Sunday, October 6, 2024

#280 / Our Predictions Are Predicated On What?

 


The blog posting from which I appropriated the picture above (I always provide, at the bottom of the page, an image credit for any graphics I use) is headlined as follows: "Why it’s so hard to make accurate predictions." 

Well, why is it?

According to Nancy Kim, associate professor of psychology at Northeastern University, who studies conceptual thinking, there are really two different kinds of "prediction."

There are two basic kinds of predictions that people make: intuitive predictions, which rely on experience and intuition, and statistical predictions, which rely on data and algorithms. When meteorologists try to predict tomorrow’s weather, they’ll be able to draw upon mountains of carefully recorded data on precise atmospheric conditions and what the weather was actually like. They can look at computer models, which are constantly being honed. But predicting the outcome of events like elections is much different—and much harder—because of their uniqueness. There is no directly relevant data. You could try analyzing data from past elections, but every political election is different, with candidates who have never gone up against each other before and a different social and economic climate. Polling data is helpful, but it’s still all future-oriented guesses, not hard data cemented in the past. It consists entirely of people’s individual predictions about how they are going to vote in the future and whether they are actually going to make it to the polls, based on what they know and how they feel at the time of the poll.

You would really have to be fantastically devoted to his blog of mine to remember that I promised to address the issue of "prediction" some time ago - on August 9, 2024, in fact, and I am, today, making good on that promise. While I agree with Kim that there are two kinds of "prediction," I would describe them a little bit differently. 

The "statistical" predictions that Kim mentions are "predictions" that are premised and predicated upon the "Laws of Nature" that govern the physical world. Since today is a Sunday, let's call that physical world the "World God Made." I am, in other words, reminding anyone reading this of my "Two Worlds Hypothesis," which is a particular way to think about, describe, and understand, our human condition. 

Ultimately, we do live in the "World of Nature," which we did not, ourselves, create, and into which we have been, so mysteriously, born. This "World of Nature," which can best be visualized as Planet Earth, as seen from space, is the "ultimate" reality that determines our fate. No Planet Earth? No human beings. What "happens" in that "World of Nature" is governed by "laws," and those laws are different from the kind of "laws" enacted by Congress, or by your local City Council or Board of Supervisors. You can't, in fact, "disobey" the "Law of Gravity," or any of the other "laws" that govern the "World of Nature." If human beings put greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere, the planet will heat up, according to what are some very complex "laws," indeed, but which "laws" are absolutely binding upon us. Want to keep burning fossil fuels (and there are lots of reasons to want to do that)? Well, get ready for major climate catastrophes. You can "predict" them!

"Human" laws, of course, are completely different from the "Laws of Nature." While we can't "disobey" the "Law of Gravity," or any other of the various laws that describe how the "World of Nature" works, we most emphatically can disobey any of the many "Human Laws" that we impose upon ourselves. The "Laws" that govern how "Nature" works, in other words, are "descriptive." They tell us what must and will happen, when certain circumstances exist. 

"Human Laws," the ones that pertain to our own conduct, are completely different, since they can be disobeyed at will. There may be consequences, of course, if we disobey them, but they don't tell us what must and will happen. They tell us what we have decided ought to happen. They are "prescriptive," not "descriptive." 

So, in the world of human affairs, in which human activities are subject to laws that are "prescriptive," but which can be disobeyed, we never really know, for sure, what will happen. We don't actually have to do what we are expected to do. The "Law of Gravity," and all the laws that govern the physical world operate completely differently from the laws we formulate to govern our own activities. Why? Human Freedom is why, just in case you haven't already figured this out.

So, to "predict" anything in which human beings are involved is always uncertain. Most of the time, people do what is "expected," so our predictions about "elections," and other human activities are, as Kim says, somewhat "intuitive." But Kim doesn't really take human freedom into account the way I think would better explain our situation. "Predictions" about human choices, and their consequences, can never be truly "predictive," the way we can "predict" the weather, and not really because human affairs are more complicated, but because what will happen isn't actually determined by laws or constraints that (were they completely known) would certainly determine outcomes. What happens depends on what we think, and decide, and do, and we can do something new, and unexpected, at any time. 

Trying to "predict" elections, or any other comparably important thing in our "Human World," is basically a misguided effort, predicated on an erroneous equivalency, supposing that human affairs are like the seasons, or global mean temperatures, following "laws" that (when we know all the facts) will certainly tell us what will happen. The current presidential election certainly makes this obvious. Prior to July 21st, who could have predicted - in the sense of being certain about it - what has actually happened? Who would dare to predict any certain result on November 5th?

Let's forget all that (like we should forget all the "predictions" about the outcomes of the upcoming presidential election, given the tumult and turmoil we have witnessed in the presidential campaigns so far). 

What will "happen" in "our" world, the "Human World" in which we most immediately live, will be determined by what human beings choose to do. That means what you and I will choose to do - and our actions can't be predicted. We must not try to "predict" the world we most immediately inhabit - the "Human World," or the "Political World." Instead, we must try to make the world our own. We can do that only by the actions we take, none of which are "determined," and all of which are governed under the sign of "possibility," and not by the kind of inevitabilities that prevail in the "World of Nature."



