ShrinkWrapped

Arrogance and Ignorance, Idealization and Devaluation

It is an unfortunate truism that arrogance and ignorance often go hand in hand.  It is also an  unfortunate truism that while experience allows us to avoid mistakes, we can only gain experience by making mistakes. 

It is not atypical for young people, especially very smart young people, to think they know more than they actually do.  One of the benefits of gaining experience is humility with the recognition that you have much less certainty about all sorts of things that once seemed pretty straight forward. 

When the Constitution was written it was felt that by the age of 35 a man would have lived enough and experienced enough to have gained some humility and wisdom.  That may have been true in the early days of our republic but the equation has shifted.  It is possible in contemporary America to continue in an extended adolescence, living a life without much of a requirement for responsibility, until well into middle age.  It is entirely possible to become President without ever having had to take responsibility for one's decisions (and to not have had to make any significant decisions); that is the path our current President took to the White House and it left all but those who have become enthralled by him with concerns about how he understands the world, how he thinks about the world, and how he makes decisions.  It is very early in his Presidency but there are already grounds for concern.

Consider Tom Barnett's brief post today, in which he commented on the protectionist impulse codified in the $819 billion "stimulus" bill, which by all reports (including from many liberal economists) contains more pork than stimulus):

"I Declare the War is Over"

Silent Soldiers on a silver screen
Framed in fantasies and dragged in dream
Unpaid actors of the mystery
The mad director knows that freedom will not make you free
And what's this got to do with me
I declare the war is over
It's over, it's over

Phil Ochs

Phil Ochs was a prolific folk singer/song writer in the 1960s.  He was decisively anti-war (Vietnam) and a rather typical new-leftist of the time.  He wrote "The War is Over" to dramatize his opposition to the Vietnam War.  According to Wikipedia:

In 1966, poet Allen Ginsberg decided to declare that the Vietnam War was over.  The idea of ending the war simply by declaring it over appealed to Ochs, who organized a rally in Los Angeles to announce that the war was over. To publicize the rally, he wrote an article in the Los Angeles Free Press titled "Have Faith, The War Is Over":

Is everybody sick of this stinking war? In that case, friends, do what I and thousands of other Americans have done — declare the war over.

Ochs wrote a song for the rally, in which he, like "thousands of other Americans", declared the war was over.

He was part of the folk song army that Tom Lehrer satirized in the song of the same name.  Tom Lehrer's introduction to the song was classic:

One type of song that has come into increasing prominence in recent months is the folk-song of protest. You have to admire people who sing these songs. It takes a certain amount of courage to get up in a coffee-house or a college auditorium and come out in favor of the things that everybody else in the audience is against like peace and justice and brotherhood and so on. The nicest thing about a protest song is that it makes you feel so good. I have a song here which I realise should be accompanied on a folk instrument in which category the piano does not alas qualify so imagine if you will that I am playing an 88 string guitar.

The song starts wonderfully:

We are the Folk Song Army.
Everyone of us cares.
We all hate poverty, war, and injustice,
Unlike the rest of you squares

Phil Ochs, of whom I was a fan, was nothing if not earnest.  He deeply cared about "poverty, war and injustice."  My admiration for his music peaked in my third year of college when he played a concert at my school and was too drunk to recall the lyrics of his songs.  I thought of Phil Ochs when I read Roger Cohen's op-ed today, in which he declared, in a probably unknowing homage to  Phil Ochs, that "The War is Over":

The 10,000 Year Explosion: A Most Dangerous Book

In Race, Ethnicity, and the Genetic Time Bomb I discussed the coming collision between the accumulating body of scientific data regarding human evolution and differentiation, and the PC shibboleth that all men and all populations are exactly equivalent.  The corollary to this assumption has become conventional wisdom, ie that any differences in outcome between populations can only be the result of discrimination by the powerful against the weak.  Various iterations of this assumption have become so deeply ingrained in science and society that it is considered a career destroyer to publicly question the idea. 

