The Upside of the Arizona Bashing

Ed-abbey

The ACLU and — are you ready for this? — China have joined the bash Arizona band wagon.  The upside is that many liberals and illegals will leave or not come here in the first place. And that makes Cactus Ed very happy.  He recommends Arizona: How Big is Big Enough?  and Immigration and Liberal Taboos.

From the first piece:

. . . the religion of endless growth — like any religion based on blind faith rather than reason– is a kind of mania, a form of lunacy, indeed a disease. And the one disease to which the growth mania bears an exact analogical resemblance is cancer. Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. Cancer has no purpose but growth; but it does have another result — the death of the host.

Cactus Ed here provides us with the makings of an 'environmental' argument against illegal immigration.

Crude or Earthy?

A past inamorata once offered, with some justice, that I am crude. "Not crude, but earthy," was my reply. A colleague once described my eyes as "beady." "Do you mean penetrating?"

Am I pigheaded in my opinions, or admirably firm? Monomaniacal or single-minded? Open-minded or empty-headed? Well-rounded or scattered? Am I precise or obsessive-compulsive? Is my rigor mentis in truth rigor mortis?

Cardinal Mahony, nAZi Hunter

When I first landed in Arizona, way back in 1991, I noticed bumper stickers that read, 'Do AZ I do.'  Well, if you do AZ I do, does that make you a nAZi?

Apparently, Cardinal Roger Mahony,  Catholic Archbiship of Los Angeles, thinks so: "I can't imagine Arizonans now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques whereby people are required to turn one another in to the authorities on any suspicion of documentation."  Go read his entire post.  It's beneath refutation.  Yet another clear proof that the Roman church is on the skids.

I would advise my Catholic friends to consider what you are supporting when you support this church.  What matters in life is truth, not any old corrupt institution that claims to have it.  You should be skeptical of all institutions, while acknowledging the good that they have done and can do. They are easily corrupted.  Like the houses where I live,  they either have termites or they will get them.

What you have to understand about religious leftists like Mahony is that they have two religions, their nominal religion and the 'religion' of leftism.  And the second usually trumps the first.

Decadent Art

This by e-mail from a doctoral student in Canada:

I am writing to you because I have a couple of questions . . . about your  recent (May 12) blog post, and I was curious to hear a bit more about your views. [. . .]  My questions concern your assertion that "I also agree that if one is going to violate people's beliefs in the manner of  that 'artist' Andres Serrano then one ought to do it on one's own time and with one's own dime, as the saying goes." I assume that you're referring to "Piss Christ" and the controversy that surrounded it.

That's right.  Context is provided by Mike Valle's post to which I was responding.

1. Why do you feel that "Piss Christ" (or Serrano's other works–again, I assume you're referring here mostly to the religious icons and bodily fluids) is (are) a "[violation] of people's beliefs"? The claim that it "violates beliefs" is much stronger than simply saying that it is distasteful, since it ascribes an active quality to the work.

Of course, it is more than distasteful or disgusting, although it is that; it shows profound disrespect and contempt for Christianity.  And it is not the work itself that violates the beliefs and sensibilities of Christians and plenty of non-Christians as well, but the work in the context of its production and public display.  It should be offensive to any decent person, just as "Piss-Buddha," if there were such an 'art work,' would be offensive to me and other non-Buddhists.  Buddha was a great teacher of humanity and should be honored as such.  (That is why decent people were offended when the Taliban destroyed the ancient Buddhist statuary.) The same goes for Jesus and Socrates and so many others.  Christians of course believe that Jesus was much more than a great teacher of humanity, but whether he was or not is immaterial to the point at issue.  Or imagine "Piss-King" in which a figurine of Martin Luther King, Jr. is supended in urine. Everyone would take that, and rightly so, as expressive of contempt for the black American civil rights leader, as offensive as Southern racists' references to King back in the '60s as Martin Luther Coon.

Continue reading “Decadent Art”

On the Abstractness of Mathematical Sets

Let us agree that x is concrete iff x is causally/active passive and abstract otherwise.  Many say that mathematical sets ('sets' hereafter: 'mathematical' as opposed to 'commonsense') are abstract objects, abstract entities, abstracta.  Why?