Saturday, October 5, 2024

#279 / MAGA

  


I am not what anyone would call a "MAGA" supporter - at least as that slogan is currently understood. The link above will take you to Wikipedia, which discusses this slogan. "MAGA" stands for "Make America Great Again." Wikipedia notes that the slogan has been "most recently popularized by Donald Trump." Those identifying themselves with the "MAGA" effort are Trump's "political base."

I am definitely not part of Donald Trump's "political base." However, while I am on the opposite side of most things where Donald J. Trump is concerned, and while I am hoping that he is not elected, once again, to the presidency, and while I am planning to do whatever I can to insure that result, I actually think it would be a pretty good idea to "Make America Great Again." I have said that before, too.  

What do you think? Don't you think that's a great goal and objective? What citizen of the United States of America wouldn't want America to be "Great" - now, or again, or however you'd like to put it? The problem, of course, is that we do have different ideas, here in the United States, about what would "Make America Great." Furthermore, the "Again" part of that slogan is a big problem. 

"Again" suggests that there was a time, in the past, when America was "Great," but that things have now changed. Frankly, a lot of people have a lot of difficulty with the idea that America used to be "Great," because they don't think it really was.

How about slavery? Not so great! How about the fact that women could not hold office, or even vote, until early in the twentieth century? Not so great! How about the appropriation of a huge part of the North American continent by immigrants from Europe and beyond, who savagely killed off the native tribes that were here long before they came, all in order to perfect the appropriation of the land by those newcomers, who came to call themselves "Americans"? Not so great! How about the way we have treated the natural environment? How about killing off the buffalo? How about the way workers have been treated throughout our history? How about health care and income inequality? How about the military interventions that the United States has made, all around the world? How about the Vietnam War (that's one that affected me personally)? NOT SO GREAT!

My earlier blog posting featuring a photo of a "MAGA" hat said that the slogan was "aspirational." And, in fact, what has actually been "Great" about "America" has been its aspirations, has been its stated aspirations, which are best understood as commitments. Actual performance has not uniformally lived up to the promises we have made to ourselves. 

When I say that I want to "Make America Great Again" (and I do), I have a couple of things in mind. I think that the slogan refers to our revolution, and specifically to the following statement of intention made in our Declaration of Independence

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all persons are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, and that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Those who signed the Declaration of Independence pledged their "Lives," their "Fortunes," and their "Sacred Honor" to the realization of the statements made in that document. To "Make America Great Again," we will need to do the same thing, now. Realizing the commitments made in the Declaration is how to "Make America Great." 

We have, in fact, been down this road before. When it became ever more obvious that slavery would have to be abolished, to fulfill the promises we made, as our nation was born, a great Civil War ensued. This was, at bottom, a war between those who wanted the nation to continue to strive for what was promised at the inception, and those who were prepared to abandon the idea that we would found our nation on the proposition that "all persons are created equal."

As the Civil War drew to a close, Abraham Lincoln made clear that the Civil War was, in fact, a war that recommitted and rededicated the nation to the pledges made in 1776: 

From these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Make America Great Again? I say, "Yes." 

But let's understand what that "Yes" means. That "Yes" means that we must, again - individually and collectively - dedicate ourselves, and our lives, and our fortunes, and our sacred honor - to the proposition that a government of, for, and by the people will not be abandoned. It means that our actions, as we make and carry out national policy, will be premised, without fail, on the recognition that "all persons are created equal," and that every one of us has an "unalienable right" to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

To Make America Great Again, we must recall what was stated so plainly in 1776. To realize those objectives, just mentioned, is in fact, is the whole reason that "Governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."


Friday, October 4, 2024

#278 / "__________________" Is Coming



The guy pictured above is Rod Dreher. He lives in Hungary (by choice), and he always has lots of nice things to say about Viktor Orban. Dreher is "conservative," and "religious," and he writes a blog called Rod Dreher's Diary. If you click that link, that should take you to his September 2, 2024, edition, which is headed up by the following picture: 


Viktor Orban is the guy on the left. You know the guy on the right.

In the column I have linked, Dreher opines that, "Criminalizing Dissent Is Coming." Click the link to see whether or not you think that Dreher makes a good case. I don't.

My purpose with this blog posting today, however, is not to debate the issue implicitly raised by Dreher's September 2nd blog posting. It is not to debate the question whether or not a criminalization of dissent is coming to the United States.

Instead of debating that possibility, I want to highlight the grammatical structure that Dreher has used for his title. Saying that something "is coming...." indicates that whatever it is that "is coming" is definitely going to come - that it is "inevitable." 

Think about it. The "is" word is the word we use to identify a reality, a "truth." 

