Me: For whose sake have you forsaken me, for fuck's sake?
Grizzled Man: I'd forsake you for any man's sake. I like sake.
October 16, 2008
October 11, 2008
October 10, 2008
Casey Needs to Take a Mulligan
In the black corner, wearing nothing but a smile, "An Economy You Can Bank On." In the red corner, wearing an 800-pound-gorilla suit, "Rescuing Our Jobs And Savings: What G7/8 Leaders Can Do To Solve The Global Credit Crisis."
October 9, 2008
It's Over 9,000!
"What?! Nine thousand!" Either standards have gone the way of the economy, or Paul Krugman's blog editor is one refined and culturally literate individual.
October 8, 2008
A Defense of a Paulson-esque Plan that I Hadn't Come Across
A Wall Street friend of mine made the following point: one advantage of a government purchase of toxic mortgage-backed securities over an equity infusion (which apparently most economists support) is that the government can hold these assets to maturity without having to worry about being margin called. This matters because banks aren't the only entities holding lots of crumbling paper; hedge funds and other non-bailed-out institutions are likely to make forced sales of MBS, further driving down their value. Consequently, banks would require more and more capital from the government in order to stay afloat -- probably more than the government would initially overpay if it bought MBS and then received an equity "true-up." My friend argues that the absence of this idea from mainstream discourse stems from economists' underappreciation of the interconnectedness of the many players and games that caused the financial crisis. Contagion is a serious concern; perhaps an equity infusion is a mere treatment, whereas a Paulson-esque plan constitutes a quarantine.
UPDATE: this is not to suggest that my friend or I believe that a Paulson-esque plan is overall better than an equity infusion, just that the above reasoning may be part of the method to the madness.
UPDATE: this is not to suggest that my friend or I believe that a Paulson-esque plan is overall better than an equity infusion, just that the above reasoning may be part of the method to the madness.
October 7, 2008
Thinking in Tongues
"Barracuda" (on Sarah Palin's lifelong if-you-can't-be-them-beat-them response to intellectual elites)
October 6, 2008
October 5, 2008
October 3, 2008
October 2, 2008
September 30, 2008
How I Want to Be Remembered
"He had a clear, honest face. I found my fondness for him difficult to reconcile with what I knew of his enthusiasm for killing people and making small children cry." -- Rory Stewart, on Abdul Haq
September 28, 2008
September 26, 2008
September 25, 2008
September 10, 2008
The Second-Smartest Guys in the Room
"Wide-Ranging Ethics Scandal Emerges at Interior Dept." ("Modeled on a private-sector energy company," indeed. "[S]exual relationships with prohibited sources cannot, by definition, be arms-length.” On you, maybe.)
September 8, 2008
September 5, 2008
September 3, 2008
LOL
The Times reports: Ms. Palin, who served for years as the mayor of Wasilla, received words of support from her successor, Dianne Keller on Tuesday. The Politico’s Kenneth P. Vogel reports that Mayor Keller suggested to reporters who have descended on the small town “that Palin’s six years at the helm of Wasilla, population 7,000, combined with her 20 months as governor of Alaska leave her better equipped to handle the executive branch than her GOP running mate, John McCain, or his Democratic competitors Barack Obama and Joe Biden, all of whom are U.S. senators.”
September 1, 2008
August 31, 2008
August 30, 2008
Babbling Brooks
I realize that hating on David Brooks is a prerequisite for membership in the intellectual elite -- and accordingly a hackneyed subject for my readership -- but his most recent column prompts me to reaffirm my status. What a vile and juvenile excretion! I mean, what's the point? Criticizing a party convention for being self-congratulatory and pontificating? That's some ballsy, biting satire. Reasserting his token Republicanism? I thought he liked Obama. I can't say this is a step up from social pseudoscience. Am I missing something? Or does David Brooks simply need to close his mouth unless he's overlooking a toilet?
Interview with the Werewolf
Preface
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.
The white Tanzanian son of a brown Indian father and a brown Indian mother, Sarang Gopalakrishnan spent most of his college years boning up on hard science, immersing himself in the literature and poetry of the British Isles, and completing his transformation into an quasi-aristocratic anti-Victorian (think Bertrand W. H. Orwell; he developed the accent – optimized for his kind of poetry – in high school). He won a prestigious Watson Fellowship for his audacious proposal to study Remoteness in Russia, but alas, the wings of hope were not enough to carry him through this perilous undertaking (Russia being dangerous and racist). After purposefully flubbing his interview to become a quant at a major hedge fund (in part because he could not bear such an ugly job title), he began stripping to pay for his career as a full-time reader of political commentary and part-time pundit. He moonlights as a grad student in theoretical physics. In his words: “Though I was born in India and went to school in Tanzania, my first language is English and I think of my ‘home literature’ as that of the British Isles, with all its connections to Norse, German and Romance literature.... I grew up in cities with large suburbs and hinterlands, and the small towns of western Massachusetts are almost contiguous; I would like to know how it feels to live in towns around which the countryside is blank for hours, and where winters are preternaturally harsh.” I am confident that I speak for all of us when I say that I hope Sarang gets his wish.
Fittingly, Sarang inspired me to try my hand at poetry (the latter is a clerihew):
Deep within the bowels of Merrill*
An ossified lemur sits
He found Auden while still feral
Now he talks like the Brits
*Amherst College science building
Sarang
Is never wrong
Only joking
Or provoking
Reactions to Sarang’s punditry have been decidedly mixed, ranging from “Sarang doesn’t know shit” to “Sarang is a frighteningly good political commentator.” Today’s interview will help you decide. Without further ado, it is my great honor to present prolific polymath, cynical communist, gibbering gibbon – our next presidential debate moderator, Sarang Gopalakrishnan!
Interview
Me: Do you think the presidential election will stay close?
SG: No. I don't know which way it'll swing.
Me: Why do you foresee a swing?
SG: If Palin comes across as remotely competent, I suspect that McCain will win fairly comfortably.
Me: Really? Because of her, I take it?
SG: Yes. I don't really see what there is stopping them. The undecideds don't care for Obama.
Me: You don't think debates, policy, and other substance will make a difference?
SG: Not a huge difference, no. Palin is a good idea from the point of view of the veep debate, since Biden can't shred her without condescending.
Me: Man, I hate democracy.
SG: Yes.
Me: I'm moving to China.
SG: On the other hand I'm looking forward to her fucking up.
Me: Yeah, that would be awesome.
SG: In which case, like, you have an old guy and Reese Witherspoon on the ticket, in which case Obama coasts to victory.
Me: Yeah, I mean, just looking at competence – judgment, intelligence, temperament, policy – it's a laughable matchup.
SG: Well, there's one guy I like on both tickets together and that's Biden. Obama strikes me as not that interesting or appealing. McCain is personally better, but his policies are terrible and his war-hero shtick is grating.
Me: What do you have against Obama?
SG: Obama is not very funny, not very sharp, not very good at anything. I liked his race speech in March, but that was really the last moment that I found him at all appealing.
Me: Do you think Hillary would've run away with the election?
SG: No, Hillary would've struggled in different places.
Me: I haven’t heard that many of Obama’s speeches. I also liked his race speech a lot. I take it you weren’t a fan of his DNC speech? I thought it was quite good; it did what it had to do and had some very good lines.
SG: The DNC speech was OK. But he ain’t no Lincoln.
Me: Then again, who is?
SG: And he isn’t funny.
Me: Right.
SG: Like, that's my biggest problem with Obama: he lacks sharpness.
Me: He's a bit stiff, but what do you mean by “sharpness?”
SG: At some level the guy is fundamentally stiff and unappealing. “Sharpness” not as in intelligence, just as in edge; he lacks edge. Hillary had plenty of edge, at least towards the end, and I liked that. McCain has edge too.
Me: I think I know what you mean. Obama needs to get edgier. He should hire Werner Herzog as a debate coach.
SG: Ha. Yes, I guess crispness is another word for it. Old Grizz is going to eat him up in the debates, I think.
Me: Really?
SG: I don't look forward to this. Obama’s a lousy debater.
Me: It's weird, because he seems to get it (how to frame arguments, how to connect with people), and he was apparently a good professor (which is of course different from being a good presidential debater, but still relevant).
SG: His innate flaccidity comes through. I mean, McCain might not be great either.
Me: Yeah, I saw that flaccidity, especially in the early debates.
SG: Maybe McCain won't do that well. But against Hillary, Obama was terrible.
Me: McCain is kind of an idiot, right? That’s not game over, of course, but it’s got to hurt.
SG: No. I mean, McCain is less of a walking cliché than Obama, at least if you give him space. I don't agree with him on anything but the guy is basically cool. He has solid literary and cultural tastes.
Me: Aside from ABBA?
SG: Yeah. He's a Roddy Doyle fan and knows Bashevis Singer well. McCain's well-read and well-informed except about policy, which he doesn't know much about. But, like, nor does Obama, really. It's telling that he's not very good at being passionate about policy as Krugman pointed out.
Me: Hmm.
SG: And I think that's his fundamental narcissism showing through: Obama's primarily interested in Obama. Like anyone else whose first book is an autobiography.
Me: So you think a lot of the flaccidity is because he doesn't fully get the policy? What about the cases where he's clearly right and it's pretty straightforward (e.g., the war, as opposed to healthcare plan nuances)?
SG: Oh, I think he sort of gets it; the guy's smart. He just isn't that passionate about it. Kind of like McCain, whom also I take to be basically smart.
Me: Incidentally, how bad of a candidate was Kerry? I basically didn't follow that election. But I saw his DNC speech, which I thought was surprisingly great (I had low expectations).
SG: I was following it near the end. He also lacked crispness. Yes, apparently it was the best thing he ever gave. I missed it. I remember the ‘04 debates. Kerry sounded waffly. He wasn't actually waffling. But, like, the reason the flipflop thing stuck was that he sounded indecisive. “I am, uh, firmly in, uh, support of the president's decision to go to, uh, war.”
Me: Man, why can't the Dems manage to pull through?
SG: Dunno. It's partly that the liberal elites are such a large part of the primary base. And they're not very good at connecting with anybody else. I mean, I'm policy-wise completely in line with the liberal elite. But, like, I don't get their political preferences either.
Me: The mind wants what it wants.
SG: The Obama thing for instance. Guy's flaccid. Always has been. Delivers speeches that are elaborate tissues of clichés.
Me: Who doesn't?
SG: Oh, lots of people. Many of them just deliver the clichés upfront. I mean, I think Obama's a crap writer as well, and this is part of the problem.
Me: I haven't read his books, but his speeches are well-written.
SG: I mean Dreams from My Grandfather's Son.
Me: Hmm, my friend thought the writing was surprisingly good, though the book needs better editing (everyone apparently acknowledges this, including Obama implicitly in the preface).
SG: Yes, it's a cluttered and weakkneed prose style. Hard to do that stuff well, but Obama doesn't have what I'd consider a compelling style. And this, I guess, goes back to his lacking edge.
Me: You think it's just a fundamental personality trait?
SG: Yes. He's subtle, you see, and subtlety is a great thing. But you need to balance it with a good feeling for outlines.
Me: Yeah, I always tried to do that in debate and moot court. You don't want to sound superficial, but you have to hit the big ideas early and hard.
SG: Yes, and I don't think he does that very well. It's too bad.
Me: Did you see the Rick Warren interviews? I didn't.
SG: I saw bits of them. People's reaction there tracked my feeling all along.
Me: How was Obama?
SG: He waffled. McCain was corny but to the point. At some level this was inevitable, I should say. I mean, the audience was 80% Republican, so Obama couldn't state talking points and McCain could.
Me: Why do you think Obama built up a lead and then lost it?
SG: I have no idea. It wasn't that big a lead.
Me: I'm afraid our time is up. Thank you very much for your insight, Sarang.
SG: My pleasure [mumbles].
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.
The white Tanzanian son of a brown Indian father and a brown Indian mother, Sarang Gopalakrishnan spent most of his college years boning up on hard science, immersing himself in the literature and poetry of the British Isles, and completing his transformation into an quasi-aristocratic anti-Victorian (think Bertrand W. H. Orwell; he developed the accent – optimized for his kind of poetry – in high school). He won a prestigious Watson Fellowship for his audacious proposal to study Remoteness in Russia, but alas, the wings of hope were not enough to carry him through this perilous undertaking (Russia being dangerous and racist). After purposefully flubbing his interview to become a quant at a major hedge fund (in part because he could not bear such an ugly job title), he began stripping to pay for his career as a full-time reader of political commentary and part-time pundit. He moonlights as a grad student in theoretical physics. In his words: “Though I was born in India and went to school in Tanzania, my first language is English and I think of my ‘home literature’ as that of the British Isles, with all its connections to Norse, German and Romance literature.... I grew up in cities with large suburbs and hinterlands, and the small towns of western Massachusetts are almost contiguous; I would like to know how it feels to live in towns around which the countryside is blank for hours, and where winters are preternaturally harsh.” I am confident that I speak for all of us when I say that I hope Sarang gets his wish.