Argument One:  In set theory there are singleton sets, e.g. {Quine}.  Obviously, Quine is not identical to {Quine}.  The second is a set, the first is not.  Yet the difference cannot be the difference between two concreta.  Quine is a concretum.  Therefore, {Quine} is an abstractum.  This is of course meant generally: singletons are abstracta.  Now if singletons are abstracta, then all sets are. 

Argument Two:  In set theory there is a null set.  It is not nothing, but something despite having no members. Yet it cannot be a concrete something.  Therefore, it is an abstract something.  And if one set is abstract, all are.

Contra Argument One:  A statue and the lump of clay that constitute it are numerically distinct.  (For the one has properties the other doesn't have, e.g., the lump, but not the statue, can exist without having the form of a statue.)  And yet both are concrete, i.e., both are causally active/passive.  If this is possible, why should it not also be possible that Quine and {Quine} both be concrete?  One could say that Quine and {Quine} occupy the same 'plime' to borrow a term form D. C. Williams, the same place-time, in the way statue and lump do.

Contra Argument Two:  Possibly, there is a concrete atomic entity. Being atomic, it has no parts.  So why should a set's having no members rule out its being concrete?

Are any of these arguments compelling?

Arizona SB 1070: The Threat is Stronger than the Execution

Eine Drohung ist stärker als eine Ausführung is a saying often attributed to grandmaster Aron Nimzovich.  (On the correctness of the attribution, chess aficionados will find interesting this piece by Edward Winter.)  It occurred to me this morning that the maxim also applies to SB 1070, about which I have said quite a bit of late. (Scroll down.) The law doesn't go into effect until July 29th, and already illegals are leaving the state in significant numbers.  See here, and here.

In the 1070 case, not only is the threat stronger than the execution, the perceived threat is stronger and far more effective  than the real threat.  But liberals, in their preternatural obtuseness, have only themselves to blame for this.  By egregiously and willfully misrepresenting the law, by their hyperbole and hysteria,   they are bringing about the very effect — the attrition of lawbreakers — that the framers of the law intended!  Way to go!

Another thing I get a kick out of  is the call to boycott, not merely the Grand Canyon State, but the Grand Effing Canyon herself.  Don't these nimrods understand that it is a national park and that revenues lost will be lost, not to Arizona, but  to the federal government that liberals want ever to expand?  The fewer visitors to the Grand Canyon the better.  More solitude for me and mine.

I'll bet the shade of old 'Cactus Ed' Abbey is having a good laugh over this.

Broadly Logical Modality

David Brightly has difficulty with the notion of broadly logical modality.  Let me see if I can clarify this notion sufficiently to satisfy him.  It might be best to begin with the notion of narrowly logical impossibility.  I'll number my paragraphs so that David can tell me exactly where he disagrees or finds obscurity.

1.  There are objects and states of affairs and propositions that can be known a priori to be impossible because they violate the Law of Non-Contradiction (LNC).  Thus a plane figure that is both round and not round at the same time, in the same respect, and in the same sense of 'round,' is impossible, absolutely impossible, simply in virtue of its violation of LNC.  I will say that such an object is narrowly logically (NL) impossible.  Hereafter, to save keystrokes, I will not mention the 'same time, same respect, same sense' qualification which  will be understood to be in force.

2.  But what about a plane figure that is both round and square?  Is it NL-impossible?  No.  For by logic alone one cannot know it to be impossible.  One needs a supplementary premise, the necessary truth grounded in the meanings of 'round' and 'square' that nothing that is round is square.  We say, therefore,  that the round square is broadly logically (BL) impossible.  It is not excluded from the realm of the possible by logic alone, which is purely formal, but by logic plus a 'material' truth, namely the necessary truth just mentioned.

3.  If there are BL-impossible states of affairs such as There being a round square, then there are BL-necessary states of affairs such as There being no round square.  Impossibility and necessity are interdefinable: a state of affairs is necessary iff its negation is impossible.  It doesn't matter whether the modality is NL, BL, or nomological (physical).  It is clear, then, that there are BL-impossible and BL-necessary states of affairs.

4.  We can now introduce the term 'BL-noncontingent' to cover the BL-impossible and the BL-necessary.

5.  What is not noncontingent is contingent.  (Surprise!) The contingent is that which is possible but not necessary.  Thus a contingent proposition is one that is possibly true but not necessarily true, and a contingent state of affairs is one that possibly obtains but does not necessarily obtain.  We can also say that a contingent proposition is one that is possibly true and such that its negation is possibly true.  The BL-contingent is therefore that which is BL-possible and such that its negation is BL-possible.

