Texe Marrs: is a good example of someone who makes look reasonable. It is evident from his home page, without clicking a single link, that Marrs is anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic, and given to off-the-planet conspiracy theories.
This is entertaining in and of itself, but what really interests me is the author biography on Marrs's Dark Secrets of the New Age indicating that Marrs was in charge of developing nuclear targeting protocols for the U.S. Air Force. I mean, here's a maniac raving about how the E. Coli outbreak in Germany was a communist biowarfare program by Obama, tool of the Jewish-Jesuit-Illuminati conspiracy, and he almost literally had his finger on the button.
Of course Marrs is retired, but the fact that he was in such a sensitive position for so long is symptomatic of a large amount of sympathy for far-right politics at high levels of the military. Similar symptoms are the participation of so many high-ranking officers in the Confederate treason, the high-level military plot to overthrow Franklin Roosevelt, MacArthur's notorious conduct in Korea, and the existence and political orientation of WHISC. The only way to prevent such reactionaries from being entrusted with such awesome life-or-death responsibilities is by smashing the imperialist military and replacing it with a people's armed forces forged in insurrectionary struggle.
I chose this post's title (Great Society) in homage to the weekly column in The Militant by Harry Ring. Besides being a charismatic old man who gleefully skewered the hypocrisies of the war profiteers and coupon clippers, Ring was a brave fighter in the defense of Cuba and Vietnam against imperialist attack, and played an important role in urging the communist movement to stand its ground against red-baiting by Truman, Humphrey, Nixon, McCarthy, Sidney Hook, Walter Reuther, and their allies. It is largely because of people like him that we enjoy a measure of free speech and privacy in the U.S. today.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Monday, June 27, 2011
One more for the Road
Alcohol's place in our culture ... advertised on TV and billboards, daily use by some people, and particularly binge drinking ... is incongruent with its nature as an incredibly powerful depressant. I can imagine an alternative world in which alcohol is an exotic drug of recent discovery--rarely publicized except in the all too frequent cases of overdose, car crashes, or assaults committed under the influence--while ketamine is a popular social lubricant served routinely in bars. And we'd all be used to it!
Free Ted?
I wrote to the Missoulian today to dispute the characterization of local celebrity terrorist Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber) as a "committed leftist" by Gary Marbut of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, a conservative, libertarian-leaning pro-gun group with historic associations with the Militia of Montana. Marbut is not the only person to identify him thusly. Deni Elliott, the Harvard-educated expert in media ethics who once employed me, claimed that newspapers who didn't regularly identify Kaczynski as left-wing, while they characterized the Freemen and Operation Rescue as right-wing, thereby betrayed their bias.
It's my opinion that this is simply wrong. Kaczynski's outspoken environmentalism is shared by more on the left than the right, but this is just one component of the comprehensive critique of technology developed in his manifesto. It is clear that his real objections are to the progressive features of technology, which he sees as replacing the family as basic social unit with the sovereign individual, replacing the master-apprentice relationship with wage labor, and undermining the Hobbesian sovereign authority with what he considers the destructive notions of liberalism, democracy, and socialism. This is objectively a reactionary critique that could have been made by any 18th century pope.
A street sign near my house is stamped "Free Ted" and has an image of the Unabomber. I'm told that this statement was made by one of the anarchists who used to live there, and I suspect that it reflects not only legitimate concern about the fairness of Kaczynski's trial, but also political sympathy. For a long time I assumed that this was again based on a political misidentification of Kaczynski's politics, but I've come to suspect that elements of Kaczynski's philosophy besides his environmentalism may strike a chord with certain strands of anarchist thought. After all, at least since the days of Proudhon, anarchism, for all the unforgettable good deeds of anarchist workers in the U.S., Spain, and even Russia, has contained a strain of opportunism rooted in its peasant/middle class orientation, that has in practice meant betrayal of working-class interests to those of the worst reactionaries, often under the veneer of a "shocking" radicalism.
And say what you will about Kaczynski, he was certainly a radical and a militant. The question is, militant in the support of what end?
It's my opinion that this is simply wrong. Kaczynski's outspoken environmentalism is shared by more on the left than the right, but this is just one component of the comprehensive critique of technology developed in his manifesto. It is clear that his real objections are to the progressive features of technology, which he sees as replacing the family as basic social unit with the sovereign individual, replacing the master-apprentice relationship with wage labor, and undermining the Hobbesian sovereign authority with what he considers the destructive notions of liberalism, democracy, and socialism. This is objectively a reactionary critique that could have been made by any 18th century pope.