Gary Patton "is" a former County Supervisor. Gary Patton "is" a resident of Santa Cruz, California. The sky "is" blue. These "is" statements describe things that are "true." Because usisng the "is" word is how we talk about something that is true, we end up, without even thinking about it, "believing" the truth of any statement that comes to us in one of those "is" sentences.

Saying that something "is coming," when it hasn't come yet, is to eliminate the sense that we have any real ability to decide what happens in the future. It is also a way of putting whoever accepts such an "is" statement in the position of an "observer," as opposed to putting the person in the position of an "actor."

If you are at a train station, and you look to your left, and you can see the train approaching, you might say, "the train is coming." That would be a statement about a present reality. But if you say that "a stock market crash "is coming," you are making a prediction, or issuing a warning. You aren't, actually, describing a present reality, and you shouldn't, really, say, "is...."

Does this really matter? I think it does! We tend to "believe" what we "tell ourselves" (and often, of course, we believe what others tell us, too). If someone - say Donald Trump - says that something "is coming" (and he predicts that terrible things are "coming" practically every time he speaks, in exactly those terms), then many assume that he knows what he is talking about, and that what he says is "true," and that whatever is claimed, in one of those "is" sentences, is a statetment about an existing "reality." 

Of course, this phenomenon is not true only with respect to former presidents who are running for office once again. It really is true that we usually believe what we "tell ourselves."

So, let's not tell ourselves things that aren't true. If we are worried about the possibility that political "dissent" might be criminalized, then let's tell it like it really "is." For instance, we might properly say: "Recent events raise the possibility that political dissent might be criminalized in the future." And if you, or I, or Rod Dreher were to say that, the person making that assertion should provide some reasons that we ought to be worried - some evidence in support of the statement.

Does this really matter? I think it does! 

We are "actors," not just "observers." All of us are "actors," and this means, as I have said in an earlier blog posting, we are all "free to change the world." 

We can change the world, you know! We do it all the time. We should be very careful not to get in the habit of using language that convinces us that the contrary is the case.


Thursday, October 3, 2024

#277 / The Meaning Of Genocide



The New York Times Magazine has addressed "genocide," the word, in a lengthy article titled, "The Bitter Fight Over the Meaning of ‘Genocide.’" It's worth reading (if the paywall maintained by The Times will let you do that). 

The word "genocide" is fraught, and that word, of course, is very much at issue as Israel continues to take actions in Gaza, and the West Bank, and in Lebanon that are horrific, that are killing tens and tens of thousands of persons, many of them children. 

What Israel is doing in Palestine would be horrific beyond any precedent - except for the fact, of course, that there are so many precedents for what Israel is doing, destroying peoples' homes, and schools, and hospitals, and places of work, and delivering death sentences upon those who have never had a trial, whose "guilt," if any, has never been measured or judged. Given that so many of those being killed are children, it seems clear that there is, in fact, no "guilt" that could be shown to justify the deaths of those being bombed and burned.

Is what is happening in Palestine "genocide"? The signs and the chants on American campuses, and that were heard at the Democratic National Convention, all say, "Yes." The Times' article suggests that what is going on may well not be "genocide," and reports that "a reappraisal of genocide’s legal definition," is needed, and may, in fact, be underway. "Thinking like a lawyer," it does seem that there are substantial questions whether or not what Israel is doing is "genocide." 

Let's not think like "lawyers." Let's think like human beings. 

What is happening in Israel and Palestine - and what is happening elsewhere around the world - is, in fact, unconscionable and insupportable. The definition of "genocide" doesn't have to be modified, to make all of us aware of that. The real question - I think - is not whether or not "genocide" is occurring. What is occurring, by any name, is horrific and unsupportable. In Israel and Palestine - and everywhere around the world where nations, and people, are engaged in and preparing for the kind of death and destruction that is occuring in Palestine, we - the world, the United Nations, the nations of this world, must simply say, "no more." 

Kris Kristofferson, who just recently died, at 88, has a line, in one of his songs ("Love Is The Way") that speaks to this point. In the video you can see by clicking this link, Kristofferson sings: "Look closer, my brother, we're killing each other." We have to stop. We have to "call the whole thing off." 

I suggest we not focus on words. I suggest we focus on the facts. Are we, citizens of the United States, implicated in what is happening [we are]? Are businesses in the United States making money from the destruction and death so readily visible in Israel and Palestine and elsewhere [they are]? 

Are we prepared to learn what is happening - getting a full and fair account - and then use every political, economic, and social tool at our disposal to stop the destruction underway?

That remains to be seen, but that is what we need to do!


Wednesday, October 2, 2024

#276 / Mark This!

   


Jason Mark is the editor of Sierra Magazine, and he has a very simple message to impart: "Abolish Fossil Fuels." Mark's article can be found in the Fall 2024 edition of the magazine. As far as I can tell, no paywall will prevent you from reading his appeal, which he subtitles as follows: "A moral case for ending the age of coal, oil, and gas." 

