Weakest rationale ever

The usually-thought-provoking Peggy Noonan has a piece up that baffles me a bit. Or maybe it's just the standard media love affair with their BFF McCain, who does a good enough job of schmoozing reporters that they're very reluctant to ask him tough questions. But in this particular mash note, Peggy seems to be swooning for what she sees as the "real" McCain, cut-up and jokester:

Mr. McCain had taken the lead in the primaries and had gone from being "one of the most disruptive forces in his party" to someone playing it safe. In an airplane interview he said things like, "There is a process in place that will formalize the methodology." Then he couldn't help it, he became McCain:

"[He] volunteered that Brooke Buchanan, his spokeswoman who was seated nearby and rolling her eyes, 'has a lot of her money hidden in the Cayman Islands' and that she earned it by 'dealing drugs.' Previously, Mr. McCain had identified Ms. Buchanan as 'Pat Buchanan's illegitimate daughter,' 'bipolar,' 'a drunk,' 'someone with a lot of boyfriends,' and 'just out of Betty Ford.'"

That's my boy. That's the McCain his friends love, McCain unplugged. The fall will be dead serious. At this point why not be himself, be human? Let him refind his inner rebel, the famous irreverent maverick, let the tiger out of the cage.

Sure. That's just what we need. A dose of towel-snapping frat-boy humor. Because, you know, we haven't had anything like that in a long time. And a President who cracks jokes with the press corps, well, so what if he doesn't answer inconvenient questions? He gave me a nickname!

Peggy's usually sharper than this. But this column shows why she's part of the problem.

Addendum: There is one thing Peggy gets spot-on:

The way it used to be is you ran and lost and either disappeared or pitched in. Mrs. Clinton continues making Mr. Obama look the dauphin to her embittered and domineering queen.

Hillary steps up

After all my snark about Her Hillaryness, fairness compels me to recognize that she's taking action, right from the start, and supporting the presumptive nominee.

Perhaps I misjudged the depth of her calculation. Perhaps she's doing it for the most cynical motives. I don't really care... She's doing the right thing.

Current rating

For some reason, though all I've been talking about is politics lately, this blog is currently rated:


Apparently I used the word "hurt"... Um, still need to work on the algorithm a little...

Double-Talk Express, part 27...

Word got out a couple of days ago that McCain had met (off the record, of course) with the Log Cabin Republicans... well not really met with them, just sort of stopped by while they were meeting.. no, met with them, but privately, not on his schedule, not so anyone would find out about it. So naturally, now he has to reassure the base that he really does hate teh gayz as much as they do and supports a federal amendment after all, even after saying he didn't, because he stands by his principles, and his principles tell him to do whatever the base wants!

"Straight Talk," my ass...

It never stops, does it?

And yet again still more agonizing over whether Obama has suffered enough for his sin of beating Her Hillaryness...

Obama hailed his former rival and her backers. "I recognize that this room shared the same passion that a roomful of my supporters would show. I do not expect that passion to be transferred. Senator Clinton is unique, and your relationships with her are unique." But he added: "Senator Clinton and I at our core agree deeply that this country needs to change."

Really, there are a few bits that are almost surreal...

He also sought to lead the move to unite by example, announcing that he had personally written a check for $2,300, the maximum he can give, to help retire Clinton's more than $20 million in campaign debt and that he had urged his biggest supporters to follow suit.

Well, that's great, and I suppose a relatively low-cost way of defusing the situation a bit, but really.... After Kerry beat Howard Dean in the primaries, Kerry didn't do much to help Dean retire his debt. Nor did he rush over to hire many Dean staffers. No one thought this was odd or rude or inconsiderate... Why should he have been expected to in the first place? BUT, as usual, the Clintons play by their own special rules.

At one point, an attendee told Obama that if he wanted to be seen as a true leader, he needed acknowledge that sexism had played a role in the demise of Clinton's campaign. Obama agreed and said that the issue should be addressed.

Did it play a role? Perhaps. It was definitely there. But did it ultimately make the difference? If not for sexism, would she have won? Not likely. Given the complete lack of planning for anything after Super Tuesday, the bad advice she ran with, the out of control spending... It was a botched campaign. And any male candidate who got teary-eyed the night before a big primary would NOT have received a boost from it... so it's not like Hillary wasn't ready to take advantage of sexism when it worked in her favor.

Obama and Clinton will travel to the town of Unity, N.H. -- which gave each candidate 107 votes in its January primary -- this morning for their first public appearance together.

Oh, how precious... >gag< >choke<

Some former Clinton advisers expressed irritation that Obama seems to believe that he can win the election without them or her supporters.

That's probably because he can. Sorry about reality being irritating and all, but this is politics, not group therapy.

The former president has told acquaintances that he is still upset by the tone of the campaign, particularly the way the media covered it.

Yes, that awful nasty media that kept playing his words over and over again, even when it wasn't convenient. Actually, an article I read yesterday may have been onto something: that Bill didn't successfully navigate the transition from presidential candidate (which he knew how to be) to presidential candidate's spouse, which he's never been before, and has much different expectations. I'm not entirely convinced, but there may be some of that in play.

"Everyone has checked their egos at the door."

A sentiment directly contradicted by several paragraphs directly above it.