In The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending have done an excellent job of collecting much of the data from population genetics (their 227 page book has 177 footnotes and a 14 page bibliography) and presenting their theory that evolution has not only not stagnated or ended with the advent of the modern human, but that civilization itself has caused human evolution to speed up significantly. 

The reigning scientific conventional wisdom, adhered to unfailingly and fiercely defended by most of the soft sciences (including Psychology) is described by the authors in the first three pages:

(pps. 2-3) Scientists have long believed that the "great leap forward," some 40,000 to 50,000 years ago in Europe, marked the advent of cultural evolution and the end of significant biological evolution in humans.  At this time, the theory goes, humans developed culture, as shown by the sophisticated new tools, art, and forms of personal decoration that emerged in the Upper Paleolithic.  Culture then freed the human race from the pressures of natural selection.  We made clothes rather than growing fur and built better wagons rather than becoming stronger.

The argument that the advent of behavioral modernity somehow froze human evolution is dependent on the notion of a static environment.  In other words, if a population - of humans, wolves, crabgrass, you name it - experiences a stable environment for a long time, it will eventually become genetically well matched to that environment. ...

However, modern humans have experienced a storm of change over the past 50,000 years.  We left Africa and settled every continent other than Antarctica.  We encountered and displaced archaic humans like Neanderthals - and probably picked up genes from them in the process.  An ever-accelerating cultural explosion from the Upper Paleolithic to the Neolithic and beyond led to new technologies and new social forms.  Indeed, culture itself has been an increasingly important part of the human environment.

The book is extremely readable and its implications will, just like the beneficial gene alleles they describe, spread throughout the population.  Cochran and Harpending, in my view, successfully present their major thesis, though their ancillary arguments are much more speculative.  For example, the authors believe that the transition to agriculture led to major evolutionary changes that both depended upon and fostered modernity.  Further, populations that were late to agriculture (eg, the Australian aborigine, who adopted agriculture only ~1000 years ago) may be at an impossible disadvantage in the modern world:

"Realist" Fantasies in the Middle East

Stephen Walt apparently considers himself a realist when it comes to the Middle East.  He is one ot the authors of The Israel Lobby, whose thesis is that American Jews working for Israel have distorted American foreign policy in th Middle East to the detriment of American interests in he region.  There is little point in discussing this thesis.  He believes it,as do many others.  I will assume that Stephen Walt is not particularly anti-Semitic and actually believes that a more even handed approach to the Middle East will bring about peace.  In his post yesterday, Stephen Walt takes issue with Tom Friedman's article on Sunday suggesting that squaring the circle in the Middle east will take an extraordinary effort and extraordinary skill.  In response Stephen Walt thinks achieving peace in eh Middle East should actually be pretty easy:

It's easier than Tom Friedman thinks: a realistic Middle East strategy

Friedman says there are two big problems: extremist settlers in Israel and extremist groups like Hamas among the Palestinians. And for good measure, he tosses in the obstructionists in Syria and those dangerous mullahs in Tehran, whose opposition makes solving this problem nearly impossible. We also need help from Egypt and Saudi Arabia, but it's hard to count on them. His conclusion: "whoever lines up this diplomatic Rubik's cube deserves two Nobel Prizes."

Actually it's not that hard, although I doubt the Obama administration will summon the political will and diplomatic stamina that will be necessary to pull it off. To see why, you need a fuller picture of the situation than Friedman provides.

To begin with, Friedman would have you believe that settlement expansion is just the work of some isolated religious extremists, and the only problem is that no Israeli government has "mustered the will" to face them down. In fact, settlement expansion has been the conscious policy of every Israeli government since 1967 -- Labor, Likud, and Kadima alike. ... Thus far, Ehud Barak is the only Israeli leader to make a serious effort to negotiate a two-state solution, and even his best offer at Camp David fell well short of a viable two-state proposal. And when Oslo collapsed, Friedman's columns helped spread the false claim that PLO leader Yasser Arafat had turned down a great deal and was solely responsible for the failure, a myth that undermined the peace camp in Israel and reinforced the political dynamics that Friedman now blames for the current impasse.