I subscribe to Sierra, as a member of the Sierra Club, and I found the entire Fall 2024 issue to be compelling. I particularly appreciated the magazine's acknowledgment of the "Dark Cloud" overhanging our efforts to eliminate the combustion of fossil fuels. As specifically noted in the "Opening Remarks" by Paul Rauber, "progress is threatened by AI, cryptocurrency, and our new penchant for putting our entire digital lives in "the cloud."

In fact, we are, more and more, locating our entire lives "online." We certainly entertain ourselves online, watching full length movies, or crazy little cat videos. More substantively, we run our economy online. That's where we bank; that's where we transact business. We store our memories online. and we write blogs online. 

Please don't think I'm not aware of the irony, as I protest our abandonment of the common, "real" world into which we have been so mysteriously born. Instead of being willing to live there, we are choosing, from an early age, to sequester ourselves in a completely non-physical dimension, "online," and that "online" world - run by giant corporations, by the way - is supported by massive amounts of human-created electric power. Sierra alerts us to some of the implications of this decision to transition our lives online by presenting the facts in "game" form: "The Game of Life: Electrified."

When something goes wrong, and the "lights go out," we will find ourselves both wordless and worldless. Mark this! It's a real problem. It is, as the Fall 2024 edition of Sierra says, a genuine "Dark Cloud" shadowing everything. 

I think I am right about the absence of a paywall. Presuming that I am, I invite you to check out that Fall 2024 issue of Sierra.

If I'm wrong, and you need to be a member of the Sierra Club to get access to the magazine, then I suggest you join! 


Tuesday, October 1, 2024

#275 / Calling The Whole Thing Off



 
Lucian K. Truscott IV is pictured above. Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia write up on Truscott:
 
Lucian King Truscott IV (born April 11, 1947) is an American writer and journalist. A former staff writer for The Village Voice, he is the author of several military-themed novels including Dress Gray, which was adapted into a 1986 television film of the same name. 
Truscott was born in Japan to US Army Colonel Lucian K. Truscott III and Anne (née Harloe). His grandfather, Lucian Jr., was a US Army general during World War II where he commanded the 3rd Infantry Division and later the Fifth Army in Italy. His father Lucian III served in the US Army in Korea and Vietnam, retiring as a colonel. 
Truscott attended the United States Military Academy, graduating in 1969. In 1968, Truscott and other cadets challenged the required attendance at chapel services. Later, a court case filed by another cadet along with midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy resulted in a 1972 US Court of Appeals decision (upheld by the Supreme Court) that ended mandatory chapel attendance at all the service academies. He was then assigned to Fort Carson, Colorado. There, he wrote an article about heroin addiction among enlisted soldiers and another about what he felt was an illegal court martial. He was threatened with being sent to Vietnam, so he resigned his commission about thirteen months after graduating, receiving a "general discharge under other than honorable conditions."

Truscott authors a daily Substack blog, which he calls the Lucian Truscott Newsletter. On September 23, 2024, Truscott's blog commented on the unprecedented "exploding pagers" attack by Israel. While the attack was aimed at the leaders of Hezbollah, a military group, it ended up killing many innocent people, including a 9-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy, with more than 3,000 wounded. Some have called the attack a war crime


In summary - though I encourage you to read Truscott's blog posting for yourself - Truscott says that what Israel did is likely a good example of what will be the future of war, and that it is inevitable that completely unexpected attacks, often aimed at killing specific individuals, will take the lives of many civilians, who are just innocently living their lives, completely unaware that they might become collateral damage in some innovative military attack. 

Did Truscott have his tongue in his cheek when he intimated that we (everyone - all involved, on every side) should just "call the whole thing off"? 

I don't know, of course. I don't know what Truscott meant by his title. Maybe he was being ironic. 

Maybe. But I would like to suggest that we take what he said seriously. "Calling the whole thing off." I do think that would be a good idea!


Monday, September 30, 2024

#274 / Character And My Vote




Stanley A. McChrystal, who is a retired Army General - he is pictured, above - has just weighed in on the upcoming presidential election. Here are some words about McChrystal, from Wikipedia

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates described McChrystal as "perhaps the finest warrior and leader of men in combat I ever met." However, following unflattering remarks about Vice President Joe Biden and other administration officials attributed to McChrystal and his aides in a Rolling Stone article, McChrystal was recalled to Washington, D.C., where President Barack Obama accepted his resignation as commander in Afghanistan.

McChrystal is, clearly, not some sort of Democratic Party fanboy. Still, in a New York Times opinion piece, published on Saturday, September 28, 2024, McChrystal endorsed Kamala Harris for president over her opponent, former president Donald J. Trump. The headline on McChrystal's statement was this: "Why Kamala Harris Has Won Me Over." 

I thought McChrystal's commentary was instructive. You can click the link above to read his column for yourself (though a paywall may frustrate your effort). To be sure that you get the essence of what McChrystal has said, I am providing the following excerpt (emphasis added):

Some deeply consequential decisions are starkly simple. That is how I view our upcoming presidential election. And that is why I have already cast my ballot for character — and voted for Vice President Kamala Harris.

