It being so cold in these parts this time of year, I had a big bowl of hot and sour soup for lunch at a local Chinese joint. The message inside the fortune cookie read:
Luck favors prepared mind.
In the literary vicinity of that conservative favorite:
The harder I work, the luckier I get.
'Horses exist' is an example of an affirmative general existential sentence. What is the status of the predicate '___ exist' in such a sentence? One might maintain that 'exist(s)' is a second-level predicate; one might maintain that it is a first-level distributive predicate; one might maintain that it is a first-level non-distributive (collective) predicate.
1. Frege famously maintained that 'exist(s)' is a second-level predicate, a predicate of concepts only, and never a first-level predicate, a predicate of objects. Russell followed him in this. A consequence of this view is that 'Horses exist' is not about what it seems to be about, and does not say what it seems to say. It seems to be about horses, and seems to say of them that they exist. But on Frege's analysis the sentence is about the concept horse and says of it, not that it exists, but that it has one or more instances.
Paradoxically, the sentence ''Horses exist' on Frege's analysis says about a non-horse something that cannot be true of a horse or of any concrete thing!
For an interesting comparison, consider 'Horses surround my house.' Since no horse could surround my house, it is clear that the sentence is not about each of the horses that surround my house. What then is it about? One will be tempted to reach for some such singularist analysis as: 'A set of horses surrounds my house.' But this won't do since no such abstract object as a set could surround anything. So if the sentence is really about a set of horses then it cannot say what it appears to say. It must be taken to say something different from what it appears to say. So what does 'Horses surround my house' say about a set if it is about a set?
One might be tempted to offer this translation: 'A set of horses is such that its members are surrounding my house.' But this moves us in a circle, presupposing as it does that we already understand the irreducibly plural predication 'Horses surround my house.' After all, if the members of a set of horses surround my house that is no different from horses surrounding my house.
The circularity here is structurally similar to that of the Fregean analysis. If 'Horses exist' is about a concept, and says of that concept that it has instances, then of course those instances are horses that exist. So the attempt to remove existence from individuals and make of it a property of concepts ends up reinstating existence as a 'property' of individuals.
Pursuing the analogy a bit further, the refusal to grant that there are irreducibly plural predications such as 'Horses surround my house' is like the refusal to grant that there are irreducibly first-level existence sentences.
2. Pursuing the analogy still further, is it possible to construe the predicate in 'Horses exist' as a non-distributive first-level predicate like the predicate in 'Horses surround my house'? First some definitions.
A predicate F is distributive just in case it is analytic that whenever some things are F, then each is F. Thus a distributive predicate is one the very meaning of which dictates that if it applies to some things, then it applies to each of them. 'Blue' is an example. If some things are blue, then each of them is blue.
If a predicate is not distributive, then it is non-distributive (collective). If some Occupy-X nimrods have the building surrounded, it does not follow that each such nimrod has the building surrounded. If some students moved a grand piano into my living room, it does not follow that each student did. If bald eagles are becoming extinct, it does not follow that each bald eagle is becoming extinct. Individual animals die, but no individual animal ever becomes extinct. If the students come from many different countries, it does not follow that each comes from many different countries. If horses have an interesting evolutionary history, it does not follow that each horse has an interesting evolutionary history.
I will assume for the purposes of this post that 'Horses surround my house' and 'Horses have an interesting evolutionary history' are irreducibly plural predications. (That they are plural is obvious; that they are irreducibly plural is not. For arguments see Thomas McKay, Plural Predication.) And of course they are first-level as well: they are about horses, not about concepts or properties or propositional functions. Now is 'Horses exist' assimilable to 'Horses surround my house' or is it assimilable to 'Horses are four-legged'? The predicate in the later is a distributive first-level predicate, whereas the predicate in 'Horses surround my house' is a non-distributive first-level predicate.
I am assuming that the 'Fressellian' second-level analysis is out, but I won't repeat the arguments I have given ad nauseam elsewhere.
I do not understand how 'exist(s)' could be construed as a non-distributive predicate. For if it is non-distributive, then it is possible that some things exist without it being the case that each of them exists. And that I do not understand. If horses exist, then each horse exsts.
