Two Americans who’ve spent time on the ground in the Middle-East try and assess what’s going on:
Totten:
‘The Middle East is as trashed right now as I’ve ever seen it. The Syrian conflict has killed more people than the Bosnian war. Iran is moving ahead on its nuclear weapons program while convincing fools in the West that it’s playing nice and reforming. Egypt is in its worst shape since the Nasserist era, and the Saudis are pitching the biggest fit since the Arab oil embargo in the 70s.’
Smith:
‘Turkey can’t dictate terms. It isn’t a superpower. It’s a regional power. It’s not the United States. The bizarre thing, however, is that under this administration the United States seems to be shri[n]king. Indeed, Obama seems to be shrinking us out of the Middle East. Maybe that’s a good thing, but I’d like to hear the rationale for it.’
We’ve been creating a power vacuum in the region, but don’t seem to thinking about what we’d like to fill it.
Some of this correction may be necessary to align our budget with our capabilities, and perhaps address the failures of the last 20 years. However, the strategic failures in Syria and Iran with this administration are serious. We’re neither respected nor feared at the moment, and our policy is adrift.
There’s still a strong current of isolationism in the American public mind, and a deep partisan divide and lots of dysfunction to be taken into account.
Did we miss a chance to carve out a bold, new, Truman-esque path in the region last election?
Michael Totten’s piece that revisits a Robert Kaplan piece from 1993, which is prescient: “A Writhing Ghost Of A Would-Be Nation”. It was always a patchwork of minority tribes, remnants of the Ottoman Empire
I just received a copy of Totten’s book, Where The West Ends, and it’s good reading.
I’ve gotten a few emails suggesting there’s been a lot of ‘partisanship,’ on the site lately. I agree there’s more than usual, but in the face of such a pork-passed monstrosity of a law, with so many bad incentives, so much adverse selection, and young people being forced to work in a system that makes so little sense for them, it’s good to have certain ideas boiled down:
Thanks for any concern. I assume the risk of driving some people away with all this political talk.
Martin:
Now, what’s the point of this little fable? Basically, this is the story of health insurance. We started off with “major medical,” which was a way to protect yourself against big medical bills that everyone hoped they wouldn’t have; now what we’ve got is that major medical — but we’re also paying for snow-shoveling, er, we’re paying for everyone’s day to day medical care, and we’re paying for it in pretty much the most expensive and complicated possible way: through a federal government agencyand insurance companies.
-Curiosity isn’t necessarily looking for life, but it’s looking for the conditions that make life possible here on Earth with its 10 instruments, such as trying to determine the origins of the methane on Mars’s surface by being better able to analyze the kind of carbon (12 or 14) in the atmosphere to find its source. It’s also much better able to look for amino acids (the building blocks of life on Earth) and better able to analyze the rock and crystal samples it picks up. It’s got a cool laser. It’s about the size of a Mini-Cooper.
-Unlike Earth with its dynamic interior and tectonic plates, relatively strong magnetic field, thick and dynamic atmosphere etc., Mars is a bit like a time capsule. With just over 50% the diameter of Earth, about 38% the gravity, and less than 1% the atmosphere we’ll be able to get a much better picture of what happened during the formation of our solar system about 4 1/2 billion years ago as it’s much less disturbed. The trip up the rock face in Gale Crater over the next few years is like a trip back through time. What happened to Mars? Did the Earth and Mars have common experiences?
No methane on Mars, so that rules out the certain kinds of microbial life hoped for. There is water on the surface, in the soil. at about 2%, which is good for colonial prospects. It probably had liquid water in the past, but that is thought to have been billions of years ago. A lot of evidence points to ancient Mars and current Mars being very different.
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So, what about a more human problem that interests the libertarian-minded?
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The problem is that over time, human organizations succumb to decay, bad incentives, and get weighed down by their own internal politics, increasing layers of bureaucracy, and regulations. They can end-up no longer boldly and creatively solving the problems they were designed to solve, becoming risk-averse and losing their spirit of innovation and flexibility to free-up the top talent. You can put more and more money in, but get less and less in return. In fact, I’d argue along with many others that we’re in a period of American life where many other bureaucracies and government agencies may have also reached that point. Such is my road-map.
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After the terrible Challenger explosion in 1986, Richard Feynman was included on an independent panel to find out what went wrong. He discovered a profound difference between engineers’ and managements’ probability estimates for number of flights without failure. One potential (and very important) reason that a system-ending failure can go unnoticed is the tendency of managers to believe top-down explanations.