As a citizen, veteran and voter, I was not comfortable with many of the policy recommendations that Democrats offered at their convention in Chicago or those Republicans articulated in Milwaukee. My views tend more toward the center of the political spectrum. And although I have opinions on high-profile issues, like abortion, gun safety and immigration, that’s not why I made my decision.

Political narratives and policies matter, but they didn’t govern my choice. I find it easy to be attracted to, or repelled by, proposals on taxes, education and countless other issues. But I believe that events and geopolitical and economic forces will, like strong tides, move policymakers where they ultimately must go. In practice, few administrations travel the course they campaigned on. Circumstances change. Our president, therefore, must be more than a policymaker or a malleable reflection of the public’s passions. She or he must lead — and that takes character.

Character is the ultimate measure of leadership for those who seek the highest office in our land. The American revolutionary Thomas Paine is said to have written, “Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.” Regardless of what a person says, character is ultimately laid bare in his or her actions. So I pay attention to what a leader does. 

I think McChrystal is right - and like McChrystal, I have problems with both candidates and their campaigns. I think it's correct, for instance, that the Biden Administration did not handle the United States' evacuation from Afghanistan without having made some grievous mistakes. Perhaps even more telling, for me, I would like Vice President Harris to take a strong stand against the kind of devastation that Israel has brought to Palestine, and is now bringing to Lebanon. The United States is helping to fund actions that I think are profoundly wrong. 

Still, at this point, our choice is binary. On November 5th, we will elect either Kamala Harris or Donald J. Trump to be our next president. What counts most for me, as for McChrystal, is my evaluation of the character of the two candidates. Past is not inevitably prologue (though if it were, I would still vote for Harris, based on my evaluation of past mistakes by Biden/Harris, and the past mistakes of Trump as president). If McChrystal is correct, and I believe he is, "events and geopolitical forces will ... move policymakers where they ultimately must go." If what is happening in Israel and Palestine is high on your list of concerns about this election (as it should be!), I think Harris is the persoon who will, I believe, take our nation in the right direction. I have no such faith in Donald J. Trump.

This is particularly true because we have seen how Donald Trump conducted himself as our former president, and becaue we see how he is campaigning right now. In the same edition of The Times in which the McChrystal opinion column appeared, The New York Times examined "every falsehood, exaggeration and untruth in stump speeches by Trump and Harris." As a subheadline in The Times noted, "Over an hour and 3 minutes, Mr. Trump made 64 false or inaccurate statements (emphasis in the original)." The Times found six instances of false of misleading statements in the Harris speech that The Times examined (emphasis added).

Ultimately, what our government does depends on us. If we are waiting around for some "perfect candidate," who will, once elected, relieve us of our obligation to act, politically, and to demand that the government do what we believe is right, we are waiting for an illusory non-future. Who do we want in the office of the president as we move forward next year? That is actually the question at hand.

We have two choices. I'm with McChrystal, and I am voting for Kamala Harris - not because I agree with everything she has done, or is proposing to do, but because she is, in my estimation, the better person.

I have a hunch I wouldn't much agree with McChrystal on lots of policy matters, but I agree with him on this. Kamala Harris has character, and Kamala Harris gets my vote on November 5th!

Sunday, September 29, 2024

#273 / For Every Action....


Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton's "Third Law of Motion" is usually expressed this way: "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." Fair enough, with respect to those laws that govern our physical world. Most of us are convinced that this is an accurate statement of how the world actually works, in terms of physics.

However, does that statement reflect any reality in the "Human World," the world that we create ourselves? In other words, does Newton's "Third Law" accurately describe what must and will happen when we get beyond "physics," and start talking about how human beings interact?

Many people would say, "Yes," of course! Newton's Third Law definitely applies! If somebody pushes you, you push them right back, don't you? If they attack you, you'll attack them!

Employing Newton's "Third Law" in this way, with reference to human interactions, is actually more of a "justification" than an actual "law," since a "law" (at least when we're talking physics) is something that predicts what must and will happen. Still, as a statement of how our "Human World" works, Newtons "Third Law" still seems right to a lot of people. If someone does something bad to you, you should do the very same bad thing right back to them! In case this is your own view, please allow me to suggest that you read this book by Mohandas Gandhi, "My Experiments With Truth."

In early July, I read an inspiring New York Times' column by Nicholas Kristof, "Advocating Peace in the West Bank." At least, that's the way the title reads in the hard copy version of the paper that showed up on my front lawn. Online, which is where is where the link will take you, Kristof's column was titled, "Meet the Followers of Martin Luther King Jr. in the West Bank."

Oh, that guy! Yeah! Remember him? He's just like that Gandhi guy! King, too, repudiated Newton's "Third Law" when used to justify responding to unfair, even illegal, insults, attacks, and violence. He is not one of my "Five Guys" for nothing. A couple more of the "Five Guys" that I rely upon were just like King, when it came to responding to violence with violence, or responding to insults and injuries with injuries and insults delivered in return. If you can't figure out who I'm talking about without checking back, feel free to click this link to revisit that "Five Guys" blog posting. 

