A "Call for Civil Discourse" in a political context is a rhetorical trick. For that matter, a "call for civil discourse" might itself be a snide partisan jab…depending on the context.
A "call for civil discourse" leveled at one's partisan opponents is an overt accusation that the opponent is uncivil.
At its worst, "calls for civil discourse" can have the negative effect of cutting large segments of the population out of the system.
False claims to civility and charges of incivility were at the heart of the mistreatment of Native Americans in the West and blacks in the Jim Crow South. One simply framed these groups as uncivil dullards, then systematically dismissed legitimate grievances.
False calls for civil discourse are most damaging in an image driven society in which many confuse civility with tone. In such societies the ruling class can get away with all sorts of horrific actions. Historically, one finds that many of the worst atrocities were committed by people who could maintain an even tone while doing wrong.
Overall, a discussion of how we should engage in civil discourse is a good thing. When done correctly, civil discourse will give voice to more people in society and will even lead to a higher quality of discourse.
It is, after all, high quality discourse that we should aspire to. High quality discourse is that which allows the voices of many and brings the best ideas to surface.
That said, whenever one hears a call for "civil discourse," one should look at context of the call. If the call is aimed at one's opponent or if it cuts voices out of the conversation, then the person or group making the call might, in actuality, be the worst rogue in the room.
Showing posts with label discourse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label discourse. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Monday, April 05, 2010
On Change and Government
The free market is in a state of constant flux. Bureaucracies are comparatively static. So, why do we associate "change" with the growth of government?
The psychology of the association is simple to explain. We tend to give words and notice to those things that deviate from the norm. If you were trapped in a dank hole, a pin prick of light from the sun would be seen as a brilliant light. Meanwhile the inadequate shade of a saguaro is glorious shade in the mid summer Arizona sun.
There is a tendency to notice the deviation from the norm. A poet will write about the brilliant lights in a place that is comparatively dark and the shade in areas of excessive sun.
Back to the question of government and change: Change is the norm in the free market. Businesses seeking stability are apt to solicit government favor to shield their business from change. The public discourse is dominated by businesses seeking stability.
Bureaucracies are comparatively stagnate. Inducing change in a government agency requires public discourse about change to induce action.
If one takes public discourse into isolation, as is done in the academic world, one might end up associating businesses and the free market with stagnation and government bureaucracies with change.
History seems to show that free market reforms tend to lead to greater change (and, dare I say, social justice) than increased bureaucracy. The norm has a greater impact than the deviation from the norm.
Of course, "Change®" is often used as a slogan or brand in political discourse. It is a mistake to read anything into the name beyond the brand.
The psychology of the association is simple to explain. We tend to give words and notice to those things that deviate from the norm. If you were trapped in a dank hole, a pin prick of light from the sun would be seen as a brilliant light. Meanwhile the inadequate shade of a saguaro is glorious shade in the mid summer Arizona sun.
There is a tendency to notice the deviation from the norm. A poet will write about the brilliant lights in a place that is comparatively dark and the shade in areas of excessive sun.
Back to the question of government and change: Change is the norm in the free market. Businesses seeking stability are apt to solicit government favor to shield their business from change. The public discourse is dominated by businesses seeking stability.
Bureaucracies are comparatively stagnate. Inducing change in a government agency requires public discourse about change to induce action.
If one takes public discourse into isolation, as is done in the academic world, one might end up associating businesses and the free market with stagnation and government bureaucracies with change.
History seems to show that free market reforms tend to lead to greater change (and, dare I say, social justice) than increased bureaucracy. The norm has a greater impact than the deviation from the norm.
Of course, "Change®" is often used as a slogan or brand in political discourse. It is a mistake to read anything into the name beyond the brand.
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Reason's Greetings
There is a really strange group of people who hold with religious fervor the tenet that all war is the result of religion. Adherents to this belief have faith that, if mankind simply discarded religion for reason; there would be an evolution in the world spirit that leads to a state of eternal peace.
The statement is essentially that war is the product of religion. If we replaced religion with reason, there would no longer be war.
I feel like tossing a sabot in the machine.
When I read history, it appears that the irreligious are as likely, if not more likely, to go to war than the religious. Of course, since one finds religions on every corner of the earth; it is possible to frame a religion as the reason for any given war.
It is all but impossible to argue a person away from a religious tenet. Atheists would simply accuse me of framing the irreligious for participating in the various communist revolutions that were theoretically based on pure reason.
No, making arguments about specific wars just leads to shrill noise; So, I wish to toss my sabot at one of the central premises of the argument.
The term "reason," of course, simply refers to whatever ideas spurred people to action. Historically, everyone who has agitated for war has done so with a reason in mind.
As we argue about the reasons for war, one cannot help but realize that, if there is a reason for every war, then "reason," is somehow a common attribute to all wars.
If there is even one war where religion is not the reason for the war; then one might come to the horrible realization that "reason" is the cause of war.
This really throws in doubt the supposition that we could get rid of war if we replaced religion with reason.
If reason is the cause of war; some might reason that we could live in harmony with nature if only we learned to discard reason. You will actually find a very large number of people in our society trying to do just this.
I contend, however, that the statement: "if we discard reason we will return to harmony with nature" is flawed.
The ability to reason is part of the nature of man. Denying one's nature does not restore harmony with nature.
Sadly many people, at this point, throw up their hands in despair.
There is hope. I believe that it is possible for us to improve our method of reasoning to reduce the likelihood of war. The path is difficult. There are many paradoxes and ancient hatreds that mar the path peace. (An example of paradox is that one cannot stop war simply by surrendering as the propensity to surrender invites invasions. As for ancient hatreds, we find that the current wars in the Middle East seem to be part of a continuing conflict that reaches back to ancient wars between the Ancient Greeks and Persians.)
The secret to reducing war is to realize that there are different types of reasoning. There is sound and unsound reasoning. If our goal is to stop war, then the better path to blaming wars on religion would be to explore the foundations of our system of reason and to improve our rational skills.
Monday, June 30, 2008
The Form of the Argument
I spent the last several days going through big piles of books on Socrates. Oddly, the Chapter on Socrates only has 900 words and is not much different than it would have been if I did not read through the reams of books.
Socrates is clearly one of the most important philosophers of western history. You can follow threads of his thought throughout history.
Mentioning everything that is interesting about this great thinker would take days. The question in my mind is if I should point out the many things of interest or only mention those things that I will use later in the work. I chose to only mention the things I intend to use later.
This brings me back to myth. The process of cherry picking history to prove a thesis creates a myth of history. Of course, these myth-like distortions form the foundations of our language.
Socrates did not write down his words. So it is impossible to say definitively what he meant. The Library is full of large works speculating about what people think he might have said. It is impossible to move beyond speculation.
The goal of my chapter on the Socratic Method was to present the method as a form of open equiry aimed at clarifying definitions.
I also wish to emphasize that there is a similar style of argument where a Socrates-wannabe approaches an enemy with an absurdist QA sessions aimed at muddling their opponent's definitions. Often the goal of the Socrates-wannabe is to associate negative labels with the opponent.
Using a "Socratic-like" QA session to attack one's enemies is not open enquiry. It is a form of intellectual thuggery that ultimately destroys society's ability to engage in reason.
So my goal is not to examine Socratic Dialogues in detail, but to encourage people to think of the form of the argument.
Socrates is clearly one of the most important philosophers of western history. You can follow threads of his thought throughout history.
Mentioning everything that is interesting about this great thinker would take days. The question in my mind is if I should point out the many things of interest or only mention those things that I will use later in the work. I chose to only mention the things I intend to use later.
This brings me back to myth. The process of cherry picking history to prove a thesis creates a myth of history. Of course, these myth-like distortions form the foundations of our language.
Socrates did not write down his words. So it is impossible to say definitively what he meant. The Library is full of large works speculating about what people think he might have said. It is impossible to move beyond speculation.
The goal of my chapter on the Socratic Method was to present the method as a form of open equiry aimed at clarifying definitions.
I also wish to emphasize that there is a similar style of argument where a Socrates-wannabe approaches an enemy with an absurdist QA sessions aimed at muddling their opponent's definitions. Often the goal of the Socrates-wannabe is to associate negative labels with the opponent.
Using a "Socratic-like" QA session to attack one's enemies is not open enquiry. It is a form of intellectual thuggery that ultimately destroys society's ability to engage in reason.
So my goal is not to examine Socratic Dialogues in detail, but to encourage people to think of the form of the argument.
Friday, February 01, 2008
Popular Positioning
I would love to have my name associated with all of the sexy and popular issues of the day.
It would be great to have a magical thinking method that would let me poll the universe to find the popular positions and to jump to the forefront of the fray with some sort of thought provoking statement or catch phrase.
Come to think of it. Such magical thinking methods exist.
Unfortunately, legions of politicians (left and right) try using such techniques to throw themselves in front of any issues that poll well.
As it turns out. It is a breeze to spew forth with meaningless slogans about change or deep-sounding paradoxes. Read Mao's Little Red Book and you will have a life time of meaningless phrases for a fruitful political career.
The problem, of course, is that while our politicians sit by the polls and measure the effects of magic language, the actual issues that we need resolved fail to receive adequate consideration.
I think our country is desparate to find a way out of the malaise caused by the magic speak ... which is the rave in the political and media class.
One way to break the lure of magic speak is for people to make a mental effort to separate reasons for a position and the actuall position held by the politician.
In our current election, we see two great examples of the relations of reasons v. positions. John McCain voted against the Bush tax cut becuase the tax cut did not have corresponding spending cuts. This is a more fiscally conservative view than supporting tax cuts. Hillary Clinton says she voted to authorize use of force against Iraq because she thought George Bush would use the declaration in diplomatic efforts and not actually invade Iraq.
When drafting the US Constitution, the groups opposed to slavery insisted on counting blacks at 3/5th a person. Slaves were not allowed to vote; the anti-slavery groups sought to reduce the power weilded by the slave owners.
There are millions of cases where the reason behind a position is counter to one's first impression of the issue.
Anyway, I wanted to get back to the magical language.
Current politics seems to be driven by the desire for magical language. The moment we say the right magical words, we will have a social utopia.
The problem with the magical language (you know the thing where politics is driven by polls on the issues) is that the process ends up polluting the reasons behind our politicies.
When the reasons for our policies boil down to the image we want to project to the world, then we end up adopting a system of extremely weak reasons.
When we have poor reasoning behind our well intentioned (and well polled) positions on policy, we often find the poor reasoning ends up undermining our society.
This is why I went through the brain damange on the posts about the death penalty. My personal self image is that I am a wonderful person who is against the death penalty. However, I find that when I simply argue myself image, my arguments for my position come up weak. When I use weak reasons for my position, I find I actually create opportunities for abuse.
If the reason behind the abolition of the death penalty is simply the way the populace feels at the moment. Then we suffer the danger of abuses when public sentiment turns sour.
