Month: October 2017

Eight Dead In New York City-Keeping An Eye On The Threat

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Eight dead so far after another Islamic terror attack, likely inspired by well-known Islamist ideology and all manner of other grievance (truck plows into pedestrians and bicyclists).

I made a prediction a few years back, in hopes of trying to peg down expected frequency rates of these kinds of attacks (I simply want to know what the risks might be).  I would like to be served the facts, whatever security measures might be going-on behind the scenes.

Security first.

After Orlando (Pulse Nightclub, 49 dead) occurred on June 12th, 2016, I wrote the following:

‘I expect another attack with 0-15 deaths within 1 1/2 years, and 15 deaths or greater within 3-5, due to radical Islam (not necessarily homegrown).  I’ll check in with this prediction in time.’

Since June 12th, 2016, there have been 3 attacks resulting in 0 deaths, but 50 injuries, and now an attack resulting in 8 deaths, and multiple injuries:

St. Cloud, MN-September 17th, 2016-9 injured in a knife attack at a mall

New York/NJ-September 17th, 2016-30 injured in a series of bombs

Columbus, OH-November 28th, 2016-11 injured, 1 critically in car/knife attack

New York City-October 31st, 2017-8 dead, ~7 injured-Home Depot truck attack.

As previously posted:

-Yes, terrorism’s still a thing: 12 dead in Berlin after a truck drives through a mall

-Via the AP via Reason: 13 dead and more than 50 injured as a truck plows through a crowd along Las Ramblas.

Lawrence Wright discussed his long years reporting on Islamic terrorism (he spent some time in Egypt in his youth) at the Philadelphia Free Library. It might offer some insight.

***There is a point where I become reasonably angry as Wright mentions his creative work (good for him!) has attracted the likes of celebrities and groups of political idealists in high-society. These are types I see as not having the courage to properly confront this issue from anything outside a narrower band of their own beliefs, principles and self-interest, exposing us all to worse options, while lecturing us how to live and what to do.

On that note, others are filling in the gaps at great personal risk with courage and a more clear-eyed realism (there are many pieces to a bigger puzzle):

Mark Steyn interviews James Mitchell:

And Douglas Murray:

As posted-Via the NY Times: The Russian ambassador to Turkey was assassinated very publicly at an art gallery in Ankara

That’s pretty brazen.

–Attack In Nice Exposes Strains In Policing A Constant Threat (terrible headline). Yeah, it probably wasn’t just a ‘lone wolf.‘ Like Bataclan. Like Orlando. Like San Bernadino. Like….

What’s the plan here with the whole ‘global village’ thing?

-Really? You don’t say? I Was an ISIS Jihadist-Until They Arrested And Tortured Me

Also On This Site: What map are you using to understand this conflict: From The American Interest Online: Francis Fukuyama On Samuel Huntington

Ayan Hirsi Ali has used the ideals of the West (especially women’s rights) to potentially confront Islam; which has served her politically as well: Repost-Ayan Hirsi Ali At The CSM: ‘Swiss Ban On Minarets Was A Vote For Tolerance And Inclusion’

Is Islam incompatibile with freedom as we define it here in the West, or is this a false choice?: From YouTube: Roger Scruton On Religious Freedom, Islam & Atheism…

Michael Moynihan jihad.com.

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

Repost-From Edge: ‘Dennett On Wieseltier V. Pinker In The New Republic’

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About Leon Wieseltier’s reported behavior…

There were some rumors about John Searle a while back…

It’s almost as if men in positions of authority and influence have broader scope for their appetites, and some of these men blur the line, over time, between these appetites and their positions of authority and influence.

Additionally, the vices of an individual can either be independent of, or even the downside risks to, their virtues.

‘yeah, Ralph’s a horrible drunk and cad…but he’s still the top regional salesman three years running.  Let’s just hope he doesn’t do something really terrible.’

Of course, to a lot of people (sensible, decent, men and women), the above is self-evidently true, and it never really goes away.  In a free and open society, there can be no guarantees against encountering it (although there clearly must be some protections against it and means to gain justice once it happens).

One hopes not to be exposed to the tough moral decisions required once it’s pretty clear you or someone you know is the (genuine) victim of such abuse.  Moral courage and mental toughness are clearly called for.

In fact, many people simply fold or look away when confronted with such possible truths, especially people with reasons to stay quiet.

——

***I’d argue we’ve had serious erosion of the more traditional cultural constraints upon such behavior (men more likely to regulate their own and other men’s behavior, with some amount of honor, and arguably more women enforcing this honor system within the old guard).

