The Modo Blog

Tienanmen Square Anniversary: The Day After June 3rd is June 4th

2006-06-05T10:42:00.000-04:00

Despite Google's promise to the People's Republic of China that "the day after June 3rd is June 5th", the 17th anniversary of the Tienanmen Square crackdown did in fact come and go this weekend, though with little fanfare in the Middle Kingdom.

Victor Frankl comes to mind--"What is to give light must endure burning."

Da Vinci Code: Why Now?

2006-05-30T20:42:00.000-04:00

Why is The Da Vinci Code so popular? I had the misfortune of first experiencing it as a book on tape, which renders it ridiculous, perhaps because Dan Brown's adjective-laden descriptive prose doesn't hold up to being spoken out loud.

More interesting than the story, I think, is the book itself as a phenomenon. Sloppily written suspense tales based on the Magdelene mystery have been written before; why does this premise strike a chord at this moment in history?

There are a number of strands of cultural change going on right now in the US, that The Da Vinci Code pulls together. The most visible is the worldwide surge in religious involvement--among Evangelical denominations particularly. This trend may not need exposition, but in brief it is seen in the expansion of megachurches and the growing importance of fundamentalist Christian voters as a bloc.

A related phenomenon is the way in which decline of the ascendence of the secular humanist worldview has occurred, namely, disenfranchisement of a generation of young adults with a radically pluralistic morality. I think it was Napoleon who once said that to understand a man, you have to know what was going on in the world when he was 20 years old. The generation shaped by September 11, 2001 will be much more confident passing moral judgements based in absolute principles than the generation forged in the moral disillusionment of Vietnam and Watergate and reacting against McCarthyism and totalitarianism. No system of morality that leaves a hint of room permitting Islamism is tolerable. Rooting absolute principles requires a source of authority--today religion seems preferred over political ideologies.

This is not to say that secular institutions are losing significant power or influence, but that secular sources of knowledge have lost some of the authority that they had. In the 1960s, it was reasonable to think that rational application of human organizations could eliminate poverty and cancer in a generation; today such notions seem hoplessly naive.

The third trend is a crisis of feminism. So-called "Liberal Feminism"--the brand of feminism focused on attaining equal political and economic rights for women--has achieved a large swath of its goals in the 20th century, but as Cathi Hanauer has shown, the project of "liberal feminism" has proven more complex than initially envisioned. Using Kegan's terms, we might say that post-feminist America has developed the holding environment to help women achieve the Institutional Self, but not to support them once they've gotten there. Men and women need to try to make meaning of its unfinished work within their own families and relationships, but they are reluctant to reject its ideals of equal pay for equal work and opposition to sex discrimination, and rightly so. As they re-negotiate roles and identities, they identify with dominant cultural metaphors, simultaneously taking mythical figures as role models and projecting themselves onto them. The figure of Mary Magdalene admits of so many powerful interpretations--forgiven woman sinner, strong woman companion misunderstood as harlot, early church mother--that she is a good choice for such meaning-making.

The Da Vinci Code had the second highest box-office opening ever despite aweful reviews. It may be a coincidence that a movie about the supression of the truth that Mary Magdalene was Jesus' wife and a chuch leader is wildly popular at a moment that religous discourse is ascending, secular discourse is losing authority, and feminism's project is leaving women wrestling with questions of family, workplace, identity and priorities. But I doubt it.

Speech and Debate: No Immunity from Corruption or the Constitution

2006-05-25T16:00:00.000-04:00

Arguments that the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution does not cover bribery often invoke existing caselaw that has found that it applies to activities directly involved in legislating (even speeches and press releases outside the halls of Congress), and since taking a bribe is not inherent in lawmaking that the FBI's raid on Mr. Jefferson's offices is not prohibited. Outside the Beltway makes this argument well.

However, I think this argument addresses the wrong question. It is off the mark to imply that some contend that bribery should not be investigated and prosecuted. The issue at hand is whether the raid itself interfered with an activity inherent in lawmaking, and I would argue that it did: privacy of the legislator's office. Members of Congress need assurance of confidentiality of the many sensitive materials that their work exposes them to--both personal communications in the daily business of politics, and information about national security or delicate foreign relations issues they handle. The Supreme Court has clearly considered Speech and Debate to include written documents, and that must include those held in congressional offices.

Subpoena, rather than search and seizure, should be the preferred method of obtaining evidence to investigate congressional corruption. Forcibly obtaining documents by midnight raid creates and atmosphere of siege, and will encourage congressional offices to take pre-emptive countermeasures that may make corruption investigations more difficult to undertake in the future.

The privledge of Speech and Debate, broadly conceived, stemmed from the English Bill of Rights as a response to Tudor monarchs' intimidation of members of parliament. Let us hope that we don't confuse the legitimacy of investigating corruption with the illegitimacy of violating a Constitutional clause and a principle of government that ensures that the bills passed by Congress are not just a rubber stamp for the will of the Executive.

Hybrid Cars: The Indirect Solution to Oil Prices?

2006-05-17T20:50:00.000-04:00

The Quaker Economist recently posted an article arguing that the benefit of hybrid cars is not in the short-term fuel economy they provide, but as a technological springboard to developing small enough, efficient enough battery car systems that will permit plug-in cars in the medium-term future.

I had previously argued that alternative fuels per se would not be the answer to the current energy crisis. That is, we must be clear if a given energy system is truly a novel energy source, or just a novel distribution system. For instance, hydrogen is really a novel distribution system, since there is no obviously most efficient means of production, so the administration's prior promises to extensively research hydrogen was not probably the best policy strategy. A fuel like biodiesel however has already a distribution system to plug into, and constitutes a bridge technology from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources.

The possibility of plug-in battery cars evolving from hybrid cars fits this analysis nicely as well. While battery cars would not themselves solve the demand for energy, by allowing oil-run plants to compete against nuclear, hydro, and other sources, overall energy costs would be expected to decline. As newer, cheaper means of electricity production are developed, plants with the innovations can be simply added to the existing power grid, without significant changes to the vehicles themselves. And this without the massive infrastructure investment required by a hydrogen fuel system.

That being said, I do not believe that the government should significantly subsidize hybrid car consumption. It is absurd for the federal government to support buying a hybrid SUV that gets worse milage than a non-hybrid sedan. Any federal incentives should be based on milage alone, for the government's goal is properly a more short-term effect of reducing national oil consumption. Hybrids have enough traction in the market that auto companies should be allowed to compete for smaller and more efficient designs with minimal government market distortion.

Lessons from China on Dealing with Africa

2006-05-11T11:21:00.000-04:00

The US needs to relearn how to win friends and influence nations, and the Chinese experience in Africa holds good lessons, according to a recent American Foreign Policy Council report.

How does China obtain resources, build trade, and win African nations to its side? In January, Beijing released an official China-Africa policy white paper, a document remarkable for the broad range of issues it covers. The white paper offers some clues into Beijing's strategy in Africa. First, China is dramatically boosting its aid and economic support to Africa-aid it can provide with few strings, at the same time as international financial institutions, like the World Bank, increasingly link aid disbursements in the developing world to good governance and anticorruption initiatives.

Chinese aid to the continent has become more sophisticated. While China once focused on large buildings-sports stadiums in Gambia and Sierra Leone, for example-it has increasingly used aid to support infrastructure creation that then also helps Chinese companies, and to directly woo African elites. In 2002, China gave $1.8 billion in development aid to its African allies. (Beijing has since then stopped officially reporting its aid, making a complete and accurate tally impossible.)

China has also used debt relief to assist African nations, effectively turning loans into grants. Since 2000, Beijing has taken significant steps to cancel the debt of 31 African countries. In 2000, China wrote off $1.2 billion in African debt; in 2003 it forgave another $750 million. Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has proclaimed that "China's exemplary endeavor to ease African countries' debt problem is indeed a true expression of solidarity and commitment." Debt relief has been an excellent public relations tool for Beijing because it not only garners popular support but also allows for two positive press events: the first to provide the loan, the second to relieve the debt.

In addition to increased aid, China's outreach includes efforts to boost its soft power in Africa. This is evident in a growing focus on promoting Chinese cultural and language studies on the continent. In 2003, 1,793 African students studied in China, representing one-third of total foreign students that year. Indeed, China plans to train some 10,000 Africans per year, including many future African opinion leaders who once might have trained in the West.

Beijing also seeks to establish "Confucius Institutes" in Africa-programs at leading local universities, funded by Beijing and devoted to China studies and Chinese language training. Already, in Asia, Confucius Institutes have proved effective in encouraging graduate students to focus on China studies and, ultimately, to study in China. Meanwhile, Chinese medical schools and physicians train African doctors and provide medicine and equipment free of charge to African countries.

Through these programs and exchanges, China develops trust by investing in long-term relationships with African elites that formerly might have been educated in London or Washington. Beijing is also working to encourage tourism in Africa, partly in an effort to develop cultural ties. The government has approved 16 African countries as outbound destinations for Chinese tourists, including Ethiopia, Kenya, and Zimbabwe. This pushed the number of Africa's Chinese tourists to 110,000 in 2005, a 100 percent increase over 2004, according to Chinese government figures.

In particular, the US cannot afford to lose its status as THE place for the best and brightest in the world to get an education. The brain draw of US universities is the enduring insurance of maintaining innovation, and a widespread deep understanding of American values among the influential classes of other countries.

h/t Simon World

GW Bush, First Citzen

2006-05-02T16:45:00.000-04:00

I'm afraid the blogging has been sparce with a lot of business to attend to, but this is important stuff I wanted to pass on. A recent copyrighted Boston Globe article detailing GW Bush's practice of writing 'signing statements' when he signs laws, many of which run directly contradictory to the very letter of the law being signed.

March 9, [2006]: Justice Department officials must give reports to Congress by certain dates on how the FBI is using the USA Patriot Act to search homes and secretly seize papers.
Bush's signing statement: The president can order Justice Department officials to withhold any information from Congress if he decides it could impair national security or executive branch operations.

Dec. 30, 2005: US interrogators cannot torture prisoners or otherwise subject them to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.
Bush's signing statement: the president, as commander in chief, can waive the torture ban if he decides that harsh interrogation techniques will assist in preventing terrorist attacks.

Dec. 30: When requested, scientific information ''prepared by government researchers and scientists shall be transmitted [to Congress] uncensored and without delay."
Bush's signing statement: The president can tell researchers to withhold any information from Congress if he decides its disclosure could impair foreign relations, national security, or the workings of the executive branch.