If the reason behind the abolition of the death penalty is because the high profile death penalty cases show our court system is corrupt, then abolishing the death is really an effort to hide the corruption of the court.
To make a truly substantial change, we have to make sure the reasoning behind our position is strong and well understood.
This type of effort is becoming increasingly difficult in a world where political hacks throw themselves infront of any popular issue.
For example, Libertarians have a very strong case that we should really only apply the force of government in specific areas. In the areas where we apply the government, the government should be the government. Unfortunately, this case is diluted by wanks who jump in the front of the line and start wanting to privatize necessary government functions.
The people who are best at poisitioning themselves in the political arena dominate the discourse, but these people fail to understand the reasons behind a position. We get people like George Bush who lowers taxes without lowering spending, and who jeopardize the future of the nation with absurd deficits. We have a peace movement where the loudest players in the movement are more interested in how the appear in the protest lines than in the real struggle to lay a working foundation for peace.
When our reasons are poorly founded, our efforts are ineffective and we end up undermining our society.
It would be great to have a magical thinking method that would let me poll the universe to find the popular positions and to jump to the forefront of the fray with some sort of thought provoking statement or catch phrase.
Come to think of it. Such magical thinking methods exist.
Unfortunately, legions of politicians (left and right) try using such techniques to throw themselves in front of any issues that poll well.
As it turns out. It is a breeze to spew forth with meaningless slogans about change or deep-sounding paradoxes. Read Mao's Little Red Book and you will have a life time of meaningless phrases for a fruitful political career.
The problem, of course, is that while our politicians sit by the polls and measure the effects of magic language, the actual issues that we need resolved fail to receive adequate consideration.
I think our country is desparate to find a way out of the malaise caused by the magic speak ... which is the rave in the political and media class.
One way to break the lure of magic speak is for people to make a mental effort to separate reasons for a position and the actuall position held by the politician.
In our current election, we see two great examples of the relations of reasons v. positions. John McCain voted against the Bush tax cut becuase the tax cut did not have corresponding spending cuts. This is a more fiscally conservative view than supporting tax cuts. Hillary Clinton says she voted to authorize use of force against Iraq because she thought George Bush would use the declaration in diplomatic efforts and not actually invade Iraq.
When drafting the US Constitution, the groups opposed to slavery insisted on counting blacks at 3/5th a person. Slaves were not allowed to vote; the anti-slavery groups sought to reduce the power weilded by the slave owners.
There are millions of cases where the reason behind a position is counter to one's first impression of the issue.
Anyway, I wanted to get back to the magical language.
Current politics seems to be driven by the desire for magical language. The moment we say the right magical words, we will have a social utopia.
The problem with the magical language (you know the thing where politics is driven by polls on the issues) is that the process ends up polluting the reasons behind our politicies.
When the reasons for our policies boil down to the image we want to project to the world, then we end up adopting a system of extremely weak reasons.
When we have poor reasoning behind our well intentioned (and well polled) positions on policy, we often find the poor reasoning ends up undermining our society.
This is why I went through the brain damange on the posts about the death penalty. My personal self image is that I am a wonderful person who is against the death penalty. However, I find that when I simply argue myself image, my arguments for my position come up weak. When I use weak reasons for my position, I find I actually create opportunities for abuse.
If the reason behind the abolition of the death penalty is simply the way the populace feels at the moment. Then we suffer the danger of abuses when public sentiment turns sour.
If the reason behind the abolition of the death penalty is because the high profile death penalty cases show our court system is corrupt, then abolishing the death is really an effort to hide the corruption of the court.
To make a truly substantial change, we have to make sure the reasoning behind our position is strong and well understood.
This type of effort is becoming increasingly difficult in a world where political hacks throw themselves infront of any popular issue.
For example, Libertarians have a very strong case that we should really only apply the force of government in specific areas. In the areas where we apply the government, the government should be the government. Unfortunately, this case is diluted by wanks who jump in the front of the line and start wanting to privatize necessary government functions.
The people who are best at poisitioning themselves in the political arena dominate the discourse, but these people fail to understand the reasons behind a position. We get people like George Bush who lowers taxes without lowering spending, and who jeopardize the future of the nation with absurd deficits. We have a peace movement where the loudest players in the movement are more interested in how the appear in the protest lines than in the real struggle to lay a working foundation for peace.
When our reasons are poorly founded, our efforts are ineffective and we end up undermining our society.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Quality Discourse
Quality discourse, by its nature, is long winded and boring.
When people are authentically engaged in exploring an issue they will end up saying all sorts of contradictory things.
The existance of contractions in discourse is not bad. One of the best ways to understand the implications of an idea is to explore its negation. A quality thinker might end up writing page after page and conclude that the path he explored was not productive.
A good discourse contains multiple perspectives.
Most published writing is of the form of a statement. A statement generally has a direct purpose that the writer wishes to accomplish. In Marxist writing, all writing is suppose to have an underlying purpose of promoting the revolution. Some religions say all writing must be faith promoting.
People like reading statements. They are shorter and to the point.
For that matter, a purpose of most discourse is to put together a statement.
The dealio is that we have to understand that multiple styles of writing need to exist.
Why this post?
NewspaperGrl had pointed to an article where a pretentious, elitist snit named Paul Boutin gave the middle finger to bloggers because blogs don't fit the narrowminded view taught Comparative Lit 101. His statement was that blogging is not quality discourse, because blogs are long winded, boring, full of contradictory statements and often have no purpose beyond the author's individual exploration of truth.
Arrrgggghhhhh!
Discourse, by its nature, is a long winded task where people, in a search for truth, root out contradictions.
Quite frankly, I think a big problem we face today is that our schools and publishing world have built a false expectation of what writing is and should be.
It is my hope that people engaged in blogs and forums will gradually ween themselves from the false expectations created by our schools and realize that writing is part of the process of becoming.
You will notice in this blog that I will often have posts acknowledging a good argument given in favor of an idea I like, or I will reject a bad argument given by groups that I support.
This is called engaging in discourse.
When people are authentically engaged in exploring an issue they will end up saying all sorts of contradictory things.
The existance of contractions in discourse is not bad. One of the best ways to understand the implications of an idea is to explore its negation. A quality thinker might end up writing page after page and conclude that the path he explored was not productive.
A good discourse contains multiple perspectives.
Most published writing is of the form of a statement. A statement generally has a direct purpose that the writer wishes to accomplish. In Marxist writing, all writing is suppose to have an underlying purpose of promoting the revolution. Some religions say all writing must be faith promoting.
People like reading statements. They are shorter and to the point.
For that matter, a purpose of most discourse is to put together a statement.
The dealio is that we have to understand that multiple styles of writing need to exist.
Why this post?
NewspaperGrl had pointed to an article where a pretentious, elitist snit named Paul Boutin gave the middle finger to bloggers because blogs don't fit the narrowminded view taught Comparative Lit 101. His statement was that blogging is not quality discourse, because blogs are long winded, boring, full of contradictory statements and often have no purpose beyond the author's individual exploration of truth.
Arrrgggghhhhh!
Discourse, by its nature, is a long winded task where people, in a search for truth, root out contradictions.
Quite frankly, I think a big problem we face today is that our schools and publishing world have built a false expectation of what writing is and should be.
It is my hope that people engaged in blogs and forums will gradually ween themselves from the false expectations created by our schools and realize that writing is part of the process of becoming.
You will notice in this blog that I will often have posts acknowledging a good argument given in favor of an idea I like, or I will reject a bad argument given by groups that I support.
This is called engaging in discourse.
Friday, October 19, 2007
The Argument Fails in Both Directions
In the build up to the Patreus Report, terrorists in Iraq killed a large number of people in hopes of influencing the reaction to the report. I argued that the left would make a mistake if they cited the spike in casualties in their arguments for ending the war.
For that matter, I noticed that most Democrats recognized the trap and avoided citing the atrocities despite the fact the spike supported their case. I applaud those who showed sense and restraint.
When you push radical theory to its natural conclusion, killing people is nothing more than a statement in a propaganda war.
Predictably, there's been a slight drop off in casualty statistics after the report. I've heard several conservative pundits trying to say that this drop off in casualties is proof that the surge is working. This is also a mistake. If one ignores the spike, the baseline of unrest is still high.
The casualty spike occurred to influence the Patreus report. Using the down end of the spike to argue the surge worked is as much a fallacy as it was to argue the up end of the spike prived the surge worked.
All the spike tells us is that terrorists have bought into the world view that sees killing large numbers of people as a political statement in a class struggle.
It is this world view that is the enemy.
For that matter, I noticed that most Democrats recognized the trap and avoided citing the atrocities despite the fact the spike supported their case. I applaud those who showed sense and restraint.
When you push radical theory to its natural conclusion, killing people is nothing more than a statement in a propaganda war.
Predictably, there's been a slight drop off in casualty statistics after the report. I've heard several conservative pundits trying to say that this drop off in casualties is proof that the surge is working. This is also a mistake. If one ignores the spike, the baseline of unrest is still high.
The casualty spike occurred to influence the Patreus report. Using the down end of the spike to argue the surge worked is as much a fallacy as it was to argue the up end of the spike prived the surge worked.
All the spike tells us is that terrorists have bought into the world view that sees killing large numbers of people as a political statement in a class struggle.
It is this world view that is the enemy.
Monday, September 10, 2007
So Called Reporters
Here is a fun way to waste time while reading news reports: Count the number of times that you hear reporters using the term "so called" in reference to any actions taken by the Administration. In a forty minute scan of CSPAN, CNN and MSNBC, I heard the term "so call surge" about a dozen times.
What the reporters are doing is employing a propaganda technique called "purr words and snarl words." The point of purr words and snarl words is not to state one's opinions clearly or honestly, it is to attack one's enemies at a subliminal level.
The technique is not about strongly worded statements in open discourse. Purr words and snarl words is a technique for subtly injecting opinion into what should be objective reporting.
I do have some sympathy for those who use "so called" to modify the term "War on Terror." The name "War on Terror" is somewhat propagandist itself. Modifying the name "War on Terror" with the snarl word "so called" can be seen as an ironic attempt to express one's disapproval of propagandist techniques.
This game of calling the Troop Surge a "So Called Troop Surge" is a bit idiotic as the word troop surge is an accurate description of an increase in troops.
What people should do in response is to take down the names of all the reporters who use the term "so called surge" and start referring to them as "So Called Reporters."
For example, we could say "The So Called Reporter Anderson Cooper is reporting tonight on the failure of ..."
Please note. I am not attacking AC's journalistic qualifications. I am simply mentioning that he over uses the snarl word "so called."
If a lot of people started referring to these folks as "So Called Reporters" there little tiny egos would self destruct, and maybe in some distant future we could have reporters who value objectivity over spin.
What the reporters are doing is employing a propaganda technique called "purr words and snarl words." The point of purr words and snarl words is not to state one's opinions clearly or honestly, it is to attack one's enemies at a subliminal level.