My Continuing Political Education

I actually find myself agreeing with Charles Krauthammer, in broad outline if not in all the details. The last week or so has been educational, if painful, as Obama reversed his position on FISA and now agrees that the government should have vastly expanded wiretapping powers and telecom companies should be granted retroactive immunity (isn't amnesty a better term?) for illegally turning over private customer information without a warrant. After promising to filibuster any such proposal. And worse, Barack's statement explaining his new position starts right out with the rhetoric of fear, about how dangerous the world is and we should all be afraid. Greenwald's got all this documented; here's a good starting point.

I thought Obama was about change, not about more of the same be-very-afraid, we-have-to-take-away-freedom-to-protect-liberty rhetoric we've been hearing from the GOP for years.

I shouldn't have been surprised; not really. After all, he is, at the end of the day, a politician. One who came out of Chicago, where politics is a full-contact sport. And one who has to run to the center. But DAMMIT, in an election where 80% of the country thinks we're on the wrong track as a nation, giving the Republicans 90% of what they want is NOT necessary!

Is he still a better candidate than McCain? Yes. Am I going to vote for him? Probably. Am I going to contribute, to enthusiastically talk him up, to go the extra mile? Um, that's a bit more problematic.

There's an article up at Slate today about Obama's strategy to minimize evangelical opposition to him. It recognizes he probably can't get their votes, but he can reduce the likelihood they'll organize against him as a threat to the republic.

It works the other way, as well. He hasn't lost my vote, yet. But he's lost a lot of my respect, and some of my trust, and a lot of my enthusiasm. "Better than McCain" isn't much of a rallying cry.

Stereotypes for Yuks and Laffs

Sarah Bird has a supposedly-amusing piece up at Salon about how she's been coming to grips with the fact that her son's not gay:

I guess I've suspected the worst for a long time. Certainly the signs were there from a fairly young age: He invariably chose "Power Rangers" over joining me in marathon viewings of the work of Stephen Sondheim. He preferred to thickly carpet his bedroom floor with castoff clothing rather than use the color-coded, padded hangers I put in his closet. Worst of all, he evinced a disturbing interest in Grace's bare, bony chest rather than concentrating on absorbing Will's snappy -- yet ultimately supportive -- patter. If he didn't pay attention, who would I have to call me "girlfriend" in my old age? How would I keep tabs on Britney, Carrie Underwood and that creepy kid from "High School Musical" without my very own Rex Reed 2.0?

It goes on like that, for far too long.

In Bird's world, you see, gay men don't exist as men. Nor as independent beings, apparently. Rather, they're a Will-and-Grace stereotype (she says flat-out, that's the sort of gay man she wants her son to be): Someone who exists for the sole purpose of meeting the emotional needs of lonely middle-class women in a non-threatening way.

Before you write those ALL-CAP LETTERS WITH LOTS OF EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!! informing me that you are a proud, stereotype-defying homosexual stevedore, soccer hooligan, whatever, that you are unabashedly clueless about fashion, décor and hygiene, let me just say, if that is you: Don't apply to be my gay son. I already own that model. No, please, submit a résumé only if you are an old-school homosexual with all the traditional old-school homosexual values and interests. Particularly if those interests include knowing how to add fullness to thinning, middle-aged hair.

And in fact, when a friend of hers calls her on her shit, she laughs it off:

Rudy is a brilliant, handsome (and single, he would like me to add) theater director here in Austin, and he is also one of the leading candidates to be my gay son. "You get to have the closeness that you imagine you would have from having a gay son without any of the, you know, finding your son's gay porn that he downloaded from the Internet. The joke is that you can get all the fashion and musical theater and closeness without homosexuality, and that joke is on me and mine. We have to deal with a lot of 'Can't you just, you know, help me pick out my clothes without, you know, kissing in front of me or hitting on my brother?'"

Excellent point. This is exactly the kind of sensitive, informed, insightful comment I'd expect from my gay son. Thank you, Rudy, I will be moving your application to the top of the pile tout de suite. As for what goes on in my grown child's bedroom? Not my business. Unless, however, it's to confer with me about whether frosty blue and chocolate brown is a color combination for the ages. Or if that expensive duvet and sham set I'm contemplating will be dated faster than you can say "teal" and "mauve."

She doesn't want a gay son. She wants a girlfriend. And OF COURSE, gay men are eminently suited to be girlfriends, and should be FLATTERED that she feels that way about them!

As the earlier quote makes clear, she really doesn't get it. She can't see beyond her world of straight privilege; rather, she assumes that being her girlfriend is such a privilege that any gay man--well, not any gay man, but the right kind of gay man--would be happy to serve that role. And wouldn't kiss in front of her or any of that icky stuff--the only time they'd talk about boyfriends, apparently, would be over mimosas while commiserating about what pigs men are.

Gay man as fashion accessory.

The pathetic thing is that she thinks this is all amusing. That demeaning and infantilizing gay men is something that, well, some of them are going to get hissy and send irate emails with LOTS OF CAPITALS AND EXCLAMATION POINTS about. (Aren't they cute when they stomp their little feet?) But nothing there's any real reason to be upset about. Their anger, their frustration, their feeling insulted and put down--well it's certainly not legitimate. But you know how those queens are, someone's always getting pissy about something. And shouldn't they be grateful that they're being allowed to participate in her world at all? The price is only following a stereotyped role, or be kicked out.