Aug. 8: The Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and its contractors may not fire or otherwise punish an employee whistle-blower who tells Congress about possible wrongdoing.
Bush's signing statement: The president or his appointees will determine whether employees of the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission can give information to Congress.

Dec. 23, 2004: Forbids US troops in Colombia from participating in any combat against rebels, except in cases of self-defense. Caps the number of US troops allowed in Colombia at 800.
Bush's signing statement: Only the president, as commander in chief, can place restrictions on the use of US armed forces, so the executive branch will construe the law ''as advisory in nature."

Dec. 17: The new national intelligence director shall recruit and train women and minorities to be spies, analysts, and translators in order to ensure diversity in the intelligence community.
Bush's signing statement: The executive branch shall construe the law in a manner consistent with a constitutional clause guaranteeing ''equal protection" for all. (In 2003, the Bush administration argued against race-conscious affirmative-action programs in a Supreme Court case. The court rejected Bush's view [this is a clear case where the signing statement directly contravenes prior U.S. Supreme Court decisions].)

Oct. 29: Defense Department personnel are prohibited from interfering with the ability of military lawyers to give independent legal advice to their commanders.
Bush's signing statement: All military attorneys are bound to follow legal conclusions reached by the administration's lawyers in the Justice Department and the Pentagon when giving advice to their commanders.

Aug. 5: The military cannot add to its files any illegally gathered intelligence, including information obtained about Americans in violation of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches.
Bush's signing statement: Only the president, as commander in chief, can tell the military whether or not it can use any specific piece of intelligence.

Nov. 6, 2003: US officials in Iraq cannot prevent an inspector general for the Coalition Provisional Authority from carrying out any investigation. The inspector general must tell Congress if officials refuse to cooperate with his inquiries.
Bush's signing statement: The inspector general ''shall refrain" from investigating anything involving sensitive plans, intelligence, national security, or anything already being investigated by the Pentagon. The inspector cannot tell Congress anything if the president decides that disclosing the information would impair foreign relations, national security, or executive branch operations.

Nov. 5, 2002: Creates an Institute of Education Sciences whose director may conduct and publish research ''without the approval of the secretary [of education] or any other office of the department."
Bush's signing statement: The president has the power to control the actions of all executive branch officials, so ''the director of the Institute of Education Sciences shall [be] subject to the supervision and direction of the secretary of education."

Hat tip to Boston Progressive.

Let your Senator or Representative know if you think this constitutional back door is dangerous and needs to be stopped.

Turning Points in Medicine

2006-04-10T13:36:00.000-04:00

Sherwin Nuland lists top 5 books that were turning points in medicine in this weekend's Wall Street Journal:

1. Interpretation of Dreams by Freud
2. The Double Helix by James Watson
3. The Silent World of Doctor and Patient by Jay Katz
4. Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif
5. The Merck Manual of Medical Information: Home Edition

To that list I would add On Doctoring, an anthology of writings about the art of medicine commonly given out to US medical students at the beginning of their training.

H/t Med Pundit

The Ecology of Polarization

2006-04-06T10:04:00.000-04:00

Centrists are so often frustrated with the black-and-white thinking of the political Left and Right that I think it's worth reflecting on the useful role each political pole plays in the ecology of our political system.

Perhaps most importantly, the Left and Right wings supply much of the energy into the political system. While solutions may come about from compromise and persuasion, the movement toward resolution of problems is often sustained by pressure from one or the other political pole. It is much like the relationship between the Id and the Ego--the extremes supply the drive, the centrists find the solutions.

That formulation makes sense in terms of the routine operation of the government, but the more dramatic functions of the extremes are seen when societal paradigm shifts happen. Without a Left and a Right, we never would have seen either the civil rights movement of the 60s or the arrest in growth of the welfare state of the 80s-90s. The poles often supply the Big Ideas, or champion them before they have a chance to win general acceptance.

Finally, even if centrists had all the answers to the social and political problems of the day, unfortunately much of their impetus to action comes from a need to counter what they see as harmful initiatives by the political poles, and replace them with their own intitiatives. In this way, the Left and the Right prompt those in the Center to become politically active when they might otherwise not be.

So next time you're discussing abortion or Iraq with a liberal or conservative who just digs in his heels, try not to get too frustrated. He's chosen his role in the political ecology, and it's all just the circle of life.

The Peter Pans of Generation Y

2006-04-04T16:56:00.000-04:00

Are the young men of Generation Y (today's 20-somethings) more listless than their forebears? Alan Stewart Carl comments on a Leonard Sax Wa Po column:

Within the last 30 years, marriage rates have been sinking and those getting married are doing so later in life. So, whereas young men in their 20s used to get married and then need a good job to support their family, now they don’t get married and thus don’t need a good job. Young men today simply do not have the responsibilities young men used to have.

But why hasn’t the decline in marriage also led to many more woman living at home? I think this has to do with the continuing effects of the feminist movement. Men who are not married are permitted by our culture to be boyish and directionless. But unmarried women are expected to rise above and claim their independence.