It’s vintage Feynman, inconoclastic, penetrating and brilliant:
“for whatever purpose, be it for internal or external consumption, the management of NASA exaggerates the reliability of its product, to the point of fantasy.”
“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.“
Watch Robert Zubrin and other Mars Undergrounders pursue their quest despite NASA at times, but ultimately benefitting from collaboration with NASA engineers’ experience and insight, giving a boost to this deepest of human dreams: the next frontier. A colony on Mars.
We can do this, and it will be both like and unlike anything we’ve ever done before.
So, where does the evidence lead, and who are the people attaching themselves to causes, ideas, and politics? Naturally, I’m sympathetic to the conservative point of view, but I’m open to debate. There’s an entire industry now of documentary activism and political protest being rewarded by the current administration. Are they getting the facts right?
Panero also discusses how some NYC museums have come to rely upon the recommended donation fees that rich tourists often pay, and that this revenue stream could interfere with their mission to serve the public.
Addition: Here’s Bob Zubrin on the rather pseudo-religious and dangerous roots of much environmentalism:
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How to separate reasonable environmentalism from the authoritarian impulses, the Malthusians and various other people who “know” how many people is enough? Now that environmentalism is a primary focus in our schools, it’s probably worth thinking about.
Update: How reliable is that British contractor, anyways?
Logan interviews a British soldier hired to provide security to our mission in Benghazi, who was on-scene in the weeks leading-up to and during the attack.
My takeaway,for what it’s worth: There were plenty of direct warnings that Benghazi was highly unsafe, and that the American mission there was specifically being targeted by Al Qaeda and enemy forces. It was very risky to be there at that point, with unreliable, local security forces, relatively un-secure locations, and with Al Qaeda flags flying all over town.
After both the attack and the order to stand down during the attack, I suspect official messages given to the American public were part of a larger strategy: To forward liberal internationalist policy and keep the administration’s goals in view. They wanted to keep a lid on things, and not provoke other uprisings which were going on at the time throughout the Middle-East. Basically, the State department didn’t want to rock the boat too much and was directed to continue the PR campaign to soothe the Arab Street in order to further the idea of democratic activism and grass-roots Arab-Spring civil unrest. The U.S. and its military needed to be seen as a non-threatening force, subsuming itself to International institutions as well as carrots and sticks for democracy promotion.
Basically, I attribute very risky decision-making and possible incompetence for our decision to still be there under those conditions. Perhaps there were other operations going on, as you never get all the facts, and it seems Chris Stevens was particularly dedicated. I attribute incompetence and possibly other motives regarding the decision to stand-down and the ‘not a planned attack’ response the administration gave to the American people. This could range from aggressively staying-on-message (look at Syria and Iran, as this administration’s proven to hold particularly idealistic objectives and a lack of strategy) to poor leadership to political calculation and maintaining the appearance of meeting political objectives despite obvious contrary evidence.
Tell me what I’m missing!
Any thoughts and comments are welcome
See previous posts below which indicate that if there was a cover-up, it likely has as much to do with CIA operations in the area.
Do you remember the Juan Williams’ firing? He’s got a new book out and is making the rounds.
As regular readers know, my criticism of NPR usually stems from this insight: The 60’s coalition of feminists, civil-rights activists, multiculturalists and environmentalists often represented on NPR’s airwaves are guided by ideas which unite some people while dividing and excluding others. Ideas have limitations, and ideas often set-up by well-meaning, morally serious, well-educated people can also lead, over time, to a very different system of incentives and very different behavior than was intended.
‘Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people”:
First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.
Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.
The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization’
I certainly see a lot of good in people trying to work to expand their horizons, understand and listen to other points of view while representing them in the public sphere through the arts, literature, politics and a mission of education. NPR certainly maintains high-standards for journalism and has much broader public support. I like NOVA as much as the next guy.
But all of the public? Which single person or group do you trust to speak for all of the public?
Juan Williams, despite what was going on behind the scenes, seems to have stepped on the NPR mission statement. The ironic thing is he’s still pretty invested in liberalism and the civil rights movement, it’s just that he ran too far afield from NPR’s boundaries, and ran into intolerance and illiberalism, and now he’s making it the central issue of his new book.
Here are his original comments:
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Here was then NPR CEO Vivian Schiller discussing his firing:
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*I’ve always got people telling me I’m too negative and harsh on the one hand, and not critical, negative and harsh enough on the other. You can’t please ’em all.
What is a ‘public intellectual’ anyways, and how can it relate to journalism?