Peter van Inwagen seems (though it not clear to me) to be saying that 'exists(s)' is a non-distributive first-level predicate. He compares 'Horses exist' to 'Horses have an interesting evolutionary history.' 'Horses exist,' he tells us, is equivalent to 'The number of horses is not zero.' ("Being, Existence, and Ontological Commitment," p. 483) But he denies that 'exists(s)' is second-level. To say that the number of horses is not zero is to predicate of horses that they number more than zero. (483) It is not to predicate of the concept horse that the cardinality of its extension is more than zero.
Now we cannot say of a horse that it surrounds a house or has an interesting evolutionary history. We can say that of horses, but not of a horse. Can we say of a horse that it numbers more than zero? We can of course say of horses that they number more than zero. But I don't see how we can sensibly say of an individual horse that it numbers more than zero. Perhaps Frege was wrong to think that number words can only be predicates of concepts which are ones-over-many. Perhaps all one needs is the many, the plurality. But it seems one needs at least that to swerve as logical subject. If this is right, and to exist is to number more than zero, then we cannot sensibly say of an individual that it exists. We can say this of individuals but not of an individual. But surely we can say of an individual horse that it exists. So I conclude that 'exist(s)' cannot be a first-level non-distributive predicate.
3. And so one is driven to the conclusion that 'exist(s)' is a first-level distributive predicate. 'Horses exist' says of each individual horse that it exists. But isn't this equally objectionable? The vast majority of horses are such that I have no acquaintance with them at all. So how can my use of 'Horses exist' be about each horse?
It is at this juncture that Frege gets his revenge:
We must not think that I mean to assert something of an African chieftain from darkest Africa who is wholly unknown to me, when I say 'All men are mortal.' I am not saying anything about either this man or that man, but I am subordinating the concept man to the concept of what is mortal. In the sentence 'Plato is mortal' we have an instance of subsumption, in the sentence 'All men are mortal' one of subordination. What is being spoken about here is a concept, not an individual thing. (Posthumous Writings, p. 213)
Plato falls under the concept man; he does not fall within it. The concept mortal does not fall under the concept man — no concept is a man — but falls within it. When I say that all men are mortal I am not talking about individual men, but about the concept man, and I am saying that this concept has as part of its content the subconcept mortal.
Similarly, my utterance of 'Horses exist' cannot be about each horse; it is about the concept horse, and says that it has instances — which is the view I began by rejecting and for god reason.
We seem to have painted ourselves into an aporetic corner. No exit. Kein Ausgang. A-poria.
It turns out that conservatives are happier than liberals. But why?
Conservative explanation. Marriage and religious faith are conducive to happiness. More conservatives are married than liberals, and more practice a religion. Ergo, conservatives as a group are happier than liberals as a group.
Liberal explanation. Conservatives are happier because they turn a blind eye to the injustices of the world. They are oblivious to inequality. And when they do see it,they rationalize it. Ignorance is bliss. Conservatives naively believe that people can better themselves by the practice of the old virtues of frugality, perseverance, hard work, self-control, deferral of gratification, and the like, when the truth is that people are products of their environment and need government help to do well.
As a conservative, I of course consider the liberal explanation to be bogus.
Do we conservatives, ostrich-like, ignore injustice? The answer depends on what one takes justice to be. The liberal tendency is to see justice as fairness, and to understand fairness in terms of material equality, equality of wealth and equality of power. A just society for a liberal, then, is one in which material inequality is either eliminated or severely mitigated. Along these lines the prominent political philosopher John Rawls puts forth his famous Difference Principle the gist of which is that social and economic inequalities in a society are justified only if they benefit the worst off, i.e., only if the worst off are better of than they would have been without the inequality.
But why should my having more than you be considered unjust unless it benefits you? Of course, my having more than you will typically benefit you. "A rising tide lifts all boats." My roof was leaking in two places. Now I could have done an amateur patch job myself: roofing ain't rocket science. But I decided to have the entire house professionally re-roofed with all that that entails in terms of new flashing, etc. My ability to afford such an expensive job gave support to a local company and all its jobbers, not to mention the crew of workers who had employment for a week. And having extra dough, I laid $60 in tips on the workers. I could give a hundred examples of how my having more than certain others benefits those others. When's the last time a poor man made a loan to a friend, or a contribution to a charity? How many poor people give people jobs? And of course people like me who are modestly well-off have been benefited in innumerable ways by people who are wealthy. Think of those who have endowed art museums and university chairs.