Friedman also fails to mention the role that the United States has played in bringing this situation about.

Walt's position, that the settlements are the major impediment to peace, is ahistorical and his ability to place all of the responsibility for the present conflict upon Israel likewise defies belief, however, he honestly believes what he writes and his work should be read with that understanding.  Yet, even if one were to grant all of his assumptions, ascribe all the blame to Israel and the blinkered support of the United States, Walt makes a couple of statements that must be addressed.

Death Wish

In 1974, at a time of severe economic distress, a political crisis of major proportions, with America's preeminence in question, a losing war in Vietnam winding down, and rampant crime, Charles Bronson appeared in the movie Death Wish:

Paul Kersey [Charles Bronson] is an architect, who is a peaceful man. But when his wife and daughter are attacked in their apartment, his world changes. His wife is killed and his daughter is in catatonic state. His boss decides that Paul needs to get out of New York so he sends him to Arizona to meet with a client. While their the client, a gun enthusiast gets Paul interested in guns and even gives him one. When Paul returns, he brings the gun with him when he goes out and when a mugger tries to hit him Paul shoots and kills him. After that he goes on killing spree. The police of course are investigating it, but the public feels thankful that someone out there is taking a stand.

In civilized societies, the balance between activity and passivity shifts.  The more complex the society, the more people, of necessity, much accept and tolerate a passive stance.  (I offer for your consideration the act of flying on a commercial plane.)  When the citizens of a polity begin to feel that their interests are no longer being served by their governing classes, and that the basic functions of the government are failing (ie, keeping the people safe) fantasies of citizens "talking the law into their own hands" can become ubiquitous. 

The reaction to Death Wish in New York City presented an interesting mix.  The movie did offer obeisance to nascent political correctness.  Mostof the muggers and thugs Paul Kersey shoots in the movie are white, which was at the time belied by statistics which showed that crime was disproportionately visited by minorities upon their own communities; however, the feelings expressed through the movie, of taking action to "get back at" the thugs and bullies who were making life unbearable in our largest cities, resonated.  This left the typical New York liberal in a peculiar position.  Having been raised to believe that guns are bad and that aggressive self-defense aka vigilantism, was the province of reactionary yahoos and bigots, New York liberals often took a disparaging attitude toward the movie whileinvoluntarily feeling some triumph when Paul Kersey, who started out as one of them in the movie, blew away the bad guys.  The idea that "a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged" became popular at about that time.

Psychoanalysis and its related fields, psychiatry and psychology, have long known that we lack an adequate theory of action. 

Moore's Law, the Information Economy, and Socialism

On Wednesday, Flash Gordon said, in response to my comment that I wish President Obama the best, that:

I do not wish him the best. I do not wish him success. I want him to fail. Because if he succeeds America will become a socialist country.That would be awful for me, and for everyone else although many don't realize it now and won't wake up until it is too late. Wishing Obama success is a wish for the failure of the American dream. Please change your mind on that one, Shrink. [Emphasis mine-SW]

I think that Flash is only partly correct.  In fact, whether President Obama succeeds or fails, America is destined to become (more of) a socialist country.  At this point, socialism is inevitable and the arguments for the next few years will primarily involve the speed with which we embrace socialism.  I say this not as someone who supports socialism, a system that has shown itself incapable of working until now, but as someone who believes that the available space for the individual to express himself economically will become compressed as the modern world undergoes a fundamental shift which is already well under way.

First, some preparatory data.  John F. Opie notes that our banks are already insolvent and that current approaches do nothing more than attempt to obfuscate that fact while delaying the day of reckoning:

Banks, Bad Banks, Bad Bad Banks, Good Bad Banks, Congress and Chinese Banks...