The technique is not about strongly worded statements in open discourse. Purr words and snarl words is a technique for subtly injecting opinion into what should be objective reporting.
I do have some sympathy for those who use "so called" to modify the term "War on Terror." The name "War on Terror" is somewhat propagandist itself. Modifying the name "War on Terror" with the snarl word "so called" can be seen as an ironic attempt to express one's disapproval of propagandist techniques.
This game of calling the Troop Surge a "So Called Troop Surge" is a bit idiotic as the word troop surge is an accurate description of an increase in troops.
What people should do in response is to take down the names of all the reporters who use the term "so called surge" and start referring to them as "So Called Reporters."
For example, we could say "The So Called Reporter Anderson Cooper is reporting tonight on the failure of ..."
Please note. I am not attacking AC's journalistic qualifications. I am simply mentioning that he over uses the snarl word "so called."
If a lot of people started referring to these folks as "So Called Reporters" there little tiny egos would self destruct, and maybe in some distant future we could have reporters who value objectivity over spin.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Organic Unity
Leaders love to have people following them in unison. It is the nature of politics for politicians to garner support, then to leverage that support for power.
The result of this is that there is a great deal of rhetoric about unity.
I think it is common for people to catch onto this rhetoric and to start thinking that unity itself is a primary goal.
Some people might even start fearing disunity. I know both progressives and conservatives who are driven to distraction at the mere thought that someone might disagree with their beliefs.
The reason I wanted to bring up the issue is to emphasize that unity itself is not foundational. Unity and disunity are complementary. In most cases, political groups unite against a named enemy. The local unity is part of a greater disunity.
When a threat that unified a group disappears, the unified group is likely to break up. So, imagine that there is a major issue dividing the nation. We might achieve a compromise on the issue and the nation reunifies. The next political season finds new lines of division.
In a really healthy system, I think you would see groups getting together an dissolving on a regular basis.
It is in the free market that you see the most organic form of this creative destruction. It is not uncommon to find a companies working together on a project one year, and find them competing on a project the next year. Sometimes you will find companies cooperating in one market and bitterly competing in another.
This shifting about of markets is fun, exciting and dymanic. I a really healthy market, there is ample room for people to participate at different levels in the market.
It is in partisan and international politics that one finds the most brittle and dangerous forms of this natural process of forming and breaking unions. To extend their grasp, politicians work on unifying people over minor issues until they have a major rift. We often find politicians sincerely working to unify people on an issue that will progress society. When all is said and done, we find the leader marching at the head of a destructive creation.
Hmm, that would be a good one liner: In the sense that economics is the act of creative destruction, politics is the manufacture of destructive creations.
As the market is more dynamic and has more openings for participation, I prefer it to politics.
The one problem I see, though, is that we really don't have a free market anymore.
We have a highly politicized and regulated economy. The regulations seem to have the affect of raising the bar of entry for new partnerships, while subsidizing and stiltifying existing businesses. The result of an excessively regulated economy is that the big companies keep getting bigger and the gaps between the haves and have-nots grows.
This is where I think we are at the moment. Our regulated, litigous economy has created artificially large corporations. These large corporations create division in our society. The body politics uses this division to continue and even tighten the processes that created the division in the first place.
Since the division is being driven by fear of large corporations, I figure that the best antedote is to support small local firms whenever possible.
The result of this is that there is a great deal of rhetoric about unity.
I think it is common for people to catch onto this rhetoric and to start thinking that unity itself is a primary goal.
Some people might even start fearing disunity. I know both progressives and conservatives who are driven to distraction at the mere thought that someone might disagree with their beliefs.
The reason I wanted to bring up the issue is to emphasize that unity itself is not foundational. Unity and disunity are complementary. In most cases, political groups unite against a named enemy. The local unity is part of a greater disunity.
When a threat that unified a group disappears, the unified group is likely to break up. So, imagine that there is a major issue dividing the nation. We might achieve a compromise on the issue and the nation reunifies. The next political season finds new lines of division.
In a really healthy system, I think you would see groups getting together an dissolving on a regular basis.
It is in the free market that you see the most organic form of this creative destruction. It is not uncommon to find a companies working together on a project one year, and find them competing on a project the next year. Sometimes you will find companies cooperating in one market and bitterly competing in another.
This shifting about of markets is fun, exciting and dymanic. I a really healthy market, there is ample room for people to participate at different levels in the market.
It is in partisan and international politics that one finds the most brittle and dangerous forms of this natural process of forming and breaking unions. To extend their grasp, politicians work on unifying people over minor issues until they have a major rift. We often find politicians sincerely working to unify people on an issue that will progress society. When all is said and done, we find the leader marching at the head of a destructive creation.
Hmm, that would be a good one liner: In the sense that economics is the act of creative destruction, politics is the manufacture of destructive creations.
As the market is more dynamic and has more openings for participation, I prefer it to politics.
The one problem I see, though, is that we really don't have a free market anymore.
We have a highly politicized and regulated economy. The regulations seem to have the affect of raising the bar of entry for new partnerships, while subsidizing and stiltifying existing businesses. The result of an excessively regulated economy is that the big companies keep getting bigger and the gaps between the haves and have-nots grows.
This is where I think we are at the moment. Our regulated, litigous economy has created artificially large corporations. These large corporations create division in our society. The body politics uses this division to continue and even tighten the processes that created the division in the first place.
Since the division is being driven by fear of large corporations, I figure that the best antedote is to support small local firms whenever possible.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Unity and Division
The last line of Marx's Communist Manifesto is "Workers of the world unite."
Since the manifesto calls for people to unify in a struggle, I suspect that many falsely concluded that Communism is an ideology of unity.
The truth, of course, is that Marx was seeking to raise a group of people in rebellion against a defined enemy: the bourgeoisie. The term "bourgeoisie" refers to the middle class. The goal of Marx was to unite the ends against the middle.
I suspect that there is a large number of people who sincerely want to be part of a unified force. The problem, of course, is that all of these unified forces have something that they are against. Political efforts to unify people on an issue almost always creates a reactionary force.
In the rare instances that we do achieve unity on an issue. There is almost always someone wanting to push the unified collective onto a different more divisive issue. For example, we may be unified in thinking that dog fights are barbaric. There will be voices that want to use the unifying issue against hunting, or eating meat.
I find the free market and democracy more compelling than Communism. These systems create a structured mechanism for division.
When coming across calls for unity. One should recognize that almost all calls for unity are seeking to unite people against something. Although such calls use "unity" as part of the rhetoric. It is difficult to say that such efforts really are leading to unity. In most cases they lead to a division at a deeper level.
Since the manifesto calls for people to unify in a struggle, I suspect that many falsely concluded that Communism is an ideology of unity.
The truth, of course, is that Marx was seeking to raise a group of people in rebellion against a defined enemy: the bourgeoisie. The term "bourgeoisie" refers to the middle class. The goal of Marx was to unite the ends against the middle.
I suspect that there is a large number of people who sincerely want to be part of a unified force. The problem, of course, is that all of these unified forces have something that they are against. Political efforts to unify people on an issue almost always creates a reactionary force.
In the rare instances that we do achieve unity on an issue. There is almost always someone wanting to push the unified collective onto a different more divisive issue. For example, we may be unified in thinking that dog fights are barbaric. There will be voices that want to use the unifying issue against hunting, or eating meat.
I find the free market and democracy more compelling than Communism. These systems create a structured mechanism for division.
When coming across calls for unity. One should recognize that almost all calls for unity are seeking to unite people against something. Although such calls use "unity" as part of the rhetoric. It is difficult to say that such efforts really are leading to unity. In most cases they lead to a division at a deeper level.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Studied Intransigence
My last post on Flip-Flopping noted strategic mind-changing can destroy discourse.
Today, I thought I would point out the obvious that intransigence destroys discourse as well. This case is easier to make. When one party in a discussion fails to listen, no communication takes place.
It is really sad, but in far too many cases the person who is best at not listening to others ends up making the decisions. I've been in companies that have made some really bone-headed decisions because one of the prime decision makers failed to understand the ramifications of the different options.
Some people have successfully used studied intransigence to weasle their ways into positions of power. The person who fails to listen to others is often mistaking for a man of action.
There are some cases where methodological intransigence works. Parenting is a good example. Parents (or teachers for that matter) will put forward a resolute face while, in fact, they are listening to the child. J.J. Rousseau pretty much suggested that this was the best way to educate children. It works up to the point that the child figures out that you are two faced manipulators. Studied intransigence works up to the point where the child strats mimicking the parent's intransigence. From that point forth, you simply have dysfunction.
Studied intransigence is often used in hierarchical systems. The prince listens to the people while not appearing to listen to the people. Mormons seem to like to be treated this way. They clearly like to treat others this way. As I understand, the way the system of revelation works is that the prophet pretends to be receiving revelation while in fact the prophet is simply testing political waters. They then declare that the decision they come to is a dictate from God.
Studied intransigence seems to work in assymetrical power relations. It fails miserably in situations that require serious adult to adult communications.
It seems to me that both George Bush the first and George Bush the second use the method of studied intransigence. It is a primary reason why so many people find the two politicians annoying.
Just as the vice of flip-flopping is related to the virtue of open mindedness, the vice of intransigence is related to the virtue of being resolute in one's actions.
The ability to act with resolution is a virtue. After the making a decision, we need people who go for it and make the decision a reality. If we decide to build a bridge, we want it to span the whole river. A builder who is still waffling between making a suspension bridge or arch bridge while in the middle of construction will simply create an engineering catastrophe.
The ideal leader is a person who is open minded in the design phase of a process, but resolute in execution.
In many cases, the difference between a vice and virtue is the timing. The best leaders authentically listen during the design phase but concentrate on execute during production.
Since the quality of an action is determined by the timing, when judging the actions of a potential leader, we need to pay attention to the timing of their actions. When something occurs is almost as important as what occurred.
Unfortunately, when looking at life, it is very difficult to determine the current phase. For this reason, people benefit by having a structured design process. In politics, we have an election cycle. Other industries have developed other structured decision making processes. Having a structured designed cycle can help determine who is a good leader and who is trying to play the system.
Developing a good structured design cycle is itself an art. The design cycle has to be structured so that it gets input from all the stake holders of a project, but you can't just be forever in design. The design cycle also has to be evolutionary. Each step of the decision making procession is contigent on previous steps. For example, if the first cycle of the design process decided to make a suspension bridge, it would inapropriate to rehash all of the arguments for an arch bridge in a meeting where you are to decide the color of the bridge.
Needless to say, politicians have learned that they can manipulate the debate subliminally by manipulating the design structure. Manipulating the design process is one of the most underhanded tricks in any politician's bag of tricks.
Unfortunately, the partisan political process seems to favor those who are best at manipulating the debate. A partisan politician cares more about their side winning than the quality of the debate. The partisan process favors those who are intransigent in the design phase, but who waffle in execution.
