Reviewing a collection of China themed books in the NYRofB, Orville Schell unintentionally offers an insight:

China: Humiliation & the Olympics - The New York Review of Books

So, partly in shock, and partly in disappointment, China responded to the demonstrations against its Olympic torch with incensed outrage, rejecting any suggestion that its own actions could have contributed to, much less have ameliorated, Tibetan demands.

[...]

Instead, at this penultimate moment, as Xu Guoqi, author of the timely new book Olympic Dreams: China And Sports, 1895–2008, has noted, “Through their coverage and handling of the Beijing torch relay, the West seemed to remind the Chinese they were still not equal and they were still not good enough.”

The real problem China faces in its exclusion from the club is that they are not bad enough — they are vulgar and amateur oppressors! So it is the lack of sophistication, rhetorical and philosophical preparation, that permits and compels European nations, with the blood of Africa and Asia on their hands, our own USA, with an ongoing illegal action in Iraq that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, to lecture China on its deplorable human rights.

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In a predictably excellent essay reviewing The Richness of Life: The Essential Stephen Jay Gould (Ed: Steve Rose) and Punctuated Equilibrium by Gould, Lewontin offers two valuable reminders. One is the essential and important difference between a “public intellectual” like Gould who works to disseminate knowledge of his field to the general public and someone like Dawkins who (my words) is after slick overarching ideas that can be turned into bestsellers or service personal aggrandisement. The second, perhaps more important (and quoted below) is a reminder of the nature of scientific activity:

Free Expression: The Triumph of Stephen Jay Gould, By Richard C. Lewontin

There is hardly a chapter in the main body of The Richness of Life that does not repay a careful reading. Of all the essays in it the one that is most important to the public understanding of science is “Measuring Heads: Paul Broca and the Heyday of Craniology,” for it deals with an issue that is so discomfiting for scientists that they avoid it when they can. Despite the myth of detached objectivity that scientists propagate, their motivations are as messy as everyone else’s. In particular, they have political, social, and personal concerns that may influence what they do, how they do it, and what they say about it. Putting aside deliberate fraud, of which we have an embarrassment of examples, the gathering of data, their statistical representation, and their interpretation offer many opportunities for unconscious bias toward conclusions that we already “knew” to be true.

In particular, scientists have repeatedly reported that whites have larger brains than blacks. Gould shows that when the preserved brain is measured before the race of its former owner is revealed, this difference disappears completely. Similarly, claims of larger heads of professionals as compared to laborers are not statistically significant because of very large variation from individual to individual. What is important about this essay is not that it reveals what we already know to be true about the existence of racism and sexism, but that it shows how any claim that something is “scientifically demonstrated” should be treated with the same skepticism that we invoke when there is any reason to think that the investigator has something to gain, either ideologically or professionally, as we do when financial gain is involved.

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Here’s a nice one from Robert Casey (only the Democrats would need a pro-lifer like him to unseat Rick Santorum) speaking about Hillary supporters:

Clinton’s High Profile Healing Process Has Begun | The New York Observer

[...]

Certainly, the dire polling data showing high numbers of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters unwilling to vote for Mr. Obama will settle. But the most committed of her loyalists may be slow to forgive what many of them genuinely saw as a chauvinistic joint effort of the Obama campaign and the media to bully their candidate from the race.

[...]

Senator Robert Casey of Pennsylvania, who provided Mr. Obama one of his highest-profile endorsements during the primary, said, “Her speech went very far to help her supporters make that transition, but it is a work in progress. [...]”

Duh! Let’s see… Clinton supporters (and non-supporters like me) see chauvinism in the media and some parts of the Obama campaign/fanbase and the response? A chauvinistic “we’ll help you make that transition”!

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Winding down a tediously long essay describing in detail the vengeance driven tribal battles in New Guinea, Jared Diamond finds in them a justification and need for bloodthirstiness:

Annals of Anthropology: Vengeance Is Ours: The New Yorker

[...]

We regularly ignore the fact that the thirst for vengeance is among the strongest of human emotions. It ranks with love, anger, grief, and fear, about which we talk incessantly. Modern state societies permit and encourage us to express our love, anger, grief, and fear, but not our thirst for vengeance. We grow up being taught that such feelings are primitive, something to be ashamed of and to transcend.