Fittingly, Sarang inspired me to try my hand at poetry (the latter is a clerihew):
Deep within the bowels of Merrill*
An ossified lemur sits
He found Auden while still feral
Now he talks like the Brits
*Amherst College science building
Sarang
Is never wrong
Only joking
Or provoking
Reactions to Sarang’s punditry have been decidedly mixed, ranging from “Sarang doesn’t know shit” to “Sarang is a frighteningly good political commentator.” Today’s interview will help you decide. Without further ado, it is my great honor to present prolific polymath, cynical communist, gibbering gibbon – our next presidential debate moderator, Sarang Gopalakrishnan!
Interview
Me: Do you think the presidential election will stay close?
SG: No. I don't know which way it'll swing.
Me: Why do you foresee a swing?
SG: If Palin comes across as remotely competent, I suspect that McCain will win fairly comfortably.
Me: Really? Because of her, I take it?
SG: Yes. I don't really see what there is stopping them. The undecideds don't care for Obama.
Me: You don't think debates, policy, and other substance will make a difference?
SG: Not a huge difference, no. Palin is a good idea from the point of view of the veep debate, since Biden can't shred her without condescending.
Me: Man, I hate democracy.
SG: Yes.
Me: I'm moving to China.
SG: On the other hand I'm looking forward to her fucking up.
Me: Yeah, that would be awesome.
SG: In which case, like, you have an old guy and Reese Witherspoon on the ticket, in which case Obama coasts to victory.
Me: Yeah, I mean, just looking at competence – judgment, intelligence, temperament, policy – it's a laughable matchup.
SG: Well, there's one guy I like on both tickets together and that's Biden. Obama strikes me as not that interesting or appealing. McCain is personally better, but his policies are terrible and his war-hero shtick is grating.
Me: What do you have against Obama?
SG: Obama is not very funny, not very sharp, not very good at anything. I liked his race speech in March, but that was really the last moment that I found him at all appealing.
Me: Do you think Hillary would've run away with the election?
SG: No, Hillary would've struggled in different places.
Me: I haven’t heard that many of Obama’s speeches. I also liked his race speech a lot. I take it you weren’t a fan of his DNC speech? I thought it was quite good; it did what it had to do and had some very good lines.
SG: The DNC speech was OK. But he ain’t no Lincoln.
Me: Then again, who is?
SG: And he isn’t funny.
Me: Right.
SG: Like, that's my biggest problem with Obama: he lacks sharpness.
Me: He's a bit stiff, but what do you mean by “sharpness?”
SG: At some level the guy is fundamentally stiff and unappealing. “Sharpness” not as in intelligence, just as in edge; he lacks edge. Hillary had plenty of edge, at least towards the end, and I liked that. McCain has edge too.
Me: I think I know what you mean. Obama needs to get edgier. He should hire Werner Herzog as a debate coach.
SG: Ha. Yes, I guess crispness is another word for it. Old Grizz is going to eat him up in the debates, I think.
Me: Really?
SG: I don't look forward to this. Obama’s a lousy debater.
Me: It's weird, because he seems to get it (how to frame arguments, how to connect with people), and he was apparently a good professor (which is of course different from being a good presidential debater, but still relevant).
SG: His innate flaccidity comes through. I mean, McCain might not be great either.
Me: Yeah, I saw that flaccidity, especially in the early debates.
SG: Maybe McCain won't do that well. But against Hillary, Obama was terrible.
Me: McCain is kind of an idiot, right? That’s not game over, of course, but it’s got to hurt.
SG: No. I mean, McCain is less of a walking cliché than Obama, at least if you give him space. I don't agree with him on anything but the guy is basically cool. He has solid literary and cultural tastes.
Me: Aside from ABBA?
SG: Yeah. He's a Roddy Doyle fan and knows Bashevis Singer well. McCain's well-read and well-informed except about policy, which he doesn't know much about. But, like, nor does Obama, really. It's telling that he's not very good at being passionate about policy as Krugman pointed out.
Me: Hmm.
SG: And I think that's his fundamental narcissism showing through: Obama's primarily interested in Obama. Like anyone else whose first book is an autobiography.
Me: So you think a lot of the flaccidity is because he doesn't fully get the policy? What about the cases where he's clearly right and it's pretty straightforward (e.g., the war, as opposed to healthcare plan nuances)?
SG: Oh, I think he sort of gets it; the guy's smart. He just isn't that passionate about it. Kind of like McCain, whom also I take to be basically smart.
Me: Incidentally, how bad of a candidate was Kerry? I basically didn't follow that election. But I saw his DNC speech, which I thought was surprisingly great (I had low expectations).
SG: I was following it near the end. He also lacked crispness. Yes, apparently it was the best thing he ever gave. I missed it. I remember the ‘04 debates. Kerry sounded waffly. He wasn't actually waffling. But, like, the reason the flipflop thing stuck was that he sounded indecisive. “I am, uh, firmly in, uh, support of the president's decision to go to, uh, war.”
Me: Man, why can't the Dems manage to pull through?
SG: Dunno. It's partly that the liberal elites are such a large part of the primary base. And they're not very good at connecting with anybody else. I mean, I'm policy-wise completely in line with the liberal elite. But, like, I don't get their political preferences either.
Me: The mind wants what it wants.
SG: The Obama thing for instance. Guy's flaccid. Always has been. Delivers speeches that are elaborate tissues of clichés.
Me: Who doesn't?
SG: Oh, lots of people. Many of them just deliver the clichés upfront. I mean, I think Obama's a crap writer as well, and this is part of the problem.
Me: I haven't read his books, but his speeches are well-written.
SG: I mean Dreams from My Grandfather's Son.
Me: Hmm, my friend thought the writing was surprisingly good, though the book needs better editing (everyone apparently acknowledges this, including Obama implicitly in the preface).
SG: Yes, it's a cluttered and weakkneed prose style. Hard to do that stuff well, but Obama doesn't have what I'd consider a compelling style. And this, I guess, goes back to his lacking edge.
Me: You think it's just a fundamental personality trait?
SG: Yes. He's subtle, you see, and subtlety is a great thing. But you need to balance it with a good feeling for outlines.
Me: Yeah, I always tried to do that in debate and moot court. You don't want to sound superficial, but you have to hit the big ideas early and hard.
SG: Yes, and I don't think he does that very well. It's too bad.
Me: Did you see the Rick Warren interviews? I didn't.
SG: I saw bits of them. People's reaction there tracked my feeling all along.
Me: How was Obama?
SG: He waffled. McCain was corny but to the point. At some level this was inevitable, I should say. I mean, the audience was 80% Republican, so Obama couldn't state talking points and McCain could.
Me: Why do you think Obama built up a lead and then lost it?
SG: I have no idea. It wasn't that big a lead.
Me: I'm afraid our time is up. Thank you very much for your insight, Sarang.
SG: My pleasure [mumbles].
August 29, 2008
Song
Sarang (aka the Glass-Bottom Feeder) plugged Priscilla Sneff's poem "Song," and I remarked that I kind of wanted to set it to music. Well, I did. It was a little tricky because it's in free-verse, but the musical verses have to be more structured (8-bar phrases and the like).
UPDATE: Sarang informs me that the poem is hardly in free-verse. I did notice the rhyme scheme, but the irregularity of syllables per line threw me. Being a poetic novice, I didn't think in terms of meter (and I'm not even confident that I can determine where all of the stresses are...so much for my natural speaking style). Sarang writes: "The scheme is 3/3/4/3 beats per line, generally iambic, and the rhyme scheme is ABAB. Irritatingly I can't remember what this form is called but it's one of the three regular ballad meters."
UPDATE: Sarang informs me that the poem is hardly in free-verse. I did notice the rhyme scheme, but the irregularity of syllables per line threw me. Being a poetic novice, I didn't think in terms of meter (and I'm not even confident that I can determine where all of the stresses are...so much for my natural speaking style). Sarang writes: "The scheme is 3/3/4/3 beats per line, generally iambic, and the rhyme scheme is ABAB. Irritatingly I can't remember what this form is called but it's one of the three regular ballad meters."
August 27, 2008
August 21, 2008
August 20, 2008
August 17, 2008
August 16, 2008
August 14, 2008
Platform
Most people mostly suck, and it's mostly not their fault, but it's still okay to disdain them.
August 13, 2008
We Should Want to Have Control
Articles like this make me long for a future of widespread genetic testing, embryonic genetic modification, selective abortion (regulated to check externalities), and legal infanticide. The universe has no moral arc. Children are usually not bundles of joy. At least we should spare them and their families from the worst of nature's vicissitudes. We should rig the lottery of birth as much as we can; there is nothing sacred about randomness.
The benefits of confronting reality and adapting to (or changing) it are usually greater than those of willful blindness or self-deception. Would that we were wired to recognize this!
The benefits of confronting reality and adapting to (or changing) it are usually greater than those of willful blindness or self-deception. Would that we were wired to recognize this!
"It's unreasonable for people to think I'm too young."
I love how this article about underage girls on the Chinese gymnastics team initially makes it sound as if proof of their youth is lacking. But after reporting thinly-substantiated accusations, the author drops these bombshells:
"Half of the team — He Kexin, Yang Yilin, Jiang Yuyuan — would be under age, according to online sports registration lists in China."
...
"The Chinese gymnasts lack curves, have an average height of 4 feet 9 inches and weigh an average of 77 pounds."
One small step for a girl, one Great Leap Forward for Chinamankind.
"Half of the team — He Kexin, Yang Yilin, Jiang Yuyuan — would be under age, according to online sports registration lists in China."
...
"The Chinese gymnasts lack curves, have an average height of 4 feet 9 inches and weigh an average of 77 pounds."
One small step for a girl, one Great Leap Forward for Chinamankind.
August 7, 2008
August 6, 2008
August 5, 2008
Though the Langurs Languish, All Is Not Yet Lost
"Trove of Endangered Gorillas Found in Africa"
I can't help but bring the following excerpt to your attention: "forest destruction and, increasingly, hunting for meat, pets and Chinese medicinal products are imperiling monkeys and other primates, from Congo Republic to Cambodia" (emphasis added).
I can't help but bring the following excerpt to your attention: "forest destruction and, increasingly, hunting for meat, pets and Chinese medicinal products are imperiling monkeys and other primates, from Congo Republic to Cambodia" (emphasis added).
July 31, 2008
Behind the Music
Mike Garson is responsible for the fantastic piano playing on albums by David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails, and The Smashing Pumpkins, among others. Studio musicians matter.
July 30, 2008
July 28, 2008
July 25, 2008
July 23, 2008
July 22, 2008
A Dialogue on Public Responses to Inequality
Me
How conservative are you?
Dave
I think income redistribution is (largely but not completely) wrong. I think the problems of sexism against women and racism against people who aren't white and Jewish are generally very overstated, or at least overstated by vocal political minorities who can overcome indifferent majorities, and government and institutional policies reflect this (family law, much affirmative action, contracting quotas, "wage gap" advocacy, etc.). I think legal color-blindness generally minimizes errors relative to color-consciousness. I think we have too much rather than too little economic protectionism and favoritism.
I do believe in principle that details matter (duh!), but many of my disagreements with median liberal opinion are stark enough that small differences in the specifics either of the policies or the world wouldn't make a difference.
Me
I have similar instincts, but I'm not confident enough in my knowledge of even the big picture (e.g., how bad these -isms are) to take a general stand.
What do you think we should we do about kids who are born poor and culturally disadvantaged?
Dave
I think I find "equality of opportunity" appealing. I think the battle for good public education is worth fighting. I especially like the class of arguments for good public schooling that emphasize the divergent interests of parent and child; I think these form a strong libertarian case for public schooling (I don't know if anyone has bothered to put it that way).