Well, the banks fucked up that one right and proper. Of course, they had help: the rating agencies were corrupted and the lonely controllers and loan portfolio managers who said "wait a second..." were stampeded by their colleagues heading out the door to make loans. That's because ways were found to move bank income from that interest rate differential (minus the risk management costs) to fees, with the loans sold off to avoid having to face the problems. In some ways the banks are not to blame: the government, after all, was telling them it would guarantee the loans (that's the reason for Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac's existence, after all) and gave them the opportunities to create financial instruments to sell these off.

By screwing up their risk management, banks forfeited their moral right to be saved. No bank out there - none whatsoever - is some sort of innocent victim of the subprime meltdown: all were negligent in their risk management. Period. Really, there are no exceptions.

So we have bad banks out there, banks that are bankrupt in all but name. What does bankrupt mean?

The West on Trial

With nary a peep from the august solons of the MSM (ie, a search of the New York Times website), a major assault against the foundation of Western democracy is taking place in the Netherlands:

‘Wilders must be supported’

... the cruel and stupid notion that those who mock people’s deeply held spiritual beliefs deserve censure is with us still. It has even found its way into the legal system of western democracies. This week, a Dutch court ordered prosecutors to indict Geert Wilders, leader of the right-wing Freedom Party, on charges of ‘inciting hatred and discrimination, based on comments by him in various media on Muslims and their beliefs’. The court thereby reversed a decision of the public prosecutor’s office last year not to pursue charges against Wilders.

Wilders’s populist and nativist politics are exactly opposed to my own views, and entirely beside the point. In a constitutional state, with liberal political rights and the rule of law, a man is being prosecuted for causing offence by expressing his views. Wilders’s protest that the judgement is ‘an attack of freedom of expression’ is scarcely adequate to the infringement on liberty. These proceedings are a monstrous abuse of power. Wilders must be supported.

I mention the absence of the story in the New York Times because they present themselves as being civil rights absolutists and citizens of the world.  The front page of the Times, at this moment, reports that Obama Issues Directive to Shut Guantánamo, and that (Dennis) Blair Pledges New Approach to Counterterrorism.  Both stories concern the roll back of Bush administration assaults on civil liberties (to paraphrase the typical comment of those who oppose Gitmo and various other aspects of the war on whatever it is we are fighting.)  Nowhere in the times is there a story about the escalating attempts to silence Geert Wilders for his often intemperate verbal attacks on radical Islam.

Baron Bodissey posts a compendium of quotes from Wilders that form the basis of the complaint against him in The Case Against Geert Wilders; judge for yourself their accuracy.

Mark Steyn, who has been the victim of official attempts to silence and intimidate him from the Canadian Human Rights Commission, notes in his own inimitable way, what is at stake:

President Obama

The time honored change of power in Washington is one of the great successes of our democracy, where winners take hold of the reins of power and the losers go home to write their memoirs.  Our new President comes to power at a particularly difficult time.

President Obama is a stirring, powerful, and eloquent orator.  His ability to give a great speech, though his inaugural speech had obvious shortcomings (sounding too much like a campaign speech), should not be underestimated.  After spending the last 8 years with a President who was lacking in oratorical and rhetorical skills, it will be a relief to have a President who could, should he choose to exert himself, clearly explain his policies.  His inaugural speech, however, is not evidence that he will use his skills to clarify and elucidate; we must hope that when the time comes that he can no longer avoid making decisions (he is the decider after all) that he will make clear decisions and explain why he has made such decisions.  As should be obvious, I do not think that the typical liberal prescriptions for our problems can work but I may be wrong and we will probably find out in the next 4-8 years.

Ed Morrissey captures the essence of the speech in his comments:

Inaugural Address: Pedestrian

Interestingly, the massive crowd seemed dissatisfied with Obama’s speech.  He didn’t get much reaction at the applause lines despite a wildly enthusiastic crowd of at least 2 million people.  In perusing the speech — I followed the text while Obama delivered it — it’s easy to see why.  Nothing remarkable got said today, or at least nothing we haven’t heard a thousand times already from the campaign trail.