Today, I thought I would point out the obvious that intransigence destroys discourse as well. This case is easier to make. When one party in a discussion fails to listen, no communication takes place.
It is really sad, but in far too many cases the person who is best at not listening to others ends up making the decisions. I've been in companies that have made some really bone-headed decisions because one of the prime decision makers failed to understand the ramifications of the different options.
Some people have successfully used studied intransigence to weasle their ways into positions of power. The person who fails to listen to others is often mistaking for a man of action.
There are some cases where methodological intransigence works. Parenting is a good example. Parents (or teachers for that matter) will put forward a resolute face while, in fact, they are listening to the child. J.J. Rousseau pretty much suggested that this was the best way to educate children. It works up to the point that the child figures out that you are two faced manipulators. Studied intransigence works up to the point where the child strats mimicking the parent's intransigence. From that point forth, you simply have dysfunction.
Studied intransigence is often used in hierarchical systems. The prince listens to the people while not appearing to listen to the people. Mormons seem to like to be treated this way. They clearly like to treat others this way. As I understand, the way the system of revelation works is that the prophet pretends to be receiving revelation while in fact the prophet is simply testing political waters. They then declare that the decision they come to is a dictate from God.
Studied intransigence seems to work in assymetrical power relations. It fails miserably in situations that require serious adult to adult communications.
It seems to me that both George Bush the first and George Bush the second use the method of studied intransigence. It is a primary reason why so many people find the two politicians annoying.
Just as the vice of flip-flopping is related to the virtue of open mindedness, the vice of intransigence is related to the virtue of being resolute in one's actions.
The ability to act with resolution is a virtue. After the making a decision, we need people who go for it and make the decision a reality. If we decide to build a bridge, we want it to span the whole river. A builder who is still waffling between making a suspension bridge or arch bridge while in the middle of construction will simply create an engineering catastrophe.
The ideal leader is a person who is open minded in the design phase of a process, but resolute in execution.
In many cases, the difference between a vice and virtue is the timing. The best leaders authentically listen during the design phase but concentrate on execute during production.
Since the quality of an action is determined by the timing, when judging the actions of a potential leader, we need to pay attention to the timing of their actions. When something occurs is almost as important as what occurred.
Unfortunately, when looking at life, it is very difficult to determine the current phase. For this reason, people benefit by having a structured design process. In politics, we have an election cycle. Other industries have developed other structured decision making processes. Having a structured designed cycle can help determine who is a good leader and who is trying to play the system.
Developing a good structured design cycle is itself an art. The design cycle has to be structured so that it gets input from all the stake holders of a project, but you can't just be forever in design. The design cycle also has to be evolutionary. Each step of the decision making procession is contigent on previous steps. For example, if the first cycle of the design process decided to make a suspension bridge, it would inapropriate to rehash all of the arguments for an arch bridge in a meeting where you are to decide the color of the bridge.
Needless to say, politicians have learned that they can manipulate the debate subliminally by manipulating the design structure. Manipulating the design process is one of the most underhanded tricks in any politician's bag of tricks.
Unfortunately, the partisan political process seems to favor those who are best at manipulating the debate. A partisan politician cares more about their side winning than the quality of the debate. The partisan process favors those who are intransigent in the design phase, but who waffle in execution.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Flopping about on Flip-Flopping
I started to write a reply to a post by Reach Upwards about flip flopping candidates. The reply really didn't fit his post. So, I decided to make it a post on my own blog.
Personally, I dislike the current obsession with flip-flopping. Flip-flopping is a necessary part of the process of deliberation. A world with a healthy system of discourse would see people flip-flop on a regular basis.
The ability to weigh different sides of a debate is the very heart of deliberation. People who never "flip-flop" simply are not engaged.
There is a whole slew of issues that pretty much demand flip-flopping.
Take the charged issue of abortion debate for example. This debate involves two distinct issues: The first is whether or not abortion is wrong. The second is the question of whether or not it should be legal. A person who holds that abortion is a great moral wrong must address the question of whether or not it is better to handle the question as a personal moral issue, or if it demands laws being in place. A person who is resolute on the underlying issue may flip flop on the secondary issue.
In most cases, it is bad for a politician to have too many solid positions on legislation. A politician who has too many solid positions will be intransigent in their actions.
IMHO, the best thinkers can see more than one side of an issue. If you give them compelling reasons to support your side; they will agree with you. When your opponent gives compelling reasons for their side, the thinker might agree with the opposition.
In some cases a person will agree with an argument simply as an acknowledgement that they understand or are processing the argument. A person who agrees with your argument but disagrees with your conclusion appears to flip-flop.
Agreeing with an argument is not the same thing as agreeing with the conclusion. For that matter, I don't think it is possible to properly understand any argument if you don't make an effort to understand and agree with the perspective of the argument.
When a person is engaged in the process of research, they should be flip-flipping all over the map. The necessary flip-flipping that occurs during research should not be confused with flip-flopping on fundamental issues.
The best thinkers will appreciate all of the sides of an argument.
Unfortunately, the converse is also true. The worst thinkers will tend to flip flop. Both the far left and far right use a really nasty form of manipulation called "the material dialectics." This method was perfected by Marx. With material dialectics, you wrap discourse in paradox. To a dialectician, words are weapons. When you engage in the method you spout whatever words give you an advantage.
The dialectician appears to be engaged in deliberation because both forks of their tongue wag at the same time. Such a dialectician is not engaged in an authentic search for the best path, they are simply engaged in dropping words as they attack enemies and reward friends.
A politician who is weighing every word against polls is not engaged in a pursuit of truth, but a pursuit of power.
The question of what leads to the flip flopping is much more interesting than the flip-flopping itself. For that matter, understanding why a candidate changed their opinion on an issue provides a deeper insight into the candidates mind than the stated positions themself.
The question we must answer when we see flip flopping is if it is an act of discourse or an act of manipulation. Unfortunately, this is difficult to determine.
In the 2004 presidential campaign, John Kerry's enemies were trying to make the case that his flip-flopping was part of an over all pattern of manipulation. Unfortunately, Republicans seem to have fallen into a trap. They seem to have made the overt act of flip-flopping the issue and not the underlying duplicity.
The mainstream media, which is primarily Democrat, seems to have encouraged this misstep since it puts Republicans at a disadvantage.
By allowing flip-flopping to become the primary issue of the presidential race, Republicans have thrown up a block to their best thinkers.
In my opinion, this current thread of debate which makes the overt act of flip-flopping the issue ends up undermining our ability to engage in deliberation. Deliberation by definition requires weighing the different arguments. The best thinkers regularly engage in acts that can be labeled flip-flopping when they examine issues.
The trap is even more insidious. Since Republicans are caught in the trap of weighing the relative degrees of flip-flopping of their candidates, the enemies of the Republicans will be able to kick sand in the face of the Republican Party with accusations of absolutism.
I think more people are worried about more worried about the absolutism of a one dimensional thinker who is incapable of finding the best path for the nation than they are about this idiotic question of flip flopping.
I wish the leaders of the Republican Party had the wisdom to avoid such obvious traps. Unfortunately, just as the Democrats routinely drive their honest politicians away, the Republicans systemically drive their best thinkers away.
Both parties seem to be structured at the moment so that their worst elements float to the surface.
Personally, I dislike the current obsession with flip-flopping. Flip-flopping is a necessary part of the process of deliberation. A world with a healthy system of discourse would see people flip-flop on a regular basis.
The ability to weigh different sides of a debate is the very heart of deliberation. People who never "flip-flop" simply are not engaged.
There is a whole slew of issues that pretty much demand flip-flopping.
Take the charged issue of abortion debate for example. This debate involves two distinct issues: The first is whether or not abortion is wrong. The second is the question of whether or not it should be legal. A person who holds that abortion is a great moral wrong must address the question of whether or not it is better to handle the question as a personal moral issue, or if it demands laws being in place. A person who is resolute on the underlying issue may flip flop on the secondary issue.
In most cases, it is bad for a politician to have too many solid positions on legislation. A politician who has too many solid positions will be intransigent in their actions.
IMHO, the best thinkers can see more than one side of an issue. If you give them compelling reasons to support your side; they will agree with you. When your opponent gives compelling reasons for their side, the thinker might agree with the opposition.
In some cases a person will agree with an argument simply as an acknowledgement that they understand or are processing the argument. A person who agrees with your argument but disagrees with your conclusion appears to flip-flop.
Agreeing with an argument is not the same thing as agreeing with the conclusion. For that matter, I don't think it is possible to properly understand any argument if you don't make an effort to understand and agree with the perspective of the argument.
When a person is engaged in the process of research, they should be flip-flipping all over the map. The necessary flip-flipping that occurs during research should not be confused with flip-flopping on fundamental issues.
The best thinkers will appreciate all of the sides of an argument.
Unfortunately, the converse is also true. The worst thinkers will tend to flip flop. Both the far left and far right use a really nasty form of manipulation called "the material dialectics." This method was perfected by Marx. With material dialectics, you wrap discourse in paradox. To a dialectician, words are weapons. When you engage in the method you spout whatever words give you an advantage.
The dialectician appears to be engaged in deliberation because both forks of their tongue wag at the same time. Such a dialectician is not engaged in an authentic search for the best path, they are simply engaged in dropping words as they attack enemies and reward friends.
A politician who is weighing every word against polls is not engaged in a pursuit of truth, but a pursuit of power.
The question of what leads to the flip flopping is much more interesting than the flip-flopping itself. For that matter, understanding why a candidate changed their opinion on an issue provides a deeper insight into the candidates mind than the stated positions themself.
The question we must answer when we see flip flopping is if it is an act of discourse or an act of manipulation. Unfortunately, this is difficult to determine.
In the 2004 presidential campaign, John Kerry's enemies were trying to make the case that his flip-flopping was part of an over all pattern of manipulation. Unfortunately, Republicans seem to have fallen into a trap. They seem to have made the overt act of flip-flopping the issue and not the underlying duplicity.
The mainstream media, which is primarily Democrat, seems to have encouraged this misstep since it puts Republicans at a disadvantage.
By allowing flip-flopping to become the primary issue of the presidential race, Republicans have thrown up a block to their best thinkers.
In my opinion, this current thread of debate which makes the overt act of flip-flopping the issue ends up undermining our ability to engage in deliberation. Deliberation by definition requires weighing the different arguments. The best thinkers regularly engage in acts that can be labeled flip-flopping when they examine issues.
The trap is even more insidious. Since Republicans are caught in the trap of weighing the relative degrees of flip-flopping of their candidates, the enemies of the Republicans will be able to kick sand in the face of the Republican Party with accusations of absolutism.
I think more people are worried about more worried about the absolutism of a one dimensional thinker who is incapable of finding the best path for the nation than they are about this idiotic question of flip flopping.