A street sign near my house is stamped "Free Ted" and has an image of the Unabomber. I'm told that this statement was made by one of the anarchists who used to live there, and I suspect that it reflects not only legitimate concern about the fairness of Kaczynski's trial, but also political sympathy. For a long time I assumed that this was again based on a political misidentification of Kaczynski's politics, but I've come to suspect that elements of Kaczynski's philosophy besides his environmentalism may strike a chord with certain strands of anarchist thought. After all, at least since the days of Proudhon, anarchism, for all the unforgettable good deeds of anarchist workers in the U.S., Spain, and even Russia, has contained a strain of opportunism rooted in its peasant/middle class orientation, that has in practice meant betrayal of working-class interests to those of the worst reactionaries, often under the veneer of a "shocking" radicalism.
And say what you will about Kaczynski, he was certainly a radical and a militant. The question is, militant in the support of what end?
The Man on the White Horse
The Economist's lead story last week concludes, "Though economic logic suggests that the world economy is just going through a sticky patch, squabbling politicians could all too easily turn it into a meltdown." Of course the squabbling politicians themselves are merely symptomatic of a larger structural problem with world capitalism, the perception that they are responsible for business's woes will tend now, as it did in the last two centuries, to promote Bonapartist politicians--centrist figures who promise to stand apart from the political fray and concentrate power in their own hands to get things done ... cut through the red tape ... etc. The capitalist war drive--itself a symptom of falling profit rates--reinforces the trend toward dictatorship. Classic Bonapartism--and its Stalinist variety, still reinforced by China--in turn prepares the way for fascism. The alternative, of course, is to expropriate the capitalists and thereby thwart their antidemocratic agenda.
Friday, June 24, 2011
The Spectre of War
War, alongside depression and fascism, haunts the world today. The biggest European conflict since World War II broke out in the 1990s in Bosnia and Chechnya. Africa has recently been ravaged by some of the worst wars in the world's history, including the Second Congo War which killed about the same number of people as Jews killed in the Holocaust and spawned conflicts that are going on to this day. Mexico is strained by the weight of narcoterrorism. civil war has engulfed Syria, Libya, and probably Yemen. Afghanistan is called the longest conflict in U.S. history, although the U.S. fought the Moro indigenous people of the the Philippines for at least 14 years straight and the Apache for at least 26. It also involves other major military powers in a big way, and was one of the first major commitments for Germany since World War II. Japan also has stepped up its willingness to send troops into war, notably in Iraq to which it sent 600.
More troublesome than the recent or ongoing conflicts, some of which are heating up at any point in history while others are slowing down, are the indications of a growing bellicosity. Infamous was the disrespect Bush and Blair showed for world opinion in invading Iraq. there is also the casual way several countries rushed into war in Libya, the suddenness of Russia's recent war with Georgia, Israel's war with Lebanon, and the U.S.'s Operation Geronimo that killed Osama bin Laden. During that raid, the U.S. Special Forces were ordered to fire on any Pakistani military personnel who tried to stop their unauthorized incursion into Pakistan's sovereign territory. This is by my count the 4th time the order was given to attack another nuclear-armed power, besides when the U.S. threatened to fire on Soviet forces who crossed their blockade, on Israeli planes and missiles if Israel retaliated for Iraqi missile attacks during the Gulf War, and in 1999 during the Kosovo conflict when Gen. Wesley Clark ordered NATO troops under his command to fire on Russian troops about to occupy a key airstrip (thankfully the British commander under Clark refused to relay the order). Meanwhile, the U.S. has given certain battlefield commanders authority to launch nuclear weapons without presidential order, the stated goal being to intimidate opponents by creating a perception of chaotic behavior. Imagine if Douglas McArthur had had that power! German commanders also have the authority to launch nuclear attacks from American nuclear submarines without prior American approval. The U.S. has always reserved the right to launch a nuclear first strike. The USSR once pledged never to respond to a conventional attack with nuclear weapons, but today Russia has adopted a policy more like the U.S.'s. Benjamin Netanyahu is in his public persona an extremely bellicose leader who goes out of his way to avoid appearance of a peaceful attitude toward the indigenous Palestinian people. Ahmadinejad is likewise carrying on an extraordinarily pugnacious diplomacy.
And lest we forget, there was this incredible statement by Walid Jumblatt, the Druze politician who leads Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party, in 2008: "If you want chaos, we welcome chaos. If you want war, we welcome war." Lebanon's civil war, in which Jumblatt's father wasthe major rebel leader until his assassination, was fraught with sectarian violence (of the sort we're seeing in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen today), betrayals, massacres, international espionage, smuggling, and direct and brutal intervention by Syrian and Israeli forces. Lebanon still has a sectarian witches' brew of political parties, a large displaced Palestinian community, and a confessional political system that gives disproportionate political weight to the Christian minority. When Jumblatt publicly welcomed chaos and war into this situation, he was challenging Hizballah, the largest political party in Lebanon, better armed than the government, and firmly backed by Syria and Iran. Hizballah had previously been an ally of Jumblatt's PSP, and today they are, if not allies, at least partners in a coalition government.
Nuclear and biological weapons are getting more and more widespread while the U.S. is seeking to establish first-strike capacity by building a working space-based anti-missile system. Pakistan and India, N. Korea and S. Korea, share volatile borders with frequent flareups. The U.S. has expanded NATO into E. Europe, established large bases in the former Soviet republics of the Caspian Sea, occupied Afghanistan and Iraq, and has a major contingent in Japan, effectively creating a military encirclement of Russia. The presence in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, etc., creates similar pressures on Iran. China is building a world-class navy and entering the space race with a vengeance, while the U.S. has nuclear-armed forces in Chinese territorial waters (the Taiwan Strait).
None of the issues of the recent multi-country wars in Africa have been resolved. Many of the countries involved and their neighbors are still at war. The upcoming independence of S. Sudan, the Un intervention that has been proposed, and the Libyan civil war, all have the potential to reshape politics not only in Sudan and Libya, but also in Chad, the Central African Republic, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, even Egypt. Meanwhile, the relationship between Ethiopia and Egypt (and, no doubt, Sudan), with two of the largest militaries in the world, are deteriorating rapidly over Ethiopia's proposals to dam the Nile River. Elsewhere on the Red Sea, Israel is nuclear-armed, isolated, and jumpy; Yemen and Somalia are hotbeds of piracy, smuggling, tribal warfare, intelligence activity, and Islamism; Eritrea, also one of the largest military powers, fought a 1998-2000 war with Ethiopia and continues to share with it an uneasy border,; and the U.S. and France both have their largest African bases in Djibouti, right smack in the middle of all this.
In conclusion: the forecast looks like war. Next in this series: case studies of war and the political and economic forces tending to war or peace today.
More troublesome than the recent or ongoing conflicts, some of which are heating up at any point in history while others are slowing down, are the indications of a growing bellicosity. Infamous was the disrespect Bush and Blair showed for world opinion in invading Iraq. there is also the casual way several countries rushed into war in Libya, the suddenness of Russia's recent war with Georgia, Israel's war with Lebanon, and the U.S.'s Operation Geronimo that killed Osama bin Laden. During that raid, the U.S. Special Forces were ordered to fire on any Pakistani military personnel who tried to stop their unauthorized incursion into Pakistan's sovereign territory. This is by my count the 4th time the order was given to attack another nuclear-armed power, besides when the U.S. threatened to fire on Soviet forces who crossed their blockade, on Israeli planes and missiles if Israel retaliated for Iraqi missile attacks during the Gulf War, and in 1999 during the Kosovo conflict when Gen. Wesley Clark ordered NATO troops under his command to fire on Russian troops about to occupy a key airstrip (thankfully the British commander under Clark refused to relay the order). Meanwhile, the U.S. has given certain battlefield commanders authority to launch nuclear weapons without presidential order, the stated goal being to intimidate opponents by creating a perception of chaotic behavior. Imagine if Douglas McArthur had had that power! German commanders also have the authority to launch nuclear attacks from American nuclear submarines without prior American approval. The U.S. has always reserved the right to launch a nuclear first strike. The USSR once pledged never to respond to a conventional attack with nuclear weapons, but today Russia has adopted a policy more like the U.S.'s. Benjamin Netanyahu is in his public persona an extremely bellicose leader who goes out of his way to avoid appearance of a peaceful attitude toward the indigenous Palestinian people. Ahmadinejad is likewise carrying on an extraordinarily pugnacious diplomacy.
And lest we forget, there was this incredible statement by Walid Jumblatt, the Druze politician who leads Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party, in 2008: "If you want chaos, we welcome chaos. If you want war, we welcome war." Lebanon's civil war, in which Jumblatt's father wasthe major rebel leader until his assassination, was fraught with sectarian violence (of the sort we're seeing in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen today), betrayals, massacres, international espionage, smuggling, and direct and brutal intervention by Syrian and Israeli forces. Lebanon still has a sectarian witches' brew of political parties, a large displaced Palestinian community, and a confessional political system that gives disproportionate political weight to the Christian minority. When Jumblatt publicly welcomed chaos and war into this situation, he was challenging Hizballah, the largest political party in Lebanon, better armed than the government, and firmly backed by Syria and Iran. Hizballah had previously been an ally of Jumblatt's PSP, and today they are, if not allies, at least partners in a coalition government.
Nuclear and biological weapons are getting more and more widespread while the U.S. is seeking to establish first-strike capacity by building a working space-based anti-missile system. Pakistan and India, N. Korea and S. Korea, share volatile borders with frequent flareups. The U.S. has expanded NATO into E. Europe, established large bases in the former Soviet republics of the Caspian Sea, occupied Afghanistan and Iraq, and has a major contingent in Japan, effectively creating a military encirclement of Russia. The presence in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, etc., creates similar pressures on Iran. China is building a world-class navy and entering the space race with a vengeance, while the U.S. has nuclear-armed forces in Chinese territorial waters (the Taiwan Strait).
None of the issues of the recent multi-country wars in Africa have been resolved. Many of the countries involved and their neighbors are still at war. The upcoming independence of S. Sudan, the Un intervention that has been proposed, and the Libyan civil war, all have the potential to reshape politics not only in Sudan and Libya, but also in Chad, the Central African Republic, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, even Egypt. Meanwhile, the relationship between Ethiopia and Egypt (and, no doubt, Sudan), with two of the largest militaries in the world, are deteriorating rapidly over Ethiopia's proposals to dam the Nile River. Elsewhere on the Red Sea, Israel is nuclear-armed, isolated, and jumpy; Yemen and Somalia are hotbeds of piracy, smuggling, tribal warfare, intelligence activity, and Islamism; Eritrea, also one of the largest military powers, fought a 1998-2000 war with Ethiopia and continues to share with it an uneasy border,; and the U.S. and France both have their largest African bases in Djibouti, right smack in the middle of all this.
In conclusion: the forecast looks like war. Next in this series: case studies of war and the political and economic forces tending to war or peace today.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Longest day of the year.
I had to click the link to realize it, but the Google Doodle today celebrates the Summer Solstice. Which is a bit insulting to people in the Southern Hemisphere. I'll be impressed if I find out they used a "Winter Solstice" one down there, but I have a hunch they just decided that other part of the world doesn't count.
how reagan paved the way for 9/11
We all know about Reagan's role in channeling money, intelligence, and weapons to the Taliban and al_Qaeda via the "Landlord Liberation Front" in Afghanistan--although that crime against peace actually began under Carter, and BEFORE Soviet troops entered the country. And bin Laden said the twin towers attack was in part a symbolic revenge for Israel's destruction of two residential apartments during its Reagan-backed war against Lebanon. But I think Reagan may share responsibility for creating the conditions that made 9/11 possible for another reason:
In 1981, Reagan fired more than 11,000 veteran members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Union, for seeking measures that would improve air traffic safety--after winning their endorsement in the 1980 election by saying their demands were justified. These professionals, who had experience in the 1970s when airplane hijackings were frequent, were replaced by a new cadre of people lacking that experience, and with a three-year training program it would take years to replace the institutional knowledge of the vast majority of air traffic controllers. , especially because the hours were getting longer and the wages were getting lower.
And they were working under nonunion conditions where they were more likely to be exhausted, sick, overworked, and demoralized. Perhaps these conditions cost a few precious minutes that could have saved thousands of lives?
In 1981, Reagan fired more than 11,000 veteran members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Union, for seeking measures that would improve air traffic safety--after winning their endorsement in the 1980 election by saying their demands were justified. These professionals, who had experience in the 1970s when airplane hijackings were frequent, were replaced by a new cadre of people lacking that experience, and with a three-year training program it would take years to replace the institutional knowledge of the vast majority of air traffic controllers. , especially because the hours were getting longer and the wages were getting lower.
And they were working under nonunion conditions where they were more likely to be exhausted, sick, overworked, and demoralized. Perhaps these conditions cost a few precious minutes that could have saved thousands of lives?
Sunday, June 19, 2011
On mathematical realism
With the help of my friend Ali, whose interest in the Mandelbrot set sparked a discussion of imaginary numbers, negative numbers, etc., I've had a chance to clarify some of my views about whether mathematical concepts have some transcendental reality or not. I'm not going to pretend I've solved this question, but here's where my thinking stands right now:
First, the puzzle. Some logical/mathematical concepts, most obviously the Law of Identity, seem to be analytic a priori truths. But consider the thought experiment ofa universe in which there is nothing rather than something, which prima facie appears possible although perhaps in fact it is not. In such a world, would these logical concepts exist? And what would they mean.
Well, decades ago Russell and Whitehead attempted to create a formal system based on pure logic. Russell himself went on to show that an attempt to build such a system on set theory, as they had done, was doomed to failure, because the concept of a 'set' couldn't be rigorously defined in such a way that it could be used to define a number system without leading to contradictory results.
So this attempt to define numbers in terms of sets failed. But clearly numbers are useful and were historically discovered because they describe our world. Whatever formal system is true, it's true because it corresponds with reality. The law of identity (non-contradiction) is a necessary condition for any formal system to be considered true, but not a sufficient condition. It doesn't tell us, for example, how to decide which of three alternative geometries, each of them internally consistent, is true.
We might think that we could choose among such systems based on their correspondence with the real world, and in a given, socially agreed upon context, we can. But Godel demonstrated that no consistent formal system can be used to prove everything that is in fact true, and it follows that no such system can correspond perfectly to the ideal of a transparent mirror of reality in itself.
Consider, for example, addition. Any reasonable system of arithmetic will have, either as axioms, the basic additive equations--a+0=a, a+b=b+a, a+(-a)=0, (a+b)+c=a+(b+c)
, and so forth. We assume, because we derive these formalized intuitions about addition from the world, and apply them in talking about the world, that they represent truths about the world.
This assumes the existence of a 'true' mathematical description of the world that a given mathematical description--inconsistent with other internally consistent mathematical systems with different axioms--approximate. However, it is clear that such a system, even in theory, can't be derived either from pure logic or from the correspondence theory of truth. It is nothing but a chimera.
What any formal system tells us about unambiguously is the rule set for manipulating a set of symbols defined with reference to that system. Since the system cannot in fact provide a complete description of capital-T Truth, there is an apparent gulf between the formal system's symbols and the universe they purport to describe.
But everyone knows that 1+1=2, right? So '1', '+'. '=', and '2' must all mean something, right? Perhaps not. Wittgenstein famously observed the mistake in assuming that because the same word was applied to a class of objects that it followed that they all had something in common. He recommended, instead, that we simply look to see whether they have something in common.
Do they? Consider the '1'. There's 1 dog, 1 mole of atoms, 1 o'clock, 1 "the loneliest number", number 1 signifying preeminence or priority, the ace in my solitaire game, "the One" a single (ubitary) person hopes to meet, 1 thousand, 1 million, 1 in a million, the '1' I'm using to make my point, etc., and it's not clear at all that all the instantiations here have something in common. The same point can be made for such "clearly" intuited concepts as '+', '2', '=', etc.
It does no good to point out that my examples are of imprecise application of a concept since that is exactly my point. In the context of the formal system in which they are defined, the only precise, transparent application of a number defined in that system iswith reference to tat system's rules for manipulating that number. Any application beyond that system--for example, extending '1+1=2' to 'Woody the dog and Misty the dog together make two dogs' is by analogy, by a perceived family resemblance between '1' and 'Woody', even though in a different context, perhaps, Woody, like Walt Whitman, contains multitudes. It does no good to add rules explaining how to apply, say, the 'Woody' symbol, since there is no set of such rules that can provide a complete description of reality. My ability to see that the equation applies depends on perceiving the "oneness" of Woody. The same goes for threes, fours, negative twos, etc.
In this example, we are required to accept the mathematical equation as a model describing reality. But just as when we use Tonka cars as a model to describe a real-life car accident, we are bound to focus on the family resemblance and ignore irrelevant differences. Our capacity to do this rests on our ability to see that in this context, this or that symbol can be applied to this or that thing. Again, though, it is Wittgenstein who demonstrated that ostensive definition of a thing, acceptance of 'models', etc., all depend on a tacit set of background assumptions that are assumed to be understood, and there is no way to make ALL such assumptions explicit. That doesn't mean these analogies are meaningless, only that they are limited in scope. More to the point '1+1=2' applies to this situation given one set of background assumptions, to that situation with an overlapping but different set. For the mathematical symbols to be good models, they can't "stand for" the same things in every situation. (In fact, there are situations, such as, say, addition of clouds, where '1+1=2' doesn't apply in the usual way.)
I too have intuitions about what is '1' and what is '2', but I think it is a very facile and ultimately incoherent assumption that, unless we are talking about pure, arbitrary (within confines of consistency) rules for manipulating symbols, these concepts have unambiguous application to the things in the world that, by experience, we derive these concepts from.
First, the puzzle. Some logical/mathematical concepts, most obviously the Law of Identity, seem to be analytic a priori truths. But consider the thought experiment ofa universe in which there is nothing rather than something, which prima facie appears possible although perhaps in fact it is not. In such a world, would these logical concepts exist? And what would they mean.
Well, decades ago Russell and Whitehead attempted to create a formal system based on pure logic. Russell himself went on to show that an attempt to build such a system on set theory, as they had done, was doomed to failure, because the concept of a 'set' couldn't be rigorously defined in such a way that it could be used to define a number system without leading to contradictory results.
So this attempt to define numbers in terms of sets failed. But clearly numbers are useful and were historically discovered because they describe our world. Whatever formal system is true, it's true because it corresponds with reality. The law of identity (non-contradiction) is a necessary condition for any formal system to be considered true, but not a sufficient condition. It doesn't tell us, for example, how to decide which of three alternative geometries, each of them internally consistent, is true.
We might think that we could choose among such systems based on their correspondence with the real world, and in a given, socially agreed upon context, we can. But Godel demonstrated that no consistent formal system can be used to prove everything that is in fact true, and it follows that no such system can correspond perfectly to the ideal of a transparent mirror of reality in itself.
Consider, for example, addition. Any reasonable system of arithmetic will have, either as axioms, the basic additive equations--a+0=a, a+b=b+a, a+(-a)=0, (a+b)+c=a+(b+c)
, and so forth. We assume, because we derive these formalized intuitions about addition from the world, and apply them in talking about the world, that they represent truths about the world.
This assumes the existence of a 'true' mathematical description of the world that a given mathematical description--inconsistent with other internally consistent mathematical systems with different axioms--approximate. However, it is clear that such a system, even in theory, can't be derived either from pure logic or from the correspondence theory of truth. It is nothing but a chimera.
What any formal system tells us about unambiguously is the rule set for manipulating a set of symbols defined with reference to that system. Since the system cannot in fact provide a complete description of capital-T Truth, there is an apparent gulf between the formal system's symbols and the universe they purport to describe.
But everyone knows that 1+1=2, right? So '1', '+'. '=', and '2' must all mean something, right? Perhaps not. Wittgenstein famously observed the mistake in assuming that because the same word was applied to a class of objects that it followed that they all had something in common. He recommended, instead, that we simply look to see whether they have something in common.
Do they? Consider the '1'. There's 1 dog, 1 mole of atoms, 1 o'clock, 1 "the loneliest number", number 1 signifying preeminence or priority, the ace in my solitaire game, "the One" a single (ubitary) person hopes to meet, 1 thousand, 1 million, 1 in a million, the '1' I'm using to make my point, etc., and it's not clear at all that all the instantiations here have something in common. The same point can be made for such "clearly" intuited concepts as '+', '2', '=', etc.
It does no good to point out that my examples are of imprecise application of a concept since that is exactly my point. In the context of the formal system in which they are defined, the only precise, transparent application of a number defined in that system iswith reference to tat system's rules for manipulating that number. Any application beyond that system--for example, extending '1+1=2' to 'Woody the dog and Misty the dog together make two dogs' is by analogy, by a perceived family resemblance between '1' and 'Woody', even though in a different context, perhaps, Woody, like Walt Whitman, contains multitudes. It does no good to add rules explaining how to apply, say, the 'Woody' symbol, since there is no set of such rules that can provide a complete description of reality. My ability to see that the equation applies depends on perceiving the "oneness" of Woody. The same goes for threes, fours, negative twos, etc.
In this example, we are required to accept the mathematical equation as a model describing reality. But just as when we use Tonka cars as a model to describe a real-life car accident, we are bound to focus on the family resemblance and ignore irrelevant differences. Our capacity to do this rests on our ability to see that in this context, this or that symbol can be applied to this or that thing. Again, though, it is Wittgenstein who demonstrated that ostensive definition of a thing, acceptance of 'models', etc., all depend on a tacit set of background assumptions that are assumed to be understood, and there is no way to make ALL such assumptions explicit. That doesn't mean these analogies are meaningless, only that they are limited in scope. More to the point '1+1=2' applies to this situation given one set of background assumptions, to that situation with an overlapping but different set. For the mathematical symbols to be good models, they can't "stand for" the same things in every situation. (In fact, there are situations, such as, say, addition of clouds, where '1+1=2' doesn't apply in the usual way.)
I too have intuitions about what is '1' and what is '2', but I think it is a very facile and ultimately incoherent assumption that, unless we are talking about pure, arbitrary (within confines of consistency) rules for manipulating symbols, these concepts have unambiguous application to the things in the world that, by experience, we derive these concepts from.
The sky is falling!
A number of crackpots have garnered attention recently by predicting the imminent end of the world. While superficially these predictions are based on, say, the Revelation of St. John or the Mayan calendar, it is clear that prophets of doom have been able to find post hoc justifications for their claims year in and year out for decades. Something else is at work today.
Consider the appeal of Falun Gong, the illegal movement that admittedly has tens of millions of Chinese followers. Is it a coincidence that this movement, which rejects modern medicine and promises miraculous relief from illness and injury, is exploding just as the state is de facto pricing access to health care out of reach for the vast majority?
Analogously, should it be a surprise that people whose private worlds are coming to an end as a result of capitalism's drift toward depression and war should take refuge in the faith inthe destruction of the old world and the birth of a new? The last big wave of millenarianism in the U.S.--the age of the Millerites and the Jehovah's Witnesses--presaged the days of the bloodiest, most desperate labor battles, of Coxey's Army, etc. Jesus in his time similarly also appealed to those who sought an end to the world of slavery and poverty.
The frantic search for signs of the end times is itself an omen. It signifies the despair of billions with the world we know, and the hope for its destruction. And just as in the past, when the masses find that no God, no impersonal fate, no Man of Destiny, will deliver us from the future capitalism promises, they will take matters into their own hands.
Consider the appeal of Falun Gong, the illegal movement that admittedly has tens of millions of Chinese followers. Is it a coincidence that this movement, which rejects modern medicine and promises miraculous relief from illness and injury, is exploding just as the state is de facto pricing access to health care out of reach for the vast majority?
Analogously, should it be a surprise that people whose private worlds are coming to an end as a result of capitalism's drift toward depression and war should take refuge in the faith inthe destruction of the old world and the birth of a new? The last big wave of millenarianism in the U.S.--the age of the Millerites and the Jehovah's Witnesses--presaged the days of the bloodiest, most desperate labor battles, of Coxey's Army, etc. Jesus in his time similarly also appealed to those who sought an end to the world of slavery and poverty.
The frantic search for signs of the end times is itself an omen. It signifies the despair of billions with the world we know, and the hope for its destruction. And just as in the past, when the masses find that no God, no impersonal fate, no Man of Destiny, will deliver us from the future capitalism promises, they will take matters into their own hands.
The Chick Code revealed
Perhaps you know about Jack Chick, billed as the most widely-read comic book artis in the world. He does those little pamphlets about the need to turn your life over to Jesus before you burn in Hell. Charming guy.
Well, I'm not the first person to find one of his comics particularly perplexing. The story: missionaries are seated on the plane next to an evangelist. They excitedly tell him about the good works they've done for a benighted people, while he asks them how many souls they've won. They don't have ears to hear, and when the plane crashes they go to Hell.
Readers have commented on the implausibility of missionaries' doing all these kind things, teaching people to pray (apparently), and not converting a single soul. Well, in honor of Father's Day, I figure I'll give Chick and his sky-daddy the benefit of the doubt.
See, the tract is really a parable of the sort Jesus used, whose manifest content disguises an esoteric meaning. Remember that Jesus and his disciples were leftist revolutionaries for whom conversion is not about verbal acceptance of a creed or habit, but rather renewed life in perfect love. Not all who call Jesus Lord, but those who do the work of his Father, are the elect. And that work is feeding the poor, sheltering the homeless, and tending to the sick.
Now the missionaries in the story built schools and hospitals. Similarly, the Priest and the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan no doubt gave generously. But Jesus demands perfection. The missionaries here, perhaps, are like the (unfairly maligned?) Pharisees of Matthew's gospel. Their gifts they write down on the debit side of their ledgers, while on the other side they reckon thousandfold recompense and eternal life.
They have no inkling that the gift that Divine Law requires of us--whether in the name of Jesus, or Paul, or Apollo--is perfect love. If we have faith, we will naturally give what we can, and we will give it in a loving way--unlike so many real-life missionaries, who build schools and hospitals while they exploit native labor and sexuality, support thuggish sectarian movements, and ally themselves with global political reaction.
Modern-day disciples of Christ are not those who hector strangers into repeating arcane formulae of the sort Jesus "Man was not made for the Sabbath" himself rejected, but those who treat their fellow men and women as brothers and sisters. As equals.
Well, I'm not the first person to find one of his comics particularly perplexing. The story: missionaries are seated on the plane next to an evangelist. They excitedly tell him about the good works they've done for a benighted people, while he asks them how many souls they've won. They don't have ears to hear, and when the plane crashes they go to Hell.
Readers have commented on the implausibility of missionaries' doing all these kind things, teaching people to pray (apparently), and not converting a single soul. Well, in honor of Father's Day, I figure I'll give Chick and his sky-daddy the benefit of the doubt.
See, the tract is really a parable of the sort Jesus used, whose manifest content disguises an esoteric meaning. Remember that Jesus and his disciples were leftist revolutionaries for whom conversion is not about verbal acceptance of a creed or habit, but rather renewed life in perfect love. Not all who call Jesus Lord, but those who do the work of his Father, are the elect. And that work is feeding the poor, sheltering the homeless, and tending to the sick.