This cultural incongruity is readily seen within our modern movies. Actors like Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughan, Owen and Luke Wilson, Steve Carell and others make movie-after-movie that portray grown men as nothing more than overgrown children who find happiness in their boyishness. But actresses like Sarah Jessica Parker, Chalize Theron, Reese Witherspoon and most other popular Hollywood actresses are not playing roles that celebrate girlishness. Instead, they take on roles that demonstrate the virtuousness of independent women who either don’t need a man to be complete or are the rock in a directionless man’s life.

A TV advertisement that stands out in my memory showed an SUV that was seen packaged in a box as a toy, with a fully grown man agape like a child. It makes sense for advertisers to evoke child-like states of mind; child-men are more likely to make impulse purchases than mature men.

Youth has been glorified in various forms since antiquity, but in times of widespread material prosperity it is possible for people to 'live the dream' of prolonged childhood. I expect that extending the Imperial Self (to use Robert Kegan's psychological development theory) for men into their twenties, while women become more free to develop beyond the Institutional Self, will have profound implications on the institution of marriage in years to come. I see it in my own patients already. The difference between the situation now and 25 years ago is that it is common for such child-men to be economically and academically successful in their careers. This contrasts with Vaillant's work that found that achieving successful intimacy (with a spouse or mentor) was necessary to really succeed at work, because it catalyzed one's ability to connect with people, build trust, and work smoothly in organizations. In today's email workplace, it is possible to accomplish much without emotional maturity being noticed in many jobs.

But while you can fake sincerity, you can't fake emotional maturity, and tomarrow's families will need husbands and fathers who can fill the bill.

Mental Health Parity: New Evidence

2006-04-03T14:53:00.000-04:00

The current New England Journal reports a study comparing federal employee health benefit plans with and without mental health parity (full coverage for mental health services on par with coverage for other medical services). They found that:

The implementation of parity was associated with a statistically significant increase in use in one plan (+0.78 percent, P<0.05) a significant decrease in use in one plan (–0.96 percent, P<0.05), and no significant difference in use in the other five plans (range, –0.38 percent to +0.23 percent; P>0.05 for each comparison). For beneficiaries who used mental health and substance-abuse services, spending attributable to the implementation of parity decreased significantly for three plans (range, –$201.99 to –$68.97; P<0.05 for each comparison) and did not change significantly for four plans (range, –$42.13 to +$27.11; P>0.05 for each comparison). The implementation of parity was associated with significant reductions in out-of-pocket spending in five of seven plans.

The NEJM editorial opines:

Although parity did not lead to increases in the use of services relative to a comparison group, it did lead to systematic reductions in out-of-pocket spending for mental health services. Parity coverage performed just as insurance coverage should. It shifted costs from out-of-pocket payments to the insurance company (and eventually to very small increases in insurance premiums) without leading to an increase in the use of services. This shift means that, in today's mental health environment, parity coverage unambiguously improves the value of health insurance. It moves risk away from individual patients without changing the incentives that they face.

The evidence is stacking up, and policymakers will not be able to ignore it much longer. Treating psychiatric care as a separate service from general medical care means that the organization that sees the costs--the mental health insurer--does not reap the reduction in general medical costs that occurs when good mental health care is provided, so there is no incentive to provide adequate mental health coverage. Parity ensures that the same insurance company has a stake in both psychiatric and general medical care, and providing a system that handles both types of problems well. Parity makes sense for patient care, and now the data shows it is good, or at least not bad, for the bottom line.

Because integrated mental health care can decrease general medical costs, it should be a key part of a comprehensive national plan to control the growth of health care costs. However, if one company implements parity, it would fear patients with mental health problems flocking to its plan from others, so parity must be implemented simultaneously across the insurance industry. That's where federal action is necessary.

Let your senator or representative know if you think that mental health parity is important.

The Fall of Red America

2006-04-01T13:09:00.000-05:00

I was an online denizen, reasonably frequent commenter, and occasional diarist at Red State for about 6 months after the 2004 elections (my diary). Ben Domenech (aka Augustine) was a fair-handed editor of the site, and agree or not with his posts, he always did his homework.

Last year, the atmosphere at Red State became decidedly less friendly to good-faith dissent, and along with many other commenters, I left the site--and started my own blog.

Meanwhile, this year Augustine was rewarded for his excellent online writing with a job as the Wa Po conservative blogger. His supporters at Red State stalwartly defended him when he was attacked from all sides. Yesterday, Domenech was conclusively shown to have plagiarized throughout his writing career. Michael Dougherty summarizes the story nicely. He concludes:

No one can fault the reflexive defense mounted by RedState for their co-founder, especially when Domenech's original critics gave no indication of being fair or decent. They succumbed to a pressure unique to the blogosphere -- to publish faster than the speed of thought. They acted on instinct for everyone to see. But as the facts came out, RedState's editors were surprisingly unfazed. Mike Krempasky had the last word, announcing Domenech's leave of absence and prophesying his walk down the road of redemption. The harshest words were not for the colleague that had only a few hours ago refused to own up to his intellectual theft, and used RedState to lash out at his critics and spin the story in his favor, but for that man's critics. "Loathesome (sic), vile, and disgusting -- their contempt for civil behavior surpassed only by the emptiness of their own souls."

Meanwhile, now that the truth is clear, those defenders are as quick to forgive him as Domenech was to lie in his own defense this week. They are as quick to excuse him as they are to condemn Jayson Blair or Jill Carroll.