I wish the leaders of the Republican Party had the wisdom to avoid such obvious traps. Unfortunately, just as the Democrats routinely drive their honest politicians away, the Republicans systemically drive their best thinkers away.
Both parties seem to be structured at the moment so that their worst elements float to the surface.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Wouldn't it be great ...
Wouldn't it be great if they actually talked?
Yahoo is running a news story (Bush, Democrats begin search for Iraq compromise) that suggests that Bush and the Democrats might actually talk about compromise on the war funding bill.
Back in January, I put forward the statement that the troop surge was a great idea since it provided a better framework for a debate on the future of Iraq than the post election blues that saw defeat and retreat as the only solution.
Unfortunately, the debate I hoped would happen in January never materialized. Both Democrats and Republicans simply entrenched. Rather than debating the troop surge, Bush just did it. Democrats responded by passing bills that were guaranteed to result in a veto.
Quite frankly, I think the problems of Iraq are a direct result of our inability to engage in real dialogue. In 2003, I felt that if we really looked at world threats, we would not have invaded Iraq. In 2003, Hussein was politically isolated. Sudan was a greater humanitarian crisis and Iran a greater strategic threat.
If we had engaged in the apropriate dialogue in 2003, I doubt we would have invaded Iraq.
This inability to engage in dialogue is not simply the result of Bush. It is result of the modern way of thinking. The neocons, after all, are people who use the techniques perfected by the left for causes of the right.
According to this new think, Pelosi, Reid and the left wing of the Democrats have a great deal to gain if they can keep dialogue from happening. The best path to the Democrats getting a full house (the Presidency and both Houses of Congress in 2008) is to keep Bush in a corner.
Keeping tensions high also will stifle the threat that the Blue Dog Democrats would pull the party toward the center.
On the Republican side, Bush and the neocons might be so entrenched in their notions of Machiavellian virtue that they might be incapable of dialogue. Their thick little skulls might be clinging to the illusion that the best way to win the 2008 election is for the Democrats to continue their swing to the left.
Political strategies aside, I think that our inability to engage in discourse is likely to lead to poor results.
As I stated in January, a proposal of troop surge was a great start for a debate. The fact that we did not debate the surge increased the likelihood of its failure. Since debate did not happen, we created a situation where the people pushed out of the debate were actively looking for ways to call the surge a failure. Quite frankly, I believe that our disunity feeds our opponents.
The way you reach unity is by talking. It would be wonderful if the parties actually started talking.
Yahoo is running a news story (Bush, Democrats begin search for Iraq compromise) that suggests that Bush and the Democrats might actually talk about compromise on the war funding bill.
Back in January, I put forward the statement that the troop surge was a great idea since it provided a better framework for a debate on the future of Iraq than the post election blues that saw defeat and retreat as the only solution.
Unfortunately, the debate I hoped would happen in January never materialized. Both Democrats and Republicans simply entrenched. Rather than debating the troop surge, Bush just did it. Democrats responded by passing bills that were guaranteed to result in a veto.
Quite frankly, I think the problems of Iraq are a direct result of our inability to engage in real dialogue. In 2003, I felt that if we really looked at world threats, we would not have invaded Iraq. In 2003, Hussein was politically isolated. Sudan was a greater humanitarian crisis and Iran a greater strategic threat.
If we had engaged in the apropriate dialogue in 2003, I doubt we would have invaded Iraq.
This inability to engage in dialogue is not simply the result of Bush. It is result of the modern way of thinking. The neocons, after all, are people who use the techniques perfected by the left for causes of the right.
According to this new think, Pelosi, Reid and the left wing of the Democrats have a great deal to gain if they can keep dialogue from happening. The best path to the Democrats getting a full house (the Presidency and both Houses of Congress in 2008) is to keep Bush in a corner.
Keeping tensions high also will stifle the threat that the Blue Dog Democrats would pull the party toward the center.
On the Republican side, Bush and the neocons might be so entrenched in their notions of Machiavellian virtue that they might be incapable of dialogue. Their thick little skulls might be clinging to the illusion that the best way to win the 2008 election is for the Democrats to continue their swing to the left.
Political strategies aside, I think that our inability to engage in discourse is likely to lead to poor results.
As I stated in January, a proposal of troop surge was a great start for a debate. The fact that we did not debate the surge increased the likelihood of its failure. Since debate did not happen, we created a situation where the people pushed out of the debate were actively looking for ways to call the surge a failure. Quite frankly, I believe that our disunity feeds our opponents.
The way you reach unity is by talking. It would be wonderful if the parties actually started talking.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Like Dog Food
First the important stuff. Everything has been very traumatic these past few days. A company called Menu Foods recalled Coco's dog food. These four cans were tried and found guilty.
The whole thing was very dramatic. There was the printing out the recall list and the methodical scrutiny of each can from the pantry. The can that was open was among the guilty cans. I hope Coco doesn't get sick. Her typical meal involves a mix of kibbles, canned food and table scraps. Hopefully the mix diluted any contaminents sufficiently. This next picture shows what Coco will be eating for the foreseeable future:
The lucky dog!!!!! Cans of homemade dog food are so much better.
It is interesting that they recalled the chunky products. The problem was something in the wheat gluten thickening agent used in the gravy. When I shopped for the dog food, I would always get the pureed stuff as the sauce on chunky stuff looks too artificial for my tastes.
I wish food companies concentrated on the quality of the ingredients and spent less time adding thickening agents and colors which simply deceived people about what the product really contains.
Speaking of finding things guilty, I happened to catch part of a Bill O'Reilly shout down of Rocky Anderson. Rocky Anderson is on a personal crusade to impeach President Bush. I didn't see which of the two clowns started the shouting. The part of the circus that I saw had Anderson smiling smuggly and looking reasonable while O'Reilly shouted and came off as unreasonable.
Quite frankly, I see Mayor Anderson impeachment tour as the unreasonable action. Apparently, Rocky Anderson's view of the "Living Constitution", Bush's "high crime and misdameanor" is that he does things that are against the Democratic spirit of the nation. Of course, all Republicans are guilty of not being Democratic. I don't like what either of the set of kooks do.
I wish that O'Reilly had come off better in this dual of clowns. I suspect that O'Reilly would have won the nondebate if he didn't play the that yelling over game that seems to be in vogue in the Jerry Springer world of news-entertainment. Of course, I did not see what started the yelling. Rocky Anderson is very good at tweaking people. I may have clicked on the station just after the tweak. After all, when Rocky Anderson gets his righteous indignation thing going, it is an ugly ugly sight.
Perhaps O'Reilly was trying to pull and instant karma thing. Rocky Anderson is on a crusade to try and convict his hated enemy George Bush; So O'Reilly wants to try and convict Anderson. The instand karma thing makes sense. However, it seemed to come of poorly. The public court is a thing of the French Revolution and of the Stasi. I wish we could rise about the game of trying our enemies in public.
I said previously, we may be in a culture war, but we are not going to win it when our self appointed "culture warriors" adopt the methods of the left. It is fun to try and convict people in public kangaroo courts. The shrill nondebate that follows always gets too negative for my tastes. I really don't like this ultra partisan thing going on between the far left and right, where we all start treating each other like dog food.
The whole thing was very dramatic. There was the printing out the recall list and the methodical scrutiny of each can from the pantry. The can that was open was among the guilty cans. I hope Coco doesn't get sick. Her typical meal involves a mix of kibbles, canned food and table scraps. Hopefully the mix diluted any contaminents sufficiently. This next picture shows what Coco will be eating for the foreseeable future:
The lucky dog!!!!! Cans of homemade dog food are so much better.
The AVMA disagrees, they think making petfood is too complex for the public
It is interesting that they recalled the chunky products. The problem was something in the wheat gluten thickening agent used in the gravy. When I shopped for the dog food, I would always get the pureed stuff as the sauce on chunky stuff looks too artificial for my tastes.
I wish food companies concentrated on the quality of the ingredients and spent less time adding thickening agents and colors which simply deceived people about what the product really contains.
Speaking of finding things guilty, I happened to catch part of a Bill O'Reilly shout down of Rocky Anderson. Rocky Anderson is on a personal crusade to impeach President Bush. I didn't see which of the two clowns started the shouting. The part of the circus that I saw had Anderson smiling smuggly and looking reasonable while O'Reilly shouted and came off as unreasonable.
Quite frankly, I see Mayor Anderson impeachment tour as the unreasonable action. Apparently, Rocky Anderson's view of the "Living Constitution", Bush's "high crime and misdameanor" is that he does things that are against the Democratic spirit of the nation. Of course, all Republicans are guilty of not being Democratic. I don't like what either of the set of kooks do.
I wish that O'Reilly had come off better in this dual of clowns. I suspect that O'Reilly would have won the nondebate if he didn't play the that yelling over game that seems to be in vogue in the Jerry Springer world of news-entertainment. Of course, I did not see what started the yelling. Rocky Anderson is very good at tweaking people. I may have clicked on the station just after the tweak. After all, when Rocky Anderson gets his righteous indignation thing going, it is an ugly ugly sight.
Perhaps O'Reilly was trying to pull and instant karma thing. Rocky Anderson is on a crusade to try and convict his hated enemy George Bush; So O'Reilly wants to try and convict Anderson. The instand karma thing makes sense. However, it seemed to come of poorly. The public court is a thing of the French Revolution and of the Stasi. I wish we could rise about the game of trying our enemies in public.
I said previously, we may be in a culture war, but we are not going to win it when our self appointed "culture warriors" adopt the methods of the left. It is fun to try and convict people in public kangaroo courts. The shrill nondebate that follows always gets too negative for my tastes. I really don't like this ultra partisan thing going on between the far left and right, where we all start treating each other like dog food.
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Dance of the Educrats
NOTE ONE: JibberJobber discovered that there are informal support networks both in the family and community which are extremely important for people laid off or otherwise hitting hard times. Unlike the government networks, these informal network have a unique ability to help getting people onto a path where they thrive. I believe that the informal networks do a more efficient job of getting people on a good path than the government or bureaucratic networks advocated by the left. Of course, I've many horrible situations where an alcoholic, drug user or manipulator takes out a social network. Overall, one of the reasons that I am such a fervent supporter of the free market, is that when people are allowed control of their resources, they tend to make social networks that are more effective at pulling people out of poverty.
NOTE TWO: Craig Johnson dropped an interesting note on ReachUpward's blog in reference to an article on the abuses of the educational establishment. ReachUpward was calling the establishment "educrats". Mr. Johnson: "The term 'educrat' is obnoxious, misleading, and flat out rude. Your use of terms such as this cheapens your message."
I had a progressive education. I learned that the way "a peoples" engages progresses society is by first defining the enemy, then creating a layer of scientific sounding insults to label the peoples' enemies. Politically correct speech is not about eliminating labels. It is about controlling the labels so that the groups denoted as a peoples' friend is praised and a peoples' enemies are hit with a subtle insult.