But suppose, contrary to fact, that my having more did not benefit others. Why should that affect the justice of my having more? If I work harder, longer, and smarter than you, and practice the old-fashioned virtues that liberals mock even when they themselves owe their success to them, then it is a good bet that I will end up with more than you. Unless I engage in force or fraud I am entitled to what I earn or what I inherit or what falls out of the sky into my lap. Take my intelligence and my good genes. Do I deserve them? No, but I have a right to them. I have a right to them and right to what I acquire by their use.
I grant that a certain amount of luck is ingredient in every success. But I have a right to my good luck even though I don't deserve it. Of course, liberals often 'see' luck where there is no luck at all but hard work and the exercise of conservative virtues. Hence the conservative saying, "The harder I work the luckier I become." The point is that what the liberal misconstrues as luck is really not luck at all but effort. Should we help life's unlucky? I should think so. But not if the helping is really a harming, a making of the recipients of charity weaker and more dependent.
Liberals consider it legitimate for the state to use its coercive powers to promote material equality by taking from the highly productive and giving to the unproductive and less productive. This cannot work in the long run. The well-off will resist being ripped off by government functionaries who line their own pockets and feather their nests with perquisites purchased at taxpayer expense. Many will expatriate. Government, it is clear, is too often a hustle like any hustle rigged by those who benefit from it for their own benefit. Government needn't be a hustle, but too often it is, which is why vigilance on the part of the citizenry is necessary to keep it in check.
The value of liberty trumps that of material equality. This is a key difference between conservative and libertarian on the one side and leftist on the other. Naturally I believe in formal equality, equality of treatment, treating like cases in a like manner, not discriminating on the basis of irrelevant criteria such as race, sex, or creed.
Of course, it depends on the creed. If you are a radical Muslim out to impose sharia and subvert our way of life, and act upon your beliefs, then you ought to be deported, or jailed, or executed, depending on the nature of your actions. You should never have been let in in the first place. After all, toleration, though a good thing, has limits, and if he do not see that it has limits then you are hopelessly foolish. In a word, you are a liberal.
For more on toleration and its limits see my aptly titled Toleration category.
Here. Excerpt:
For all his claims of erudition, Vidal suffered the wages of the public autodidact. I noticed he quoted Latin ad nauseam — and nearly always with his nouns and adjectives not just in the wrong cases (especially the confusion of the accusative and ablative in preposition phrases), but predictably in the fashion of those who like to copy down Latin phrases but cannot read a complete Latin sentence. By his sixties, Vidal had degenerated into a conspiracy theorist, and his embarrassing late-life infatuation with Timothy McVeigh caught the eye of the goddess Nemesis.
To deracinate is to uproot. W. K. sends this:
That article about political correctness in the universities you linked to reminded me of David Conway's comments in A Defence of the Realm about the 'systematic deracination' of the citizens of western liberal democracies since World War Two:
Through changes in educational curricula, plus other cultural changes, most notably in public broadcasting, the cultural majorities in these societies have been made increasingly unfamiliar with their national histories and traditions. Without adequate historical knowledge of their national histories and without encouragement and opportunity to participate in national traditions, the members of a society cannot be expected to have much understanding of or affection for them.
Historically, nowhere in the world have women been better treated than in Christian nations. In his Confessions, St. Augustine wrote the first tribute in history to an ordinary woman, his mother, Monica. The Divine Comedy is highest praise of a woman ever. According to Christianity, the Virgin Mary is the greatest human being ever to have lived. Be proud of that.
The accusers during the witch hunts were overwhelmingly women.
One-hundred and fifty years ago, ninety-five percent of men didn't have the vote.
In nineteenth-century England, more novels were published by women than by men. And they wrote under their own names, contrary to the feminist myth that women were obliged to take male names.
Western literature starts with an account of men fighting over a woman. Listen to Achilles: ‘Why must we battle Trojans, men of Argos? Why, why in the world if not for Helen with her loose and lustrous hair?’And Odysseus endures all perils and resists all temptations – even immortality – to get back home to his wife. Medieval chivalric literature also testifies to the fact that women were highly esteemed.
Homosexuality
Plato made sodomy illegal in his Laws.
Poets and orators did not express longings to return to their catamites.
Adult Athenians who acted as catamites were excluded from all offices in public life, not even being permitted to address the assembly.
Dead White Males
Most great literature is written by dead white males. Postmodernists think that’s explained by ‘oppression’ and ‘privilege’, but there are good reasons for it:
Whites have the highest IQ of any race (see the cold-climate theory of IQ).
Men are disproportionately represented at the extremes of intelligence (morons and geniuses): above the IQ level of 170, the genius level, there are thirty timesas many men as women. (Again, there are evolutionary reasons for this.)
Before writers are acknowledged to be great, their work must be subjected to the test of time, which outlasts any individual's lifespan.
Christianity
William E. Lecky, an atheist, makes the following point in his History of European Morals: ‘The vast change in the status of women must be manifest to all after Christianity had superseded the unlimited license of the pagan Empire.’ He mentions:
Christianity's absolute prohibition of sexual indulgence outside marriage
The security of wives by the prohibition of divorce
The legal rights of guardianship of children hitherto reserved to men
The inheritance of widows
"There can be little doubt that reverence for the Virgin Mary has done much to elevate and purify the ideal of woman and soften the manners of men."
The "redeeming and ennobling features of the age of chivalry which no succeeding change of habit or belief has wholly destroyed."
Also:
Christians preached that there was no separate baptism for men and women. All were one in Christ.
Christians did not expose baby girls at birth.
Christians honoured women who defied emperors, centurions and soldiers to witness to the Faith.
Christians were the first to educate women.
Christians were the first to have separate prison cells for men and women.
Today, August 5th, is the 50th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe's death. What follows is a post from 13 June 2009.
………………..
Thomas Merton, Journal (IV, 240), writing about Marilyn Monroe around the time of her death in 1962:
. . .the death was as much a symbol as the bomb – symbol of uselessness and of tragedy, of misused humanity.
He’s right of course: Monroe’s was a life wasted on glamour, sexiness, and frivolity. She serves as a lovely
warning: Make good use of your human incarnation! Be in the flesh, but not of the flesh.
The fascination with empty celebrity, a fascination as inane as its object, says something about what we have become in the West. We in some measure merit the revulsion of the Islamic world. We value liberty, and rightly, but we fail to make good use of it as Marilyn and Anna Nicole Smith failed to make good use of their time in the body. Curiously enough, a failure to make good use of one's time in the body often leads to its early destruction, and with it, perhaps, the possibility of spiritual improvement.
Curiously, Merton and Carradine both died in Bangkok, the first of accidental electrocution on 10 December 1968, the second a few days ago apparently of autoerotic asphyxiation. The extremity and perversity of the latter practice is a clear proof of the tremendous power of the sex drive to corrupt and derange the human spirit if it is allowed unfettered expression. One with any spiritual sensitivity and depth ought to shudder at the thought of ending his life in the manner of Carradine, in the heteronomy and diremption of the flesh, utterly enslaved to one's lusts, one's soul emptied out into the dust. To risk one's very life in pursuit of intensity of orgasm shows a mind unhinged. Thinking of Carradine's frightful example, one ought to pray, as Merton did thousands of times: Ora pro nobis peccatoribus. Nunc et in hora mortis.
James Burton is the legendary sideman responsible for those deceptively simple but perfect guitar solos on such early Rick Nelson recordings as Hello Mary Lou and Travelin' Man and It's Up to You.
Here Burton trades licks with Bruce Springsteen under the watchful eye of Roy Orbison. By the way, "Pretty Woman," blending as it does the Dionysian with the tender is a candidate for the office of perfect R & R song.
Playing "Johnny B. Goode" with E. P.
A new reader (who may not remain a reader for long) wrote in to say that he enjoyed my philosophical entries but was "saddened" by the invective I employed in one of my political posts.
I would say that the use of invective is justifiable in polemical writing. Of course, it is out of place in strictly philosophical writing and discussion, but that is because philosophy is inquiry into the truth, not defense of what one antecedently takes to be the truth. When philosophy becomes polemical, it ceases to be philosophy. Philosophy as it is actually practiced, however, is often degenerate and falls short of this ideal. But the ideal is a genuine and realizable one. We know that it is realizable because we know of cases when it has been realized. By contrast, political discourse either cannot fail to be polemical or is normally polemical.
Let me then hazard the following stark formulation, one that admittedly requires more thought and may need qualification. When philosophy becomes polemical, it ceases to be philosophy. But when political discourse ceases to be polemical, it ceases to be political discourse.
A bold pronunciamento, not in its first limb, but in its second. The second limb is true if the Converse Clausewitz Principle is true: Politics is war conducted by other means. Whether the CCP is true is a tough nut that I won't bite into just yet. But it certainly seems to be true as a matter of fact. Whether it must be true is a further question.
