Month: June 2017

Thursday Poem-Walt Whitman

/ chr1 / Leave a comment

When I Heard The Learn’d Astronomer

When I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

–Walt Whitman

Addition: The Chronicle Of Higher Education has a piece about Whitman.  The old poet-prophet theme.

Now there’s a deep tension found throughout, probably, all of our lives.

Jonathan Bronitsky At The National Interest: ‘The Vanity Of Bernhard Henri-Levy’

/ chr1 / Leave a comment

At least Henri-Levy’s pointing out the deep anti-semitism often found in the Muslim world, among many Muslim immigrants in Europe, and often laced throughout both fascist Right and Left movements in Europe, where it can emerge as a motivating political force.

But French, post-ish radical intellectual rockstars looking for something like secular humanist universal salvation?

Bronitsky:

‘TO GRASP the impetus behind Lévy’s latest effusion, one must first recognize that Lévy is a disillusioned radical soulfully seeking atonement. The book is part of a very personal and protracted effort to construct and disseminate an outlook, a disposition, an anti-ideology capable of defeating the dogmas that deceived him during his youth.’

Full post and brief written interview here at Guernica on anti-Semitism & Fascism.

Perhaps we simply aren’t ready for Henri-Levy’s more libertine, radical, French liberalism, which he displayed by coming over in the spirit of Tocqueville and pissing on the sides of our highways.   Why, he even helped Obama and Hillary Clinton pursue a course of action in Libya.

Also Related On This Site:

The radical and rationalist project, anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism: Repost-From Michael Totten At World Affairs: “Noam Chomsky: The Last Totalitarian”

How might this relate to the Heglian/post-Marxist project via ‘The End Of History’: Update And Repost- From YouTube: Leo Strauss On The Meno-More On The Fact/Value Distinction?’

Via Youtube-‘Week 2 Leo Strauss-The Three Waves Of Modernity’

Repost-Tuesday Poem: Wallace Stevens-Metaphors Of A Magnifico

/ chr1 / Leave a comment

Metaphors Of A Magnifico

Twenty men crossing a bridge,
Into a village,
Are twenty men crossing twenty bridges,
Into twenty villages,
Or one man
Crossing a single bridge into a village.

This is old song
That will not declare itself . . .

Twenty men crossing a bridge,
Into a village,
Are
Twenty men crossing a bridge
Into a village.

That will not declare itself
Yet is certain as meaning . . .

The boots of the men clump
On the boards of the bridge.
The first white wall of the village
Rises through fruit-trees.
Of what was it I was thinking?
So the meaning escapes.

The first white wall of the village . . .
The fruit-trees. . . .

Thoughts while you’re walking?  marching?  with a destination?

See Also:  Wednesday Poem: Wallace Stevens-Anecdote of T

How Deep Is Your Identity? Virginia Postrel At Bloomberg On Immigration

/ chr1 / Leave a comment

Virginia Postrel at Bloomberg: ‘Pro Immigration? Then Support All Who Came Here‘

Postrel:

‘As I wrote long ago, “Americans care, of course, about their economic interests. But they care first about their identities. … If voters feel personally attacked — because they are Latinos, or working women, or housewives, or evangelical Christians, or gays — they will bolt the party that serves their economic interests.” Or, given the opportunity, back a presidential candidate who promises to blow it up.’

I worry about the lifestylization of politics in America, which I see as eroding the distance between private and public, civility and coarseness, respect and its lack.  Such niceties do a lot more work than we realize.

Merely seeing individuals as members of voting blocs and identity groups misses crucial pieces of a larger puzzle, and also much of who and what we are.

As I see it, if the ideal uniting a group of people in common cause demands immediate action and/or allegiance to a group, expecting politics to become another means to an end, then we shouldn’t be surprised when people start drawing lines, making friends and enemies, and fighting over who belongs to which group under which ideal, and fighting over politics.

—————

That said, I agree with Postrel on the worn-out ideas and worn-out views from many traditional pulpits and parapets throughout the country.  Apparently, the higher you go into the lofty heights of opinion and influence, the thinner the air.

As a conservatarian on immigration (the people here first should be able to decide which kinds of rules will govern who come later through debate, politics, and legislation), I think we’ve gotten away from many simple, constitutional and civic basics from grade-school on, and it shows all throughout our lives.