When I read ReachUpward's post, the little brain cells conditioned during my progressive education fired on seeing the word "educrat." Is it a good word for labeling the enemies of freedom who control education? Is this an effective insult worth propagating? In the progressive blogosphere, a good insult spreads like a virus.
I would like to thank Craig Johnson for pointing out that civility is one of the core strengths of the classical liberal tradition (American Conservativism). I love the way that ReachUpward's insult shoves the method down the throats of the progressives that have a strangle hold on education.
I was taught that to communicated effectively, you have to use reverse logic and to develop a massive trove of insults for heaping on your enemies and subtle praises for friends. When I finally realized that progressives were the primary enemy of freedom, I find myself wanting to hold up a mirror and reflect all of the nasty rhetorical devices that they use back on their ideology. This is what Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly do. They use the techniques taught in schools to counterattack the ideologies of modern schools.
Mentioned previously Culture Warrior Bill O'Reilly lost the culture war when he chose to adopt the methods of his enemies. Yes, occasionally the tits of the progressives should be responded with conservative tats. However, to win the war, Classical Liberals and Conservatives have to find the way back to civil discourse. (Civil discourse is something entirely different than politically correct speak).
NOW ONTO the WORLD BLOG:
I just threw Michael Tanner's Leviathan on The Right in to my wish list. This book details how the Republicans transitioned from the party of limited Government to a carbon copy of the Democrats.
An interesting free resource related to this question is the University Channel podcast titled: The 'Public Interest' and the Making of American Public Policy: 1965-2005. The multipart podcast is from a conference commemorating The Public Interest Managize. The Public Interest magazine defines a point of view that is self-described as "neoconservative."
The Public Interest was established by Democrats who saw that the wild-eyed utopian institutions of the progressives were failing. The desire of The Public Interest was to make programs that worked. The magazine championed ideas such as paternalism, school vouchers. Neocons are the ones who pushed the No Child Left Behind act along funky ideas like increasing taxes without decreasing spending.
They rejected that progressive notion that religion and family are enemies of progress. They seemed to realize that religioun and family are good institutions for building those informal networks that are ever so beneficial to society.
I happen to favor small government and individual freedoms. The neocons have a very good point that if are to have big government social programs, we should try our hardest to make the programs work.
We, as a society, need to figure out how to rise above the culture war between the progressive and coservative and relearn the techniques of civil discourse. The conversation between the neocons and classical liberals is actually more interesting than the incindiary comments that get lobbed between progressive and conservative culture warriors.
I wish the educrats who indoctrinated my mind with the politically correct new think of the modern age had taught me the process of civil discourse instead.
NOTE TWO: Craig Johnson dropped an interesting note on ReachUpward's blog in reference to an article on the abuses of the educational establishment. ReachUpward was calling the establishment "educrats". Mr. Johnson: "The term 'educrat' is obnoxious, misleading, and flat out rude. Your use of terms such as this cheapens your message."
I had a progressive education. I learned that the way "a peoples" engages progresses society is by first defining the enemy, then creating a layer of scientific sounding insults to label the peoples' enemies. Politically correct speech is not about eliminating labels. It is about controlling the labels so that the groups denoted as a peoples' friend is praised and a peoples' enemies are hit with a subtle insult.
When I read ReachUpward's post, the little brain cells conditioned during my progressive education fired on seeing the word "educrat." Is it a good word for labeling the enemies of freedom who control education? Is this an effective insult worth propagating? In the progressive blogosphere, a good insult spreads like a virus.
I would like to thank Craig Johnson for pointing out that civility is one of the core strengths of the classical liberal tradition (American Conservativism). I love the way that ReachUpward's insult shoves the method down the throats of the progressives that have a strangle hold on education.
I was taught that to communicated effectively, you have to use reverse logic and to develop a massive trove of insults for heaping on your enemies and subtle praises for friends. When I finally realized that progressives were the primary enemy of freedom, I find myself wanting to hold up a mirror and reflect all of the nasty rhetorical devices that they use back on their ideology. This is what Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly do. They use the techniques taught in schools to counterattack the ideologies of modern schools.
Mentioned previously Culture Warrior Bill O'Reilly lost the culture war when he chose to adopt the methods of his enemies. Yes, occasionally the tits of the progressives should be responded with conservative tats. However, to win the war, Classical Liberals and Conservatives have to find the way back to civil discourse. (Civil discourse is something entirely different than politically correct speak).
NOW ONTO the WORLD BLOG:
I just threw Michael Tanner's Leviathan on The Right in to my wish list. This book details how the Republicans transitioned from the party of limited Government to a carbon copy of the Democrats. An interesting free resource related to this question is the University Channel podcast titled: The 'Public Interest' and the Making of American Public Policy: 1965-2005. The multipart podcast is from a conference commemorating The Public Interest Managize. The Public Interest magazine defines a point of view that is self-described as "neoconservative."
The Public Interest was established by Democrats who saw that the wild-eyed utopian institutions of the progressives were failing. The desire of The Public Interest was to make programs that worked. The magazine championed ideas such as paternalism, school vouchers. Neocons are the ones who pushed the No Child Left Behind act along funky ideas like increasing taxes without decreasing spending.
They rejected that progressive notion that religion and family are enemies of progress. They seemed to realize that religioun and family are good institutions for building those informal networks that are ever so beneficial to society.
I happen to favor small government and individual freedoms. The neocons have a very good point that if are to have big government social programs, we should try our hardest to make the programs work.
We, as a society, need to figure out how to rise above the culture war between the progressive and coservative and relearn the techniques of civil discourse. The conversation between the neocons and classical liberals is actually more interesting than the incindiary comments that get lobbed between progressive and conservative culture warriors.
I wish the educrats who indoctrinated my mind with the politically correct new think of the modern age had taught me the process of civil discourse instead.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Strawman Arguments
One of the weirdest things about the strawman arguments is that is a large mass of people willing to play the role of that strawman. Cato-At-Liberty points out that Max Boot is more than willing to be the Neocon kook. The fact the people want to jump in and play various roles is probably good for discourse since it lets us examine ideas in greater depths.
It seems to me that the main thing our country needs to avoid is being ruled by the kooky extremes that exists in all parties, religions and ideologies.
It seems to me that the main thing our country needs to avoid is being ruled by the kooky extremes that exists in all parties, religions and ideologies.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Bring on the Debate
I am very pleased that Congress is finally debating Iraq.
Personally, I think that the primary reason that we haven't made strides in rebuilding Iraq is that Bush and the neocons have stifled debate. Since the debate had been stifled, the political players in the world were reduced to base posturing and behind the scene maneuvering.
Democracies are born in debate.
I've said in previous posts that Bush's proposal of a troop surge was brilliant as it changed the debate from one of how we will retreat to one about winning the peace.
It seems to me that peacekeeping takes two components: The first is a consensus, the second is a great deal of analysis. You can't achieve either of these components without discourse.
Just as violence is infective, so is discourse. Drawing people into a debate about the future turns people from violence to peace.
The only problem with debate is that people expect debate to end with action. In most cases, new legislation and new laws just get in the way. I hope the debate continues to focus on nonbinding resolutions, and not on Bills.
The thing that really puzzles me is that the Republicans had been systemically winning each of the debates on the economy and economic policy up to Bush's invasion of Iraq.
I watched about a dozen speeches from Democrats and Republicans who were really engaged in spirit of the debate. The obstructionist Harry Reid was the only speach I could not stand. Worms like Reid, however, have their greatest effect when discourse is stifled. They slink back into the dung pile of obscurity when real debate takes place.
BTW, when you listen to the debate, notice how Ried tries to trip up the debate on linquistic nonsense. My guess is that, like Hugo Chavez, Reid is a disciple of Chomsky. One of the nonsense soundbytes that Reid repeats is that there is not a military solution, only a political one. Of course, if you look at history of the human race, you will find that militaries (peacekeeping forces) are pretty much always present at the start of any sustained peace process.
If we really want to engage in word mincing, I think a better description is that we won the war quite easily. The war mission was accomplished a long time ago. We have been failing the peacekeeping mission that must follow a war.
Reid's second mantra is that the "sectarian violence" has turned into a "civil war." This is supposed to trigger some sort of neuron in our brain that tells us that we must retreat because it is unwise to get involved in a civil war.
Again, if we see our current situation as one where we won the war a year or so ago, and that we are now engaged in a difficult peacekeeping mission, you would see Reid's arguments as dust. Peacekeeping missions have stopped civil wars. For example, in post the Rwanda genocide, Peacekeepers were able to stem the number of retribution killings that could have easily doubled the body count.
But, why is that ugly obstructionist Reid sticking in my mind. I just saw 19 beautiful debates where Democrats and Republicans were starting to find consensus. We have to break from this situation where neocon clowns like Bush and progressive jokers like Reid rip us apart.
The pieces of the debate I saw (Harry Reid excluded) were great.
Personally, I think that the primary reason that we haven't made strides in rebuilding Iraq is that Bush and the neocons have stifled debate. Since the debate had been stifled, the political players in the world were reduced to base posturing and behind the scene maneuvering.
Democracies are born in debate.
I've said in previous posts that Bush's proposal of a troop surge was brilliant as it changed the debate from one of how we will retreat to one about winning the peace.
It seems to me that peacekeeping takes two components: The first is a consensus, the second is a great deal of analysis. You can't achieve either of these components without discourse.
Just as violence is infective, so is discourse. Drawing people into a debate about the future turns people from violence to peace.
The only problem with debate is that people expect debate to end with action. In most cases, new legislation and new laws just get in the way. I hope the debate continues to focus on nonbinding resolutions, and not on Bills.
The thing that really puzzles me is that the Republicans had been systemically winning each of the debates on the economy and economic policy up to Bush's invasion of Iraq.
I watched about a dozen speeches from Democrats and Republicans who were really engaged in spirit of the debate. The obstructionist Harry Reid was the only speach I could not stand. Worms like Reid, however, have their greatest effect when discourse is stifled. They slink back into the dung pile of obscurity when real debate takes place.
BTW, when you listen to the debate, notice how Ried tries to trip up the debate on linquistic nonsense. My guess is that, like Hugo Chavez, Reid is a disciple of Chomsky. One of the nonsense soundbytes that Reid repeats is that there is not a military solution, only a political one. Of course, if you look at history of the human race, you will find that militaries (peacekeeping forces) are pretty much always present at the start of any sustained peace process.
If we really want to engage in word mincing, I think a better description is that we won the war quite easily. The war mission was accomplished a long time ago. We have been failing the peacekeeping mission that must follow a war.
Reid's second mantra is that the "sectarian violence" has turned into a "civil war." This is supposed to trigger some sort of neuron in our brain that tells us that we must retreat because it is unwise to get involved in a civil war.
Again, if we see our current situation as one where we won the war a year or so ago, and that we are now engaged in a difficult peacekeeping mission, you would see Reid's arguments as dust. Peacekeeping missions have stopped civil wars. For example, in post the Rwanda genocide, Peacekeepers were able to stem the number of retribution killings that could have easily doubled the body count.
But, why is that ugly obstructionist Reid sticking in my mind. I just saw 19 beautiful debates where Democrats and Republicans were starting to find consensus. We have to break from this situation where neocon clowns like Bush and progressive jokers like Reid rip us apart.
The pieces of the debate I saw (Harry Reid excluded) were great.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Cutting the People Out of Politics
I am livid with President Bush for stifling debate on Iraq during this last legislative session. We are a democracy, in a democracy debates have to take place or we implode. The troop surge is a brilliant idea, but for the sake of the nation we have to have debate. We do not need to be in constant debate. January 2007 was a time when we needed to have a serious bipartisan talks about the direction of mideast policy. Democracy involves input from people. We cannot successfully impose a Democracy on Iraq by stifling a debate that was mandated by the people.
The neocons are simply using the same tactics as the progressives. Progressives play the exact same game of cutting the people out an stifling debate. We see this with Robert Redford's Sundance Summit. Just like Bush's troop surge, I think there is a great deal of merit to the issues discussed at the Sundance Summit. The format of the debate, however, cuts the people out of the process. In Sundance, mayors meet with movie stars. The movie stars give the mayors a progressive agenda along with a set of talking points, etc..
One of the talking points of the 2006 meeting (pdf) was for mayors to make links between the War in Iraq and Global Warming. Drum the talking points in, and you radicalize the population!!!!!
At the next summit, the mayors get judged by how well they carried off the set agenda.
I think that getting people together to talk about issues is great. I even agree with the statement that acting locally has a global effect (BTW, the ideas that your individual actions have a profound effect on the world is a center piece of the Christian tradition).
The problem is that this format used by both progressives and neocons end up destroying the debates that need to take place. The troop, green belts, reducing greenhouse gasses are all great ideas with substantial merit. The democratic method of debating issues helps hone the ideas and increases their viability.
Unfortunately, the political power structure is now dominated by people like Robert Redford and George W. Bush who achieve their objectives by cutting the people out of the process. The problem is on both sides.
The neocons are simply using the same tactics as the progressives. Progressives play the exact same game of cutting the people out an stifling debate. We see this with Robert Redford's Sundance Summit. Just like Bush's troop surge, I think there is a great deal of merit to the issues discussed at the Sundance Summit. The format of the debate, however, cuts the people out of the process. In Sundance, mayors meet with movie stars. The movie stars give the mayors a progressive agenda along with a set of talking points, etc..
One of the talking points of the 2006 meeting (pdf) was for mayors to make links between the War in Iraq and Global Warming. Drum the talking points in, and you radicalize the population!!!!!
At the next summit, the mayors get judged by how well they carried off the set agenda.
I think that getting people together to talk about issues is great. I even agree with the statement that acting locally has a global effect (BTW, the ideas that your individual actions have a profound effect on the world is a center piece of the Christian tradition).
The problem is that this format used by both progressives and neocons end up destroying the debates that need to take place. The troop, green belts, reducing greenhouse gasses are all great ideas with substantial merit. The democratic method of debating issues helps hone the ideas and increases their viability.
Unfortunately, the political power structure is now dominated by people like Robert Redford and George W. Bush who achieve their objectives by cutting the people out of the process. The problem is on both sides.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Critical Thinking on Critical Thinking
The question arose recently as to why I am such a mean, nasty, hypercritical person.
Rather than answering that question, I think I will tell the story about how my being a mean, nasty, hypercritical person managed to get me kicked out of a department of the University of Utah.
I was in a politically correct department at the University, toiling away on a politically correct degree. My politically correct teachers emphasized that they were employing a method called “critical thinking.” I had studied a ton of mathematics and logic. I had even read that long tedious work called the Principia by mathematics's patron Saint Bertrand Russell. I had also read Hegel, Marx and Chomsky. I knew rhetorical technique of critical thinking. Anyway, in my classes, we would do little exercises where we applied “critical thinking” to Conservative causes. I wrote a wickedly stinging indictment of Ronald Reagan. My teachers wanted me to add some snarl words to make the piece even more hateful (and consequently more effective). The next thing I did was write a really mean and hateful piece about the Catholic Church that my teachers praised and passed among each other as it said mean things in an original way.
So, with two successful pieces of critical thinking under my belt, I was riding pretty. Now, we had to do one more piece of critical thinking. In order to show that I was balanced in my critical thinking, I decided to aim critical thinking at a political correct cause. I did not use snarl words, but the piece cut straight to the core of some logical fallacies that I saw as detrimental to the politically correct cause. My conclusion was essentially that the politically correct issue was full of merit; however care needed to be taken to prevent the core fallacies of the PC effort from undermining itself.
A few days later, I was taken aside by my teachers. They told me that they were the gatekeepers of the department and told me to leave the department. The changed the grades on my first papers from A+s to Ds, and told me that they could guarantee I would flunk the quarter if I did not transfer out of their department. That was the end of several quarters of work at the U. I ended up getting snagged by no fewer than four political litmus tests at the nest of mediocrity called the University of Utah. The hard sciences still have some good departments.
I was totally dedicated to the art of critical thinking. I am a mean hateful person because I end up applying it to both sides of any debate.
It is a little bit strange. When you apply the “critical thinking” methodology taught in schools to traditional American Culture, you end up with the political correct thought that teachers love. When you really know the technique and start applying “critical thinking” to the politically correct world, you end up with a view remarkably similar to the neoconservatives. Rush Limbaugh and Culture Warrior Bill O’Reilly are people who moved to this higher level of thinking.
This is similar to the world’s experience with Marxist Dialectics. When you start with the dialectics, you feel that you are on a bubbly progressive path to Communism. When you start applying the dialectics to the path, you end up with Stalinism or Nazism.
A really bizarre thing happens when you start applying “critical thinking” to the art of critical thinking itself. You end up realizing that, critical thinking on its own completely lacks foundation.
Both progressives and their counterpart--the neocons--end up surrounding themselves with walls of ideology that completely stifle communication. As I mentioned in the last posts, we are currently at a point where we should be engaged in a debate about the next step in Iraq. Progressive, led by a star studded line up of Hollywood actors, march around in their own little fantasy world, while they perfect their counter culture chic hoping that the protest appearance will land them an Oscar winning role in their next film.
The groups, practicing their own patented brands of critical thinking, are not only incapable of communicating; they hold their inability to communicate up as a badge of honor. Bush points at the protesters, and says that it is impossible to communicate with such an incoherent rabble, therefore, we should stick with the Constitution which consolidates power in the executive during times of war. The left is using the inability to communicate in some sort of strange plea to overthrow the executive, to what end I none of us have a clue.
I sit here and watch the circus with my modern education, and realize that my modern education has repeatedly failed me, and the people around me. When you apply critical thinking to the many sides of modern life, you find that all of our fearless leaders are being childish.
There is one side of the debate that I think does quite well. This is the classical liberal side of things. Both the progressives and neocons have fallen into the trap of using "critical thinking" as a rhetorical tool. It is simply a tool you use to criticize your opponents. You may notice that progressives tend to react to critical thinking about their arguments as a personal attack.
The classical liberal uses critical thinking as an analytic tool.
Of course, since I have a modern education, I've never learned how to do decent analysis. Not really knowing how to move beyond critical thinking, I sit here as a mean hateful person who criticizes everything with the hope that maybe people will figure out that our problems are not simply the problem of Bush being a horrible person while ???? is a great leader. Our problems arise because our modern education system has failed the people on both sides of the modern cacophony.
Rather than answering that question, I think I will tell the story about how my being a mean, nasty, hypercritical person managed to get me kicked out of a department of the University of Utah.
I was in a politically correct department at the University, toiling away on a politically correct degree. My politically correct teachers emphasized that they were employing a method called “critical thinking.” I had studied a ton of mathematics and logic. I had even read that long tedious work called the Principia by mathematics's patron Saint Bertrand Russell. I had also read Hegel, Marx and Chomsky. I knew rhetorical technique of critical thinking. Anyway, in my classes, we would do little exercises where we applied “critical thinking” to Conservative causes. I wrote a wickedly stinging indictment of Ronald Reagan. My teachers wanted me to add some snarl words to make the piece even more hateful (and consequently more effective). The next thing I did was write a really mean and hateful piece about the Catholic Church that my teachers praised and passed among each other as it said mean things in an original way.
So, with two successful pieces of critical thinking under my belt, I was riding pretty. Now, we had to do one more piece of critical thinking. In order to show that I was balanced in my critical thinking, I decided to aim critical thinking at a political correct cause. I did not use snarl words, but the piece cut straight to the core of some logical fallacies that I saw as detrimental to the politically correct cause. My conclusion was essentially that the politically correct issue was full of merit; however care needed to be taken to prevent the core fallacies of the PC effort from undermining itself.
A few days later, I was taken aside by my teachers. They told me that they were the gatekeepers of the department and told me to leave the department. The changed the grades on my first papers from A+s to Ds, and told me that they could guarantee I would flunk the quarter if I did not transfer out of their department. That was the end of several quarters of work at the U. I ended up getting snagged by no fewer than four political litmus tests at the nest of mediocrity called the University of Utah. The hard sciences still have some good departments.
I was totally dedicated to the art of critical thinking. I am a mean hateful person because I end up applying it to both sides of any debate.
It is a little bit strange. When you apply the “critical thinking” methodology taught in schools to traditional American Culture, you end up with the political correct thought that teachers love. When you really know the technique and start applying “critical thinking” to the politically correct world, you end up with a view remarkably similar to the neoconservatives. Rush Limbaugh and Culture Warrior Bill O’Reilly are people who moved to this higher level of thinking.
This is similar to the world’s experience with Marxist Dialectics. When you start with the dialectics, you feel that you are on a bubbly progressive path to Communism. When you start applying the dialectics to the path, you end up with Stalinism or Nazism.
A really bizarre thing happens when you start applying “critical thinking” to the art of critical thinking itself. You end up realizing that, critical thinking on its own completely lacks foundation.
Both progressives and their counterpart--the neocons--end up surrounding themselves with walls of ideology that completely stifle communication. As I mentioned in the last posts, we are currently at a point where we should be engaged in a debate about the next step in Iraq. Progressive, led by a star studded line up of Hollywood actors, march around in their own little fantasy world, while they perfect their counter culture chic hoping that the protest appearance will land them an Oscar winning role in their next film.
The groups, practicing their own patented brands of critical thinking, are not only incapable of communicating; they hold their inability to communicate up as a badge of honor. Bush points at the protesters, and says that it is impossible to communicate with such an incoherent rabble, therefore, we should stick with the Constitution which consolidates power in the executive during times of war. The left is using the inability to communicate in some sort of strange plea to overthrow the executive, to what end I none of us have a clue.