Here are the opening paragraphs to Kristof's July 7, 2024, column. The Times' paywall permitting, I suggest that you read the whole thing: 

A sign at the entrance to the Nassar family farm reads: “We refuse to be enemies.”

In a land torn apart by conflict, hatred and violence, this farm is an oasis of peace. Called the Tent of Nations, it is a monument to the idea that Arabs and Jews can live together in harmony.

The Nassars, a Christian Palestinian family, hold children’s camps and other programs on the farm to promote understanding and nonviolence even as they struggle to save their land from confiscation by Israeli settlers. They quote Martin Luther King Jr. and provide a model of peacefulness for their Palestinian and Israeli neighbors alike.

“It’s very important for us to show that nonviolent resistance is the key to change,” said Daoud Nassar, who runs the farm with his siblings Amal and Daher and other family members. “With violence, people will achieve more violence, will achieve more hatred, will achieve more bitterness and more enemies” (emphasis added). 

My suggestion (and I am serious) is that Congress and the President invite Daoud Nassar to visit the United States, and ask him to address Congress and our nation. The purpose of this visit would be to allow the United States to consider a wholesale change in its approach to global affairs, and to put its money into realizing the "Tent of Nations" concept on a global scale, promoting nonviolent resistance instead of new weapons systems. 

It is only "impossible" because we're not doing it! Where human possibility is concerned, Newton was just plain wrong!



Image Credits:

Saturday, September 28, 2024

#272 / The Best And The Brightest




Maybe you have to be an "old guy" to remember David Halberstam's book, The Best And The Brightest. I qualify. I not only remember the book, I also remember the war it was written about. It was written about the "Vietnam War," for those who are not among the "old guy" contingent. 

My quick summary of the Halberstam book follows: The so-called "best and the brightest" totally failed to lead the nation away from a quagmire in Vietnam that never should have happened. The "Best And The Brightest" designation was intended to be highly ironic. 

Well, maybe somebody should slip the word to Andrew Hall, a professor at Stanford. In a June, 2024 presentation to the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Hall bemoans the fact that the nation is failing to attract the "best and the brightest" into running for public office:

The ability to elect leaders is a privilege that many people throughout history — and some still today — could only dream of. Yet, even in a representative democracy, the choice that citizens have is often only as good as the candidates they have to choose from. That’s why professor of political economy Andrew B. Hall wonders: How do we get society’s best and brightest to participate in politics?

Hall teaches in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford, which perhaps explains (though I don't think excuses) his main suggestion: Pay those politicians more!

Check out the financial status of those who serve in the United States Congress. There are many, many millionaires among them. In fact, it often appears that those seeking to be elected to Congress run for office in order to make money. That's probably a little harsh, but there may be some truth to it. 

If we don't like the kind of government we're getting, I think we need to start with the people who are being represented, not with those who are, or who might be, their representatives. 

Our current system gives voters a choice of candidates largely selected of, by, and for the elite (meaning those with a lot of money). Until ordinary voters decide that they want to spend more time on politics themselves (meaning less time on their other activities) this will continue to be the case. The antidote to dissatisfaction with our elected representatives is to: (1) Get organized; (2) Elect "representatives" who will actually represent those organized voters who will then be determining what politics delivers, instead of looking at the choices offered, and then staying home. I don't think, unfortunately, that there is any "shortcut." If we want to have a functioning and representative system of "self-government," then we will have to get involved ourselves. 

Our problem, in my opinion, isn't getting more of the elite, the "best and the brightest," involved in politics. Our problem is in getting more of us involved - the ordinary folks for whom our system of "self-government" is supposed to be working.

In other words: if you don't like our politics (raise your hand if you agree), then you had better get involved with a small group of people dedicated to changing them.


Image Credit:

Friday, September 27, 2024

#271 / Paying Attention Like That Third Bird



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The May 6, 2024, edition of The New Yorker included an article that was catagorized among its "Annals of Inquiry." The article I am speaking of, by Nathan Heller, was titled, "The Battle For Attention: How Do We Hold On To What Matters In A Distracted Age?

The link just presented will take you to the article, but just in case paywall protection efforts prevent non-New Yorker subscribers from using that link to read the article, I am giving you another link, right here. That link will allow you to read the article in a PDF format.

To the degree that I have ever focused on the importance of "attention," at least in recent years, I have considered "attention" in the context of its ever-greater importance as a commodity. As perhaps those reading this blog posting will know, many believe that we are now living in an "attention economy." 

What this means is that the giant corporations that have created an alternative "world" for us, online, are competing to grab our individual attention, which is valuable to them because our attention is routinely comandeered in the effort to sell us something. Online "influencers," in fact, are paid (and sometimes very handsomely) for their ability to get the attention of the online public.