Now the missionaries in the story built schools and hospitals. Similarly, the Priest and the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan no doubt gave generously. But Jesus demands perfection. The missionaries here, perhaps, are like the (unfairly maligned?) Pharisees of Matthew's gospel. Their gifts they write down on the debit side of their ledgers, while on the other side they reckon thousandfold recompense and eternal life.
They have no inkling that the gift that Divine Law requires of us--whether in the name of Jesus, or Paul, or Apollo--is perfect love. If we have faith, we will naturally give what we can, and we will give it in a loving way--unlike so many real-life missionaries, who build schools and hospitals while they exploit native labor and sexuality, support thuggish sectarian movements, and ally themselves with global political reaction.
Modern-day disciples of Christ are not those who hector strangers into repeating arcane formulae of the sort Jesus "Man was not made for the Sabbath" himself rejected, but those who treat their fellow men and women as brothers and sisters. As equals.
Hello and welcome!
Hi, my name is Loren. Welcome to my blog (under construction. Well, I wasn't sure where to start, but this seems like a meaty story:
As NARAL alerted me, Congress is voting to block the people of D.C., through their elected representatives, from using their own tax revenues to provide abortion services for low-income women. Keep in mind that this is a Congress that has one of the world's best corporate health care plans for its own members, and a Congress in which the District of Columbia has not a single voting representative, even though its population is higher than some states.
Now, the District also has one of the highest Black populations in the country. So, to sum up, what we have here is a largely male, white-dominated government representing rich women who can afford access to safe, legal abortion, denying the right of a lagely Black community to afford that same access to its members. The white lawmakers live side by side with the Black subjects but don't even pretend to give them a voice in the government.
I can't help being reminded of the infamous abortion policies of white-ruled S. Africa, where thousands of Black women died every year because they lacked access to safe, legal abortion, while affluent whites could afford to get abortions in other countries, albeit inconveniently.
This is one of many examples of governments chipping away at abortion rights recently, and a lot of the fault lies with the failures of liberal feminists to approach abortion as an issue of race and class. The focus on securing legal access to abortion for white, middle-class women has led many "feminists" to connect abortion rights with reactionary population-control policies. from the time of Margaret Sanger up through the second-wave feminist period, many abortion rights organizations tacitly or openly championed the forcible sterilization of Blacks, Puerto Ricans, and other marginalized women. This genocidal position naturally alienated anti-racists from the abortion rights struggle, and philosophically represented a concession that a woman's right to control her body--to choose to have OR not to have children--is trumped by alleged social interests in controlling her.
It is only when the right to abortion is championed based on a woman's fundamental right to make her own informed medical decisions--a right that is also under attack with prosecutions of medical marijuana patients and other examples of the war on drug users, which itself has resulted in a disparate devastation's being visited on the Black community--that alliances capable of putting powerful social forces behind safe, legal abortion become possible. Such a movement would situate this struggle in the context of the unions' fight for a national, free, government-run health care program.
As NARAL alerted me, Congress is voting to block the people of D.C., through their elected representatives, from using their own tax revenues to provide abortion services for low-income women. Keep in mind that this is a Congress that has one of the world's best corporate health care plans for its own members, and a Congress in which the District of Columbia has not a single voting representative, even though its population is higher than some states.
Now, the District also has one of the highest Black populations in the country. So, to sum up, what we have here is a largely male, white-dominated government representing rich women who can afford access to safe, legal abortion, denying the right of a lagely Black community to afford that same access to its members. The white lawmakers live side by side with the Black subjects but don't even pretend to give them a voice in the government.
I can't help being reminded of the infamous abortion policies of white-ruled S. Africa, where thousands of Black women died every year because they lacked access to safe, legal abortion, while affluent whites could afford to get abortions in other countries, albeit inconveniently.
This is one of many examples of governments chipping away at abortion rights recently, and a lot of the fault lies with the failures of liberal feminists to approach abortion as an issue of race and class. The focus on securing legal access to abortion for white, middle-class women has led many "feminists" to connect abortion rights with reactionary population-control policies. from the time of Margaret Sanger up through the second-wave feminist period, many abortion rights organizations tacitly or openly championed the forcible sterilization of Blacks, Puerto Ricans, and other marginalized women. This genocidal position naturally alienated anti-racists from the abortion rights struggle, and philosophically represented a concession that a woman's right to control her body--to choose to have OR not to have children--is trumped by alleged social interests in controlling her.
It is only when the right to abortion is championed based on a woman's fundamental right to make her own informed medical decisions--a right that is also under attack with prosecutions of medical marijuana patients and other examples of the war on drug users, which itself has resulted in a disparate devastation's being visited on the Black community--that alliances capable of putting powerful social forces behind safe, legal abortion become possible. Such a movement would situate this struggle in the context of the unions' fight for a national, free, government-run health care program.
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