There is no doubt that state acceptance of every individual’s right to exact personal vengeance would make it impossible for us to coexist peacefully as fellow-citizens of the same state. Otherwise, we, too, would be living under the conditions of constant warfare prevailing in non-state societies like those of the New Guinea Highlands. [...]

My conversations with Daniel made me understand what we have given up by leaving justice to the state. In order to induce us to do so, state societies and their associated religions and moral codes teach us that seeking revenge is bad. But, while acting on vengeful feelings clearly needs to be discouraged, acknowledging them should be not merely permitted but encouraged. To a close relative or friend of someone who has been killed or seriously wronged, and to the victims of harm themselves, those feelings are natural and powerful. Many state governments do attempt to grant the relatives of crime victims some personal satisfaction, by allowing them to be present at the trial of the accused, and, in some cases, to address the judge or jury, or even to watch the execution of their loved one’s murderer.

This smells of biologism (or biological determinism if you prefer). We find it abhorrent when used in various forms in EP and elsewhere to “explain” rape or other acts frowned upon in society. And if we are able to demonstrate that there is no rape instinct to counter that wonderful biologism, but not so with Diamond’s claims above, Diamond still commits what is otherwise rejected as the “naturalistic fallacy”. There are probably better defences (see Kant) of “retributivism” but this one IMHO fails miserably. And it is an insult to those who either do not share the bloodthirstiness of Diamond’s “we”, or consciously seek to rise above it, not “ignore” it.

In the USA, the norm is anything but not “permit[ting] our thirst for vengeance”. As the line in the movie rendition of the life of Hurricane Carter goes, the norm is “any black man will do”, created and promoted by the very vengefulness that Diamond wants to give primacy, under terms such as “victim’s rights” and “survivors rights”. It is not an exaggeration to summarise the mood as one where it is considered that it is better to hang someone, than let a crime go unpunished. So we have the FOP and the victim continuing to deny the innocence of the young black men who spent many years in jail before being exonerated and released, in the “Central Park Jogger” incident which prompted full page ads from billionaire Donald Trump lusting for a hanging. This state sanctioned attitude is the direct result of encouraging (rather than discouraging) the need for vengeful satisfaction. Here is the New York Times:

… Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey observed at the time…: ”You rob a store, rape a jogger, shoot a tourist, and when they catch you, if they catch you . . . you cry racism. And nobody, white or black, says stop.”

And:

[T]he brutalization of the victim demonized the suspects and seemed to make any presumption of innocence impossible. Donald J. Trump bought full-page newspaper advertisements demanding the death penalty and rejecting assertions (from Cardinal John J. O’Connor, among others) that society shared the blame for conditions that breed crime.

”I want to hate these muggers and murderers,” Mr. Trump wrote. ”They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes.” (What if the jogger had died and the five young men had been executed, Mr. Trump was asked the other day. ”If they were convicted and weren’t guilty the government would’ve made a tragic mistake,” he said.)

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Conservative hacks and doctors have long whined about the “malpractice crisis” (which is well refuted), and here is more evidence that it is the lack of common decency on the part of doctors that is the problem:

Doctors Who Say They’re Sorry - New York Times

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What is needed, many specialists agree, is a system that quickly brings an error to light so that further errors can be headed off and that compensates victims promptly and fairly. Many doctors, unfortunately, have been afraid that admitting and describing their errors would only invite a costly lawsuit.

Now, as described by Kevin Sack in The Times, a handful of prominent academic medical centers have adopted a new policy of promptly disclosing errors, offering earnest apologies and providing fair compensation. It appears to satisfy many patients, reduce legal costs and the litigation burden and, in some instances, helps reduce malpractice premiums.

At the University of Illinois, for example, of 37 cases where the hospital acknowledged a preventable error and apologized, only one patient filed suit. At the University of Michigan Health System, existing claims and lawsuits dropped from 262 in August 2001 to 83 in August 2007, and legal costs fell by two-thirds.