Another possible support for the second limb is the thought that man, contrary to what Aristotle famously said, is not by nature zoon politikon, a political animal. No doubt man is by nature a social animal. But there is no necessity in rerum natura that there be a polis, a state. It is arguably not natural there be a state. The state is a necessary evil given our highly imperfect condition. We need it, but we would be better off without it, given its coercive nature, if we could get on without it. But we can't get on without it given our fallen nature. So it is a necessary evil: it's bad that we need it, but (instrumentally) good that we have it given that we need it.
Of course my bold (and bolded) statement needs qualification. Here is a counterexample to the second limb. Two people are discussing a political question. They agree with each other in the main and are merely reinforicing each other and refining the formulation of their common position. That is political discourse, but it is not polemical. So I need to make a distinction between 'wide' and 'narrow' political discourse. Work for later.
Now for a concrete example of an issue in which polemic and the use of invective is justified.
Can one reasonably maintain that the photo ID requirement at polling places 'disenfrachises' blacks and other minorities as hordes of liberals maintain? No, one cannot. To maintain such a thing is to remove oneself from the company of the reasonable. It is not enough to calmly present one's argument on a question like this. One must give them, but one must do more since it is not merely a theoretical question. It is a crucially important practical question and it is important that the correct view prevail. If our benighted opponents cannot see that they are wrong, if they are not persuaded by our careful arguments, then they must be countered in other ways. Mockery, derision, and the impugning of motives become appropriate weapons. If you don't have a logical leg to stand on, then it becomes legitimate for me to call into question your motives and to ascribe unsavory ones to you. For, though you lack reasons for your views, you have plenty of motives; and because the position you maintain is deleterious, your motives must be unsavory or outright evil, assuming you are not just plain stupid.
Companion post: The Enmity Potential of Thought and Philosophy as Blood Sport
It is a decidedly unpopular thing to say these days, but I'll say it anyway, echoing a conviction of William James: Much profit comes from avoiding sensory indulgence.
A much more difficult practice is to enter into it with cool detachment. Coitus reservatus, for example. But it is no more difficult than playing blindfold chess, which is not that difficult. One experiences the sensations attendant upon sexual intercourse while remaining indifferent to them: one regards them as mere sensations. (In my lexicon, coitus reservatus requires non-ejaculation, whereas coitus interruptus allows it, but outside the partner.)
Could one take it one step further and ejaculate with detachment? This is hard to imagine, but conceivable. After all, Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita was enjoined by Lord Krishna to kill with detachment. Try to imagine looking a man in the eyes and then running him through with a sword, all the while preserving one's equanimity. If it is possible to kill with detachment, then it is possible to ejaculate with detachment.
What could it mean to ejaculate with detachment? One would experience the sensations attendant upon the outflow of seminal fluid while viewing them as mere sensations. One would not lose oneself in them as is normally the case, but hold them at mental arm's length, or, to change metaphor, peer at them from within the fastness of the inner citadel. One would remain unattached. Like the chess master who keeps the draw in hand, one would keep one's ataraxia in hand.
Am I talking nonsense?
Companion post: William James on Self-Denial
I maintain that there are modes of being. To be precise, I maintain that it is intelligible that there be modes of being. This puts me at odds with those, like van Inwagen, who consider the idea unintelligible and rooted in an elementary mistake:
. . . the thick conception of being is founded on the mistake of transferring what properly belongs to the nature of a chair — or of a human being or of a universal or of God — to the being of the chair. (Ontology, Identity, and Modality, Cambridge 2001, p. 4)
To clarify the issue let's consider God and creatures. God exists. Socrates exists. God and Socrates differ in their natures. For example, Socrates is ignorant of many things, and he knows it; God is ignorant of nothing. God is unlimited in power; Socrates is not. And so on. So far van Inwagen will agree. But I take a further step: God and Socrates differ in the way they exist: they differ in their mode of being. So I make a three-fold distinction among the being (existence) of x, the nature (quiddity, whatness) of x, and the mode of being of x. At most, van Inwagen makes a two-fold distinction between the being of x and the nature of x. For me, God and Socrates differ quidditatively and existentially whereas for van Inwagen they differ only quidditatively (in respect of their natures).
