast Romniverse.
And all of them losing to Barack Obama.
By DAVID JAVERBAUM
Published: March 31, 2012
THE recent remark by Mitt Romney’s senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom that upon clinching the Republican nomination Mr. Romney could change his political views “like an Etch A Sketch” has already become notorious. The comment seemed all too apt, an apparent admission by a campaign insider of two widely held suspicions about Mitt Romney: that he is a) utterly devoid of any ideological convictions and b) filled with aluminum powder.
The famous “Schrödinger’s candidate” scenario. For as long as Mitt Romney remains in this box, he is both a moderate and a conservative.
may have been unfortunate, but Mr. Fehrnstrom’s impulse to analogize is understandable. Metaphors like these, inexact as they are, are the only way the layman can begin to grasp the strange phantom world that underpins the very fabric of not only the Romney campaign but also of Mitt Romney in general. For we have entered the age of quantum politics; and Mitt Romney is the first quantum politician.
A bit of context. Before Mitt Romney, those seeking the presidency operated under the laws of so-called classical politics, laws still followed by traditional campaigners like Newt Gingrich. Under these Newtonian principles, a candidate’s position on an issue tends to stay at rest until an outside force — the Tea Party, say, or a six-figure credit line at Tiffany — compels him to alter his stance, at a speed commensurate with the size of the force (usually large) and in inverse proportion to the depth of his beliefs (invariably negligible). This alteration, framed as a positive by the candidate, then provokes an equal but opposite reaction among his rivals.
But the Romney candidacy represents literally a quantum leap forward. It is governed by rules that are bizarre and appear to go against everyday experience and common sense. To be honest, even people like Mr. Fehrnstrom who are experts in Mitt Romney’s reality, or “Romneality,” seem bewildered by its implications; and any person who tells you he or she truly “understands” Mitt Romney is either lying or a corporation.
Nevertheless, close and repeated study of his campaign in real-world situations has yielded a standard model that has proved eerily accurate in predicting Mitt Romney’s behavior in debate after debate, speech after speech, awkward look-at-me-I’m-a-regular-guy moment after awkward look-at-me-I’m-a-regular-guy moment, and every other event in his face-time continuum.
The basic concepts behind this model are:
Complementarity. In much the same way that light is both a particle and a wave, Mitt Romney is both a moderate and a conservative, depending on the situation (Fig. 1). It is not that he is one or the other; it is not that he is one and then the other. He is both at the same time.
Probability. Mitt Romney’s political viewpoints can be expressed only in terms of likelihood, not certainty. While some views are obviously far less likely than others, no view can be thought of as absolutely impossible. Thus, for instance, there is at any given moment a nonzero chance that Mitt Romney supports child slavery.
Uncertainty. Frustrating as it may be, the rules of quantum campaigning dictate that no human being can ever simultaneously know both what Mitt Romney’s current position is and where that position will be at some future date. This is known as the “principle uncertainty principle.”
Entanglement. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a proton, neutron or Mormon: the act of observing cannot be separated from the outcome of the observation. By asking Mitt Romney how he feels about an issue, you unavoidably affect how he feels about it. More precisely, Mitt Romney will feel every possible way about an issue until the moment he is asked about it, at which point the many feelings decohere into the single answer most likely to please the asker.
Noncausality. The Romney campaign often violates, and even reverses, the law of cause and effect. For example, ordinarily the cause of getting the most votes leads to the effect of being considered the most electable candidate. But in the case of Mitt Romney, the cause of being considered the most electable candidate actually produces the effect of getting the most votes.
Duality. Many conservatives believe the existence of Mitt Romney allows for the possibility of the spontaneous creation of an “anti-Romney” (Fig. 2) that leaps into existence and annihilates Mitt Romney. (However, the science behind this is somewhat suspect, as it is financed by Rick Santorum, for whom science itself is suspect.)
What does all this bode for the general election? By this point it won’t surprise you to learn the answer is, “We don’t know.” Because according to the latest theories, the “Mitt Romney” who seems poised to be the Republican nominee is but one of countless Mitt Romneys, each occupying his own cosmos, each supporting a different platform, each being compared to a different beloved children’s toy but all of them equally real, all of them equally valid and all of them running for president at the same time, in their own alternative Romnealities, somewhere in the vast Romniverse.
And all of them losing to Barack Obama.
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