It’s not that it was bad; Obama did a good job in delivering it, and it has some commendable passages about America and its people.  It’s just rather pedestrian.  Commentators are already noting that practically any president or presidential candidate could credibly have delivered this speech, from Nixon to Carter to Reagan to Clinton to McCain.  It’s a generic speech, lacking in specific vision from Obama.

Of course, that may have been by design.  Obama said he wanted to take the divisions out of politics, and one way to do that is to offer speeches with no points for later debate.  Put goals in general enough terms, and everyone buys into them.  Unfortunately, that’s meaningless politically.  We all want peace and prosperity, with abundant energy and healthy children.  The problem is how we best achieve those goals, and that’s where the debate is — and what Obama avoided today.

A President who is able to lift people's spirits during a dark time is a gift to the American people.  Furthermore, the fact that our elites, by and large, detested President Bush and adore President Obama suggest that the tone of elite commentary will switch (has already shifted) into much more buoyant and optimistic tones.  This can only help us deal with the difficult problems ahead.  The major stumbling block, as noted by Ed Morrissey, is that once the President has to begin to make policy decisions, large swaths of the American population will be unhappy.  Furthermore, if his policies fail, as some must inevitably, how he deals with the ensuing problems (and his ability and tolerance for dealing with failures remains untested) will be determinative.

On Psychobabble and the Psychotic Serial Killer

Today is a day for hope.  Those who supported Barack Obama hope that he will bring a small fraction of the change they so desire.  Those of us who did not vote for Obama hope that, despite how little we know about what he actually believes, he will prove to be courageous enough to confront the myriad problems we face, wise enough to know the difference between ideological fantasy and complex reality, modest enough to realize he does not know as much as he might wish he knows, and ruthless enough to do what has to be done even when (especially) it disappoints those who support him. 

I will be listening carefully to his speech today looking for clues to how he understands the world, since one's world view often determines one's perceptions.  A perfect example of how one's world view can distort one's perceptions was linked by Elder of Ziyon last night:

Psychobabblers for Peace

The Huffington Post has an article from a representative of a group called "Conflict Analysis Professionals for Enduring Security"who attempt to place the Israel/PalArab conflict in terms of modern psychobabble.

It is a fairly good example of how people whose only tool is a hammer think that every problem is a nail. In other words, it shows how even experts in psychology can be easy prey for muddled thinking.

Please read the Elder's post since he does an excellent first pass at delineating the psychobabble that the "Conflict Analysis Professionals for Enduring Security" (CAPES) use in lieu of actual cognition.  Psychobabble is terribly destructive on several levels.  It typically simplifies behavior, removes the locus of responsibility from the individual to some nebulous concept of society, and consistently infantilizes those who it sees as victims.  The Huffington Post article exhibits all of these fallacies that in part comprise psychobabble.  It is hard to describe how dispiriting it is to read nonsense couched as sophistication by those who claim Psychological sophistication:

Living Next Door to a Serial Killer

Professor Barry Rubin is one of the more clear eyed observers of the Middle East and his latest, unavailable on his web site because their web master is still in Gaza, is a useful summary of the situation.  It is sad that such a summary of the obvious should be necessary but the MSM has done a very poor job of gathering or offering a non-biased analysis of the news.  This is his post in full: 

Israel has won a huge military victory in a defensive war against the radical Islamist Hamas group which rules the Gaza Strip.

So what does Israel want? Its first choice would be a moderate movement running the Gaza Strip which would negotiate a deal for a Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel, resettling refugees there, and being a prosperous, stable state. All Israel desires is that such a country wouldn’t attack it with rockets, war, terrorism, or inciting such terrible hatred as to ensure future wars.

Hamas, however, is too extreme to make peace; its rival, the Palestinian Authority (PA) which rules the West Bank, is too weak and indecisive to do so.

Having Hamas as a neighbor is like living next door to a serial killer, who abuses his children and threatens to kill them if you go in after him. You can defend yourself but if the police won’t arrest him the only choices left are to build a wall around him, stop him from getting weapons, and sending in food.