Here's the question for centrists like myself: are the reflexive defenders left at Red State the conservatives that can be productive in dialogue with liberals and moderates, or are those conservatives somewhere else? If not, where are they?

Habeas Corpus: Today and Yesterday

2006-03-29T14:59:00.000-05:00

Here's a taste of the fireworks in the Supreme Court today in the Hamdan case, as told by NY Times:

Mr. Clement's position was that Congress had not in fact suspended habeas corpus, but that it might constitutionally have done so given "the exigencies of 9/11." Addressing Justice Stevens, the solicitor general said, "My view would be that if Congress sort of stumbles upon a suspension of the writ, that the preconditions are satisfied, that would still be constitutionally valid."

Justice Souter interrupted. "Isn't there a pretty good argument that suspension of the writ of habeas corpus is just about the most stupendously significant act that the Congress of the United States can take," he asked, "and therefore we ought to be at least a little slow to accept your argument that it can be done from pure inadvertence?"

When Mr. Clement began to answer, Justice Souter persisted: "You are leaving us with the position of the United States that the Congress may validly suspend it inadvertently. Is that really your position?"

The solicitor general replied, "I think at least if you're talking about the extension of the writ to enemy combatants held outside the territory of the United States —— "

"Now wait a minute!" Justice Souter interrupted, waving a finger. "The writ is the writ. There are not two writs of habeas corpus, for some cases and for other cases. The rights that may be asserted, the rights that may be vindicated, will vary with the circumstances, but jurisdiction over habeas corpus is jurisdiction over habeas corpus."

Hat tip The Moderate Voice

A group of British MPs filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court recently, offering their perspective on the legal status of the Guantanamo prisoners. For a bit of historical perspective, I highly recommend this transcript of NPR's This American Life (the middle segment). The piece nicely paints a picture of the moment when habeas corpus was last suspended in England.

The Garbage Problem

2006-03-28T13:50:00.000-05:00

A new book by Vermont author Heather Rogers looks at the post 1950s US garbage production and disposal problem. After detailing the industrial and policy choices that brought us to this mess, she concludes that no amount of virtuous consumer behavior will be enough to really fix the problem.

This observation dovetails nicely with my last post--we need to have broad-based systematic solutions to problems with so many contributing causes, rather than focusing on single endpoints like convincing towns to recycle more aluminum. In this case, I think it means strong state and federal regulations and incentives to use and manufacture reusable, not recyclable, packaging.

H/T VPR.

Fair Trade or Free Trade?

2006-03-27T14:47:00.000-05:00

Michael Stickings, a self-described Fair Trade coffee supporter, asks whether the forseeable long-term effects of price supports for coffee farmers might become a worse cure than the problems they solve.

The problem is that these high prices will encourage new entrants into coffee production, which will lead to a glut in supply that pushes global coffee prices down. Those who are already locked into Fairtrade supply contracts will do fine, but those who do not receive the benefit of Fairtrade prices will be made even worse off.

Converting every coffee buyer in the world to the Fairtrade philosophy doesn't necessarily solve the problem either, for you still have the inducement to entry provided by high coffee prices, leading to the same glut of coffee, and to strong incentives for those selling at the lower end of the market to defect out of the Fairtrade movement and reap the benefits of lower coffee prices.

I think his observations speak to the overly reductionistic approach of fair trade proponents.

The stated goal of fair trade is to raise wages for farmers, under the assumption that profiteering businessmen are cashing in on these farmers' work. But those wages are not set in a vaccuum, and the power of multinational corporations is not the only force keeping those wages low. To think that we can affect broad-based economic justice in just one industry of a complex multinational trading system, overriding the forces of labor availability, commodity supply and demand, and political requirements is a recipe for wasted time and effort. The difficulties making fair trade universal throughout the coffee industry only highlight this point; if fair trade can't be made accessible to every farmer, is it an equitable strategy at all?

While fair trade may indeed have the potential to improve raise the income of a reasonable number of farmers, to really lift a significant fraction of people in developing countries up from poverty in a self-sustaining way will require changes at the level of national trade and economic policy. Anything more reductionistic than that is, unfortunately, mostly window dressing.

Marriage: Contract or Firm?

2006-03-22T20:45:00.000-05:00

New Englanders are more likely to think of marriage as a contract than folks in other regions of the country, I have written, which may explain regional differences of opinion on gay marriage. Booker Rising cites William Weston on a related way of looking at marriage:

Jennifer Roback Morse, in the same essay in The Meaning of Marriage that I wrote about yesterday, goes through the argument that marriage is a contract. She makes the point that contracts are most suitable for short-term and arms-length relations. The sexual revolution, she says, has had some disastrous consequences for marriages because it changed the theory of sexual contracts. Under a marriage theory, sex is reserved for the most permanent, most intimate relations. Under the sexual revolution theory, by contrast, sex became a want best satisfied on the spot market. The most intriguing point she makes, I think, is that for the most intimate and long term economic relations, the market finds that even long-term contracts are not enough. For permanent economic relations, the market invented the 'firm.' Marriage is not a short-term contract for sex. It is not even a long-term contract for childrearing and companionship. A marriage is a firm, the most permanent, multi-faceted firm possible. In an ordinary firm or partnership, if they can no longer provide their distinctive good or service profitably, they dissolve. In a marriage, though, if the original product no longer works, they keep the firm and change what the firm produces. Marriage is the firmest firm."