On a recent conference our author went to, the following was offered to journalists:
No more quoting political scientists: It’s lazy and signals the reporter couldn’t find any other apparently neutral or objective source to talk. These people work in academics, not politics, so I’m not interested in their opinions on anything but their own research.’
This is often lazy journalism; an easy way for journalists to reinforce their beliefs and get a soundbite, while the quoted professor might receive a little flattery and perhaps star power if it happens often enough.
Potter:
‘The important thing to understand about journalists is that they are the lowest ranking intellectuals. That is to say: they are members of the intellectual class, but in the status hierarchy of intellectuals, journalists are at the bottom. That is why they have traditionally adopted the status cues of the working class: the drinking and the swearing, the anti-establishment values and the commitment to the non-professionalization of journalism.’
and on professors:
The important thing to understand about academics is that they are the highest rank of intellectuals. That is why they have traditionally adopted the status symbols of the 19th-century British leisured class—the tweeds and the sherry and the learning of obscure languages—while shunning the sorts of things that are necessary for people for whom status is something to be fought for through interaction with the normal members of society (such as reasonably stylish clothing, minimal standards of hygiene, basic manners).
The ideas of original thinkers and those of thinkers in academia often trickle down into popular thought anyways, but the easy quote is often just a way to reinforce one’s own beliefs or ideology, or get a quick fix.
Also:
‘In a philosophical debate, what everyone involved is trying to get at is the truth. In contrast, what is at stake in the political realm is not truth but power, and power (unlike truth) is a “rival good”—one person or group can wield power only at the expense of another. This is why politics is inevitably adversarial. Political power is ultimately about deciding who shall govern, and part of governing is about choosing between competing interests’
Politics ain’t beanbag. The pursuit of truth and thinking new thoughts is difficult, tedious and often ill-explained and poorly understood by most of the public.
Given my ideological leanings, I fear an academic-government-journalism triangle of entrenched interests guiding the ship of state. That said, nepotism, ideology, ignorance, power, doubt and truth shall carry on. Hate Is A Strong Word-Some Links On The BBC, The CBC, & NPR
Here’s what much of that ‘meta’ commentary on commerce and transgressive street-art might get you. Local thugs charging those Banksy groupies to see his art. Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?:
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Dalrymple:
‘The enormous interest his work arouses, disproportionate to its artistic merit, shows not that there is fashion in art, but that an adolescent sensibility is firmly entrenched in our culture. The New York Times reports that a lawyer, Ilyssa Fuchs, rushed from her desk the moment she heard about Banksy’s latest work and ran more than half a mile to see it. Would she have done so if a delicate fresco by Peiro della Francesca had been discovered in Grand Central Terminal? In the modern world, art and celebrity are one. And we are all Peter Pan now: We don’t want to grow up.’
Well, I certainly hadn’t noticed an adolescent sensibility at the NY Times. Certainly not.
An image of one of those Peiro della Francesca frescoes here.
Perhaps it’s worthwhile to view Banksy as a kind of poor man’s Damien Hirst: A ‘working-class’ British guy with some native talent but not too much in the way of formal training nor arguably lasting artistic achievement (perhaps in the ‘graffiti’ world). Instead of working as a gallery, mixed-media modern installation artist like Hirst, he’s followed the street-graffiti path leaving ‘transgressive’ messages on politics and ethics scrawled across the cityscape in anonymity. For all his irony, and the fact that he’s likely in on the joke, Banksy still finds himself subject to the larger forces at work where art, money, & fame are meeting.
As a girl in Seattle here mentioned to me at a party: ‘His work is a meta-commentary on art, commerce, greed, creativity and all that. His becoming a commodity is the ultimate irony.’
Deep, man, deep.
Yet, as to Dalrymple’s point, I could imagine an adult sneaking off to check out a Michaelangelo fresco with childlike anticipation, and maybe even a little childish or adolescent delight at being the first to arrive. Of course, I think that fresco tends to engender a much deeper and complex response than that of Banksy’s work and ‘social commentary’, but the desire for beauty, hope, and brief bursts of transcendence aren’t going anywhere. This reminds me of Richard Wilbur’s poem: ‘First Snow In Alsace.‘ which evokes the grim realities of war and suffering covered up by a beautiful snowfall.
Here are the last stanzas and line:
…You think: beyond the town a mile Or two, this snowfall fills the eyes Of soldiers dead a little while.
Persons and persons in disguise, Walking the new air white and fine, Trade glances quick with shared surprise.
At children’s windows, heaped, benign, As always, winter shines the most, And frost makes marvelous designs.