That's only a partial answer, though, because (arguably) it's possible for kids to be irredeemably fucked by their home lives (etc.), or for public schooling to fail them by being really shitty. I think I'm for state support for the very worst off, but the more provocative question is whether (and if not why not?) this same logic operates over the whole spectrum of different starting positions. As between myself and Dave^1, an otherwise-identical version of myself whose parents owned only 10% as many books, are differences in outcomes unfair? Should they be remedied by the state? It does seem unfair. But I think it's hard to systematically disentangle differences that are unfair from those that are fair.
The question of which differences in starting position are unequal opportunities is at least somewhat tricky. What about Dave^2, an otherwise-identical version of myself who's (even) lazier(!) than I am? I don't think Dave^2 deserves the same outcomes as I do, though this conclusion doesn't feel like it has a utilitarian logic (one could be devised; I'm not sure how I feel about this). And Dave^3, an otherwise-identical version of myself who's significantly dumber than I am -- are differences between his outcomes and mine unjust, at least insofar as he'd prefer to be closer to my outcomes? Some would say yes, some would say no, I think. I would summarize differences like those between Dave^2 and myself as differences in character (that does sound conservative!). I guess my anti-redistribution position grows largely out of the feeling that differences in outcome that correspond to differences in character are fair, and that those differences account for a large share of observed differences in outcome.
PS notwithstanding all the grappling above, I think it's easy to reach the conclusion that even the massively underprivileged should not be admitted to Amherst College, unless they demonstrate levels of proficiency similar to those required for the median student. The median student ain't even that bright.
PPS (Why the median student? I sorta figured the bottom of the class is crowded with special cases right now, and so not exemplary of good admissions standards.)
Me
I'm also committed to equality of opportunity; I suspect (hope) that the vast majority of people are and that disagreements are really about what meat to put on the concept's bones. The issue isn't ensuring equality but rather how much inequality is optimal (it's okay if only some kids get violin lessons).
I wish there were a good way of publicly addressing bad home lives/bad socialization. It seems that good public education and maybe a national propaganda campaign (to put it cynically) are the best we could do.
My off-the-cuff answer to your "more provocative question" is that we simply have to make a value judgment about where to make the trade-off between equity and efficiency -- hence common arguments in favor of a "right" to (a certain amount of, but no more) education, food, etc. It's also important to keep in mind that redistribution does not necessarily entail pie shrinkage; it provides social benefits such as crime control and the productivity of disadvantaged achievers who would otherwise have failed (especially if public funds are skewed towards promoting particularly productive achievement such as engineering degrees). Of course, there are borderline cases, but Dave^1 clearly has enough opportunity such that publicly providing for him would not be in the optimal basket of public expenditure; we'd be eating the harms of socialism at that point. It's also true that some people who don't have enough opportunity have character defects that render publicly lifting them up unproductive ex post, but that's a price that we've got to pay.
Given inadequate public assistance for the disadvantaged, institutions face the problem of identifying who would succeed if given the opportunity, and whether providing the opportunity would be worth it. This is of course difficult and depends on a given institution's values/purpose. This would be easier and largely obviated if there were effective public assistance from day one.
What about the simple fact that Dave^2 hasn't demonstrated as much proficiency as you but could have (so what if it would have been really hard -- see my discussion with Tarun on moral culpability)? His worse outcome encourages people to work hard and follows from allowing institutions to select for proficiency -- seems like good utilitarian logic. I don't get the point of Dave^3. Okay, he lost the genetic lottery. But his outcome is fair if he had enough of a chance to be all that he could be.
As for Amherst, I think underprivileged students should be given a bit of a leg up, especially if there are factors that suggest that they would readily thrive in a land of opportunity (obvious example: someone who did worse in high school just because she had to work two jobs, assuming this cause can be isolated). (Perhaps your [academically] median student point sufficiently accounts for this, since the median is lowered by athletic admitees and the like.) But I agree that Amherst is not the place for significantly unprepared applicants, no matter how unfair their unpreparedness. It's bad for the range of academic ability among students at an elite educational institution to be too big.
Dave
I don't think you're engaging the Dumb Dave^3 hypo. Your "okay, he lost the genetic lottery" assumes the conclusion at "okay." Why is it fair for someone to suffer worse outcomes for losing the genetic lottery? (Especially if it's not fair for someone to suffer worse outcomes for losing the social lottery?) Is this true for any case of losing the genetic lottery? You offer a utilitarian rationalization for this in the Dave^2 hypo (even if laziness is not necessarily genetic), but it's a justification that's specific to laziness / work ethic and doesn't cover the gamut of genetic lottery outcomes.
I think your response to the Lazy Dave^2 hypo suffers from a similar infirmity.
If I may free-associate in the guise of summarizing, I think you're relying heavily on unexamined notions of "could have": It's fair for society to treat Lazy Dave^2 worse because he "could have" worked harder; what does that mean? This can probably be boiled down to a pure utilitarian point, but is that what you meant? I think if you look closely at these "could have" intuitions, you'll find yourself at the notion of "character" I outline above, and the rough conclusion that it's okay to allow differences in outcome when they are explained by differences in character.
Of course, I broadly agree with your actual social-policy suggestions.
Anyway, gotta run, more later.
PS Of course, as Kaplow & Shavell show in their tautological book, giving any concern to "fairness" that's not completely anchored in utilitarianism fails to maximize utility. That compels one of just a few ways of resolving the interplay between fairness and utility here; I'm not sure which I choose.
PPS another class of redistribution I think I disapprove: Devoted Dave^4 graduates law school and decides to do "public interest" working, earning total pre-tax income of well under what Dave will make (inshallah); Devoted Dave^4 is subsidized by the government at the expense of Dave.
Me
I think you're needlessly complicating things. I agree with your "rough conclusion;" it seems to follow from the concepts of personal responsibility and equality of opportunity. Let me try to clear up my position.
Genetics are a built-in constraint (as of now) on opportunity; social environment is not. Dave^3 shouldn't starve if he's too dumb to earn a living, but it's okay if his stupidity keeps his standard of living below yours. True, this is no more "fair" than socially-induced inequality, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that the latter kind of inequality can be remedied to some extent; we can give Dave^3 books, but we can't up his INT.
To put it differently, everyone should be guaranteed a basic quality of life, regardless of opportunity concerns. (We have to assume that people who seem capable of providing themselves with a basic quality of life but refuse to either can't, are irrational, or both, not to mention the externalities they create.) This ensures that the losers of life's lotteries don't lose too badly (fairness rationale, though not necessarily pie-shrinking). Then we should consider public assistance to create equality of opportunity (equity rationale, no conceptual conflict with efficiency). Social lottery losers (such as the poor) are obviously a better target than genetic lottery losers (such as the dumb) because we can help them reach their potential; we can actually redress their inequality and possibly get a good return on our investment.
Regarding Dave^4, I presume you're okay with the "subsidization" resulting from progressive taxation. That said, I share your anti-subsidy inclination, but I worry about market failures. By the way, do you think donations to non-profit organizations should be tax deductible? (What if we could perfectly and costlessly identify which organizations serve the "public interest?") Might this policy promote efficiency by avoiding the transactions costs of government redistribution? (Or did I stop making sense?)
To be continued in the comments...
How conservative are you?
Dave
I think income redistribution is (largely but not completely) wrong. I think the problems of sexism against women and racism against people who aren't white and Jewish are generally very overstated, or at least overstated by vocal political minorities who can overcome indifferent majorities, and government and institutional policies reflect this (family law, much affirmative action, contracting quotas, "wage gap" advocacy, etc.). I think legal color-blindness generally minimizes errors relative to color-consciousness. I think we have too much rather than too little economic protectionism and favoritism.
I do believe in principle that details matter (duh!), but many of my disagreements with median liberal opinion are stark enough that small differences in the specifics either of the policies or the world wouldn't make a difference.
Me
I have similar instincts, but I'm not confident enough in my knowledge of even the big picture (e.g., how bad these -isms are) to take a general stand.
What do you think we should we do about kids who are born poor and culturally disadvantaged?
Dave
I think I find "equality of opportunity" appealing. I think the battle for good public education is worth fighting. I especially like the class of arguments for good public schooling that emphasize the divergent interests of parent and child; I think these form a strong libertarian case for public schooling (I don't know if anyone has bothered to put it that way).
That's only a partial answer, though, because (arguably) it's possible for kids to be irredeemably fucked by their home lives (etc.), or for public schooling to fail them by being really shitty. I think I'm for state support for the very worst off, but the more provocative question is whether (and if not why not?) this same logic operates over the whole spectrum of different starting positions. As between myself and Dave^1, an otherwise-identical version of myself whose parents owned only 10% as many books, are differences in outcomes unfair? Should they be remedied by the state? It does seem unfair. But I think it's hard to systematically disentangle differences that are unfair from those that are fair.
The question of which differences in starting position are unequal opportunities is at least somewhat tricky. What about Dave^2, an otherwise-identical version of myself who's (even) lazier(!) than I am? I don't think Dave^2 deserves the same outcomes as I do, though this conclusion doesn't feel like it has a utilitarian logic (one could be devised; I'm not sure how I feel about this). And Dave^3, an otherwise-identical version of myself who's significantly dumber than I am -- are differences between his outcomes and mine unjust, at least insofar as he'd prefer to be closer to my outcomes? Some would say yes, some would say no, I think. I would summarize differences like those between Dave^2 and myself as differences in character (that does sound conservative!). I guess my anti-redistribution position grows largely out of the feeling that differences in outcome that correspond to differences in character are fair, and that those differences account for a large share of observed differences in outcome.
PS notwithstanding all the grappling above, I think it's easy to reach the conclusion that even the massively underprivileged should not be admitted to Amherst College, unless they demonstrate levels of proficiency similar to those required for the median student. The median student ain't even that bright.
PPS (Why the median student? I sorta figured the bottom of the class is crowded with special cases right now, and so not exemplary of good admissions standards.)
Me
I'm also committed to equality of opportunity; I suspect (hope) that the vast majority of people are and that disagreements are really about what meat to put on the concept's bones. The issue isn't ensuring equality but rather how much inequality is optimal (it's okay if only some kids get violin lessons).
I wish there were a good way of publicly addressing bad home lives/bad socialization. It seems that good public education and maybe a national propaganda campaign (to put it cynically) are the best we could do.
My off-the-cuff answer to your "more provocative question" is that we simply have to make a value judgment about where to make the trade-off between equity and efficiency -- hence common arguments in favor of a "right" to (a certain amount of, but no more) education, food, etc. It's also important to keep in mind that redistribution does not necessarily entail pie shrinkage; it provides social benefits such as crime control and the productivity of disadvantaged achievers who would otherwise have failed (especially if public funds are skewed towards promoting particularly productive achievement such as engineering degrees). Of course, there are borderline cases, but Dave^1 clearly has enough opportunity such that publicly providing for him would not be in the optimal basket of public expenditure; we'd be eating the harms of socialism at that point. It's also true that some people who don't have enough opportunity have character defects that render publicly lifting them up unproductive ex post, but that's a price that we've got to pay.
Given inadequate public assistance for the disadvantaged, institutions face the problem of identifying who would succeed if given the opportunity, and whether providing the opportunity would be worth it. This is of course difficult and depends on a given institution's values/purpose. This would be easier and largely obviated if there were effective public assistance from day one.
What about the simple fact that Dave^2 hasn't demonstrated as much proficiency as you but could have (so what if it would have been really hard -- see my discussion with Tarun on moral culpability)? His worse outcome encourages people to work hard and follows from allowing institutions to select for proficiency -- seems like good utilitarian logic. I don't get the point of Dave^3. Okay, he lost the genetic lottery. But his outcome is fair if he had enough of a chance to be all that he could be.
As for Amherst, I think underprivileged students should be given a bit of a leg up, especially if there are factors that suggest that they would readily thrive in a land of opportunity (obvious example: someone who did worse in high school just because she had to work two jobs, assuming this cause can be isolated). (Perhaps your [academically] median student point sufficiently accounts for this, since the median is lowered by athletic admitees and the like.) But I agree that Amherst is not the place for significantly unprepared applicants, no matter how unfair their unpreparedness. It's bad for the range of academic ability among students at an elite educational institution to be too big.
Dave
I'm in a bit of a hurry and don't have time to reply fully. Here are some disjointed thoughts:
I don't think you're engaging the Dumb Dave^3 hypo. Your "okay, he lost the genetic lottery" assumes the conclusion at "okay." Why is it fair for someone to suffer worse outcomes for losing the genetic lottery? (Especially if it's not fair for someone to suffer worse outcomes for losing the social lottery?) Is this true for any case of losing the genetic lottery? You offer a utilitarian rationalization for this in the Dave^2 hypo (even if laziness is not necessarily genetic), but it's a justification that's specific to laziness / work ethic and doesn't cover the gamut of genetic lottery outcomes.