If marriage is better described as a long-term firm than a short-term contract, that does not establish the more traditional idea of marriage as an 'institution,' but does meet that view halfway by granting that each individual marriage partakes in a common set of rules and expectations, just as business firms do.

Wisdom and Leaders

2006-03-20T09:22:00.000-05:00

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

Even when distinctions between personal virtue and political virtue seem blurry, wisdom's realm is all human relations. It is very easy for commentators to fill paragraphs describing the lack of wisdom in past and present leaders, but little space is devoted to showing what wisdom itself looks like. I don't mean an opinion about this or that policy--there's plenty of that--but the actual personal process of approaching a complex problem with a clear head and a conscience at peace. Maybe that's because it is easier to describe in poetry.

There are a few exceptions, but I wonder if we would see more wisdom in our leaders, if more examples of it were more prominent in our education and day-to-day lives.

Confucian Renaissance

2006-03-16T21:39:00.000-05:00

The US cannot effectively think of China as a new Cold War adversary, writes Asia Cable. The difference is that China is not trying to export an ideology or exert military control. It is participating in a renaissance of Confucian society.

Call it the Emerging Confucian World Order, or to be more exact, the re-emergence of the Confucian World Order, since in fact Asia is simply reverting to the order of nations with China at the center that existed before the era of European colonialism.

As it did during the Ming Dynasty years, the height of the tributary system, China confers the boon of trade with the nations on its periphery and receives tribute in return. No boon was more welcome in Southeast Asia than Beijing’s decision to during the 1997-1998 Asian Financial Crisis to maintain its currency’s peg to the dollar, resisting the temptation to snatch trade advantages from neighboring state by devaluing. Recently, it signed a free-trade agreement with the ten countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and tolerates a $20 billion trade deficit with them. Meanwhile, it gracefully accepts “tribute” from South Korea in the form of its conferring “Market Economy Status” on China, the first country with more than $100 billion in trade with China to do so.

The growing animosity between China and Japan can easily be read in Confucian terms. Ostensibly, the discord is rooted in interpretations of Asia’s modern history. In China’s view, Japan has not shown sufficient remorse for its aggression during World War II. This, it is said, is reflected in how the war is portrayed in its history books and in the regular visits that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi makes to the Yasukuni Shrine. Japan’s apologies for its wartime actions constitute a modern version of the kowtow. The Prime Minister’s regular visits to the Yasukuni Shrine are for Japan the anti-kowtow.

But then Japan never was a model vassal. The current war of words echoes sentiments going back to the 14th century when the Chinese Emperor Hung-wu addressed the Japanese sovereign as, “you stupid eastern barbarian.” To which the Japanese Ashikaga shogun replied in kind: “Heaven and earth are vast; they are not monopolized by one ruler.” China and Japan that have been rivals for hundreds of years. It should not be surprising that they are still jockeying for primacy. In Confucian terms somebody has to be “big brother” and the other has to be “little brother.”

On the other hand, Korea was a model tributary state for 500 years, stretching from the late Ming to the end of the Qing Dynasty. The Koreans paid their annual tribute even more regularly than the other tributary states, such as Vietnam, Myanmar and Thailand. No other country in Asia, not even Japan, was so completely absorbed into the Confucian system. Today South Korea is moving perceptibly into China’s orbit. The only question is whether this trend is reversible. The six-party talks aimed at disarming North Korea of nuclear weapons seem to be accelerating this trend, and by clinging to them, the Bush administration may be pushing this development along. Seoul’s position in the talks is much closer to Beijing’s than it is to Washington’s.

But it is not just in international relations where old patterns of Asian social behavior are returning after two centuries of disruption by colonialism, war, and communism.

The Chinese government is explicitly promoting Confucianism, once despised as feudal ideology.

It is little surprise that Chinese leaders are seeking to rehabilitate their country’s most famous and influential thinker. In the moral void opened by the decline of Marxism and the abundance of material temptations, Confucianism can help provide the nation with a much-needed ethical anchor. And success in these endeavors would allow China’s leaders to strengthen their hold on another Confucian bequest – the “mandate of heaven,” or the right to rule.

What is the relevance of Confucianism in modern times? Which tenets have served East Asia well – and could help other nations and cultures? What are the pitfalls to be avoided? Of all the world’s great canons, Confucianism is the most practical. What concerned him most were people’s relationships with one another and with the state. He also focused on social justice and good government. Ren or benevolence was the pillar of the Master’s thought.

Another was learning. Whether or not East Asian countries include The Analects in their social curriculums, they all understand that education is the root of national strength and prosperity. The ingrained respect for knowledge – and for the teacher who imparts it – is the key factor in the outstanding academic performance of East Asians on a global basis...

In return for the loyalty of subjects, Confucius demanded that a ruler display benevolence and unstintingly serve their interests. If he didn’t, citizens had the right to remonstrate. Mencius, the second most influential Confucian philosopher later developed the concept of a “divine right of rebellion.” If an emperor became a tyrant, he would lose the mandate of heaven and people would overthrow him. Today they might simply throw the leader out of office in an election. Confucius and democracy are hardly incompatible.