People don’t simply open up borders, workplaces and economies, they open up their eyes, minds, and hearts over a longer period of time when united by common ideals, beliefs, principles and shared sacrifices (civic duties, Constitutional understanding, becoming an American and all the freedoms/responsibilities that come with being an American).

I believe these shared bonds will allow us to better ride the waves of rapid technological change, global economic and labor market pressures (immigration included), and the potential necessary and unnecessary conflicts that will arise going forward between competing interests (nations included).

We’ve got to sail the ship smart.  There’s work to be done.

Let me know if you disagree.

 

Charles Murray At AEI: ‘Fecklessness At Middlebury’

/ chr1 / Leave a comment

Full piece here.

‘Here’s the reality: A guest lecturer was shouted down. A senior professor, a senior college official, and the guest lecturer were assaulted. The professor was seriously injured. No one was punished. Not one single solitary person.

Now that I’ve vented, the question may reasonably be asked: How do I think Middlebury should have dealt with the situation? I’ve wanted to answer that question since the morning of March 3, but two things have kept me circumspect.’

As posted, the broader issue as I see it:  Some students are gathering around a set of political and social doctrines in a pseudo-religious, pseudo-scientific, ideologically motivated fashion.  Many of these doctrines share logical foundations which promote revolutionary change on the way towards radical liberation.

The truth and knowledge claims required to implement such changes are supposedly contained within a broad range of texts, as well as in common, collective beliefs which solidify membership and group identity.  Action and activism further solidify group loyalty against all presumed injustice, oppression, and morally illegitimate authority (generally, carving up people and the world into groups and ‘-Isms’).

Race is a primary motivator here (the genuine injustice of American racial history and the personal experience of many activists), and can help explain the frenzied and rather ritualistic chanting of James Baldwin’s writings during Murray’s event.  As though chanting in unison and earnestly seeking ‘solidarity’ will simply banish unwanted ideas.

Some Middlebury professors, of course, may be surprised (bemused, ashamed?) at the whirlwind being reaped, but in receiving other people’s money to interpret texts, influence young minds, and sit at faculty meetings much of the time, it’s probably not often the feedback is direct (some even took a stand on principle).

Other Middlebury professors, however, well, let’s just say this: While talking with them, don’t be surprised if they keep telling you to shut up and then maybe hit you in the head.

‘The sit-in corresponded with greater efforts from faculty members to seek information from administrators regarding the disciplinary proceedings. Laurie Essig, associate professor of sociology and gender, sexuality, and feminist studies, Linus Owens, associate professor of sociology and Sujata Moorti, professor of gender, sexuality and feminist studies, were among a group of faculty members who reached out to the administration. Initially, they were hoping for more information from the meeting to better understand the disciplinary process and help students who are facing hearings.’

See the previous post.The Intellectual Cowardice Of The Crowd-Charles Murray At Middlebury College

Charles Murray’s Account Of The Middlebury College Affair

Repost-From The Liberal Bastions-James Baldwin, Often

An Excerpt From Paul Bowles’ ‘Allal’ & A Strange, Schlocky Scene From ‘Conan The Barbarian’

/ chr1 / Leave a comment

From Paul Bowles ‘Allal,‘ found within this collection of short stories.

I recall musical and deeply rhythmic English (Bowles was a composer who lived in Morocco for most of his life), along with a recurrent theme of Western innocence, ignorance and arrogance meeting ancient North African realities and brutalities.

‘Moments passed with no movement but then the snake suddenly made a move towards Allal. It then began to slither across Allal’s body and then rested next to his head. He was very calm at this moment and looked right into the snake’s eyes and felt almost one with the snake. Soon his eyes closed and he fell asleep in this position.’

What have you done with your I/Eye, dear Reader?

Something tells me the kind of fantastical savagery and imaginative schlock of Conan the Barbarian doesn’t quite capture the deeply moral, frighteningly real and lushly imagined Bowlesian world…

But maybe it does highlight some themes Bowles’ drew into relief:

You know, maybe I’d just better put this up:

Self-Interest, Moral Sentiments & Rationalism-Some Links

/ chr1 / Leave a comment

Many reactions to the market are moral ones, from the anti-corporate, romantically primitive, ideological collectivists on the Left to the biblically inclined, revelatory faithful who clearly see in the teachings of Jesus Christ reasons to doubt:

And Larry Arnhart looks at a Straussian: ‘Joseph Cropsey’s Straussian Attack On Adam Smith:’

‘Thus, Smith showed how the opulence and liberty of a commercial society would provide philosophers like Hume and himself with the intellectual commerce, the individual liberty, and the leisured independence necessary for living a philosophic life with their friends. Cropsey ignores all of this because it contradicts his argument that there is no place for the intellectual virtues of philosophy in Smith’s commercial society.’