The night guard coming from his post, Ten first-snows back in thought, walks slow And warms him with a boyish boast:
He was the first to see the snow.
The worst war can bring is juxtaposed against our simple childlike wonder (and possibly childish) delight at that which is beautiful and mysterious in nature. Of course, such desires can help cause the destruction of war, too, but…hey. People love to be the first and the coolest. As Dalrymple argues above, these childish impulses are the ones that should not be so easily encouraged nor celebrated, especially by Banksy nor his reviewers at the NY Times. I pretty much agree.
***I’d currently argue that in a successful commercial culture such as ours, with such strong tensions between the individual artist and the demos, and such high and low-art available, and where we’re awash in pop culture, music & entertainment, it’s natural to have strong debate going as to what’s ‘cool’ and what’s good art. Clearly, religion and religious duties come into constant tension with both commerce and art. Clearly, that commercial culture has formed a celebrity culture which is also affecting our politics. Clearly, whether or not you’re an art snob, an aesthete, or a secularly or religiously moral person, you can easily see how that culture produces a lot of crap, and can arouse the base desires in people which can be as harmless as a crush, sexual longing, a desire for romantic love and/or the cult-like worship.
Here’s Robert Hughes being especially critical of an Andy Warhol modern art collector, and where money, marketing, art and fame meet:
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Addition: I’ve gotten a few emails suggesting this is too negative. Bah. I like some of Banksy’s work for it’s cleverness and wit, and his experience in doing what he does. Beyond that, not too much and there’s way too much hype.
‘To recapitulate, in the housing market, government meddling led to a widespread mania that drove up prices and caused many to think, “I’ve got to buy even if I can’t afford it because housing is a sure thing.” Similarly, government meddling in higher education led many to think, “I’ve got to get a college degree no matter the cost, because a college degree is the path to prosperity.”
Even if we’ve seen profound changes in our economy and social structure from previous generations; even if technology and globalization are dramatically changing our lives, people going to respond to incentives, flow through established channels, and pursue their interests accordingly.
The opportunity in D.C. is mostly about politics. A bigger government is subject to ever more fingers in the pie.
I like this quote by Ira Stoll found here which I keep putting up:
‘Indeed, if there is a single fact that sums up the state of American political economy at the present moment, it is this: the Boston office building once home to Inc. Magazine and Fast Company, which chronicled and celebrated small and fast-growing businesses, is now the headquarters of a publication called “Compliance Week.”’
Many people have been flowing to universities and Washington D.C. just as they flowed into housing, because that’s where a lot of money and opportunity are. For my piece, people who are Left-of-Center tend to flow to these places first, gravitating towards health-care and education and other rent-seeking enterprises, but also to activism and government. No surprise there.
That said, whichever party is in charge would also face municipal bond defaults, farm subsidies, the looming failure of Medicaid, a huge national defense budget with numerous contractors suckling away at the teat, a huge Department Of Education etc. Our government has been inflated larger and larger over time, and I think we’re getting a terrible return on investment.
Is the situation in our universities similar?
Is government behind the bad incentives or has it simply amplified deeper currents?
Is higher-ed a bubble and will it pop like housing? Slowly deflate? Keep right on going?
Delbanco sets up a dichotomy between long-time education reformer Diane Ravitch, who’s drifting into a rather closed defense of public-schooling as is, and Michelle Rhee, who led the charge against the status quo in Washington D.C. schools and ran into a lot of problems:
‘Perhaps a starting point would be to acknowledge, as Ravitch does, that the golden age of master teachers and model children never existed, and, as Rhee insists, that the bureaucracy of our schools is wary of change. One thing that certainly won’t help our children is any ideology convinced of its exclusive possession of the truth.’
Worth a read.
Readers of this blog will know I tend to favor non-union, non-collectivist reform of public schooling, despite the fact that charter schools are clearly no magic bullet.
I reserve the right to view even the most dedicated school-reformers, pragmatist-inspired defenders of the common good, and crusaders for the public interest with a skeptical eye, while simultaneously recognizing that they are the ones trying to tackle many of the fundamental problems our society faces in terms of education and opportunity.
I don’t believe education fits under Milton Friedman’s intellectual net, but I like seeing how he comes at the problems of scarcity of resources, students failed by the system, and entrenched educators. As teachers will tell you, many parents simply aren’t involved, and abdicate their responsibilities to their children, the schools, and everyone else…money can be a good way to keep people accountable who run the system, but the rational incentive model of money and the freedom to choose with kids leaves a lot to be desired: