Author: Bill Vallicella

Voluntary Balkanization: Good or Bad?

Another fit topic of rumination on this Independence Day 2011 is the question of voluntary segregation or balkanization.  Herewith, a few very preliminary remarks.

I have been inclining toward the view that voluntary segregation, in conjunction with a return to federalism,  might be a way to ease tensions and prevent conflict in a country increasingly riven by deep-going differences.  We need to face the fact that we do not agree on a large number of divisive, passion-inspiring issues.  Among these are abortion, gun rights, capital punishment, affirmative action, legal and illegal immigration, taxation, the need for fiscal responsibility in government, the legitimacy of public-sector unions, wealth redistribution, the role of the federal government in education, the purpose of government, the limits, if any, on governmental power,  and numerous others.

We need also to face the fact that we will never agree on them. These are not merely 'academic' issues since they directly affect the lives and livelihoods and liberties of people. And they are not easily resolved because they are deeply rooted in fundamental worldview differences, in a "conflict of visions,"  to borrow a phrase from Thomas Sowell.   When you violate a man's liberty, or mock his moral sense, or threaten to destroy his way of life, you are spoiling for a fight and you will get it. 

We ought also to realize that calls for civility and comity and social cohesion are pretty much empty.  Comity (social harmony) in whose terms?  On what common ground?  Peace is always possible if one side just gives in.  If conservatives all converted to leftism, or vice versa, then harmony would reign.  But to think such a thing will happen is just silly, as silly as the silly hope that Obama, a leftist, could 'bring us together.'  We can come together only on common ground, only under the umbrella of shared principles.  And what would these be?

There is no point in papering over very real differences.

Consider religion. Is it a value or not? Conservatives, even those who are atheistic and irreligious, tend to view religion as a value, as conducive to human flourishing. Liberals and leftists tend to view it as a disvalue, as something that impedes human flourishing. The question is not whether religion, or rather some particular religion, is true. Nor is the question whether religion, or some particular religion, is rationally defensible. The question is whether the teaching and learning and practice of a religion contributes to our well-being, not just as individuals, but in our relations with others. For example, would we be better off as a society if every vestige of religion were removed from the public square? Does Bible study tend to make us better people?

The conservative will answer no and yes respectively and will feel sure that he is right.  The leftist will give opposite answers with equal confidence.  There is no possibility of mediation here.  That is a fact that can't be blinked while mouthing the squishy feel-good rhetoric of 'coming together.'  Again, on what common ground?  There can be no 'coming together' with those whose views are pernicious.

If we want peace, therefore, we need to give each other space by adopting federalism and limiting government interference in our lives, and by voluntary segregation: by simply having nothing to do with people with people with whom there is no point in interacting given unbridgeable differences.

Unfortunately, the Left, with its characteristic totalitarian tendency, will not allow federalism.  But we still have the right of free association and voluntary segregation.

No doubt there are disdvantages to segregation/balkanization.  Exclusive association with the like-minded increases polarization and fosters extremism. See here.  The linked piece ends with the following suggestion:

Bishop cites research suggesting that, contrary to the standard goo-goo exhortations, the surer route to political comity may be less civic engagement, less passionate conviction. So let’s hear it for the indifferent and unsure, whose passivity may provide the national glue we need.

Now that is the sort of preternatural idiocy  one expects from the NYT.  Less civic engagement!  The reason there is more civic engagement and more contention is because there is more government interference!  The Tea Party movement is a prime example.  The solution is less government.  As I have said more than once, the bigger the government the more to fight over.  The solution is for government to back off, not for the citizenry to acquiesce like sheep in the curtailment of their liberties.

Patriotism and Jingoism

It is not uncommon to hear people confuse patriotism with jingoism. So let's spend a few moments this Fourth of July reflecting on the difference.