Worth a read.

A brief introduction to Adam Smith’s ‘Theory Of Moral Sentiments’

Beware the men of systems, moralizers, rationalists, idealists and utopians:

As previously posted: Steven Poole at Aeon: ‘We Are More Rational Than Those Who Nudge Us.’

‘And so there is less reason than many think to doubt humans’ ability to be reasonable. The dissenting critiques of the cognitive-bias literature argue that people are not, in fact, as individually irrational as the present cultural climate assumes. And proponents of debiasing argue that we can each become more rational with practice. But even if we each acted as irrationally as often as the most pessimistic picture implies, that would be no cause to flatten democratic deliberation into the weighted engineering of consumer choices, as nudge politics seeks to do’

Taxing soda in Seattle schools has unintended consequences. It’s not just taxation, it’s banning happy meals altogether.

Related On This Site: Cass Sunstein’s got to create some space between the Bloomberg backlash and the totalitarians on the Left: Daddy’s Gonna Make You Do It

I’ve got enough friends, thanks: Repost-Cass Sunstein At The New Republic: ‘Why Paternalism Is Your Friend’

Anarcho-syndicalist, libertarian socialist and sometime blind supporter of lefty causes: Via Youtube: (1 of 3) Kant, Chomsky and the Problem of Knowledge…

New liberty away from Hobbes…toward Hayek…but can you see Locke from there?: Repost-From Public Reason: A Discussion Of Gerald Gaus’s Book ‘The Order of Public Reason: A Theory of Freedom And Morality In A Diverse And Bounded World’

Richard Rorty tried to tie postmodernism and trendy leftist solidarity to liberalism: Repost: Another Take On J.S. Mill From “Liberal England”

Catholic libertarianism: Youtube Via Reason TV-Judge Napolitano ‘Why Taxation is Theft, Abortion is Murder, & Government is Dangerous’

Leo Strauss argued there is great danger in this approach, i.e. the problems of Europe. Political science, the social sciences, economics and the explanatory power of these products of reason and rationalism could increasingly form the epistemological foundation for explaining the world, people’s interior lives, how we ought to live and what we ought to do. This includes where our rights come from and who should be in charge: Update And Repost- From YouTube: Leo Strauss On The Meno-More On The Fact/Value Distinction?’

Two Terror Links

/ chr1 / Leave a comment

Heather MacDonald at the City Journal: ‘Giving Terrorists A Heads Up:‘

Reality and human nature haven’t gone away, nor has the threat of terrorism.  It’s just being absorbed by other individuals and institutions further on down the chain, in many cases.

‘A bill in New York’s city council would require the New York Police Department to reveal crucial details about every surveillance technology that the department uses to detect terrorism and crime.’

It’s not right when anyone does it, obviously (I stand with genuine victims):

Unfortunately, we now have much establishment conventional wisdom simply unable to report frequency, facts, perpetrators and the connection between Islam and terrorism as openly as plainly as possible, respecting the citizens they serve enough to make up their own minds (including Muslims).

This tends to push the problem underground, where effects are often confused with causes, and deeper tensions emerge, and perhaps in more volatile fashion.

Respect for legitimate authority is undermined, as less legitimate authority consolidates itself and keeps passing the buck.  Language loses its precision.