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Real Left blogger and Unrepentant Marxist Louis Proyect provides, as part of a thoughtful eulogy, the full context of Marx’s famous “Religion is the opium of the people” quote and the full quote that Louis provides gives us a much more insightful Marx, than today’s vulgar New Atheists who would gladly and smugly parrot the cliché:

“Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”

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There is an interesting phenomenon to be seen these days, every time there is some controversy. It is quickly morphed into a controversy about the response to the original one! That happened with the Muhammad cartoon issue, where the publication of some silly cartoons aimed at infuriating Muslims (the same populations that are oppressed by the North in real ways) was morphed into outrage over Muslim response to it. Similarly, the clown Imus says something despicable about Rutgers University women’s basketball team members and within a day the “national conversation” is about misogyny in hip-hop and rap lyrics.

In that grand tradition comes the response from professional blowhard and occasional biologist Richard Dawkins on the James Watson controversy (Watson being the famous co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, using data stolen from a female colleague unacknowledged for her contribution, who has stuck an eighth or ninth foot in his mouth with his musings on black people and their capabilities):

Disgrace: How a giant of science was brought low | The Observer

In the end, Watson’s decided to return home, so no meetings occurred, a move that has dismayed many scientists who believed that it was vital Watson confront his critics and his public. ‘What is ethically wrong is the hounding, by what can only be described as an illiberal and intolerant “thought police”, of one of the most distinguished scientists of our time, out of the Science Museum, and maybe out of the laboratory that he has devoted much of his life to, building up a world-class reputation,’ said Richard Dawkins, who been due to conduct a public interview with Watson this week in Oxford.

Dawkins’s stance was supported by Blakemore. ‘Jim Watson is well known for being provocative and politically incorrect. But it would be a sad world if such a distinguished scientist was silenced because of his more unpalatable views.’

In case you are misled by the righteous indignation of Dawkins and Blakemore, Watson is not being “silenced” but ignored, and rightly so for this is what he said by way of justifying his “unpalatable view”:

people who have to deal with black employees find this not true

Even if we are to follow Dawkins’ demand that we lend an ear to a bigot, his reasoning deserves the trashbin given the unscientific nature of it.

PBS’s [wide angle] covered the Indian farmer suicide issue in their episode today. The good news is that all that sad news and sorrow is alleviated towards the end by the wisdom of Jagdish Bhagwati, globalisation’s brown knight, who offered such gems as:

India specialises in poverty

The link to the interview transcript (PDF) is currently broken, but let that not prevent you from enjoying Bhagwati elsewhere.

A minor skirmish has broken out in Bloglandia between the left purists and the “netroots”. The opening salvo was fired by our good friend Max Sawicky, with this bit:

The “Internet Left” is a mostly brainless vacuum cleaner of donations for the Democratic Party.

Congratulations are first due to Max: in a world that lives on and for catchy one-liners, he can justifiably claim to have moved us farther, with this clever aphorism, irrespective of its validity. Second, is it just me, is Max looking pretty slick in that picture (for contrast see the wiser gent on Crooks and Liars)?

The “purists” are the old guard, the textbook leftists, the big thinkers who understand the systemic rot, the root cause dudes who will fix the problem not the symptoms. The “netroots” are a gaggle of bloggers who gained popularity and prominence after the 2004 Dean debacle. Some are just wide-ranging commentators (much as we here at PB are, albeit with a readership that is non-trivial) but for our exercise we can limit the group to a couple of biggies: DailyKos, the mothership of the movement, and MyDD one of whose writers (Matt Stoller) figures in the very first sentences of Max’s assault on the virtual roots.

What is Max’s beef against the young Turks? I am guessing he is unhappy with their apparent attitude that they have the whole leftist enterprise covered (from activism to theory). Instead old Max finds that they are ill-read if at all (and extends that point to suggest that they have little coherent theoretical understanding and analysis of their positions and the things they, or rather the Left, should work against or for), and they are not very left at that (as attested by the unbridled enthusiasm for Democrats — which seems to exceed that of a Democratic convention speaker, Al Sharpton, who memorably quipped: we want to see how far this donkey can take us — and election politics and activism). Further evidence is not hard to come by, ranging from Kos’ attitude towards marches and the activists involved (”boring”, “obsolete”) to Duncan Black on Chomsky (Google it. I refuse to link to random blather!). The “netroots” wants the old Left (the 60s left in particular?) out of their way in a hurry, but as Max outlines, what is the alternative they offer to the many facets of old style organising and activism?

The purists, usually from the Church of Marx, have nothing but disdain for party politics, electoral victories, crackpot realism. It’s all ephemeral, these meagre and meaningless victories … a mistaken identification of the roots with the trees and the trees for the forest. The Democratic Party is the buffer, a parasite that lives off the malcontent of the left, bleeding away its anger while offering no real progress. The destruction of the DP is the first step towards the inevitable and necessary confrontation with the real powers that keep us down! Even the extended discussion of elections, potential candidates and results, is not mere waste of time but a dangerous distraction (aided by the “netroots” which offer the fora and gravitas for such chatter).

Theoretical analysis and such elaborate arias can also be seen as a luxury of those who can afford them. Every bit of change can mean something significant for someone else — the return of Democrats might return funding to medical services in poor nations, alleviate conditions in Iraq (the 2006 GOP electoral humiliation, in itself, has generated a significant number of defections into the camp that questions the Iraqi strategy), a bit more safety for immigrants at risk of landing in Guantanamo, increase in minimum wage, and so on. If a coherent argument is available to demonstrate that these incremental steps have a net negative effect (and a large one at that), I am yet to hear it put forth without resort to magic language.

Another little matter nags: I do not vote on MyDD straw-polls because I believe I am furthering the grand leftist agenda, but because I have nothing better to do. The problem lies in the mistaken idea that the purists and the “netroots” are battling over scarce eyeballs and limited time. I can eyeball both of them and still have enough time to write this silly blog. My problem is not too little time but too little opportunity.

And on that question of opportunity, I return to consider Max’s original point regarding the “Internet Left”, and his own conclusion:

The real Internet left is the Internet of leftists who use the Internet.

Sometime in 1990 or 1991 I was introduced to the term “user”. It seemed an elegantly apt way to describe those who were interested in consumption and not participation (elegant because “user” is also the term to designate a non-technical human using a computer). These were the sort of people who made posts to newsgroups or mailing lists with the preface: please respond to me at my email address, since I do not read this list. I bring this up for a reason. Max is wrong. The real Internet Left is not the leftists who use the net, but the people who contribute to making it what it is. If you need a name, that name would be Richard Stallman. Behind all this noise that they enable is a dedicated community of developers, documenters, testers, bug reporters, and volunteers for all kinds of other roles, who work using the simple philosophy of from each according to his ability and to each according to his needs. The best unsolicited advice that I can offer anyone that faces the problem I bring up above, of the lack of opportunity, is to forget about theoretical frameworks or blog activism, but rather get involved in this thriving actual community (that is by the way, among other things, enabling communities in the so-called Third World), which exists despite (and perhaps because of) the disimissal of it as a serious and important force and phenomenon. Forget the Marxist thesis and the Technorati rank, or rather along with that, write some code, help out with answering questions, get your hands dirty.

A random list of efforts that you could involve yourself in today, directly related to what you are doing now:

• WordPress — open source blogging software and service
• Mozilla — open source web browser and email software with ad/spam blocking
• GNU — extensive suite of tools from the Free Software Foundation

New York Times reports on a scientific forum at the Salk Institute titled “Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival”, consisting of the usual suspects such as Weinberg and Dawkins repeating their angry young scientist polemics, described aptly by one of the conference speakers:

A Free-for-All on Science and Religion - New York Times

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By the third day, the arguments had become so heated that Dr. Konner was reminded of “a den of vipers.”

“With a few notable exceptions,” he said, “the viewpoints have run the gamut from A to B. Should we bash religion with a crowbar or only with a baseball bat?”

His response to Mr. Harris and Dr. Dawkins was scathing. “I think that you and Richard are remarkably apt mirror images of the extremists on the other side,” he said, “and that you generate more fear and hatred of science.”

[...]

I wonder how it is that we (assuming there are at least a few non-scientistic atheists other than me) permit someone like Dawkins to presume to speak for us or the general position of atheism. Perhaps it is a good thing that a majority (if true) of scientists want to now make this an all out war (I assume they are now comfortable enough in their self-sufficiency to take this step). It may be a good thing since it forces the general population to have to choose some position and path, not necessarily religion or scientism.

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