I think your response to the Lazy Dave^2 hypo suffers from a similar infirmity.
If I may free-associate in the guise of summarizing, I think you're relying heavily on unexamined notions of "could have": It's fair for society to treat Lazy Dave^2 worse because he "could have" worked harder; what does that mean? This can probably be boiled down to a pure utilitarian point, but is that what you meant? I think if you look closely at these "could have" intuitions, you'll find yourself at the notion of "character" I outline above, and the rough conclusion that it's okay to allow differences in outcome when they are explained by differences in character.
Of course, I broadly agree with your actual social-policy suggestions.
Anyway, gotta run, more later.
PS Of course, as Kaplow & Shavell show in their tautological book, giving any concern to "fairness" that's not completely anchored in utilitarianism fails to maximize utility. That compels one of just a few ways of resolving the interplay between fairness and utility here; I'm not sure which I choose.
PPS another class of redistribution I think I disapprove: Devoted Dave^4 graduates law school and decides to do "public interest" working, earning total pre-tax income of well under what Dave will make (inshallah); Devoted Dave^4 is subsidized by the government at the expense of Dave.
Me
I think you're needlessly complicating things. I agree with your "rough conclusion;" it seems to follow from the concepts of personal responsibility and equality of opportunity. Let me try to clear up my position.
Genetics are a built-in constraint (as of now) on opportunity; social environment is not. Dave^3 shouldn't starve if he's too dumb to earn a living, but it's okay if his stupidity keeps his standard of living below yours. True, this is no more "fair" than socially-induced inequality, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that the latter kind of inequality can be remedied to some extent; we can give Dave^3 books, but we can't up his INT.
To put it differently, everyone should be guaranteed a basic quality of life, regardless of opportunity concerns. (We have to assume that people who seem capable of providing themselves with a basic quality of life but refuse to either can't, are irrational, or both, not to mention the externalities they create.) This ensures that the losers of life's lotteries don't lose too badly (fairness rationale, though not necessarily pie-shrinking). Then we should consider public assistance to create equality of opportunity (equity rationale, no conceptual conflict with efficiency). Social lottery losers (such as the poor) are obviously a better target than genetic lottery losers (such as the dumb) because we can help them reach their potential; we can actually redress their inequality and possibly get a good return on our investment.
Regarding Dave^4, I presume you're okay with the "subsidization" resulting from progressive taxation. That said, I share your anti-subsidy inclination, but I worry about market failures. By the way, do you think donations to non-profit organizations should be tax deductible? (What if we could perfectly and costlessly identify which organizations serve the "public interest?") Might this policy promote efficiency by avoiding the transactions costs of government redistribution? (Or did I stop making sense?)
To be continued in the comments...
July 21, 2008
Fair and Balanced Nintendo Coverage
I love what this 1988 Inside Edition report on the burgeoning phenomenon of Nintendo says about the 80s. I also love the fact that Bill O'Reilly is the host.
July 20, 2008
July 18, 2008
July 16, 2008
To Be Clear
The New York Times reports: "About 40 percent of blacks said that Mr. McCain, if elected president, would favor whites over blacks should he win the election" (emphasis added, italics supplied).
I'm throwing rocks tonight.
I'm throwing rocks tonight.
July 15, 2008
Batman Insane
I haven't seen The Dark Knight, and I doubt I will. (I hardly go to the movies, and I'm more inclined to watch WALL-E.) But I decided to check out The New Yorker's review, which is one of the few negative ones according to Rotten Tomatoes. The following excerpt captures a lot of what I didn't like about Batman Begins, especially the way the fight scenes were cut:
"In the new Batman film, “The Dark Knight,” many things go boom. Cars explode, jails and hospitals are blown up, bombs are put in people’s mouths and sewn into their stomachs. There’s a chase scene in which cars pile up and climb over other cars, and a truck gets lassoed by Batman (his one neat trick) and tumbles through the air like a diver doing a back flip. Men crash through windows of glass-walled office buildings, and there are many fights that employ the devastating martial-arts system known as the Keysi Fighting Method. Christian Bale, who plays Bruce Wayne (and Batman), spent months training under the masters of the ferocious and delicate K.F.M. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you a thing about it, because the combat is photographed close up, in semidarkness, and cut at the speed of a fifteen-second commercial. Instead of enjoying the formalized beauty of a fighting discipline, we see a lot of flailing movement and bodies hitting the floor like grain sacks. All this ruckus is accompanied by pounding thuds on the soundtrack, with two veteran Hollywood composers (Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard) providing additional bass-heavy stomps in every scene, even when nothing is going on. At times, the movie sounds like two excited mattresses making love in an echo chamber. In brief, Warner Bros. has continued to drain the poetry, fantasy, and comedy out of Tim Burton’s original conception for “Batman” (1989), completing the job of coarsening the material into hyperviolent summer action spectacle."
"In the new Batman film, “The Dark Knight,” many things go boom. Cars explode, jails and hospitals are blown up, bombs are put in people’s mouths and sewn into their stomachs. There’s a chase scene in which cars pile up and climb over other cars, and a truck gets lassoed by Batman (his one neat trick) and tumbles through the air like a diver doing a back flip. Men crash through windows of glass-walled office buildings, and there are many fights that employ the devastating martial-arts system known as the Keysi Fighting Method. Christian Bale, who plays Bruce Wayne (and Batman), spent months training under the masters of the ferocious and delicate K.F.M. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you a thing about it, because the combat is photographed close up, in semidarkness, and cut at the speed of a fifteen-second commercial. Instead of enjoying the formalized beauty of a fighting discipline, we see a lot of flailing movement and bodies hitting the floor like grain sacks. All this ruckus is accompanied by pounding thuds on the soundtrack, with two veteran Hollywood composers (Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard) providing additional bass-heavy stomps in every scene, even when nothing is going on. At times, the movie sounds like two excited mattresses making love in an echo chamber. In brief, Warner Bros. has continued to drain the poetry, fantasy, and comedy out of Tim Burton’s original conception for “Batman” (1989), completing the job of coarsening the material into hyperviolent summer action spectacle."
July 14, 2008
July 13, 2008
July 12, 2008
Review - Encounters at the End of the World
I am compelled to say a few words about Werner Herzog’s latest effort, Encounters at the End of the World, a documentary about Antarctica that I watched from behind the back row in various positions of discomfort and incomplete view. (I entered the packed theater just in time and wisely opted to strain my knees instead of my neck.) I can only assure you that these facts do not taint my judgment.
I am a big fan of Herr Zog. But while Encounters provided me with an overall positive experience, it is a flawed film. First, the good news. Hearing the inorganically musical underwater vocalizations of Weddell seals through the theater’s multichannel speaker system was alone worth the price of admission. One of the scientists studying the pinnipeds aptly describes their varied and otherworldly sounds as Pink Floydian. I am also pleased to have beheld extended footage of the magnificent world beneath the sea ice. It is a teeming environment whose surface we are only beginning to scratch, and I cannot blame Herzog for choosing choral background music that perhaps screams “awe” a bit too loudly; there is no danger of it cheapening the majesty of the frozen stalactites or the splendor of the sunlight dispersing through the ice-ceiling. Lastly, I’ll note the humor, usually intentional, that Herzog uncharacteristically displays. His Teutonic deadpan is not his only comedic asset; he has a keen sense of the ridiculous, and ample targets among the many dubious denizens of the Antarctic.
My complaints are essentially twofold. First, the movie is disjointed. It is a hodgepodge of Herzog’s encounters with various Antarctic researchers and residents; there is no apparent order or theme. This is a minor criticism, as most of the segments make for fine viewing on their own, but it would have been more satisfying if Herzog had presented a unifying thesis or two about the Light Continent (aside from the oft-repeated observation that it is populated by a fair number of "professional dreamers"). He should have at least arranged the segments in a clearly meaningful sequence. At its best, the film made no more of an impression on me than “that was beautiful,” “that was cool,” or “I didn’t know that.” Second, and more significantly, Herzog’s narration is at times irritating. As someone who has studied climate change, I share his frustration and pessimism. But there is no call for saddling the film’s final moments with apocalyptic platitudes (e.g., “the end of human life is assured”) and a casual reference to global warming. These sentiments are incongruous with the rest of the film, which does not substantially address environmentalism and whose most haunting scene is of a mad penguin that abandons its flock and runs inland towards distant mountains, to certain death, with a singular determination. Herzog’s doomsayings, in any event, are better communicated by the satellite images of rapidly melting polar ice that we observe on a climatologist’s computer screen. I know that Herzog is capable of more thoughtful reflections on the impersonal and uncontrollable power of nature; for example, from Grizzly Man: “[W]hat haunts me is that in all the faces of all the bears that Treadwell ever filmed, I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only the overwhelming indifference of nature. To me, there is no such thing as a secret world of the bears. And this blank stare speaks only of a half-bored interest in food. But for Timothy Treadwell, this bear was a friend, a savior.” In Encounters, Herzog superficially and self-indulgently overstates his case. I’m looking forward to his next film.
Rating: 7/10
UPDATE: upon reflection, increased my rating by 1.
I am a big fan of Herr Zog. But while Encounters provided me with an overall positive experience, it is a flawed film. First, the good news. Hearing the inorganically musical underwater vocalizations of Weddell seals through the theater’s multichannel speaker system was alone worth the price of admission. One of the scientists studying the pinnipeds aptly describes their varied and otherworldly sounds as Pink Floydian. I am also pleased to have beheld extended footage of the magnificent world beneath the sea ice. It is a teeming environment whose surface we are only beginning to scratch, and I cannot blame Herzog for choosing choral background music that perhaps screams “awe” a bit too loudly; there is no danger of it cheapening the majesty of the frozen stalactites or the splendor of the sunlight dispersing through the ice-ceiling. Lastly, I’ll note the humor, usually intentional, that Herzog uncharacteristically displays. His Teutonic deadpan is not his only comedic asset; he has a keen sense of the ridiculous, and ample targets among the many dubious denizens of the Antarctic.
My complaints are essentially twofold. First, the movie is disjointed. It is a hodgepodge of Herzog’s encounters with various Antarctic researchers and residents; there is no apparent order or theme. This is a minor criticism, as most of the segments make for fine viewing on their own, but it would have been more satisfying if Herzog had presented a unifying thesis or two about the Light Continent (aside from the oft-repeated observation that it is populated by a fair number of "professional dreamers"). He should have at least arranged the segments in a clearly meaningful sequence. At its best, the film made no more of an impression on me than “that was beautiful,” “that was cool,” or “I didn’t know that.” Second, and more significantly, Herzog’s narration is at times irritating. As someone who has studied climate change, I share his frustration and pessimism. But there is no call for saddling the film’s final moments with apocalyptic platitudes (e.g., “the end of human life is assured”) and a casual reference to global warming. These sentiments are incongruous with the rest of the film, which does not substantially address environmentalism and whose most haunting scene is of a mad penguin that abandons its flock and runs inland towards distant mountains, to certain death, with a singular determination. Herzog’s doomsayings, in any event, are better communicated by the satellite images of rapidly melting polar ice that we observe on a climatologist’s computer screen. I know that Herzog is capable of more thoughtful reflections on the impersonal and uncontrollable power of nature; for example, from Grizzly Man: “[W]hat haunts me is that in all the faces of all the bears that Treadwell ever filmed, I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only the overwhelming indifference of nature. To me, there is no such thing as a secret world of the bears. And this blank stare speaks only of a half-bored interest in food. But for Timothy Treadwell, this bear was a friend, a savior.” In Encounters, Herzog superficially and self-indulgently overstates his case. I’m looking forward to his next film.
Rating: 7/10
UPDATE: upon reflection, increased my rating by 1.
July 11, 2008
July 9, 2008
July 8, 2008
A Dialogue on Moral Psychology
Preface
This hopefully ongoing conversation stems from my previous post about the Stanford Prison Experiment. Of course, I welcome other participants.