Jingoism is well described by Robert Hendrickson as "bellicose chauvinism." But given the general level of culture, I am afraid I can't leave it at that, but must go on to explain 'chauvinism' and 'bellicose.' Chauvinism has nothing to do with sex or race. I have no objection to the phrases 'male chauvinism' or 'white chavinism,' the latter a term widely used in the 1950s in Communist Party USA circles; but the qualifiers are essential. Chauvinism, named after Nicholas Chauvin of Rochefort, an officer under Napoleon, is excessive nationalism. 'Bellicose' from the Latin word for war (bellum, belli) means warlike. So we get 'warlike excessive nationalism' as the definiens of 'jingoism.'

According to Henrickson, the term 'jingoism' originated from a refrain from the British music hall song "The Great MacDermott" (1878) urging Great Britain to fight the Russians and prevent them from taking Constantinople:

We don't want to fight, yet by Jingo if we do/ We've got the ships, we've got the men, and the money, too.

'By Jingo,' in turn, is a euphemism for 'by Jesus' that dates back to the later 17th century. (QPB Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, 2nd ed. p. 395) So much for 'jingoism.' I think we are all going to agree that it is not a good thing. Patriotism, however, is a good thing, a virtue. Like any virtue it is a means between two extremes. In this case, one of the extremes is excessive love of one's country, while the other is a deficiency of love for one's country. The patriot's love of his country is ordinate, within bounds. The patriot is neither a jingoist nor a neutralist. Both are anti-patriots. To confuse a patriot with a jingoist is like confusing a dissenter with a traitor. No doubt sometimes a jingoist or chauvinist will hide beneath the mantle of patriotism, but just as often a traitor will hide beneath the mantle of dissent. The patriot is also not a xenophobe since ordinate love of one's country does not entail hattred or fear of other countries and their inhabitants. Is patriotism, defined as the ordinate love of, and loyalty to, one's country justified?

Although it does not entail xenophobia, patriotism does imply a certain partiality to one's own country precisely because it is one's own. Is this partiality toward one's own country justifiable? If it is, then so is patriotism. As Socrates explains in Plato's Crito, we are what we because of the laws. Our country and its laws have overseen our nurturance, our education, and the forming of our characters. We owe a debt of gratitude to our country, its laws, those who have worked to maintain and defend it, and especially those who have died in its defense.

On the Etymology of ‘Shyster’

I've often wondered about the etymology of 'shyster.' From German scheissen, to shit? That would fit well with the old joke, "What is the difference between a lawyer and a bucket of shit?' "The bucket." I am also put in mind of scheusslich: hideous, atrocious, abominable. Turning to the 'shyster' entry in my Webster's, I read, "prob. fr. Scheuster fl. 1840 Am. attorney frequently rebuked in a New York court for pettifoggery."

According to Robert Hendrickson, Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, p. 659:

Shyster, an American slang term for a shady disreputable lawyer, is first recorded in 1846. Various authorities list a real New York advocate as a possible source, but this theory has been disproved by Professor Gerald L. Cohen of the University of Missouri-Rolla, whose long paper on the etymology I had the pleasure of reading. Shakespeare's moneylender Shylock has also been suggested, as has a racetrack form of the word shy, i.e., to be shy money when betting. Some authorities trace shyster to the German Scheisse, "excrement," possibly through the word shicir, "a worthless person," but there is no absolute proof for any theory.

A little further research reveals that Professor Cohen's "long paper" is in fact a short book of 124 pages published in 1982 by Verlag Peter Lang. See here for a review. Cohen argues that the eponymous derivation from 'Scheuster' that I just cited from Webster's is a pseudo-etymology. 'Shyster' no more derives from 'Scheuster' than 'condom' from the fictious Dr. Condom. Nor does it come from 'Shylock.' It turns out my hunch was right. 'Shyster' is from the German Scheisser, one who defecates.

The estimable and erudite Dr. Michael Gilleland, self-styled antediluvian, bibliomaniac, and curmudgeon, who possesses an uncommonly lively interest in matters scatological, should find all of this interesting. I see that the Arizona State University  library has a copy of Gerald Leonard Cohen's Origin of the Term "Shyster." Within a few days it should be in my hands.