I sit here and watch the circus with my modern education, and realize that my modern education has repeatedly failed me, and the people around me. When you apply critical thinking to the many sides of modern life, you find that all of our fearless leaders are being childish.
There is one side of the debate that I think does quite well. This is the classical liberal side of things. Both the progressives and neocons have fallen into the trap of using "critical thinking" as a rhetorical tool. It is simply a tool you use to criticize your opponents. You may notice that progressives tend to react to critical thinking about their arguments as a personal attack.
The classical liberal uses critical thinking as an analytic tool.
Of course, since I have a modern education, I've never learned how to do decent analysis. Not really knowing how to move beyond critical thinking, I sit here as a mean hateful person who criticizes everything with the hope that maybe people will figure out that our problems are not simply the problem of Bush being a horrible person while ???? is a great leader. Our problems arise because our modern education system has failed the people on both sides of the modern cacophony.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
The Fourth Option
Last night I crashed the United Nations Association of Utah featuring guest speaker Jeff Laurenti on the important question of the continuing relevancy of the United Nations. Now that the neoconservative stab at unilateral pre-emptive action seems to have bogged down, there is great hope for a renewed United Nations. In my opinion, We need the UN now more than ever!!!! (UN Links).
Unfortunately, Mr. Laurenti's speaking style shows that, while the United Nations is a worthy effort deserving our support, we should also fear it.
How to put this?
If the United Nations sticks to the classical liberal ideals that served as the base of its charters, it can help provide peace. If, however, it continues to be controlled by clowns steeped in new think, then it will end up undermining Democracy, and will rip this world apart.
The United Nations is neither a necessarily good thing, nor is it a necessarily bad thing. The UN will end up being what the people active in the UN make it to be.
I know Mr. Laurenti from only one presentation. The online information I've found on the speaker shows that he has a great deal of influence through organizations like Ted Turner's UN Foundation, The Century Foundation and other extremely powerful organizations.
Mr. Laurenti presentation showed an absolute wealth of knowledge, but at every chance he could get he would pull underhanded dialectical slights of hand to move the argument to the left. I tried counting logical fallacies and tricks he pulled in his talk, but soon ran out of fingers and toes. Instead I will just concentrate on the trick that he pulled during the audience participation part of the speech.
In the audience participation gig, he took a poll. He told us that there were three ways that people can think about the war:
Notice the nasty trick? Anyone who has had elementary math knows that there is actually a fourth option. In standard math 2 squared is 4. It is not 3. By intentionally omitting the fourth option, Laurenti skillfully cut out the views held by a large number of classical liberals.
The fourth view is that invading Iraq was wrong, but that we can still win. By openly violating fundamental logic, Laurenti managed to cut out the classical liberals who probably have the best chance of dealing with Bush's mistake. BTW, Laurenti is guilty of exactly the same type of failed logic that led Bush to make the mistake of invading Iraq. Like Bush, Laurenti wraps his ideology in flawed logic in ways that I doubt even he can see through.
The fourth view is a little complex. The view holds that the conditions at the time an argument is made affects how one should approach the argument. For example, we were right to go to war with Germany in 1945, but we are not right to go to war with Germany today because conditions are different.
I think the US congress was correct when they approved the invasion of Iraq. In 2003, Congress was approving the use of the threat of war in diplomatic effort. They did not mandate war. The decision to invade happened primarily within the executive. Since the diplomatic effort was succeding, Bush's decision to invade was wrong. This decision stands at the top of the worst executive decisions made in the history of the United States.
After Bush made his historic blunder, the state of the world changed. After the invasion, we are in a world where we have to deal with Bush's mistake. The best way to deal with this mistake is to do everything in our power to help the new Iraqi government succeed. The best method for continuing is with open acknowledgement of the mistake, but with a continued commitment to democracy and freedom in Iraq.
Laurenti ignored the fourth option because he has the false premise that since a decision was a bad decision, it must fail. This really is not true. Quite frankly, even if Bush had been successful in squelching the sectarian violence in Baghdad, the decision he made to go to war was wrong. War was too great of a gamble.
History is a long sequence of people trying to recover from the bad decisions of their leaders. My faith has never been with the leaders, it is with the people of good character who muddle through the bad consequences of their leaders' idiocies.
Bush's bad decision has adversely affected the United States is a variety of ways. It's dramatically diminished American influence. It threw South America under the control of Hugo Chavez and what's left of Castro. Tens of thousands of people have been killed by jihadist thugs.
Yes, this is all fallout from one extraordinarily bonehead decision made in a back room by Rumsfeld, Bush and a cadre of neocons. We are now in a deep dark hole.
However, in this deep dark hole, we are finally in a position where we can start rediscovering the ideals that made Americans great. Our challenge is to keep those entities (neocon and progressive) that are still trying to stifle and manipulate the debate from achieving their ends.
The wanks from the right messed up. Flipping the world in the hands of the wanks on the left won't solve the problem because the two extremes of technocrats are the same thing. We need to relearn the process of discourse.
In a previous post, I put forward that the the proposal of a troop surge was a brilliant move on Bush's part (his presenting it as a done deal was a blunder). The proposal temporarily shifted debate from one of how the US should retreat to one about how we can help the Middle East move beyond the violent ideologies that are tearing it apart.
The proposal of a troop surge was a great strategy. I doubt that surging the troops would really do much.
The real challenge for the United States at this moment is getting the debate process back on track. The actual actions we take (short of retreat) is secondary.
Watching both Laurenti and Bush in action, I feel that the parties involved are destroying our ability to engage in discourse. We need fewer slick speakers involved in the process and more people who are good at muddling through in the shadows of bad decisions.
SIDE NOTE ONE: The UN Watch seems to share my opinions of Laurenti's speaking style.
END NOTE: I mentioned at the beginning of this post that there is an organization called the United Nations Association. A UNA is a non-government organization interested in the United Nations. There are UNA groups throughout the world. It is a great organization for people who are interested in world affairs. I have a list of UN and UNA resources on my links site.
This HotAir piece shows people engaged in the process of muddling through.
Unfortunately, Mr. Laurenti's speaking style shows that, while the United Nations is a worthy effort deserving our support, we should also fear it.
How to put this?
If the United Nations sticks to the classical liberal ideals that served as the base of its charters, it can help provide peace. If, however, it continues to be controlled by clowns steeped in new think, then it will end up undermining Democracy, and will rip this world apart.
The United Nations is neither a necessarily good thing, nor is it a necessarily bad thing. The UN will end up being what the people active in the UN make it to be.
I know Mr. Laurenti from only one presentation. The online information I've found on the speaker shows that he has a great deal of influence through organizations like Ted Turner's UN Foundation, The Century Foundation and other extremely powerful organizations.
Mr. Laurenti presentation showed an absolute wealth of knowledge, but at every chance he could get he would pull underhanded dialectical slights of hand to move the argument to the left. I tried counting logical fallacies and tricks he pulled in his talk, but soon ran out of fingers and toes. Instead I will just concentrate on the trick that he pulled during the audience participation part of the speech.
In the audience participation gig, he took a poll. He told us that there were three ways that people can think about the war:
- You could believe that the Iraq War was right , and we will somehow win.
- You can believe that the war was right, but we did something wrong that is making it hard to win.
- or you can believe that the decision to invade Iraq was wrong.
Notice the nasty trick? Anyone who has had elementary math knows that there is actually a fourth option. In standard math 2 squared is 4. It is not 3. By intentionally omitting the fourth option, Laurenti skillfully cut out the views held by a large number of classical liberals.
The fourth view is that invading Iraq was wrong, but that we can still win. By openly violating fundamental logic, Laurenti managed to cut out the classical liberals who probably have the best chance of dealing with Bush's mistake. BTW, Laurenti is guilty of exactly the same type of failed logic that led Bush to make the mistake of invading Iraq. Like Bush, Laurenti wraps his ideology in flawed logic in ways that I doubt even he can see through.
The fourth view is a little complex. The view holds that the conditions at the time an argument is made affects how one should approach the argument. For example, we were right to go to war with Germany in 1945, but we are not right to go to war with Germany today because conditions are different.
I think the US congress was correct when they approved the invasion of Iraq. In 2003, Congress was approving the use of the threat of war in diplomatic effort. They did not mandate war. The decision to invade happened primarily within the executive. Since the diplomatic effort was succeding, Bush's decision to invade was wrong. This decision stands at the top of the worst executive decisions made in the history of the United States.
After Bush made his historic blunder, the state of the world changed. After the invasion, we are in a world where we have to deal with Bush's mistake. The best way to deal with this mistake is to do everything in our power to help the new Iraqi government succeed. The best method for continuing is with open acknowledgement of the mistake, but with a continued commitment to democracy and freedom in Iraq.
Laurenti ignored the fourth option because he has the false premise that since a decision was a bad decision, it must fail. This really is not true. Quite frankly, even if Bush had been successful in squelching the sectarian violence in Baghdad, the decision he made to go to war was wrong. War was too great of a gamble.
History is a long sequence of people trying to recover from the bad decisions of their leaders. My faith has never been with the leaders, it is with the people of good character who muddle through the bad consequences of their leaders' idiocies.
Bush's bad decision has adversely affected the United States is a variety of ways. It's dramatically diminished American influence. It threw South America under the control of Hugo Chavez and what's left of Castro. Tens of thousands of people have been killed by jihadist thugs.
Yes, this is all fallout from one extraordinarily bonehead decision made in a back room by Rumsfeld, Bush and a cadre of neocons. We are now in a deep dark hole.
However, in this deep dark hole, we are finally in a position where we can start rediscovering the ideals that made Americans great. Our challenge is to keep those entities (neocon and progressive) that are still trying to stifle and manipulate the debate from achieving their ends.
The wanks from the right messed up. Flipping the world in the hands of the wanks on the left won't solve the problem because the two extremes of technocrats are the same thing. We need to relearn the process of discourse.
In a previous post, I put forward that the the proposal of a troop surge was a brilliant move on Bush's part (his presenting it as a done deal was a blunder). The proposal temporarily shifted debate from one of how the US should retreat to one about how we can help the Middle East move beyond the violent ideologies that are tearing it apart.
The proposal of a troop surge was a great strategy. I doubt that surging the troops would really do much.
The real challenge for the United States at this moment is getting the debate process back on track. The actual actions we take (short of retreat) is secondary.
Watching both Laurenti and Bush in action, I feel that the parties involved are destroying our ability to engage in discourse. We need fewer slick speakers involved in the process and more people who are good at muddling through in the shadows of bad decisions.
SIDE NOTE ONE: The UN Watch seems to share my opinions of Laurenti's speaking style.
END NOTE: I mentioned at the beginning of this post that there is an organization called the United Nations Association. A UNA is a non-government organization interested in the United Nations. There are UNA groups throughout the world. It is a great organization for people who are interested in world affairs. I have a list of UN and UNA resources on my links site.
This HotAir piece shows people engaged in the process of muddling through.
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