Tarun
There's a fairly interesting documentary on the experiment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o0Nx31yicY
There are people who think situationist psychology should lead us to revise our notion of moral responsibility. I'd like to think the soldiers in Abu Ghraib did what they did because they were more racist and/or more callous than me, but attributing the difference in action (or in my case, imagined action, I guess) to a difference in character rather than a difference in context is a mistake. The best predictor of moral behavior is situation rather than character. We assume the Abu Ghraib behavior is aberrant without understanding that the context in which they are placed fundamentally distorts practical reasoning. We assume that soldiers in a war-zone or in the Stanford Prison Experiment are more or less moral agents like us (their moral cognitive faculties operate more or less like ours) and on that basis judge their behavior pathological and therefore blameworthy. But the presumption is wrong - our cognitive faculties are significantly impacted by situational factors. We have reason to think that in a prison-like setting the behavior of the SPE subjects or the Abu Ghraib jailers is, from a psychological perspective, normal moral functioning.
I have a feeling that if we accept situationist claims, these kinds of exculpations are not going be restricted to extreme situations like war-zones. After all, finding a dime in a phone booth is apparently sufficient to produce a significant difference in moral behavior. If such apparently insignificant contextual factors have a quantifiable effect on our moral cognition, then the argument from the last paragraph should lead us to a radical skepticism about our folk theories of moral motivation and consequently moral responsibility. But then we already knew folk psychology is bullshit, right? Especially folk moral psychology.
Me
It's left-coast relativism like this that's destroying America! Seriously, though, not everyone goes apeshit in evilgenic situations. The issue of course is what we can reasonably expect of people. I'll focus on Abu Ghraib because the prison experiment was distorted by roleplaying (for those of you who haven't seen the documentary, one of the guards styled himself after a particularly sadistic guard in Cool Hand Luke in order to see, according to him, how much verbal abuse people would put up with; I wouldn't rule out shits and giggles). The issue of reasonable expectations is complicated by personal differences. If it's systemically viable, perhaps we should account for factors such as education, temperament, and life experiences, as we do age, when setting moral baselines. Shouldn't someone familiar with Milgram, Zimbardo, and moral psychology ideally be held to a higher standard than someone without a college education (leaving aside any perverse incentives that may result)? "Normal moral functioning" depends significantly on non-situational factors. Given my (perception of my) psychology, I can't imagine that I should be excused for committing atrocities akin to those in Abu Ghraib. Most of the soldiers apparently didn't cross the line, and I doubt most of them exhibited superhuman willpower; they probably just weren't as racist and/or callous as the abusers. Naturally this raises the question of how responsible people are for being callous or racist, but we have to put our foot down somewhere; we can't limit moral blame to the Jeffrey Skillings of the world and regard other wrongdoers as, to some extent, sociopathic. Essentially the problem seems to come down to what fictional account of moral responsibility the law should embrace, given that we can't excuse everyone to the extent that his psychology makes it hard for him to follow the law. I recall that Gideon Rosen had some persuasive things to say about the limitations of real moral culpability. Maybe I'll read this more recent paper of his.
Perhaps this is the same kind of arrogance that any of the participants in these experiments would have exhibited. But I stand by it. Just don't testify at my war crimes trial.
BTW, what's the story with the phone booth example?
Tarun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_character#Experiments
"In one experiment that was done, the moral character of a person was based on whether or not a person had found a dime in a public phone booth. The findings were that 87% of subjects who found a dime in a phone booth helped somebody in need, while only 4% of those who did not find a dime helped."
This hopefully ongoing conversation stems from my previous post about the Stanford Prison Experiment. Of course, I welcome other participants.
Tarun
There's a fairly interesting documentary on the experiment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
There are people who think situationist psychology should lead us to revise our notion of moral responsibility. I'd like to think the soldiers in Abu Ghraib did what they did because they were more racist and/or more callous than me, but attributing the difference in action (or in my case, imagined action, I guess) to a difference in character rather than a difference in context is a mistake. The best predictor of moral behavior is situation rather than character. We assume the Abu Ghraib behavior is aberrant without understanding that the context in which they are placed fundamentally distorts practical reasoning. We assume that soldiers in a war-zone or in the Stanford Prison Experiment are more or less moral agents like us (their moral cognitive faculties operate more or less like ours) and on that basis judge their behavior pathological and therefore blameworthy. But the presumption is wrong - our cognitive faculties are significantly impacted by situational factors. We have reason to think that in a prison-like setting the behavior of the SPE subjects or the Abu Ghraib jailers is, from a psychological perspective, normal moral functioning.
I have a feeling that if we accept situationist claims, these kinds of exculpations are not going be restricted to extreme situations like war-zones. After all, finding a dime in a phone booth is apparently sufficient to produce a significant difference in moral behavior. If such apparently insignificant contextual factors have a quantifiable effect on our moral cognition, then the argument from the last paragraph should lead us to a radical skepticism about our folk theories of moral motivation and consequently moral responsibility. But then we already knew folk psychology is bullshit, right? Especially folk moral psychology.
Me
It's left-coast relativism like this that's destroying America! Seriously, though, not everyone goes apeshit in evilgenic situations. The issue of course is what we can reasonably expect of people. I'll focus on Abu Ghraib because the prison experiment was distorted by roleplaying (for those of you who haven't seen the documentary, one of the guards styled himself after a particularly sadistic guard in Cool Hand Luke in order to see, according to him, how much verbal abuse people would put up with; I wouldn't rule out shits and giggles). The issue of reasonable expectations is complicated by personal differences. If it's systemically viable, perhaps we should account for factors such as education, temperament, and life experiences, as we do age, when setting moral baselines. Shouldn't someone familiar with Milgram, Zimbardo, and moral psychology ideally be held to a higher standard than someone without a college education (leaving aside any perverse incentives that may result)? "Normal moral functioning" depends significantly on non-situational factors. Given my (perception of my) psychology, I can't imagine that I should be excused for committing atrocities akin to those in Abu Ghraib. Most of the soldiers apparently didn't cross the line, and I doubt most of them exhibited superhuman willpower; they probably just weren't as racist and/or callous as the abusers. Naturally this raises the question of how responsible people are for being callous or racist, but we have to put our foot down somewhere; we can't limit moral blame to the Jeffrey Skillings of the world and regard other wrongdoers as, to some extent, sociopathic. Essentially the problem seems to come down to what fictional account of moral responsibility the law should embrace, given that we can't excuse everyone to the extent that his psychology makes it hard for him to follow the law. I recall that Gideon Rosen had some persuasive things to say about the limitations of real moral culpability. Maybe I'll read this more recent paper of his.
Perhaps this is the same kind of arrogance that any of the participants in these experiments would have exhibited. But I stand by it. Just don't testify at my war crimes trial.
BTW, what's the story with the phone booth example?
Tarun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
"In one experiment that was done, the moral character of a person was based on whether or not a person had found a dime in a public phone booth. The findings were that 87% of subjects who found a dime in a phone booth helped somebody in need, while only 4% of those who did not find a dime helped."
July 7, 2008
The Persistent Provocativeness of the Banality of Evil
I was only vaguely familiar with the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment until I came across some details in this article. Philip G. Zimbaro, the psychologist who conducted the experiment, recalls:
"By the end of the first day, nothing much was happening. But on the second day, there was a prisoner rebellion. The guards came to me: 'What do we do?'
"By the end of the first day, nothing much was happening. But on the second day, there was a prisoner rebellion. The guards came to me: 'What do we do?'
"'It’s your prison,' I said, warning them against physical violence. The guards then quickly moved to psychological punishment, though there was physical abuse, too.
"In the ensuing days, the guards became ever more sadistic, denying the prisoners food, water and sleep, shooting them with fire-extinguisher spray, throwing their blankets into dirt, stripping them naked and dragging rebels across the yard.
"How bad did it get? The guards ordered the prisoners to simulate sodomy. Why? Because the guards were bored. Boredom is a powerful motive for evil. I have no idea how much worse things might have gotten."
Shit. Zimbardo goes on to parallel the experiment's situational drivers of abuse to those behind the torture in Abu Ghraib. Undoubtedly there are basic (banal) parallels. But what strikes me is how rapidly and intensely the experimental abuse escalated, given the situation (an experiment) and the players (of 70 male respondents, the 24 deemed most psychologically stable). It's one thing for low-ranking soldiers to get carried away over the course of overseeing suspected enemy combatants in a foreign prison. The grunts were in an unpleasant environment doing an unpleasant job for who knows how long, and they were not exactly the most reasonable bunch; racism, religion, revenge, and the like were among their motivations. This is not to excuse the atrocities they committed, just to put them in perspective. The experimental participants were presumably very different people in a very different setting, and it's harder for me to wrap my mind around what they did. I guess that's what's so unsettling about these experiments: everyone thinks "but I'd never do that," and then they do (they would; I wouldn't). Or is there more to Zimbardo's story? I'm curious what the participants were like. I was initially under the impression that they were students, which naturally blew my mind even more.
UPDATE: the participants were indeed mostly college (or college-bound) students according to this short documentary.
July 4, 2008
July 3, 2008
"Our Evolutionary Comrades"
"Ape Rights and the Myth of Animal Equality"
Incidentally:
"Underground" by Barack Obama
Under water grottos, caverns
Filled with apes
That eat figs.
Stepping on the figs
That the apes
Eat, they crunch.
The apes howl, bare
Their fangs, dance,
Tumble in the
Rushing water,
Musty, wet pelts
Glistening in the blue.
Incidentally:
"Underground" by Barack Obama
Under water grottos, caverns
Filled with apes
That eat figs.
Stepping on the figs
That the apes
Eat, they crunch.
The apes howl, bare
Their fangs, dance,
Tumble in the
Rushing water,
Musty, wet pelts
Glistening in the blue.
July 2, 2008
Who You Callin' Undignified?
From "The Stupidity of Dignity" by Steven Pinker:
[Leon] Kass has a problem not just with longevity and health but with the modern conception of freedom. There is a "mortal danger," he writes, in the notion "that a person has a right over his body, a right that allows him to do whatever he wants to do with it." He is troubled by cosmetic surgery, by gender reassignment, and by women who postpone motherhood or choose to remain single in their twenties. Sometimes his fixation on dignity takes him right off the deep end:
"Worst of all from this point of view are those more uncivilized forms of eating, like licking an ice cream cone--a catlike activity that has been made acceptable in informal America but that still offends those who know eating in public is offensive. ... Eating on the street--even when undertaken, say, because one is between appointments and has no other time to eat--displays [a] lack of self-control: It beckons enslavement to the belly. ... Lacking utensils for cutting and lifting to mouth, he will often be seen using his teeth for tearing off chewable portions, just like any animal. ... This doglike feeding, if one must engage in it, ought to be kept from public view, where, even if we feel no shame, others are compelled to witness our shameful behavior."
On you, maybe.
June 10, 2008
June 7, 2008
Alzheimer's Is Scarier than Determinism
That the mind is a product of the brain and a slave to the body is one of the great existential tragedies. I can see why it has driven many to Buddhism, buddha, or both. It is unsettling, to say the least, to confront the reality that our thoughts are inevitably constrained by our genes and experiences.
Ironically, we are wired for dualism -- the grand delusion. The fact is that just as we can only be so tall, we can only be so smart, so funny, so open-minded, so laid back, and so forth. We are only free within the confines of our identities.
This fact alone is perhaps not so tragic -- no more so, at least, than not being able to choose one's parents. Under normal circumstances, it does not assert itself. (Psychological maturation, for instance, occurs under the radar; we don't grow up overnight.) The real tragedy is when it does. Depression strikes. Dementia sets in. We cannot help but rail against what we perceive our bodies to be doing to ourselves. Is there a worse form of torture?
Who we are is what we are, and what we are is biological. We are the meat of our makers, but perhaps one day we will have the technology to live in defiance of this fact. I'd settle for being a brain-in-a-vat, but I'd rather be a mind in a machine.
Ironically, we are wired for dualism -- the grand delusion. The fact is that just as we can only be so tall, we can only be so smart, so funny, so open-minded, so laid back, and so forth. We are only free within the confines of our identities.
This fact alone is perhaps not so tragic -- no more so, at least, than not being able to choose one's parents. Under normal circumstances, it does not assert itself. (Psychological maturation, for instance, occurs under the radar; we don't grow up overnight.) The real tragedy is when it does. Depression strikes. Dementia sets in. We cannot help but rail against what we perceive our bodies to be doing to ourselves. Is there a worse form of torture?
Who we are is what we are, and what we are is biological. We are the meat of our makers, but perhaps one day we will have the technology to live in defiance of this fact. I'd settle for being a brain-in-a-vat, but I'd rather be a mind in a machine.