6. Whatever is NL or BL or nomologically impossible, is impossible period.  If an object, state of affairs, or proposition is exckluded from the realm of possible being, possible obtaining, or possible truth by logic alone, logic plus necessary semantic truths, or the (BL-contingent) laws of nature, then that object, state of affairs or proposition is impossible, period or impossible simpliciter.

7.   Now comes something interesting and important.  The NL or BL or nomologically possible may or may not be possible, period.  For example, it is NL-possible that there be a round square, but not possible, period.  It is BL-possible that some man run a 2-minute mile but not possible, period.  And it is nomologically possible that I run a 4-minute mile, but not possible period.  (I.e., the (BL-contingent) laws of anatomy and physiology do not bar me from running a 4-minute mile; it is peculiarities not referred to by these laws that bar me.  Alas, alack, there is no law of nature that names BV.) 

8.  What #7  implies is that NL, BL, and nomological possibility are not species or kinds of possibility. If they were kinds of possibility then every item that came under one of these heads would be possible simpliciter, which we have just seen is not the case.  A linguistic way of putting the point is by saying that 'NL,' 'BL,' and 'nomological' are alienans  as opposed to specifying adjectives:  they shift or 'alienate' ('other') the sense of the noun they modify.  From the fact that x is NL or BL or nomologically possible, it does not follow that x is possible.  This contrasts with impossibility.  From the fact that x is NL or BL or nomologically impossible, it does follow that x is impossible.  Accordingly, 'NL,' 'BL,' and 'nomological' do not shift or alienate the sense of 'impossible.' 

9.  To appreciate the foregoing, you must not confuse senses and kinds.  'Sense' is a semantic term; 'kind' is ontological.  From the fact that 'possible' has several senses, it does not follow that there are several species or kinds of possibility.  For x to be possible it must satisfy NL, BL, and nomological constraints; but this is not to say that these terms refer to species or kinds of possibility.

 

The Right to Ridicule Religion

Mike Valle over at Fists in the Wind writes:

I support the absolute right of all of these people to ridicule religion all that they want. I don't think the government should fund any of it, but I do believe in this fundamental principle: The right to ridicule religious beliefs absolutely trumps the so-called "right" not to have one's religious beliefs ridiculed.

I basically agree with Mike's post.  In particular, I agree that there is no 'right' not to have one's religious beliefs ridiculed, and I also agree that if one is going to violate people's beliefs in the manner of  that 'artist' Andres Serrano then one ought to do it on one's own time and with one's own dime, as the saying goes.  Adolescent  purveyors of schlock who delight in offending the sensibilities of the 'bourgeoisie'  or the 'booboisie' in H. L. Mencken's phrase have no right to taxpayer money.  Dumb notions are rampant on the Left, and one of the dumbest is that a refusal of sponsorship amounts to censorship. This notion is beneath refutation, so I will say no more about it.

But I do have one minor bone to pick with Mike.  He speaks of the right to ridicule religion as 'absolute.'  I wonder what he means by this term.  Does he mean that there are no conceivable circumstances in which the exercise of the right in question could not be justifiably limited or prevented?  If that is what he means, then I disagree. 

Consider property rights.  Absolute?  Are there no conceivable circumstances in which a man's right to property cannot be justifiably limited or infringed?  Suppose I own half of Montana, and the federal government needs a few acres for a defense installation.  It forces me to sell those acres at fair market value.  I say that's a legitimate exercise of eminent domain.  Or how about free speech?  It is widely recognized that one cannot justifiably say just anything anywhere to anybody.  The right to free speech is not the right to speech that incites violence in a situation in which an outbreak of violence can be reasonably expected to occur if the speech is delivered.

Same goes for the ridiculing of religion via speech, gestures, placards, and Serrano style 'art.'  Suppose Marilyn Manson is burning Bibles on stage at some venue in Los Angeles near Biola.  Some Biola students and there and are recognizable as such.  Suppose the ridicule is ramped up to the point that the Christians in the audience are in danger of grave bodily harm.   Then I say the right to ridicule meets its limit.  But that is to say that the right is not absolute.  It is relative to the circumstances.