I suppose by posting this, I've burned any bridge I may ever have had into being any part of her smug, self-satisfied world.

I've never enjoyed a bonfire more.

Politics at the Justice Department? Say it isn't so!

In a report that surprises no one, the inspector general at the Department of Political Retribution Justice has found that politics played a part in selecting candidates for their honors and summer internship programs, with qualified candidates being ruled out because they had past connections with Democratic causes.

Why should anyone be shocked by this? The Bush II Regime has made it clear from the beginning that in their view, the "unitary executive" trumps everything, and that government and politics are inseparable, that the mechanics of government are rightfully put to use by the political party in power. Of course, that wasn't their position when Democrats were in charge. Like John Yoo criticizing Bill Clinton for making excessive claims of executive power, claims that "undermine notions of democratic accountability and respect for the rule of law," then giving Bush legal cover to shred the Constitution, because, of course, when a Republican does it, it's fine.

Counting the days until the thugs are out, scared of how much damage they can still do....

Now it's their ox that's being gored

China has a history of taking a, well, somewhat casual approach to intellectual-property law, particularly when it comes to counterfeit foreign goods. Sometimes they're so obviously fake as to be laughable (you'll occasionally see a hilariously-mangled brand turn up on Engrish.com), sometimes they're actually rather good.

There's nothing new in this, of course. The United States didn't recognize any foreign copyrights or patents while it was a developing economy. It wasn't until we had more to gain by enforcing our own than by ignoring everyone else's that "intellectual property" became a serious concern. The Chinese are developing their economy, and copyrights, an artificial, government-imposed monopoly, are economically inefficient.

Until, of course, there's more profit to be made by enforcing it than ignoring it.

For years, China has been known as the leading exporter of fake goods, from Louis Vuitton handbags and Patek Philippe watches to auto and jet engine parts. The underground economy, which according to U.S. trade officials costs American companies $3 billion to $4 billion annually, has been allowed to flourish by a Chinese government that seldom prosecutes intellectual property violations.

But the Olympics have mobilized China's piracy police like never before. Beijing, the host city, stands to receive up to 15 percent of all revenue from Olympic merchandise, a figure expected to easily top the $62 million raised in Athens four years ago. Aside from the mascots, China is also reportedly collecting up to $120 million each from Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Adidas and other companies that have qualified as the highest-level Olympic sponsors.

With the world's gaze on China in the run-up to the Aug. 8-24 Games, officials have moved to make sure counterfeit goods don't reflect poorly on the festivities. Fake Adidas clothing that was widely available at popular Beijing markets a year ago is now hard to find.

Officially, of course, it's about protecting China's image and putting their best foot forward for the Games. Unofficially?

"They have moved some of the market more underground than they have before, but that hasn't stopped the activity," said Marc S. Ganis, chief executive of Chicago-based Sportscorp Ltd., a sports marketing firm. "It proves that China can do something about the problem when its own interests are aligned with the crackdown. . . . The reality is, just like in the U.S., people are going to do what they're going to do, which is make money."

And with the government getting its cut of royalty payments, it's suddenly in the government's interest to enforce the laws.

It's also nice to see that in some ways, the Chinese government isn't that different from our own:

"The Chinese government usually only manages during a crisis," [an import-export trader] said. "When things reach a peak and they have to deal with it, they will."

If you ignore the bad news, everything's fine.

Washington Post:

The inflation rate shot up in May at the fastest pace in six months, pushed higher by soaring costs for gasoline and other types of energy.

But don't worry, it's not that bad! Really!

Core inflation, however, which excludes energy and food, edged up a more moderate 0.2 percent in May. That increase was right in line with expectations and should help relieve worries that the big increases in food and energy could be breaking through to more widespread inflation.

See? Once you exclude unnecessary luxury items like food and gasoline, it looks much better! And it's not like those are things regular people ever buy... And really, if you can't cut a few unnecessary luxuries out of your household budget during a nonrecession, you're just not trying.

I understand excluding the volatile components if there's been a one-time event... When Katrina shut down Gulf Coast refining, there was a spike in gas prices but everything else was pretty much unaffected. Likewise, it helps to look at the less-volatile components if we're swerving back and forth between "OH NOES THE SKY IS FALLING" and "Nothing to worry about, things are great, in fact some more inflation wouldn't hurt."

But to pretend that we can just exclude things that are rising consistently, repeatedly, and pervasively, for reasons having much more to do with market fundamentals than random fluctuations, is disingenuous at best and useless otherwise.

And businesses are getting squeezed by fuel costs, meaning anything that has to be shipped by truck is going to go up. Airline tickets are already going up (same story), and the Wall Street Journal reports that some businesses are no longer outsourcing, but returning production to the US because of transportation costs. The only reason they haven't raised prices is that the market won't bear it yet. The grocery business runs on razor-thin profit margins, so higher costs had to be passed along almost immediately. Higher-margin businesses have a little more breathing room, but not much, and they're running out of space. But hey, that's only if you actually, you know, need to eat.

Dismal science, indeed.

Of Gin, Gilligan's Island, and Wikipedia

Clay Shirky has an excellent essay up about the social capital of surplus time, and how we're just now figuring out what to do with it. I've had it bookmarked for a couple of days and have been meaning to comment, but events have conspired against that... In the meantime, go read it.