June 5, 2008
June 1, 2008
May 29, 2008
"We're Not Scaremongering - This Is Really Happening"
I wrote my substantial paper (law school graduation requirement) on why the U.S. government should aggressively support technological advancement to combat climate change. Short answer: market failures; political viability; paving the way for a carbon tax or cap-and-trade policy. Climate change is one of those things (unlike, say, nuclear power) about which the more you know, the more scared you should be. Here are excerpts from the beginning and the end of my paper (footnotes omitted, links added):
Climate change is a monumental and dire challenge, arguably the greatest collective action problem that humanity has ever faced. Although there is no consensus on exactly what we must do to “achieve... stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system,” it is unambiguous that greenhouse gas emissions must be stabilized in the medium term and then eventually eliminated. The consequences of business as usual range from severe to catastrophic. If nothing is done to address climate change, climate models predict a rise in average global temperature by two to three degrees Celsius within the next half-century or so, some of which is already underway due to the climate system’s inherently delayed responsiveness. Such an increase would gravely impact the quality of life across the globe, particularly in low-lying coastal areas that are vulnerable to rising sea levels and poor regions that lack the resources to adequately adapt to climatic threats.
The following are some of the more salient and likely effects of global warming. Sea levels will rise due to the melting of glaciers and the expanding volume of water as it warms. This will increase the risk of flooding and permanently displace millions of people, as well as accelerate the rate of warming due to the substantially lower albedo of water compared to ice. The water cycle will intensify because the air’s capacity to hold water increases exponentially with temperature. This will exacerbate the rainy and dry seasons, resulting in more floods and droughts, wreaking havoc on crop yields and water supplies. The oceans will acidify as a direct result of rising carbon dioxide levels, which will have drastic effects on marine ecosystems such as coral reefs and already imperiled fish populations. Terrestrial ecosystems will be disturbed as well, causing the extinction of some 15 to 40 percent of all species, from polar bears to undiscovered Amazonian insects. Storms will pose a more serious and less predictable threat: sudden shifts in regional weather patterns, such as the monsoons and El Niño, will become more frequent, and the intensity of tropical cyclones will increase. Permafrost will melt, releasing methane into the atmosphere and forcing people to abandon their homes. Warmer temperatures will extend the range of tropical, vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever. In warm regions, there will be more cases of heat-related illness and death, and the cold will claim more victims in its domain. In addition to these impacts, there are irreversible and catastrophic risks such as the collapse of one or both ice sheets and the disruption of North Atlantic thermohaline circulation. And these are just the physical consequences. The social and political consequences are also staggering. For countries that can afford to, adaptive responses such as the erection of sea walls and the digging of dikes will divert substantial funds from other productive uses. And when adaptation is impossible or fails, the human costs will be immense. Illness, malnutrition, death, and displacement will take their toll on governments and organizations across the world. Refugees and other desperate people will create conflict and threaten governmental and regional stability. Some governments will respond with repressive measures, risking further escalation.
...
Anthropogenic climate change is upon us, proceeding on a geological scale but in the blink of a geological eye. If the world waits until disaster strikes to marshal its ingenuity, more calamity will inexorably follow. As the world’s largest economy and emitter of greenhouse gases, the United States should be at the vanguard of an international effort to forestall a global tragedy of the commons; instead we are doing tragically little. We can begin to take our place by aggressively supporting the development of the technologies that will be necessary for clean development across the globe. This is a politically realistic approach that will prepare our economy and our mentality for the strict decarbonization that must soon commence. Otherwise, Elizabeth Kolbert’s warning will be a prophecy: “It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing.”
Climate change is a monumental and dire challenge, arguably the greatest collective action problem that humanity has ever faced. Although there is no consensus on exactly what we must do to “achieve... stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system,” it is unambiguous that greenhouse gas emissions must be stabilized in the medium term and then eventually eliminated. The consequences of business as usual range from severe to catastrophic. If nothing is done to address climate change, climate models predict a rise in average global temperature by two to three degrees Celsius within the next half-century or so, some of which is already underway due to the climate system’s inherently delayed responsiveness. Such an increase would gravely impact the quality of life across the globe, particularly in low-lying coastal areas that are vulnerable to rising sea levels and poor regions that lack the resources to adequately adapt to climatic threats.
The following are some of the more salient and likely effects of global warming. Sea levels will rise due to the melting of glaciers and the expanding volume of water as it warms. This will increase the risk of flooding and permanently displace millions of people, as well as accelerate the rate of warming due to the substantially lower albedo of water compared to ice. The water cycle will intensify because the air’s capacity to hold water increases exponentially with temperature. This will exacerbate the rainy and dry seasons, resulting in more floods and droughts, wreaking havoc on crop yields and water supplies. The oceans will acidify as a direct result of rising carbon dioxide levels, which will have drastic effects on marine ecosystems such as coral reefs and already imperiled fish populations. Terrestrial ecosystems will be disturbed as well, causing the extinction of some 15 to 40 percent of all species, from polar bears to undiscovered Amazonian insects. Storms will pose a more serious and less predictable threat: sudden shifts in regional weather patterns, such as the monsoons and El Niño, will become more frequent, and the intensity of tropical cyclones will increase. Permafrost will melt, releasing methane into the atmosphere and forcing people to abandon their homes. Warmer temperatures will extend the range of tropical, vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever. In warm regions, there will be more cases of heat-related illness and death, and the cold will claim more victims in its domain. In addition to these impacts, there are irreversible and catastrophic risks such as the collapse of one or both ice sheets and the disruption of North Atlantic thermohaline circulation. And these are just the physical consequences. The social and political consequences are also staggering. For countries that can afford to, adaptive responses such as the erection of sea walls and the digging of dikes will divert substantial funds from other productive uses. And when adaptation is impossible or fails, the human costs will be immense. Illness, malnutrition, death, and displacement will take their toll on governments and organizations across the world. Refugees and other desperate people will create conflict and threaten governmental and regional stability. Some governments will respond with repressive measures, risking further escalation.
...
Anthropogenic climate change is upon us, proceeding on a geological scale but in the blink of a geological eye. If the world waits until disaster strikes to marshal its ingenuity, more calamity will inexorably follow. As the world’s largest economy and emitter of greenhouse gases, the United States should be at the vanguard of an international effort to forestall a global tragedy of the commons; instead we are doing tragically little. We can begin to take our place by aggressively supporting the development of the technologies that will be necessary for clean development across the globe. This is a politically realistic approach that will prepare our economy and our mentality for the strict decarbonization that must soon commence. Otherwise, Elizabeth Kolbert’s warning will be a prophecy: “It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing.”
May 20, 2008
May 14, 2008
May 10, 2008
Party of Reagan, My Ass
May 9, 2008
"Never Tell Me the Odds!"
Hillary Clinton is pro-war and pro-family!
What can you expect of a campaign that can't tell death throes from saving throws?
What can you expect of a campaign that can't tell death throes from saving throws?
May 8, 2008
May 1, 2008
April 28, 2008
April 27, 2008
It's All Part of My Plan
I'm going to start putting my pants on both legs at a time to disarm the critics of my future hagiographers.
"Lawn may be a great man, but he still puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us."
"Actually, that's not true. And it seems that a trend is catching on--or didn't you notice?"
"Well, uh, he's, uh, still human."
"Actually...."
"Lawn may be a great man, but he still puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us."
"Actually, that's not true. And it seems that a trend is catching on--or didn't you notice?"
"Well, uh, he's, uh, still human."
"Actually...."
April 25, 2008
April 18, 2008
Keeping up with the Murakamis
Here is an excellent site for news and other resources about Haruki Murakami and his work.
April 17, 2008
Overheard in New York
I get the top ten quotes emailed to me each week, and I'd say it's worth two minutes of my time. Genuine or not, there are usually a few gems, such as:
New Yorkers Are Ultra-Sensitive About Color
Guy at bar: And so I keep trying to tell my wife that sienna is not a color.
Girl passing by: Yes it is! Burnt sienna is a crayon you slanderous prick!
--Restaurant, Bleecker Street
Who Knew Getting to Grandmother's House Would Be This Hard?
Chick, a little buzzed: Fleetwood, crestwood, woodlawn ... There's so much wood on this train I can't concentrate.
Boyfriend: [stares at her wide-eyed].
Chick: Oh my god, did I just say that?
Boyfriend: Yes, and at least five guys heard it.
Random guy: I'm one.
--Metro North
Overheard by: I'm two
New Yorkers Are Ultra-Sensitive About Color
Guy at bar: And so I keep trying to tell my wife that sienna is not a color.
Girl passing by: Yes it is! Burnt sienna is a crayon you slanderous prick!
--Restaurant, Bleecker Street
Who Knew Getting to Grandmother's House Would Be This Hard?
Chick, a little buzzed: Fleetwood, crestwood, woodlawn ... There's so much wood on this train I can't concentrate.
Boyfriend: [stares at her wide-eyed].
Chick: Oh my god, did I just say that?
Boyfriend: Yes, and at least five guys heard it.
Random guy: I'm one.
--Metro North
Overheard by: I'm two
April 15, 2008
Some Thoughts on the Death Penalty
In the second half of my Culture and Law seminar, each week we read a draft of a forthcoming article and submit questions to its author. Then the author presents the paper, and we discuss it. This week's paper is by David Garland, and it outlines the changes in capital punishment's forms and functions throughout history. Here are my questions:
1. What are the primary reasons for the modern cultural anxiety about the death penalty in the West? Since your article surveys an extensive time period, you understandably give very general answers to this question. For example: “The fading of capital punishment’s religious aspects”; “the contradiction between traditional conceptions of justice and the newer sense that state violence should be strictly limited and human life carefully preserved and protected”; “the death penalty’s use would be framed as a moral duty that treated individuals as ends, or a utilitarian deterrent that saved human lives....At the same time and for the same reasons, the institution comes increasingly to be surrounded by anxiety, embarrassment, and euphemism." Incidentally, I’m curious about the rationale (“for the same reasons”) of this last explanation. Why do “anxiety, embarrassment, and euphemism” follow from the death penalty being justified on criminological and humanitarian grounds? Suppose the death penalty were indeed effective in these regards; might people feel differently? That said, I’d like to know what specifically you think is responsible for the cultural shift away from capital punishment. Offhand, a few things come to mind. First, people may increasingly believe that all offenders deserve a chance at reform, even reform behind bars; people change (criminal tendencies decline sharply with age), and the state should not completely give up on anyone. Second, people may view the death penalty as inherently brutal (e.g., the violence of the electric chair, the possible pain and/or awareness of the lethally injected). Third, there’s the issue of capital punishment’s unique efficacy as a deterrent, which is dubious at best. Finally, there’s the problem of widespread systemic injustice – particularly, racially motivated death sentences and the executions of innocent people. Which, if any, of these concerns has weighed most heavily on the minds of the general public?
2. I can’t help but ask about “American exceptionalism” with respect to the developed world. What makes us an outlier? Does religion play a role? Is our culture more embracing of retribution? The modern death penalty is clearly not significant for most, if any, state criminal justice systems. Executions are rare, delayed, private, sanitized, and troubling events, reserved for the ugliest and most marginalized offenders. Nevertheless, voters seem to care.
3. How do you think the death penalty has, in turn, affected our culture? I often hear arguments along the lines of “capital punishment brutalizes society,” but they strike me as mostly rhetorical and emotional. Do you think the existence of the death penalty has made people more inclined to view criminals as animalistic, barbaric, and – despite the tension with the previous qualities – evil? Has capital punishment affected people’s general attitudes toward death?
1. What are the primary reasons for the modern cultural anxiety about the death penalty in the West? Since your article surveys an extensive time period, you understandably give very general answers to this question. For example: “The fading of capital punishment’s religious aspects”; “the contradiction between traditional conceptions of justice and the newer sense that state violence should be strictly limited and human life carefully preserved and protected”; “the death penalty’s use would be framed as a moral duty that treated individuals as ends, or a utilitarian deterrent that saved human lives....At the same time and for the same reasons, the institution comes increasingly to be surrounded by anxiety, embarrassment, and euphemism." Incidentally, I’m curious about the rationale (“for the same reasons”) of this last explanation. Why do “anxiety, embarrassment, and euphemism” follow from the death penalty being justified on criminological and humanitarian grounds? Suppose the death penalty were indeed effective in these regards; might people feel differently? That said, I’d like to know what specifically you think is responsible for the cultural shift away from capital punishment. Offhand, a few things come to mind. First, people may increasingly believe that all offenders deserve a chance at reform, even reform behind bars; people change (criminal tendencies decline sharply with age), and the state should not completely give up on anyone. Second, people may view the death penalty as inherently brutal (e.g., the violence of the electric chair, the possible pain and/or awareness of the lethally injected). Third, there’s the issue of capital punishment’s unique efficacy as a deterrent, which is dubious at best. Finally, there’s the problem of widespread systemic injustice – particularly, racially motivated death sentences and the executions of innocent people. Which, if any, of these concerns has weighed most heavily on the minds of the general public?
2. I can’t help but ask about “American exceptionalism” with respect to the developed world. What makes us an outlier? Does religion play a role? Is our culture more embracing of retribution? The modern death penalty is clearly not significant for most, if any, state criminal justice systems. Executions are rare, delayed, private, sanitized, and troubling events, reserved for the ugliest and most marginalized offenders. Nevertheless, voters seem to care.
3. How do you think the death penalty has, in turn, affected our culture? I often hear arguments along the lines of “capital punishment brutalizes society,” but they strike me as mostly rhetorical and emotional. Do you think the existence of the death penalty has made people more inclined to view criminals as animalistic, barbaric, and – despite the tension with the previous qualities – evil? Has capital punishment affected people’s general attitudes toward death?
April 14, 2008
I Paint, Therefore I Am
"Elephants win at life" is what James said when he sent me this amazing video of a pachyderm painting a self-portrait. Would that we weren't trying to get them a game over.
The Nietzschean War
"I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation." -- Nietzsche, The Gay Science (emphasis in original)
Fitting that the creators of the abyss are reluctant to gaze into it.
Fitting that the creators of the abyss are reluctant to gaze into it.
April 13, 2008
Bamboozled
Bamboo epitomizes life: It grows, and it persists. It evinces what Werner Herzog, in Grizzly Man, saw in the bears' eyes: "the overwhelming indifference of nature." Just ask Randy Bothwell.
Iwata Asks
Nintendo's president, Satoru Iwata, interviews people involved in making Wii games, such as Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
April 12, 2008
Amsterdam
Anthony Amsterdam is an incredible lawyer who has tirelessly, (com)passionately, and masterfully battled the death penalty for over four decades. He successfully argued Furman v. Georgia, in which the Supreme Court held that the state's arbitrary and inconsistent (read: capricious and racially discriminatory) application of capital punishment violated the Eighth Amendment. My law journal recently dedicated its annual dedication issue to him. It was inspiring to hear various colleagues and students of his pay tribute. It made me wish I'd prepared for a career in appellate litigation. Amsterdam began his acceptance speech with one of many attempts at modestly stemming the tide of praise, roughly: "In the story of Paul Bunyan, which the panelists have reworked, he was accompanied by Babe the Blue Ox. So it is not surprising that they have given you such a load of bull!" Far from it, apparently.
Greatly Exaggerated
My blog is not dood; reports of his doodness have been greatly exaggerated. Here is my blog's official statement on the matter:
Friends, strangers, enemies,
I understand why some of you may have imagined me in protracted death throes--multiple reasons come to mind--but I assure you that my past month has been dominated by a very different activity: incubation. Yes, all of that milkweed consumption was not for naught. I have emerged from my cocoon more poisonous than ever, but without any cautionary garishness. (I am above the laws of nature.)
Now, whether you consider my metamorphosis an evolution is up to you. That said, be thankful that I live at all! My content will now consist chiefly of interesting links with brief commentary.
Friends, strangers, enemies,
I understand why some of you may have imagined me in protracted death throes--multiple reasons come to mind--but I assure you that my past month has been dominated by a very different activity: incubation. Yes, all of that milkweed consumption was not for naught. I have emerged from my cocoon more poisonous than ever, but without any cautionary garishness. (I am above the laws of nature.)
Now, whether you consider my metamorphosis an evolution is up to you. That said, be thankful that I live at all! My content will now consist chiefly of interesting links with brief commentary.
Tread lightly,
The Dumping Ground
The Dumping Ground
February 27, 2008
Lincoln's Legacy
Maybe we'd be better off without American heroes, but as far as I know, Abraham Lincoln is as good a choice as any. David Armacost disagrees, and I responded to his character assassination attempt. I guess that pretty much makes me an American hero, too.
February 26, 2008
The Constitution According to Akhil Amar - Class 6
Fear not: there was no class last week, and we now return to our regularly scheduled programming.
Class 6 (Chapter 6)
Class 6 (Chapter 6)
February 23, 2008
Maybe Because You Choked?
Vanity Fair on George Lucas on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull:
Whatever, Lucas is convinced he won't please everyone. "I know the critics are going to hate it," he says. "They already hate it. So there's nothing we can do about that. They hate the idea that we're making another one. They've already made up their minds."
At least the legions of Indy geeks will be pleased, right?
"The fans are all upset," Lucas says. "They're always going to be upset. 'Why did he do it like this? And why didn't he do it like this?' They write their own movie, and then, if you don't do their movie, they get upset about it. So you just have to stand by for the bricks and the custard pies, because they're going to come flying your way."
February 20, 2008
Idioteque - Trialogue About Climate Change, or Just Disco?
"Idioteque" by Radiohead
Who's in a bunker?
Who's in a bunker?
Women and children first
And the children first
And the children
I'll laugh until my head comes off
I'll swallow till I burst
Until I burst
Until I
Who's in a bunker?
Who's in a bunker?
I have seen too much
I haven't seen enough
You haven't seen it
I'll laugh until my head comes off
Women and children first
And children first
And children
Here I'm allowed
Everything all of the time
Here I'm allowed
Everything all of the time
Ice age coming
Ice age coming
Let me hear both sides
Let me hear both sides
Let me hear both
Ice age coming
Ice age coming
Throw it on the fire
Throw it on the fire
Throw it on the
We're not scaremongering
This is really happening
Happening
We're not scaremongering
This is really happening
Happening
Mobiles skwrking
Mobiles chirping
Take the money run
Take the money run
Take the money
Here I'm allowed
Everything all of the time
Here I'm allowed
Everything all of the time
Here I'm allowed
Everything all of the time
Here I'm allowed
Everything all of the time
Who's in a bunker?
Who's in a bunker?
Women and children first
And the children first
And the children
I'll laugh until my head comes off
I'll swallow till I burst
Until I burst
Until I
Who's in a bunker?
Who's in a bunker?
I have seen too much
I haven't seen enough
You haven't seen it
I'll laugh until my head comes off
Women and children first
And children first
And children
Here I'm allowed
Everything all of the time
Here I'm allowed
Everything all of the time
Ice age coming
Ice age coming
Let me hear both sides
Let me hear both sides
Let me hear both
Ice age coming
Ice age coming
Throw it on the fire
Throw it on the fire
Throw it on the
We're not scaremongering
This is really happening
Happening
We're not scaremongering
This is really happening
Happening
Mobiles skwrking
Mobiles chirping
Take the money run
Take the money run
Take the money
Here I'm allowed
Everything all of the time
Here I'm allowed
Everything all of the time
Here I'm allowed
Everything all of the time
Here I'm allowed
Everything all of the time
A Dialogue on Mandatory Abortion
Preface
This potentially ongoing exchange grew out of an earlier post in which I offhandedly defended the horrible-sounding practice of mandatory abortion (in the case of even more horrible, and incurable, diseases and conditions, that is).
Dialogue
Anonymous
I had a question or two about your stance on mandatory abortions. If all babies with a certain disease (for example, Tay-Sachs) are aborted, doesn't that completely destroy the incentive and ability to find a cure for that disease? Forget drug trials for that disease. Also, let's say that there's a 2% chance that the disease will not kill the person whom it afflicts, and a 98% chance that it will result in a terrible horrible death. Is that a high enough probability to require abortion? If so, isn't that probability still lower than what the judicial system should require for imposing non-lethal punishment upon a criminal defendant?
Me
It seems clear that aborting everyone with a given incurable disease would almost certainly prevent a cure. But I don't think it's worth it in certain cases. Many people would suffer and die in the costly search for a cure. On the other hand, many families would have to get abortions. Certainly the latter is a painful process - but not necessarily more painful overall than the search for a cure. I think it depends a lot on the specifics.
I'm not sure about the point of your criminal punishment analogy. In my view, a mandatory abortion requirement would depend on the expected value of a life with a given disease or condition. It would only apply in extreme cases and at the discretion of state-appointed experts who reviewed the findings of the primary ob/gyn doctors (who would be obligated to report certain diseases and conditions that met a some high standard). I'm not sure what, if any, exceptions would apply. I'm inclined to think that ideally there would be none - what could justify creating a life with something along the lines of infantile Tay-Sachs? I'm also realizing that it would be quite difficult to craft a mandatory abortion requirement, aside from the obvious objections of certain groups of people. Anyway, my response to your punishment analogy is that the relative harms of false positives and false negatives are different in the punishment and mandatory abortion contexts. I think it's worse to convict an innocent person than to mandate the abortion of a fetus that wouldn't have led a sufficiently bad life. And I think it's often more harmful to allow the birth of a baby with a sufficiently bad disease or condition than it is to let a guilty person go free. Note also that the mandatory abortion provision would only apply when a test indicates that the fetus has a disease or condition; perhaps the provision should only rely on tests that are virtually flawless. Then the only question is the expected value of life with the disease or condition. Now that I think about it, the implication of my position - which I'm fine with - is mandatory euthanasia for the incompetent in some cases (e.g., infanticide as an alternative to mandatory abortion when no sufficiently reliable prenatal test is available). To me the real problems are practical; this would be some statute to draft.
Anonymous
You're right that people would die painful deaths while humanity searches for a cure. But once a cure is found, then most -- if not all -- of the people with that disease henceforth will be able to lead full and, I assume, relatively painless lives. That condition will last forever, meaning that potentially countless lives will be saved by the cure. I agree that you have to consider the expected value of a life, and that a horrifically painful life will have quite a negative expected value. But if you really want to aggregate expected values here, don't you think that the value added by a cure, multiplied repeatedly for as long as mankind exists and uses that cure, would be quite large, and would probably result in a net positive value? I suppose you can make the argument that you're then subjecting the disease-afflicted children, who are born before a cure is found, to immeasurable suffering for the sake of speculative children in the future. And perhaps you can't add expected values of different people together. I haven't taken the time to think about my intuitions on this, but to me, something feels wrong about simply acquiescing to a disease instead of trying to find a way to cure it. Of course, this assumes that a cure can be discovered at all, let alone in the reasonably near future. In that respect, you're correct that it depends a lot on the specifics.
I'm going to leave alone your response to my criminal punishment analogy. Not only was your response effective, but also all this talk about Tay-Sachs and mandatory abortion....
Me
I take issue with the way in which you're valuing the cure. You implicitly assume that the alternative to the cure is countless afflicted people over time. But mandatory abortion/infanticide would prevent these people from coming into being. Thus the relevant cost (broadly speaking) is the cost of the mandatory procedure, which is certainly significant but pales in comparison to innumerable cases of suffering and death. It may be better to abort a diseased fetus even if a cure is readily available, because the cost of not having a child or of conceiving another child may be lower than the cost of treating the child (especially if treatment is risky or limited). In short, a cure doesn't necessarily have net positive value in the case of diseases that make lives not worth living and can be detected before or at birth.
I can see why one would view abortion as a form of acquiescence, but that's a matter of perspective, not a normative point. Besides, there's no inherent value to "fighting." It may feel better (more noble or whatnot), but does it do the most good?
I also want to note the undesirable implications of treating the values of lives as incommensurable. This may be attractive, but the alternative to measurement, however flawed, is no rational basis for decision-making. Consider environmental goods, such as the existence of bonobos, for example. Some may consider them "priceless," but this is belied by these people's willingness to trade them off for other goods. The real issue is valuation. (Should it be based on willingness to pay? Willingness to accept? Something else? How, if at all, can differential levels of wealth be accounted for?)
This potentially ongoing exchange grew out of an earlier post in which I offhandedly defended the horrible-sounding practice of mandatory abortion (in the case of even more horrible, and incurable, diseases and conditions, that is).
Dialogue
Anonymous
I had a question or two about your stance on mandatory abortions. If all babies with a certain disease (for example, Tay-Sachs) are aborted, doesn't that completely destroy the incentive and ability to find a cure for that disease? Forget drug trials for that disease. Also, let's say that there's a 2% chance that the disease will not kill the person whom it afflicts, and a 98% chance that it will result in a terrible horrible death. Is that a high enough probability to require abortion? If so, isn't that probability still lower than what the judicial system should require for imposing non-lethal punishment upon a criminal defendant?