Spiritual Complacency

The world's transiency is sufficiently stable to be soothingly seductive. One dies, no doubt, but one is still here and has been for a long time. One exploits the gap between 'one dies' and 'I die.'  A feeling of pseudo-security establishes itself. The hard and intransient truth of transiency is kept at arm's length. Hence one does not seek truth, or does so without fervor. One is lulled into complacency by pseudo-stability. The complacency comes to extend to complacency itself. One no longer cares that one no longer cares to wake up from the dream of life. The very idea, if entertained at all, is entertained for the sake of entertainment: the Quest becomes joke-fodder.

The Cartesian Dream Argument and an Austinian Contrast Argument

J. L. Austin, in a footnote to p. 49 of Sense and Sensibilia (Oxford, 1962), writes of ". . . the absurdity of Descartes' toying with the notion that the whole of our experience might be a dream." In the main text, there is a sort of argument for this alleged absurdity. The argument may be set forth as follows:

1. "If dreams were not 'qualitatively' different from waking experiences, then every waking experience would be like a dream . . ." (49)

2. If the phrase 'dream-like quality' were "applicable to everything," then "the phrase would be perfectly meaningless." (49)

Therefore

3. If dreams were not qualitatively different from waking experiences, then the phrase 'dream-like quality' would be perfectly meaningless. (From 1 and 2 by Hypothetical Syllogism)

4. The phrase 'dream-like quality' is not perfectly meaningless.

Therefore

5. Dreams are qualitatively different from waking experiences, and "the notion that the whole of our experience might be a dream is an "absurdity." (From 3 and 4 by Modus Tollens)

This is what is called a Contrast Argument. The idea is that a term cannot be meaningful unless there are items to which it does not apply. The idea has some plausibility: if a term applies to everything, or everything in a specified domain, then there is a 'failure of contrast' that might seem to drain the term of all meaning. So if every experience were dream-like, then it could seem meaningless to say of any experience that it is dream-like.

But I see no reason to accept premise (2) above and the contrast principle on which it rests. The principle is

CP. If a term T applies to everything, then T is meaningless.

(CP) readily succumbs to counterexamples. 'Self-identical' applies to everything without prejudice to its meaningfulness. The fact that nothing is self-diverse does not make it meaningless to say that everything is self-identical. Or consider a nominalist who claims that there are no universals, that everything that exists is a particular. Is our nominalist saying something meaningless? Clearly not.

Or if a Buddhist maintains that all is impermanent, is he maintaining something meaningless? Must there be permanent entities for it to be meaningful to say of anything that it is impermanent? I say no. It would be a cheap and feeble response to the Buddhist to allege that the very sense of 'All is impermanent' requires the existence of one or more permanent entities. It is not even required that it be possible that there be permanent entities. If it is necessarily the case that all is impermanent, then there cannot be any permanent entities. Nevertheless, it is meaningful to make this strong impermanence claim. One understands what is being said.

There are philosophers who hold that every being is a contingent being. Surely this cannot be refuted by claiming that the very sense of the thesis that all beings are contingent requires the existence of at least one necessary being. It is true that 'contingent being' has sense only by contrast with the sense of 'necessary being': one cannot understand the one term without understanding the other. But it does not follow that 'contingent being' has sense only if there are necessary beings.

The senses of 'good' and 'evil' are mutually implicative. But it does not follow that there cannot be good without evil.

Returning to the Cartesian Dream Argument, could the whole of my experience be dream-like? This supposition may at the end of the day be absurd; but it cannot be shown to be absurd by Austin's contrast argument.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Jim Morrison

Tomorrow it will have been 40 years since Jim Morrison of the Doors broke on through to the other side expiring in a Paris bath tub.  A too intense celebration of the Dionysian can lead to a premature exit from life's freeway, as more than one 60's 'icon' discovered.  The year before saw the drug- and alcohol-fueled deaths of  both Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.

Riders on the Storm, into this world we're thrown, brings a little Heidegger to the rock masses.

Roadhouse Blues:

Well, I woke up this morning, I got myself a beer
Well, I woke up this morning, and I got myself a beer
The future's uncertain, and the end is always near.

Beer for breakfast is contraindicated and may hasten the end which is indeed near in any case.  Forty years on, the cult continues.  Supply your own critique and be careful who you choose as role model.