Quote of the day. Possibly the week.

One other word I must criticize in all these defenses of religion: imagination. I often hear that religion is all about using the imagination to see something beyond the literal and mundane, and imagination becomes a virtue in itself that is presented as something special to religion. It is not. It is also overrated. Imagination is essential, don't get me wrong; we need this kind of cognitive randomizer that pushes our thoughts beyond what we already know. However, one thing science has taught us is that our imagination is pathetic. The universe is more vast, more complex, and more surprising than anything our minds can conjure up. Imagination is not enough.

Here we sit in our comfortable little spot, snug and reassured that our butts are firmly planted. Imagination is the tool we use to reach out and fumble about and make guesses about our local neighborhood, and religion is the part that enshrines guesses as absolute knowledge and reassures us that the rest of the universe is just like our little niche.

Science is imagination equipped with grappling hooks. We toss them out, we snag new and interesting bits of our environment, and we use them to haul our butts out of those well-worn hollows to something new … and we anchor the lines so others so inclined may follow. Thus does the limited reach of paltry human imagination become a greater endeavor that explores farther and farther still, leaving behind the delusions of those incapable or unwilling to use their imagination as a tool to explore the world, rather than as a masturbation aid.

--P. Z. Myers

Link of the day

Biblical literalism or low IQ. Which Came First?

Timothy Egan Nails It

...by pointing out that Hillary's vaunted win in WVA probably won't matter in the fall, as it's fairly solidly Republican and trending more so, as is Kentucky.

In Oregon, voters’ surveys show Obama essentially tied Clinton for the blue collar vote while running up a big victory.

And Oregon, unlike West Virginia and Kentucky, may actually be in play for the general election. Al Gore won it by barely 7,000 votes in 2000, a margin that went up to 60,000 votes in 2004. McCain’s advisers say he’s a perfect fit for the state – independent, somewhat maverick.

So, from a purely strategic point of view, the ability to win white blue-collar voters in an open-minded swing state is certainly more important than a solid red state. I would include Pennsylvania in that equation. Just weeks after all the talk of Obama’s problems in the Keystone state, most polls now show him beating McCain in the general election.

What happened in the last few weeks is that Appalachia, in a 24-7 media hothouse, skewed perception. We stared at it far too long, parsing it for meaning beyond its historic range and its hard prejudices.

What he said.

Quote of the day

I have a theory concerning committees. A committee may have different states, like water has gas, liquid or solid phases, depending on temperate and pressure. The same committee, depending on external circumstances of time and pressure will enter well-defined states that determine its effectiveness. If a committee works in a deliberate mode, where issues are freely discussed, objections heard, and consensus is sought, then the committee will make slow progress, but the decisions of the committee will collectively be smarter than its smartest member. However, if a committee refuses to deliberate and instead merely votes on things without discussion, then it will be as dumb as its dumbest members. Voting dulls the edge of expertise. But discussion among experts socializes that expertise. This should be obvious. If you put a bunch of smart people in a room and don't let them think or talk, then don't expect smart things to happen as if the mere exhalation of their breath brings forth improvements to the standard.

--Rob Weir
An Antic Disposition

This is scary...

I actually find myself agreeing with Roland Martin, who can usually be counted on to present weak rationalizations for absurd ideas. But this time he's actually come to a "right" conclusion, i.e. one I agree with. And his reasoning is pretty much on target.

With everything that's going on in the world, the question of a flag lapel pin is about the weakest of all possible rationales... and of course, there's an incredible ridiculous double standard.

I've watched this debate reach the levels of absurdity this year because journalists and commentators have raised the question to Sen. Barack Obama, "Why don't you wear a flag lapel pin?"

I really got a kick out of that one during the ABC debate last month because not one person on stage -- Sens. Hillary Clinton and Obama, along with moderators Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos -- bothered to accessorize their attire with a flag lapel pin.

Sen. John McCain has been traveling the globe as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and this former soldier often doesn't wear a flag lapel pin.

I wonder why John McCain hates America so much?

Those who will criticize me will say, "Well, Roland, if it's no big deal, then why not wear one?" And the reply is the same: "If it's no big deal, then why do you make it a big deal?"

Because, as he points out, that's what zealots do. They pick a small issue, declare it to be the side of all that is right and virtuous and true, and demand that everyone else conform to their narrow vision, ignoring everything else.

[I]f there are members of Congress who wear a flag lapel pin but refuse to shore up our borders, don't do enough to stop the flow of drugs into our neighborhoods, or don't help to eradicate the gaps between the haves and have nots, then are they truly fighting for the concerns of Americans, or playing on the emotions of people by what's on their lapel?

What he said.

Useful link of the day

How to secure your Windows computer and protect your privacy online.

A very useful compendium aimed at the non-expert, describing the most common threats to security and privacy, and listing a wide variety of software tools, most of them free, for avoiding and fixing problems.

Good stuff.

WTF is he blathering about? Does he even know?

David Brooks has a meandering, self-contradictory column up at the Times today that makes me wonder if he's capable of rational thought at all.