A tense relationship: Fareed Zakaria At Newsweek: ‘Terrorism’s Supermarket’…Christopher Hitchens At Vanity Fair: ‘From Abbotabad To Worse’…Repost-’Dexter Filkins In The NY Times: The Long Road To Chaos In Pakistan’

From Slate: ‘In Aleppo, Syria, Mohamed Atta Thought He Could Build The Ideal Islamic City’…From The NY Times: Review Of Christopher Caldwell’s Book “Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West”

Repost: Kenan Malik In The Spiked Review Of Books: ‘Twenty Years On: Internalizing The Fatwa’-Salman Rushdie’Paul Berman At The New Republic: ‘From September 11 to the Arab Spring: Do Ideas Matter?’…From Foreign Affairs: ‘Al Qaeda After Attiyya’….From The AP: ‘Al-Awlaki: From Voice For Jihad To Al-Qaida Figure’From Slate: ‘In Aleppo, Syria, Mohamed Atta Thought He Could Build The Ideal Islamic City’…From The NY Times: Review Of Christopher Caldwell’s Book “Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West”And: Philip Bobbitt Discusses His Book ‘Terror And Consent’ On Bloggingheads

Sunday Poem-Robert Frost

/ chr1 / 2 Comments

Hyla Brook

By June our brook’s run out of song and speed.
Sought for much after that, it will be found
Either to have gone groping underground
(And taken with it all the Hyla breed
That shouted in the mist a month ago,
Like ghost of sleigh bells in a ghost of snow)—
Or flourished and come up in jewelweed,
Weak foliage that is blown upon and bent,
Even against the way its waters went.
Its bed is left a faded paper sheet
Of dead leaves stuck together by the heat—
A brook to none but who remember long.
This as it will be seen is other far
Than with brooks taken otherwhere in song.
We love the things we love for what they are.

–Robert Frost (From Mountain Interval)

Via A Reader-Douglas Murray Speaks At ‘The Danish Muhammad Cartoon Crisis In Retrospect’ Conference

/ chr1 / Leave a comment

~39:00 min speech with some questions at the end.  Most of what Murray says strikes this blog as factual and true, and in the face of many beliefs and incentives created for politicians and authorities, those facts and truths remain mostly unaddressed as the years roll on (the cartoons were published in 2005).

It’s unfortunate that people only seem to gather after each violent murder and attack, such as Charlie Hebdo, as a relative minority, and that many in positions of authority display such cowardice in addressing the issue.

Most on the British Left, liberal-Left, and near center seem to accept the logic that Islam is one of the minority groups which must be identified and protected as oppressed on the way towards an ideal, inclusive vision of the good society (under the extended logic that the world and all things in it can, to some extent, be explained as people who have either seen the light against those who are merely ignorant, intolerant, oppressive, racist, xenophobic etc).

What about the differences between Islam and Islamic civilizations and the post-Enlightenment West?  Point them out at your own risk.

Violate the secular humanist conventional wisdom and be ignored. Stand against the oft radically driven causes of the Left and possibly be threatened with violence.  Draw cartoons insulting the central figure in Islam and maybe be murdered.

Those aren’t great options, but the underlying defense of Western institutions such as the freedom of speech (to criticize and mock) are happening right now.

================

Salman Rushdie at about minute 57:00:  ‘This idea of separate treatment for separate cultures…I think essentially if we follow that to its conclusion…destroys our ability to have a really moral framework for society.’

Six writers apparently know what is acceptable speech and what isn’t, and thus don’t think the folks at Charlie Hebdo engaged in acceptable speech.

Christopher Hitchens (nearly a free speech absolutist, railing against many of his former friends on the Left) discussing the Yale Press, which was genuinely afraid that publishing this book could lead to violence in the Muslim street:

“…Yale had consulted a range of experts before making its decision and that “[a]ll confirmed that the republication of the cartoons by the Yale University Press ran a serious risk of instigating violence.”

Cartoons here.  The cartoonist is still in some danger.

Food for thought.

A British Muslim tells his story, suggesting that classical liberalism wouldn’t be a bad idea…as a more entrenched radical British Left and Muslim immigration don’t mix too well: From Kenanmalik.com: ‘Introduction: How Salman Rushdie Changed My Life’… Via YouTube: ‘Christopher Hitchens Vs. Ahmed Younis On CNN (2005)’…

Free speech (used both well and unwell) meets offended Muslims: ‘Mohammad Cartoonist Lars Vilks Headbutted‘During Lecture’……From The OC Jewish Experience: ‘UC Irvine Muslim Student Union Suspended’…From Volokh: ‘”South Park” Creators Warned (Threatened) Over Mohammed’

See Also:  If you thought the cartoons were bad, more on the Fitna movie here.  From The NY Times: Review Of Christopher Caldwell’s Book “Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West”  Libertarians love this issue:  Repost-A Canadian Libertarian Making Noise: Ezra Levant