One difference between God and Socrates is that God does not depend on anything for his existence while Socrates and indeed everything other than God depends on God for his/its existence, and indeed, at every time at which he/it exists. I claim that that this is a difference in mode of existence: God exists-independently while creatures exist-dependently. There would be an adequate rebuttal of my claim if thin translations could be provided of the two independent clauses of the initial sentence of this paragraph. By a thin translation of a sentence I mean a sentence that is logically equivalent to the target sentence but does not contain 'exist(s) or cognates or 'is' used existentially. Translations are easy to provide, but I will question whether they are adequate. Let 'D' be a predicate constant standing for the dyadic predicate ' — depends for its existence on ___.' And let 'g' be an individual constant denoting God.
1. God does not depend on anything for his existence
1-t. (x)~Dgx.
2. Everything other than God depends on God for its existence
2-t. (x)[(~(x = g) –> Dxg].
I will now argue that these thin translations are not adequate.
I begin with the obvious point that the domain of the bound variable 'x' is a domain of existent objects, not of Meinongian nonexistent objects. It is also obvious that the thin translations presuppose that each of these existents exists in the same sense of 'exists' and that no one of them differs from any other of them in respect of mode of existence. Call this the three-fold presupposition.
Now consider the second translation, (2-t) above. It rests on the three-fold presupposition, and it states that each of these existents, except God, stands in the relation D to God. But this is incoherent since there cannot be a plurality of existents — 'existent' applying univocally to all of them — if each existent except God depends on God for its existence. It ought to be obvious that if Socrates depends on God for his very existence at every moment, then he cannot exist in the same way that God exists.
I don't deny that there is a sense of 'exists' that applies univocally to God and Socrates. This is the sense captured by the particular quantifier. Something is (identically) God, and something else is (identically) Socrates. 'Is identical to something' applies univocally to God and Socrates. My point, however, is that the x to which God is identical exists in a different way than the y to which Socrates is identical. That 'is identical to something' applies univocally to both God and Socrates is obviously consistent with God and Socrates existing in different ways.
Here is another way to see the point. To translate the target sentences into QuineSpeak one has to treat the presumably sui generis relation of existential dependence of creatures on God as if it were an ordinary external relation. But such ordinary relations presuppose for their obtaining the existence of their relata. But surely, if Socrates is dependent on God for his very existence, then his existence cannot be a presupposition of his standing in the sui generis relation to God of existential dependence. He cannot already (logically speaking) exist if his very existence derives from God.
The point could be put as follows. The Quinean logic presupposes ontological pluralism which consists of the following theses: everything exists; there is a plurality of existents; each existent exists in the same sense of 'exists.' Ontological pluralism, however, is incompatible with classical theism according to which each thing distinct from God derives its existence from God. On classical theism, everything other than God exists-derivatively and only God exists-underivatively.
On the Quinean scheme of ontological pluralism, the only way to connect existents is via relations that presuppose the existence of their relata. So the relation of existential dependence that is part and parcel of the notion of divine creation must be misconstrued by the Quinean ontological pluralist as a relation that presupposes the logically antecedent existence of both God and creatures.
The ontology presupposed by Quine's logic is incompatible with the theism van Inwagen espouses. One cannot make sense of classical theism without a doctrine of modes of being. One cannot be a classical theist and a thin theorist.
Here.
I have honestly never eaten a Chick-Fil-A sandwich. So tomorrow I am going to try one. This is in keeping with my maxim, 'No day without political incorrectness.' Each day you must engage in one or more politically incorrect acts. Some suggestions:
Obama apparently thinks that the only alternative to omni-intrusive, ever-expanding government is some sort of 'rugged individualism' according to which each individual pulls himself up by his own pony-tail in the manner of the celebrated Baron von Muenchhausen. Bullshit. False alternative. That he would push this false alternative is a good illustration of Obama's mendacity. There is a way to avoid the extremes: subsidiarity.
Liberal profs admit they would discriminate.
Captive Minds: Conformity and Campus Intellectuals Excerpt (emphasis added):
Working for four years at this prairie college, I had many opportunities to see political correctness in action: in our so-called “equity” hiring practices, in changes to our course offerings to highlight racial and sexual diversity, and in the unfailing faux-reverence with which all aspects of Aboriginal literature and culture were treated, even down to a discussion about whether, in a job advertisement, we should refer to Canada by its indigenous name of Turtle Island.