This idea of "attention" as an economic asset is something that I have discussed with those students, in the past, who took my course at UCSC on "Privacy, Technology, And Freedom." That "economic" understanding of what "attention" is all about is the way that I have, most recently at least, thought about the topic, and this is, to be sure, an aspect of "attention" that is discussed by Heller in his article.

In his New Yorker article, though, Heller is suggesting other ways to think about "attention," and I hope that those reading this blog posting will use the links I have provided to read his article in its entirety. In many ways, "attention" is more profoundly important than we often understand. 

Here is how Heller begins his article: 

For years, we have heard a litany of reasons why our capacity to pay attention is disturbingly on the wane. Technology—the buzzing, blinking pageant on our screens and in our pockets—hounds us. Modern life, forever quicker and more scattered, drives concentration away. For just as long, concerns of this variety could be put aside. Television was described as a force against attention even in the nineteen-forties. A lot of focussed, worthwhile work has taken place since then.
But alarms of late have grown more urgent. Last year, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reported a huge ten-year decline in reading, math, and science performance among fifteen-year-olds globally, a third of whom cited digital distraction as an issue. Clinical presentations of attention problems have climbed (a recent study of data from the medical-software company Epic found an over-all tripling of A.D.H.D. diagnoses between 2010 and 2022, with the steepest uptick among elementary-school-age children), and college students increasingly struggle to get through books, according to their teachers, many of whom confess to feeling the same way. Film pacing has accelerated, with the average length of a shot decreasing; in music, the mean length of top-performing pop songs declined by more than a minute between 1990 and 2020. A study conducted in 2004 by the psychologist Gloria Mark found that participants kept their attention on a single screen for an average of two and a half minutes before turning it elsewhere. These days, she writes, people can pay attention to one screen for an average of only forty-seven seconds (emphasis added).

Having provided this rather grim listing of how we seem to be losing the ability to "pay attention," Heller then veers from an analysis of our current situation to a kind of self-help advisory, conveyed by Heller's discussion of "The Order Of The Third Bird." 

The Order of The Third Bird" is a kind of "secret" group, dedicated to the idea that our capacity for "attention" is an important aspect of what it means to be human. As Heller tells us, The Order’s name alluded to a piece of lore about three birds confronting a painting by the ancient artist Zeuxis: The first bird was frightened away, the second bird approached and tried to eat the painted fruit, and the third bird "just looked." 

Heller is, basically, suggesting that we all need to exercise and develop our ability to "pay attention" - to "just look" - and he provides a rather lengthy explanation of one way to do that - one "methodology," as applied to the study of a work of art - by way of the narrative that I am copying out below:

One Sunday morning, I received a cryptic text from a performance artist named Stevie Knauss, whom I had never met. “Let’s tentatively plan on meeting in the zone indicated on this map,” the message read. A Google satellite image of the neighborhood around 155th Street and Broadway was attached, with a red arrow pointing to the Hispanic Society Museum & Library. 
Later, as the train that I was on travelled uptown, Knauss sent me a Find My iPhone request. I followed it across Audubon Terrace, a plaza named for the nineteenth-century artist and ornithologist, and into the Hispanic Society’s gallery. My eyes took a moment to adjust. At the place where my phone told me Knauss was stationed, a young woman in a black T-shirt sat on a bench with her back to me, staring at a painting. I sat beside her. “Stevie?” I said. 
She was wearing wide-legged green Dickies, high-laced leather work boots, and dangly asymmetrical earrings. She turned to regard me, then looked back at the painting. 
Knauss identified herself as an emissary affiliated with the Birds, and began to describe the way their actions worked. “The practice lasts twenty-eight minutes—four parts of seven minutes each,” she said. “The movement from one part to another is announced by a bell.” 
Knauss told me that the Birds who were about to convene might not have met before. Actions were called in e-mails from alias accounts—she had heard about this one from “Wrybill Wrybillius”—with invitees’ names hidden. Any Bird could call an action; the Order was decentralized and ungoverned. Existing Birds invited new participants at their discretion, and, in this way, the Order slowly brought additional people into local chapters, known as volées. Nobody was sure how many Birds were in the world—New York City alone was home to several volées, overlapping to some degree—but there were believed to be hundreds. Actions had taken place as far afield as Korea, the Galápagos, and Kansas. 
Knauss eyed some passersby. The first seven-minute phase is known as "Encounter,” she said. “I think of it as entering a party. First, you take a look around the scene.” On arriving at the action site, the Birds wander. The subject of an action is rarely, if ever, identified in advance, but usually it is the most desperate-looking work in sight. (“In a museum, it will be, like, the painting next to the bathroom or on the wall opposite the ‘Mona Lisa,’ ” Burnett told me.) The work is unnamed because the Birds are supposed to find it by paying attention. Those who don’t can follow the flock. 
Next comes "Attending," announced by the first bell. “At the party, that’s when you maybe settle into conversation with someone,” Knauss explained. The Birds line up before the work, side by side, in what is known as the phalanx. For seven minutes, they silently give the work their full attention. Three things are discouraged during this period, Knauss told me. “One is what we call studium”—analysis from study. Another is interpretation, and the third is judgment. If Birds find a work offensive (or simply bad), they’re meant to put aside that response. Alyssa Loh, Burnett’s partner, who is also a Bird, told me that she understands the injunctions as a guard against the ways that people shut down their attention. “There’s a question you often hear in relation to art objects: What is it for and what do you do with it?” she said. “In the Bird practice, we mostly answer that in negatives—you can’t ‘solve’ it, can’t decide if it’s good, can’t victoriously declare that you have correctly identified its origins or that it’s an example of an eighteenth-century whatever.” You just keep attending. 
The second bell heralds the start of "Negation," a phase in which Birds try to clear the object from their minds. Some lie down; some close their eyes. At the third bell, seven minutes later, the group reconvenes in the phalanx for "Realizing." Knauss said, “A good way to think of Realizing is the question: What does the work need ?” In some cases, the answer may be concrete—to be moved to a nearby wall—but it is often abstract. Perhaps a sculpture needs children climbing on it. “It might need you to hear its song,” Knauss somewhat mysteriously noted. At the final bell, the Birds disperse. “Leave the scene, find somewhere quiet to sit, and write down your experience of the four phases,” Knauss said. 
A short while later, they meet up, usually in a café, for Colloquy, in which they take turns describing what they went through, distractions and all. Some Birds consider Colloquy the most important stage; it distinguishes their approach from “mindfulness” and other solo pursuits. The discussion can take on an uncanny charge. “It’s unusual to spend so much time in a small group looking at one thing, and even more unusual to talk about your impressions to the point of the ultra-thin vibrations and the associations they give rise to,” a Bird named Adam Jasper, an assistant professor of architectural history at the Chinese University in Hong Kong, told me. “With people I’ve Birded with more than a few times, I know more about how they work emotionally and mentally than I have any right to.” The writer Brad Fox described the experience as “seeing people at their best” (emphasis added).

The Heller article is lengthy. It continues on long beyond the point at which I have left you, above. Again, my advice is that it is best to read Heller's article in its entirety. 

What Heller is wanting us to understand about "attention" is that it should not be considered, mainly, from the perspective of its "economic" value, or from the perspective, more generally, of its "utilitarian" value. Surely, our "attention" does have such value, but in the end, and profoundly so, our "attention" is how we may do homage to "reality," to "existence," to the "world" we have created ourselves, and even more wonderfully, to the "world" we did not create, and upon which everything we do depends, that wonderful world into which we have been so mysteriously born. 

Just look!



Thursday, September 26, 2024

#270 / Testing, Testing, Testing




I care a lot about "politics," and this blog, after all, is entitled, "We Live In A Political World." Still, I don't, generally, do very much "academic" reading about politics. I am not, actually, all that much interested in "studying" politics, as an academic discipline, which requires undertaking a systematic observation of the world of politics, followed by an accurate report of what you find. That, it seems to me, is a pretty good description of an "academic" endeavor and of an "academic" approach to politics. Just speaking personally, I am much more interested in what are sometimes called the "normative" questions, i.e., what should we be doing, right now?

Still, when friends recommend that I read something, even if it's "academic," I almost always follow up. Thus, following up on a suggestion from a friend, I recently tracked down an article entitled, "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens," authored by Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page and published by the Cambridge University Press.

Here is an excerpt from the "Abstract" of that article by Gilens and Page:

Abstract

Each of four theoretical traditions in the study of American politics—which can be characterized as theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy, Economic-Elite Domination, and two types of interest-group pluralism, Majoritarian Pluralism and Biased Pluralism—offers different predictions about which sets of actors have how much influence over public policy: average citizens; economic elites; and organized interest groups, mass-based or business-oriented.
A great deal of empirical research speaks to the policy influence of one or another set of actors, but until recently it has not been possible to test these contrasting theoretical predictions against each other within a single statistical model. We report on an effort to do so, using a unique data set that includes measures of the key variables for 1,779 policy issues.
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism (emphasis added).

This "academic" paper, in other words, based on extensive work by Gillens and Page, pretty much confirms what I have always asserted is the case: 


"Proving" the above propositions, through the kind of research done by Gillens and Page, is certainly important academic work. Again, though, the real question for me is what we are going to do about it. 

Particularly if that last statement of mine is correct, and the rich have so much power because the rest of us don't use our own, the key question is how we can, in actual and practical fact, mobilize our own power so as to achieve what the scholars are calling "Electoral Democracy" or "Majoritarian Pluralism."

Those "scholarly" designations are the "academic terms" for what I call "self-government," which is our legacy from the American Revolution and the Civil War. We have been tested on "self-government" at various points in our past, and another test may be coming up soon - as soon as November of this year, as a matter of fact.

Despite all their research, the scholars aren't going to be able to tell us if what Abraham Lincoln talked about at Gettysburgh still has relevance for us, today. Lincoln saw the Civil War as a "test":

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth (emphasis added).

Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863

Are we ready for another test?