Here we go:

To these self-confident researchers, the idea that the spirit might exist apart from the body is just ridiculous. Instead, everything arises from atoms. Genes shape temperament. Brain chemicals shape behavior. Assemblies of neurons create consciousness. Free will is an illusion. Human beings are “hard-wired” to do this or that. Religion is an accident.

In this materialist view, people perceive God’s existence because their brains have evolved to confabulate belief systems. You put a magnetic helmet around their heads and they will begin to think they are having a spiritual epiphany. If they suffer from temporal lobe epilepsy, they will show signs of hyperreligiosity, an overexcitement of the brain tissue that leads sufferers to believe they are conversing with God.

That's right. Back in the 60's, those awful materialists suggested that religious experience may be the result of specific states of the brain, that it can be mapped and measured materially. Oh, how silly! How foolish those arrogant materialists were!

Fast forward a few years....

The brain seems less like a cold machine. It does not operate like a computer. Instead, meaning, belief and consciousness seem to emerge mysteriously from idiosyncratic networks of neural firings. Those squishy things called emotions play a gigantic role in all forms of thinking. Love is vital to brain development.

Researchers now spend a lot of time trying to understand universal moral intuitions. Genes are not merely selfish, it appears. Instead, people seem to have deep instincts for fairness, empathy and attachment.

Scientists have more respect for elevated spiritual states. Andrew Newberg of the University of Pennsylvania has shown that transcendent experiences can actually be identified and measured in the brain (people experience a decrease in activity in the parietal lobe, which orients us in space). The mind seems to have the ability to transcend itself and merge with a larger presence that feels more real.

Let's work through this. The brain does not work like a machine, but consciousness emerges from neuron firings. Emotions play a role in thinking (which says nothing about the physical mechanism underlying either.) Genes are not merely selfish--well, I'm not sure what that bit of anthropomorphism is supposed to mean, other than the suggestion that natural selection may have selected for those traits in social species such as ourselves, due to a survival advantage gained by them. Nothing mystical there.

And transcendent experience can be identified and measured in the frontal lobe. Sounds pretty materialist to me. His statement that the mind has the ability to "transcend itself and merge with a larger presence that feels more real" describes the subjective state of feeling merged with the universe, with God, whatever, that is frequently described by meditative practitioners of various faiths. In other words, the mystical experience can be linked to specific brain activity in specific brain regions. Again, very materialist. The subjective feeling of something larger being there doesn't mean there is something there, but he overlooks that.

So, to summarize: Back in the 60's, the bad materialists said that religious experience was probably a function of brain activity. Today, the good scientists are finding that it is, and describing it objectively. This is a repudiation of the earlier view.... how?

But wait, it gets better.

In unexpected ways, science and mysticism are joining hands and reinforcing each other.

In his mind, maybe.

Orthodox believers are going to have to defend particular doctrines and particular biblical teachings. They’re going to have to defend the idea of a personal God, and explain why specific theologies are true guides for behavior day to day. I’m not qualified to take sides, believe me.

The last sentence, at least, is correct.

The "profound insights" Brooks cites, evidence that science is "proving" that a quasi-buddhist mysticism is objective truth, is a rehash of second-year philosophy:

First, the self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships. Second, underneath the patina of different religions, people around the world have common moral intuitions. Third, people are equipped to experience the sacred, to have moments of elevated experience when they transcend boundaries and overflow with love. Fourth, God can best be conceived as the nature one experiences at those moments, the unknowable total of all there is.

The first has been known even to materialist social-psychologists for years. The second 'insight' is still a matter of some debate and not considered proven. Third, yes, people can feel something, they can experience something... and we know what parts of their brains do that. Which he railed against in the first few paragraphs, then trotted out as profound later on. The fourth? Well, define "God" however you want. That definition is one that's been bandied about. His point that there's no evidence for a personal, biblical, magic daddy in the sky, is of course correct. But in an act of moral cowardice, he refuses to carry that thought through. Why should we believe in any god at all, even one that is more process than personality? Indeed, if we can show that the experience of god is just a function of brain activity, doesn't that suggest the lack of anything non-material undergirding it? Doesn't that reinforce the "radical atheism" he deplores so much?

Conversation with a friend

An email exchange with a friend of mine, regarding this article, and this reply. His comments are in Times Roman, mine in Arial.

A midwife for one's thoughts; another for whom one can provide the same service: Basis of a good conversation.

--Nietschze

Here's my major beef with the article (and it's a point that the replier gets to as well, at least obliquely). The article writer says:

"Above all, these changes would require looking with fresh eyes on the landscape of academic disciplines, and noticing something surprising: The great wall dividing the two cultures of the sciences and humanities has no substance. We can walk right through it."

To which I say: funny that your idea about walking through the science/humanities wall involves turning the humanities into a science. I don't mean to sound all boundary-policing for the sake of boundary-policing here, but I do think the article is guilty of arguing for a merger of science and literary criticism where the exchange of methods seems to be entirely one way: from science, to the humanities and never the other way. He makes a good case for WHY we should study literature (one I totally agree with), but he doesn't really say what -- if anything -- the study of literature might offer scientific study.

I'm not sure how much of it is just that that's not the point he's making right now, i.e. is that another article for another day. And he led off with the observation that hmmm, the sciences seem to be obtaining new knowledge, new insights into our nature and condition, and moving forward in a way that literary criticism isn't; what are they doing that we're not?

And going a bit beyond what he said... If literary criticism is barely surviving on its own, if it doesn't have much to offer itself, well...what DOES it have to offer scientific study? (Though you touch on some of this below.)
==================
His basic point about how most lit. critics view the human brain is true to. This, I think, is the biggest current divide between humanities and the "hard" sciences. (Or at least it's what my nueroscientist friend Stephen and I end up screaming at each other about over drinks every few months . . . ) The sciences now favor an almost entirely biological account of human coginition/development/ability ("It's biological, it's genetic, it's physiological, etc."), while since at least the late 60s forward, English speaking literary academics have generally favored a social constructionist approach. (The middle ground here would be the 70s feminism articulation of the difference between biological sex [do you have a penis or a vagina?] and socially constructed gender [Having a vagina means you must wear dresses and play with dolls . . . ], while the extreme of this position, an extreme which I myself am uncomfortable accepting, is Judith Butler's explosion of the sex/gender binary, where she argues that nothing exists before or outside of language and that EVERYTHING is gender, EVERYTHING is socially constructed and there is no biological "sex" that's not already caught up in culturally constructed meanings.])

If she's going to make that argument, then she has to explain why the vast majority of societies throughout history have associated having a penis with physical strength and aggression. Is a preference for blue rather than pink culturally constructed? Almost certainly. Does it therefore follow that NOTHING is biological? I, for one, am far from convinced.

Part of the reason for the biological emphasis is that with advances in technology, we can answer questions we couldn't even ask a few years ago. So yes, it seems like everywhere you turn around there are new biological insights. Look at what happened after Darwin published. His central idea was that species could develop and change over time, through a natural process of selection; that the environment could make the same kinds of decisions familiar to any livestock breeder; and the implication that all life descended from a common ancestor.

This was a revolution in biology, and there was a rush to apply Darwin's ideas EVERYWHERE, including places they didn't apply--thus Social Darwinism, etc. With time, the excesses were worked out, and scientists recognized that this application is valid, that one is just silly, and the other is a useful metaphor that shouldn't be taken too far.

We're currently in the early explosion stages of a biological revolution. There are things we've thought of as social that may turn out to have very strong biological components. There may be some things that go the other way. But we haven't mapped out the limits of the new knowledge yet.

(At one time, 'everyone knew' that ulcers were caused by stress....until the role of heliobacter pylori, a bacterium that lives in the gut, was discovered. Stress still has an effect, but only because stress tends to weaken the immune system, and in America, stressed-out people are more likely to eat foods that H. Pylori thrives on, and smoke too much, thus producing plenty of extra stomach acid to irritate already-irritated tissue, etc.) Likewise, 'evolutionary psychology' has given us some useful insights into how seemingly anti-survival traits such as self-sacrifice, altruism, generosity, etc., actually lead to better chances of group survival. It's also made some risible claims that can't be taken seriously, and aren't, even within the field.
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And for me? Personally? I've been struggling most of this year with Butler's position, the full adoption of which is still very much in vogue in literature departments. I think Butler's wrong. Mostly because I don't think that my friend Stephen is an idiot. And I don't think that the advances or observations of Stephen's field are entirely bunk. That said, I am ENORMOUSLY suspicious of strict, biological (or genetic) essentialism. This gets us back to that other article that Sullivan linked to that we discussed recently, which you said (and which I agreed) veered a little close to "some people are simply, inherently unfit to learn, so let's not let them go to college and oh isn't it funny how all the people who are fit to learn and go to college all look white and male, just like me."

I agree with you here. Yes, biology influences us, in ways we're not aware of and don't fully understand. That doesn't mean biology is destiny, though. Antidepressants affect the levels of serotonin in the brain. But SO DOES COGNITIVE-BEHAVIORAL THERAPY. Yes, ultimately it's all encoded in the physical matrix somehow (otherwise you're postulating a source of thought external to the body), but that doesn't mean the physical level is the most convenient (or ethical) place to intervene. Perhaps love can ultimately be explained in terms of biochemistry and neurons firing--but as anyone who's been in love can tell you, it's not *just* that.

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I think biological essentialism (the body or someone's physiology or genetics being read as their unalterable, inescapable fate) is a bad, bad, bad, super scary thing. And me thinking that isn't based in namby-pamby, soft humanities psuedo-science. It's based in the empirical evidence of history. I mean, slavery comes to mind ("These dark skinned people have smaller brains and therefore smaller mental capacity, oh and they also have higher pain tolerance, so obviously they were meant for heavy labor . . . ") as does the Holocaust ("These people have the wrong eye color/hair texture/skin color/nose shape/whatever and are therefore deserving of elimination.")

The problem is, simple indicators have been used to stand in for other traits, or generalizations have been applied without regard to the possibility of exceptions. Suppose we do extensive research and find, lo and behold, that the IQ of the average black person really is 2 points lower than the average white IQ. Do we therefore stop giving scholarships to blacks, since "they're not as smart as whites?" Of course not. Group averages say nothing about individual talents or temperaments, and (as in this example) the magnitude of the difference is insignificant. The relationship between brain size and IQ is poorly understood, if it exists at all. Not only has there been an overreliance on science, there's been an overreliance on BAD science. In the long run, science is self-correcting--but in the short run, can be misused as much as anything else.
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And so science's hard turn to serious biological essentialism scares the fuck out of me. (As Eve Sedgwick, one of those evil postmodern namby-pamby literary scholars that the article bemoans says, You ever notice that there are all these scientific studies to find the 'cause' of homosexuality? But none to find the 'cause' of heterosexuality? What else do we try to find the 'causes' of? Hmm . . . the common cold, liver cancer, lukemia, ALL THESE THINGS THAT ARE PROBLEMS, THAT WE WANT TO ERADICATE.)

Then explain, please, why so many psychologists (particularly those coming at it from an analytic viewpoint) working on the origins of homosexuality are themselves gay. Do they want to eradicate themselves? Is it the stereotype we used to joke about in social work, that you become a therapist because you want to figure yourself out? You're right to point out the effect of heteronormativity, that the default normal state of human beings is hetero and anything else is a deviation from that, so we should find out what causes that divergence. I'm not quite as willing to assume the motives are hostile, though the effects can be just as pernicious.
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Or, to put it another way, I guess what bothered me about the article was it's blind, uncomplicated faith in empiricism and the scientific method. And to make my case why that's a problem, I'll actually turn to a scientist, not a humanist. I'm thinking here of Stephen J. Gould's THE MISMEASURE OF MAN, specifically the part where he goes back and re-does all of that 19th century Philadelphia scientist's studies on the cranial capacity of various races, and finds out that the guy was wrong. That he fudged his data to make it fit the racist worldview that he wanted to argue for. And of course, Gould points out that he himself might be making mistakes that are fudging his own data to try and support a non-racist, multicultural worldview that's currently in vogue.

Through the 50's to 60's, ecologists & biologists looking at animal behavior theorized that aggression had a large survival payoff, that the most aggressive animals would tend to have the best survival characteristics. The field was, at the time, dominated by men. As more women came into the field, they started asking questions about cooperation as a survival strategy, about whether it might be equally valid or even superior in some cases. After all, many species show cooperative strategies: wolves hunt in packs, primates are very social, etc. And lo and behold, they found evidence to support that. The men who asked the questions earlier weren't stupid, weren't corrupt, weren't evil. Their worldview led them to ask certain questions, and as we both know, the way you ask the question has a large influence on what answer you find. Someone with different assumptions asked different questions...and found new results.

There are any number of studies from the 50's and before, comparing the various races & so forth, and finding that southern Europeans are flighty and undisciplined, Africans are a bit simple and childlike, etc., always with the amazing coincidence that the northern European or Scots-Irish (depending on who was doing the ranking) was the most advanced group, with all other groups inferior in some ways.

Today, of course, it's impolite to suggest that there might be ANY difference of ANY kind. I'm not sure which extreme is more annoying. (Is it just a coincidence, for example, that cultures in climates with a short growing season have a much greater sense of time urgency, of 'don't put it off, do it now,' than parts of the world with a more benign climate? That cultures where it's colder, so people are usually dressed in more layers, have a stronger nudity taboo? And what if it turns out that members of certain ethnic groups really are slightly more outgoing, or whatever, than some other groups. Explain how that means I should treat the person across from me any different, please.)

Over the long run, science is self-correcting. Mistakes get flushed out, re-examined, discarded. The same principle applies in the humanities as well. Case in point: The romanticized view of plantation life exemplified by "Gone with the Wind" was based largely on a scholarly historical study on the life of southern blacks before the civil war. (The name of the study escapes me at the moment...it was considered THE standard work in its day.) It wasn't a polemic, it was good, solid, primary-sourced scholarship. And it strongly indicated that most plantation slaves really didn't have it all that bad, and though there was a lot of hard work involved, they were essentially well treated.

Well. Some other historians looked at this later. And noticed that the work was indeed primary-sourced with original documents--almost all of them from slave holders or slave dealers. So they applied the scientific method and asked what other evidence there might be for that proposition, or what counter-evidence might exist. And in the process uncovered lots of other documentation suggesting the earlier view was wrong.

That was an application of the scientific method to the humanities, with good results. (More on this later.)
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I guess what reading Gould taught me was EXTREME skepticism, a wariness of how our cultural programming creeps its way into even what appears to be objective, detached, rational analysis.

And THAT, I think, is what the humanities have to offer the sciences. Experience in looking at the non-technical assumptions, of looking at what's being asked and what's NOT being asked, about what's being taken for granted.

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So do I think we need to abandon science or rationality or empiricism? No. Not at all. That way madness lies. Or at least that way George W. Bush and his administration lie. (Which is pretty much the same thing as madness, but that's another rant.) We've got to strive for empiricism and rationality . . . but we also need to be aware of the dangers of assuming that "empirically" staged experiments are perfect. Or that things conducted under the name of "science" are, unquestioningly, captial T "TRUTH."

The difference between science and fundamentalism is that science regards truth as contingent, provisional, and mediated by evidence, refuted by a single counterexample. As long as you remember that, you maintain enough humility to be careful in your conclusions and your statements about Ultimate Cosmic Truth.
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I think we desperately need empiricism in the world right now, and literary studies could damn sure use more of it. But the article Sullivan linked to worried me because it seemed ready to worship at the altar of empiricism without acknowledging any of the valid pitfalls/complaints that some scholars in the humanities have raised about it.

Does that make any sense?

Your comments make perfect sense, and I think we agree more than we don't. Now, if I can get up my soapbox for a bit:

I stand by my earlier statement that one of the best preparation for graduate study in the humanities would be a standard first-semester calculus course. NOT because you're going to need to apply the definition of a derivative or prove the chain rule, but because it teaches rigorous thinking and analysis, the habits of thought that you'll need later on.

Its not unlike some of my comments when you've sent me your papers and I've looked them over, and I've had to remind myself that standards of proof are different in the humanities. And the article touched on that, or at least pointed toward it. In lit-crit, it's apparently OK to say, this is what I think, and here's an example, and here's an example, and here's an example. So having established that, let's move on to the next point.

In the sciences, of course, that wouldn't fly. Do I expect that anyone will analyze and comment on Foucault with mathematical rigor? Of course not, though I'd like to see them try. But there are questions the scientific method forces you to ask, that don't seem to get asked in lit-crit:

• Are there other explanations for these observations?
• Do these observations really imply what I think they do? Or could they also be interpreted to support a different hypothesis?
• Are there counterexamples out there that imply something else? (This, I think, is the most important question lit-crit leaves unasked. My own thesis, just a lowly master's thesis at a middle-of-the-road university, spent about a third of its effort looking at possible counterexamples or other explanations and trying to rule them out.)

math training drills into you, again and again, that a set of examples is all very nice, but one counterexample makes them all irrelevant, no matter how many you have or how convenient they are the rest of the time. it teaches you the difference between a theorem and a conjecture, well enough that you never ever confuse them again, and you understand how to tear apart an argument and check it for validity.

No, lit-crit will never ever be at the same level of rigor as mathematics, and it shouldn't try. But as long as it views logical rigor as a symptom of dead white european male hegemonism (I'm sure there are much bigger words to express the same idea more snottily), it's going to be stuck in its own little backwater.

The NYT gets it half right

In a somewhat-bemused article, they note that the punditocracy has finally figured out what the blogosphere has been saying for weeks, that Hillary is farther than ever from the nomination, and that it's now effectively over.

But the impact was apparent almost immediately, as evidenced by The Drudge Report... It had as its lead story a link to a YouTube clip of Mr. Russert’s comments, accompanied by a photograph of a beaming Mr. Obama with his wife, Michelle, and the headline, “The Nominee.”

The thought echoed throughout the world of instant political analysis. “I think there’s an increasing presumption tonight that Obama’s going to be the nominee,” Chris Wallace, the Fox News host, said to Karl Rove, President Bush’s longtime political guru, who is now a Fox News analyst....

A posting on the DailyKos Web site included a mock memo to Mrs. Clinton entitled, “To-Do List Before Dropping Out.”

Speaking on CNN, David Gergen, a former adviser to several presidents, including Mrs. Clinton’s husband, said, “I think the Clinton people know the game is almost up.”

Stating it more bluntly, Bob Franken, the political analyst, told the MSNBC host Dan Abrams shortly after 2 a.m. Eastern time, “Let’s put it right on the table: It’s over. It’s over.”

But, unable to completely let go of a narrative, no matter how wrong, it goes on to argue that even though it's over, it's not really over.

The instant analysts on television and on the Web have not exactly showered themselves in glory this year. They have frequently made predictions that have been upended by actual votes from actual people.

But their opinions matter as much as ever in this late phase of the primary race, when Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama are battling to sway the opinions of the uncommitted superdelegates....

The superdelegates are a largely elite group that presumably will track the conventional wisdom of Washington’s class of political insiders as they weigh their decisions. And the big donors and fundraisers whose help Mrs. Clinton will need to continue her campaign are similarly tapped into the news media echo-sphere.

Mrs. Clinton’s campaign indicated early this morning that it would try to prove the commentariat wrong once again. “Pundits have gleefully counted Senator Clinton out before, and each time they have been wrong, because they don’t decide this race -- voters do,” Howard Wolfson, Mrs. Clinton’s communications director, wrote in an e-mail message. “And as the results in Indiana demonstrated, voters are rewarding Senator Clinton with victories, even in states Senator Obama predicted victory in.”

See? The delegate lead doesn't matter, it's about perception. And as long as we're talking about predictions, let's talk about North Carolina being a game-changer, about double-digit wins in Indiana... You know, those things that were going to prove the Clinton campaign had some realistic chance. At this point, Clinton has to get over 80% of remaining unpledged delegates and most of the unpledged superdelegates. Ain't gonna happen. And perceptions, pundit opinions, and media narratives don't decide that.

Wolfson's got a point, actually. Voters decide this. And at this point, even if you count Florida and Michigan the way Hillary wants, she still trails in the popular vote, in delegates, and in states won. She has fewer donors, her campaign's broke, she can't get the Black votes that no Democrat can win without. The votes simply aren't there.

Future pundits will decide whether Obama was inevitable from the start (I don't think he was; his campaign's been skillfully run, but it's not a juggernaut), or whether the Clinton campaign took the strongest brand in Democratic politics and ran it into the ground (and there do seem to have been some key strategic missteps, beginning with the complete lack of contingency planning for anything after Super Tuesday--such hubris never goes unpunished).