But this was not a matter of political correctness alone: it was collective thinking in its most blatant form. There were striking parallels to what Czeslaw Milosz in The Captive Mind analyzes as the intellectual’s not-unwilling accommodations to Party orthodoxy. Milosz was interested not only in the compulsions of totalitarianism but in the significant emotional and psychological attractions of the Communist system: the reassurances and rewards of ceding responsibility for judgment, and the manifold reasons why an intellectual could find himself at home in conformity. Can it be that, even free of threat or compulsion, many intellectuals will choose to surrender their independence of thought? C.S. Lewis wrote about the seductive pleasures of belonging in “The Inner Ring,” brilliantly highlighting the desire planted deep in the heart of every human being to be approved, acknowledged as “one of us” by people we admire. To get into that charmed circle, Lewis warned, many of us will assent to nearly anything.
No matter the reigning orthodoxy — in our department it was, as in the vast majority of English departments across North America, Leftist, anti-Western, feminist, and multiculturalist — the desire to fall in line, and to compel or outlaw those who do not, seems to be an enduring fact of human nature.
Milosz's Captive Mind is essential reading. Your humble correspondent has of course read it, but he has yet to blog it. He really ought to.
Here (emphasis added) we find:
In March, the Justice Department denied the Lone Star State the necessary clearance for this new law, arguing that it would disproportionately affect Hispanic voters. Texas officials appealed. To preserve the access of all citizens to the right to vote . . . the District Court should follow the Justice Department’s lead and strike down this highly suspect and unnecessary law.
What is interesting here is the role disproportionality plays in these leftist attempts at argument. Let's see if we can uncover the 'logic' of these arguments.
Suppose people of Italian extraction are disproportionately affected by anti-racketeering statutes. Would this be a good reason to oppose such laws? Obviously not. Why not? The reason is that the law targets the criminal behavior, not the ethnicity of the criminal. If it just so happens that people of Italian extraction are 'overrepresented' in the memberships of organized crime syndicates, then of course they will be 'disproportionately affected' by anti-racketeering laws. So what?
It is very easy to multiply examples. Who commits more rapes, men or women? You know the answer. Among men, in which age group will we find more rapists? Will there be more rapists in the 15-45 age group or in the 45-75 age group? You know the answer. Laws against rape will therefore disproportinately affect males aged 15-45. Would this be a good reason to oppose such laws? Obviously not. Why not? The reason is that the law targets the criminal behavior, not the age or sex of the criminal.
Suppose that drunk drivers are predominantly Irish. (Just suppose; I'm not saying it is true.) Then laws against drunk driving would disproportionatey affect them. Of course. But that would be no reason to oppose such laws. Is a law just only if it affects all groups equally or proportionately? Of course not.
Who is more likely to be a terrorist, a twenty-something male Egyptian Muslim or a sixty-something Mormon matron? Do you hesitate over this question? The answer is clear, and you know what it is. Are anti-terrorism laws therefore to be opposed on the ground that they disproportionately affect young Muslim males from middle eastern countries?
Should there be a quota system when it comes to rounding up terrorists? "You can apprehend only as many Muslim terrorists as Buddhist terrorists."
Suppose child molesters are 'overrepresented' among Catholic priests. Then laws against such molestation will disproportionarely affect them. But so what? It would be morally absurd to argue that such laws 'discriminate' against Catholic priests and should be struck down on the ground that Catholic priests are disproportionately inclined to engage in child molestation.
Now we know that illegal aliens in Southwest states such as Texas are predominantly, indeed overwhelmingly, of Hispanic extraction. So such aliens would be disproportionately affected by photo ID requirements. But this is surely no argument against photo ID. After all, they are not citizens and have no right to vote in the first place.
Now consider the Hispanic citizens of Texas. They have the right to vote. And no decent person wants either to prevent them from exercising their right or to make it more difficult for them to vote than for other groups to vote. Why would they be 'disproportionately affected' by a photo ID requirement?
Is it because Hispanics are less likely to have ID than members of other groups? Or less likely to have the minimal skills necessary to acquire such ID? It does, after all, take a tiny bit of effort. You have to get yourself down to the DMV and fork over a nominal sum.
I myself do not believe that Hispanics as a group are so bereft of life skills that they are incapable of acquiring photo ID. But that apparently is what Dems believe when they think that a perfectly reasonable requirement would 'disproportinately affect' them. What an insult to Hispanics!
So I ask once again: is there even one decent reason to oppose photo ID?