Flannery O’Connor

Bukowski was my last binge, literarily speaking.  I feel a Flannery binge in the offing.  How's that for catholic tastes?  I found a copy of her first novel, Wise Blood, in a used bookstore back in December while on the hunt for Bukowski materials.  But I just recently started in on it.  Repellent and boring at first, dismal and gothic, but she is clearly a talent of a very high order — unlike Buk — so I will press on. 

My best piece of scribbling during my Bukowski binge was Charles Bukowski Meets Simone Weil.  I note that Flannery was intrigued by Simone, which is not surprising, and discusses the latter in her letters.  That will have to be looked into.  All in good time.  Study everything, join nothing.  Nihil humanum, et cetera.

Here is a worthwhile essay on O'Connor.

And Flannery O'Connor Banned is yet another proof –as if we need one — of the Pee Cee dementia of  the liberal element. 

She Won’t ‘Bach’ Down

You can stand Michelle Bachmann up at the gates of hell and she won't back down.  (Or at least I hope not.) I thought she acquitted herself well on Hannity's show last night.  She talks sense unlike the blather mouth who is unfortunately our current POTUS. 

But the slimeballs of the Left are out in force against her.  Why doesn't that make them sexists by their own perverse 'logic'?  Criticize Obama's policies and they call you a racist.  Viciously attack Bachmann herself and you are not a sexist?

Requisites of Happiness

Edward Ockham at Beyond Necessity quotes Flaubert:  "To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness; though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless."

Witty, but false.  Comparable and  less cynical is this saying which I found attributed to Albert Schweitzer on a greeting card: Happiness is nothing more than good health and a poor memory.  (Whether the good Schweitzer ever said any such thing is a further question; hence my omission of quotation marks.)

I am inclined to agree with both gentlemen that good health is a necessary condition of happiness.  But happiness does not require a poor memory, it requires the ability to control one's memory, and the ability to control one's mind generally.  I am happy and I have an excellent memory; but I have learned how to distance myself from any unpleasant memory that may arise. 

An unhappy intellectual may think that stupidity is necessary for happiness, but then he is the stupid one.  A keen awareness of the undeniable ills of this world is consistent with being happy if one can control his response to those ills.  There is simply no necessity that one dwell on the negative.  But this non-dwelling is not ignorance.  It is mind control. 

As for selfishness, it is probably true that its opposite is more likely to lead to happiness than it.

The temptation to wit among the literary often leads them astray.

If You Are a Conservative, Don’t Talk Like a Liberal

I've made this point before but it bears repeating. We conservatives should never acquiesce in the Left's acts of linguistic vandalism. Battles in the culture war are often lost and won on linguistic   ground. So we ought to resolutely oppose the Left's attempts at linguistic corruption.

Take 'homophobia.'

A phobia is a fear, but not every fear is a phobia. A phobia is an  irrational fear. One who argues against the morality of homosexual practices, or gives reasons for opposing same-sex marriage is precisely — presenting arguments, and not expressing any phobia. The arguments  may or may not be cogent. But they are expressive of reason, and are intended to appeal to the reason of one's interlocutor. To dismiss them as an expression of a phobia show a lack of respect for reason and for the persons who proffer the arguments.

There are former meat-eaters who can make an impressive case against the eating of meat. Suppose that, instead of addressing their arguments, one denounces them as 'carniphobes.' Can you see what is wrong with that? These people have a reasoned position. Their reasoning may be more or less cogent, their premises more or less disputable. But the one thing they are not doing is expressing an irrational fear of eating meat. Many of them like the stuff and dead meat inspires no fear in them whatsoever.

The point should be obvious: 'homophobia' is just as objectionable as 'carniphobia.' People who use words like these are attempting to close off debate, to bury a legitimate issue beneath a crapload of PeeCee jargon. So it is not just that 'homophobe' and 'homophobia' are
question-begging epithets; they are question-burying epithets.

And of course 'Islamophobia'  and cognates are other prime examples.  Once again, a phobia is an irrational fear.  But fear of radical Islam is not at all irrational.  You are a dolt if us use these terms, and a double dolt if you are a conservative.

Language matters.