Throughout history, the rigid and unthinking application of Confucian principles repeatedly produced complacent closed societies that were unable to make progress. They paid a terrible price: foreign subjugation and internal upheaval. Modern Confucians must guard against repeating such mistakes. If they succeed in adapting their time-tested heritage to contemporary challenges, Master Kong’s teaching may blossom beyond East Asia to enrich all mankind in the next century.

Before we think about events in Asia through the lens of easy analogies to our own history, it is important to step back and remember that Confucians often have radically different ideas from Westerners about how to organize society, how to communicate, and how relationships are managed. It is possible to make really big mistakes quickly.

Abortion: No Bright Line

2006-03-16T09:49:00.000-05:00

I quote here comments I left at The Debate Link in resonse to an interesting set of thought experiments: things along the lines of 'whom would you save from a burning building--zygotes or a 4 year old? an adult or a 4 year old? a premie or a 4 year old? etc.

The structure of all the hypotheticals you give is an exaggerated choice of passively allowing one life or group of lives to end in order to save others. The first one is designed, it seems, to make visible the 'bright line' between human life and non- or proto- life. The problems that reducing the exercise to absurdity creates, I believe, demonstrate that the assumption is false: there is in fact no bright line.

Life is not a state, but a process. Human life has many shapes and forms, and is not circumscribed. Taking one aspect of humanity (consciousness, ethical reasoning, ability to feel pain, a heartbeat, etc) and artificially elevating it to The Measure of Humanity creates ethical confusion, because it is an arbitrary choice of many human attributes.

Human life is a nebulous idea. A life-form gradually approximates our idea of human life over a gestation and a lifetime.

So what does this have to do with abortion? I think we need to get comfortable with ambiguity first, than deal with it the same way we deal with any imperfectly knowable body of information. We still raise interest rates and take aspirin, even though we imperfectly understand the workings of the economy and the human body.

Then given what we know about the scientifically measurable features of fetuses, the ethical implications in terms of individual rights and predictable harms, and our inherited body of laws and political institutions, we balance our values for life and dignity to decide how we will exercise our citizenship.

There unfortunately will never be an 'answer' as to whether abortion is right and wrong, or when exceptions apply, with the certainty of a mathematical law. There cannot be, in an issue charged with values, matters of degree, and uncertainty, just as there will never be a final word on something as complex as whether US foreign policy should be isolationist or activist.

There is no absolute answer, only the evolving political/cultural landscape, and we have to decide how we shape it and react to it.

That does not mean that once we make our best guess, we should not be rigorous in convincing others of our way of thinking and exercising our political rights to bring that plan to pass. We should. But we must always have the humility to remember that it is just that--our best guess. That's the essence of centrism.

Kurdish Genocide Museum

2006-03-13T11:49:00.000-05:00

I remain convinced that the US invasion of Iraq was a strategic blunder and morally indefensible.

But here is a powerful reminder of how evil Hussein's Baathist regime really was, lest we forget.

Town Meeting Report

2006-03-11T08:07:00.000-05:00

Once a year since colonial times, residents of New England towns meet in a public exercise of direct democracy that provides a local stage for how messy and wonderful democracy is. These are not like the political debate events staged by the League of Women Voters, but real town meetings--unscripted loosely organized proceedings where any resident can attend and vote on town business.

This year in my town's meeting, the hot button issue as usual was the budget; the state's property value adjustment formula required continuing increases in taxes, which were not popular. Someone requested a written ballot to approve the budget rather than the usual voice vote, to everyone's chagrin. Often that meant people wanted to vote against the budget but didn't want people to know they were doing so. Anyway, the budget passed, which was the only really reasonable choice, and we moved on to 'other nonbinding business'.

An elderly gentleman was very concerned about town employees 'escorting' women from out of town, and it had something to do with a proposed dog park. I didn't quite follow.

There was another elderly man, the only African American in the hall, dressed in a suit, quietly and attentively clutching copies of the town budget and other references, and clearly taking his citizenship very seriously.

Parents of young children, including myself, staked out the back of the hall. About half a dozen toddlers played busily on the floor, occasionally ushered out by embarrassed parents when their patience ran low, which became more often as voice votes were taken on miscellaneous matters of business toward the end.

Toward the end of town meeting, the selectmen announced they were forming a committee to consider changing the town's form of government. They were concerned that of 9000 residents, only about 200 routinely came to town meeting. A well-spoken patrician-like man in a sweater and turtleneck chided the selectmen for not providing adequate education on alternative forms of government before embarking on such a project, and a less well-spoken man in plaid flannel declared that he likes town meeting just the way it is. They each got equal hearty applause.

The Realpolitik Case for Darfur Intervention

2006-03-02T15:40:00.000-05:00

The Debate Link argues that American action to stop the Darfur genocide has a long-range strategic advantage; preventing the Chinese from using their security council veto and military/economic aid as leverage to gain influence in Africa.

As long as we're assuming for the moment the stark realist view of international politics and ignoring the harm of losing American clout for humanitarian influence in the region, we must point out that our own interest there, Nigerian oil, is critical to our economy. We cannot afford to allow this vital national interest to fall under control of an unfriendly regime. Consider Darfur a domino.

Liberalism in the Age of Cartoons

2006-03-02T06:44:00.000-05:00

How do we square a decent respect for opinions of others with the deep conviction that they are wrong? Positive Liberty writes:

Just as moral relativism does not imply an automatic cross-cultural toleration, liberalism does not imply moral relativism. Liberalism is not a set of moral conclusions at all; it is a meta-discourse: It’s a way of thinking and talking about thinking and talking themselves. Most other discourses think or talk about other things. But liberalism asks, and tries to answer, a very interesting philosophical question: Given the existence of profound disagreements on very important matters, how are people who disagree with one another to pursue a life together? All other things being equal, what rules will lead us more surely to the truth, and — in liberalism’s one leap of faith — are these not the very same rules that make for a decent and honorable argument (and a peaceful life) even in the absence of truth?

Liberalism proposes rules to keep the conversation going, and here are some of them, simply stated: It’s usually wrong, and almost always ineffective, to try changing someone’s mind with violence. If it neither picks your pocket, nor breaks your leg, do consider leaving it alone. God is strong enough to take care of His own; He does not require your help. Most political disputes can be settled without killing, and even if they can’t, the chances are that you don’t want everyone else taking up the sword as well. Contrary to what you have been told, mere words do not hurt you.

These are rules not about how to conduct our lives, but about how to try to convince others of how to conduct their lives. They are the meta-rules of the discourse of liberalism, the only discourse so far discovered that even has a reasonable set of such meta-rules. By contrast, the meta-rules of fundamentalism allow for no discussion whatsoever: We are right; you are wrong; all else may be discarded.

Our Constitution was only possible because the various factions all subscribed to this type of liberalism, despite their many differences. Pluralism demands that a differing group/viewpoint at least agree to the above principles. Some point out that folks in liberal cultures are resistant to criticizing those in illiberal ones. That need not be so--the sublimation of disagreement from violence into verbal critique is the heart of what it means to hold a liberal view. A liberal man may call an illiberal one misguided, counterproductive, dogmatic or morally bankrupt; he just can't call him wrong enough to be killed.

Darwin in Church

2006-02-13T10:28:00.000-05:00

A NY Times piece today describes how Darwin's birthday was marked in some church services yesterday.

I think it's important that the media run pieces like this that show how religious people engage with the theory of evolution and recognize the (mostly) separate realms of religion and science, in contrast to the bulk of media coverage of church-science controversy that paints a purely confrontational picture. If the issue is always portrayed as a face-off between starkly opposite positions, that becomes a self fulfilling prophesy.

Evolutionists are right that denying Darwin's theory based on religion has consequences: natural processes become less understandable and a valuable tool to improve the lot of humanity is lost. But anti-evolutionists also have a point: evolution itself is value-less, and attempts to derive values from evolution have historically had scary consequences, from social Darwinism and ethnic cleansing to the potential for human cloning. But denying each others positions wholesale just entrenches the opposition more.

Calling attention to the evil uses of evolution is a better strategy to avoid their repetition than denying the validity of the theory. Folks on both sides can see eye to eye on preventing values like respect for human life from being eroded by the theory, or religious intolerance arising from a perversion of it. Fostering personal trust between evolutionist scientists working on medical applications and anti-cloning activists will do more good than winning any intellectual argument.

I think that open discussion on precisely this point, the historical and potential perversions of the theory of evolution, is where the money is on putting this devisive issue behind us.

Gay Marriage Hearings in NH

2006-02-11T21:04:00.001-05:00

In neighboring New Hampshire, the proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage has reached the phase of legislative hearings. Valley News points out that the hearings may backfire for the gay marriage opponents.

In an extraordinary six-hour legislative hearing reminiscent of the ones that eventually led Vermont to bless civil unions, more than 100 people testified about the proposal. While a number came to argue against same-sex unions, the majority came to support them.

This was no abstract public policy debate. Many of those who spoke did so from deep personal experience and belief. The most powerful messages came from courageous teenagers, who stood before the crowd and told of their deepest fears and fondest hopes.

Rigel Cable, a 17-year-old Hartford High senior, spoke of growing up near the leafy expanse of Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish and of his dreams to one day be married there. If the amendment passed, that dream might die.

“To be told that I cannot marry in the place where I have spent so many years is very saddening,” said the teen. “It makes me feel as though my own hometown is rejecting me.”

What I found interesting about this passage is the teen's view of marriage as a way he hopes to participate in his local community--in contrast to the image often portrayed of a separate and insular 'gay community'.

There may well be a certain fraction of gay Americans who do think of themselves that way, but the desire for gay marriage seems to be more often conceived of as striving for normalcy than it is as a fundamental challenge to society in the minds of its proponents.

Gay Marriage Hearings in NH

2006-02-11T21:04:00.000-05:00

In an extraordinary six-hour legislative hearing reminiscent of the ones that eventually led Vermont to bless civil unions, more than 100 people testified about the proposal. While a number came to argue against same-sex unions, the majority came to support them.

This was no abstract public policy debate. Many of those who spoke did so from deep personal experience and belief. The most powerful messages came from courageous teenagers, who stood before the crowd and told of their deepest fears and fondest hopes.

Rigel Cable, a 17-year-old Hartford High senior, spoke of growing up near the leafy expanse of Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish and of his dreams to one day be married there. If the amendment passed, that dream might die.

“To be told that I cannot marry in the place where I have spent so many years is very saddening,” said the teen. “It makes me feel as though my own hometown is rejecting me.”