Me
It seems clear that aborting everyone with a given incurable disease would almost certainly prevent a cure. But I don't think it's worth it in certain cases. Many people would suffer and die in the costly search for a cure. On the other hand, many families would have to get abortions. Certainly the latter is a painful process - but not necessarily more painful overall than the search for a cure. I think it depends a lot on the specifics.
I'm not sure about the point of your criminal punishment analogy. In my view, a mandatory abortion requirement would depend on the expected value of a life with a given disease or condition. It would only apply in extreme cases and at the discretion of state-appointed experts who reviewed the findings of the primary ob/gyn doctors (who would be obligated to report certain diseases and conditions that met a some high standard). I'm not sure what, if any, exceptions would apply. I'm inclined to think that ideally there would be none - what could justify creating a life with something along the lines of infantile Tay-Sachs? I'm also realizing that it would be quite difficult to craft a mandatory abortion requirement, aside from the obvious objections of certain groups of people. Anyway, my response to your punishment analogy is that the relative harms of false positives and false negatives are different in the punishment and mandatory abortion contexts. I think it's worse to convict an innocent person than to mandate the abortion of a fetus that wouldn't have led a sufficiently bad life. And I think it's often more harmful to allow the birth of a baby with a sufficiently bad disease or condition than it is to let a guilty person go free. Note also that the mandatory abortion provision would only apply when a test indicates that the fetus has a disease or condition; perhaps the provision should only rely on tests that are virtually flawless. Then the only question is the expected value of life with the disease or condition. Now that I think about it, the implication of my position - which I'm fine with - is mandatory euthanasia for the incompetent in some cases (e.g., infanticide as an alternative to mandatory abortion when no sufficiently reliable prenatal test is available). To me the real problems are practical; this would be some statute to draft.
Anonymous
You're right that people would die painful deaths while humanity searches for a cure. But once a cure is found, then most -- if not all -- of the people with that disease henceforth will be able to lead full and, I assume, relatively painless lives. That condition will last forever, meaning that potentially countless lives will be saved by the cure. I agree that you have to consider the expected value of a life, and that a horrifically painful life will have quite a negative expected value. But if you really want to aggregate expected values here, don't you think that the value added by a cure, multiplied repeatedly for as long as mankind exists and uses that cure, would be quite large, and would probably result in a net positive value? I suppose you can make the argument that you're then subjecting the disease-afflicted children, who are born before a cure is found, to immeasurable suffering for the sake of speculative children in the future. And perhaps you can't add expected values of different people together. I haven't taken the time to think about my intuitions on this, but to me, something feels wrong about simply acquiescing to a disease instead of trying to find a way to cure it. Of course, this assumes that a cure can be discovered at all, let alone in the reasonably near future. In that respect, you're correct that it depends a lot on the specifics.
I'm going to leave alone your response to my criminal punishment analogy. Not only was your response effective, but also all this talk about Tay-Sachs and mandatory abortion....
Me
I take issue with the way in which you're valuing the cure. You implicitly assume that the alternative to the cure is countless afflicted people over time. But mandatory abortion/infanticide would prevent these people from coming into being. Thus the relevant cost (broadly speaking) is the cost of the mandatory procedure, which is certainly significant but pales in comparison to innumerable cases of suffering and death. It may be better to abort a diseased fetus even if a cure is readily available, because the cost of not having a child or of conceiving another child may be lower than the cost of treating the child (especially if treatment is risky or limited). In short, a cure doesn't necessarily have net positive value in the case of diseases that make lives not worth living and can be detected before or at birth.
I can see why one would view abortion as a form of acquiescence, but that's a matter of perspective, not a normative point. Besides, there's no inherent value to "fighting." It may feel better (more noble or whatnot), but does it do the most good?
I also want to note the undesirable implications of treating the values of lives as incommensurable. This may be attractive, but the alternative to measurement, however flawed, is no rational basis for decision-making. Consider environmental goods, such as the existence of bonobos, for example. Some may consider them "priceless," but this is belied by these people's willingness to trade them off for other goods. The real issue is valuation. (Should it be based on willingness to pay? Willingness to accept? Something else? How, if at all, can differential levels of wealth be accounted for?)
February 19, 2008
February 18, 2008
The Limits of Litigation
This week's readings in my Culture and Law seminar focus on the shortcomings of law's standardization, ritualization, and creation of disputes. The articles invite us to reflect upon why some people deem legal redress inadequate or even inappropriate, and how the legal system should respond to these concerns.
A natural question is whether civil litigation should be more accessible, and, if so, how this can be accomplished without undermining its goals. Society enshrines litigation as the preeminent method of dispute resolution, but it is only realistically contemplated by a narrow set of people with a narrow set of disputes. Many people find it too daunting, too onerous, and too formal. (For every example of pathological litigiousness, there are surely hundreds of aggrieved individuals who found the barriers to entry to be too high.) But these reactions are, to a large extent, necessary byproducts of litigation's extensive procedural requirements; litigation is a mechanism designed to deal with the most significant bilateral conflicts and as such must go to great lengths to achieve accuracy, fairness, the appearance of propriety, and other values. In short, the rules of litigation must presume that there is a lot at stake. Society's recent response to the inaccessibility of litigation has been to provide an abundance of alternative means of dispute resolution, both inside (e.g., small claims court) and outside (e.g., arbitration) of the judicial system, as opposed to streamlining the process or reducing its costs. This strikes me as the appropriate response. I don't know of any major procedural reforms along the lines of notice pleading that would uncontroversially open the courtroom door to more plaintiffs. (As far as I know, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the like are quite effective and are unhindered by political concerns or undue formalism.) In my view, therefore, significantly improving the accessibility of the civil justice system would require providing litigants with substantial financial assistance (e.g., by capping litigation expenditures or providing court-appointed counsel). I don't see why this would be preferable to the use of cheaper, less involved methods of dispute resolution. Is there anything wrong with full-fledged civil litigation being reserved for cases in which both parties expect to win big? What matters is that people recognize when they have been illegally injured and know that they have a feasible means of redress. This is consistent with William L. F. Felstiner, Richard L. Abel, and Austin Sarat's concern that "the study of the emergence and transformation of disputes may lead to the judgment that too little conflict surfaces in our society, that too few wrongs are perceived, pursued, and remedied."
This leads to the question of what should be done to facilitate the redress of relatively minor legal grievances. How should alternative dispute resolution mechanisms be designed? To what extent should they be promoted? In answering these questions, it's useful to consider what dissuades people from litigation aside from its costs. Austin Sarat's analysis of The Sweet Hereafter illustrates that litigation is an inherently adversarial process, both between and within each side of the "v." Indeed, the very definition of a side, as in a class action, is a process fraught with conflict. Even a team of one lawyer and one client must agree on a single narrative and strategy; as the parties multiply, so do the potential disagreements. A central difficulty is the disparity between the lawyer's and the layperson's conception of dispute resolution. Inexperienced litigants have to come to grips with counterintuitive aspects of litigation that lawyers take for granted, such as formality (e.g., rules of evidence), artificiality (e.g., witness coaching), and extensiveness (e.g., discovery). Ideally one's lawyer should counsel her about unrealistic expectations, but some lawyers are more concerned about retaining clients, and some clients are obsessed with vindication. Regarding the relationship between the opposing sides, Sarat makes it clear that civil litigation, like its criminal counterpart, entails one party blaming the other. I'm sure that even in cases of strict liability, many people view the defendant as having done something immoral. After all, it's always in a party's interests to demonize its opponent and glorify itself if it can get away with it. Understandably, many people don't want to partake in such a process, especially, as in The Sweet Hereafter, when the alleged wrongdoer is remote and any amount of damages would be fundamentally inadequate. Under such circumstances, all that a trial would do for some victims' families is keep their wounds open. This brief discussion suggests some dimensions along which it may be important to distinguish alternative dispute resolution proceedings from litigation. Such proceedings should generally be less formal, less ritualized, more open to individuals' natural narratives, and more flexible about assigning fault and remedies. In sum, what works for litigants often does not work for aggrieved parties who are turned off or intimidated by litigation's ceremony, stiffness, combativeness, and structure.
Overall, it's important to investigate what causes people to have a lack of faith in litigation. We can then ask whether the aspects of litigation that are to blame are worth it, and whether they should be maintained in alternative proceedings intended to resolve different types of disputes among different types of disputants.
A natural question is whether civil litigation should be more accessible, and, if so, how this can be accomplished without undermining its goals. Society enshrines litigation as the preeminent method of dispute resolution, but it is only realistically contemplated by a narrow set of people with a narrow set of disputes. Many people find it too daunting, too onerous, and too formal. (For every example of pathological litigiousness, there are surely hundreds of aggrieved individuals who found the barriers to entry to be too high.) But these reactions are, to a large extent, necessary byproducts of litigation's extensive procedural requirements; litigation is a mechanism designed to deal with the most significant bilateral conflicts and as such must go to great lengths to achieve accuracy, fairness, the appearance of propriety, and other values. In short, the rules of litigation must presume that there is a lot at stake. Society's recent response to the inaccessibility of litigation has been to provide an abundance of alternative means of dispute resolution, both inside (e.g., small claims court) and outside (e.g., arbitration) of the judicial system, as opposed to streamlining the process or reducing its costs. This strikes me as the appropriate response. I don't know of any major procedural reforms along the lines of notice pleading that would uncontroversially open the courtroom door to more plaintiffs. (As far as I know, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the like are quite effective and are unhindered by political concerns or undue formalism.) In my view, therefore, significantly improving the accessibility of the civil justice system would require providing litigants with substantial financial assistance (e.g., by capping litigation expenditures or providing court-appointed counsel). I don't see why this would be preferable to the use of cheaper, less involved methods of dispute resolution. Is there anything wrong with full-fledged civil litigation being reserved for cases in which both parties expect to win big? What matters is that people recognize when they have been illegally injured and know that they have a feasible means of redress. This is consistent with William L. F. Felstiner, Richard L. Abel, and Austin Sarat's concern that "the study of the emergence and transformation of disputes may lead to the judgment that too little conflict surfaces in our society, that too few wrongs are perceived, pursued, and remedied."
This leads to the question of what should be done to facilitate the redress of relatively minor legal grievances. How should alternative dispute resolution mechanisms be designed? To what extent should they be promoted? In answering these questions, it's useful to consider what dissuades people from litigation aside from its costs. Austin Sarat's analysis of The Sweet Hereafter illustrates that litigation is an inherently adversarial process, both between and within each side of the "v." Indeed, the very definition of a side, as in a class action, is a process fraught with conflict. Even a team of one lawyer and one client must agree on a single narrative and strategy; as the parties multiply, so do the potential disagreements. A central difficulty is the disparity between the lawyer's and the layperson's conception of dispute resolution. Inexperienced litigants have to come to grips with counterintuitive aspects of litigation that lawyers take for granted, such as formality (e.g., rules of evidence), artificiality (e.g., witness coaching), and extensiveness (e.g., discovery). Ideally one's lawyer should counsel her about unrealistic expectations, but some lawyers are more concerned about retaining clients, and some clients are obsessed with vindication. Regarding the relationship between the opposing sides, Sarat makes it clear that civil litigation, like its criminal counterpart, entails one party blaming the other. I'm sure that even in cases of strict liability, many people view the defendant as having done something immoral. After all, it's always in a party's interests to demonize its opponent and glorify itself if it can get away with it. Understandably, many people don't want to partake in such a process, especially, as in The Sweet Hereafter, when the alleged wrongdoer is remote and any amount of damages would be fundamentally inadequate. Under such circumstances, all that a trial would do for some victims' families is keep their wounds open. This brief discussion suggests some dimensions along which it may be important to distinguish alternative dispute resolution proceedings from litigation. Such proceedings should generally be less formal, less ritualized, more open to individuals' natural narratives, and more flexible about assigning fault and remedies. In sum, what works for litigants often does not work for aggrieved parties who are turned off or intimidated by litigation's ceremony, stiffness, combativeness, and structure.
Overall, it's important to investigate what causes people to have a lack of faith in litigation. We can then ask whether the aspects of litigation that are to blame are worth it, and whether they should be maintained in alternative proceedings intended to resolve different types of disputes among different types of disputants.
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