We also have the rise of new moral constraints, driven primarily by many counter-cultural and anti-establishment movements now pretty firmly established (yes, this is what happens after all the talk of freedom and oppression dies down and the real business of running things occurs…the logic unfolds as it must).

Institutional authority and social trust still seem to be in serious decline, for many, many reasons.  Here are a few more.

As posted:

Daniel Dennet On Wieseltier v Pinker in the New Republic.

There’s a bit of an intellectual turf war going on in the Western world. I suppose it’s been going on for a while. Here are some dated public skirmishes:

-Steven Pinker, Harvard experimental psychologist and cognitive scientist wrote a piece in the New Republic, entitled: ‘Science Is Not Your Enemy‘

-Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of the New Republic since the 60’s, responded at The New Republic: ‘No, Science Doesn’t Have All The Answers.‘

-Ross Douthat, conservative Catholic columnist at the Times jumped in the fray: ‘The Scientism Of Steve Pinker’

-Jerry Coyne, evolutionary biologist, responded to Douthat.

-Wieseltier jumped back in with: ‘Crimes Against Humanities: Now science wants to invade the humanities. Don’t let it happen.‘

-Now Daniel Dennett, philosopher, cognitive scientist, one of the New Atheists and Boston-based secularist responds to Wieseltier:

‘Pomposity can be amusing, but pomposity sitting like an oversized hat on top of fear is hilarious. Wieseltier is afraid that the humanities are being overrun by thinkers from outside, who dare to tackle their precious problems—or “problematics” to use the, um, technical term favored by many in the humanities. He is right to be afraid. It is true that there is a crowd of often overconfident scientists impatiently addressing the big questions with scant appreciation of the subtleties unearthed by philosophers and others in the humanities, but the way to deal constructively with this awkward influx is to join forces and educate them, not declare them out of bounds.’

Got all that?

Why does Wieseltier have his dukes up?

Is the intelligent design debate the right one to have? Whence the humanities?

Terry Eagleton, British Marxist and professor in the humanities, is debating Roger Scruton in the video below, a conservative British philosopher focusing on aesthetics and the humanities, with a lot of German idealist influence:

Will Marxism & continental philosophy, become further guiding lights for the humanities here in America, as we find much more so in Britain?

Aren’t we already thick in the postmodern weeds?

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Related On This Site: Maybe if you’re defending the current conservative position, you don’t want to bring up the ‘aristocratic radical’ : Repost-Dinesh D’Souza And Daniel Dennett at Tufts University: Nietzsche’s Prophesy..

Art, iconography, art education, culture, feminism as well as 60’s cultural revolution radicalism and deeply Catholic impulses?:Repost-Camille Paglia At Arion: Why Break, Blow, Burn Was SuccessfulUpdate And Repost-

A return to Straussian neo-classicism?: From YouTube: Leo Strauss On The Meno-More On The Fact/Value Distinction?’…Harvey Mansfield At Defining Ideas: ‘Democracy Without Politics?’

Neo-neo conservatism, new atheism and post socialism for the ’68ers? Via Youtube: Christopher Hitchens On Faith And Virtue…

Stanley Fish At The NY Times Blog: ‘The Last Professors: The Corporate Professors And The Fate Of The Humanities’…From The Harvard Educational Review-A Review Of Martha Nussbaum’s ‘Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education.’,,

Roger Scruton In The American Spectator Via A & L Daily: Farewell To Judgment

From Darwinian Conservatism: ‘The Evolution of Mind and Mathematics: Dehaene Versus Plantinga and Nagel’…

From Edward Feser: ‘Nagel And His Critics Part IV’

John Gray Reviews Jonathan Haidt’s New Book At The New Republic: ‘The Knowns And The Unknowns’

Steven Pinker somewhat focused on the idea of freedom from violence, which tends to be libertarian. Yet, he’s also skeptical of the more liberal human rights and also religious natural rights. What about a World Leviathan?: At Bloggingheads Steven Pinker Discusses War And Thomas Hobbes…From Reason.TV Via YouTube: ‘Steven Pinker on The Decline of Violence & “The Better Angels of Our Nature”‘…Simon Blackburn Reviews Steven Pinker’s “The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial Of Human Nature” Via the University Of Cambridge Philosophy Department

Morality in the emotions? Jesse Prinz argues that neuroscience and the cognitive sciences should move back toward British empiricism and David Hume…yet…with a defense of multiculturalism and Nietzsche thrown in: Another Note On Jesse Prinz’s “Constructive Sentimentalism”…From Bloggingheads: Tamar Szabo Gendler On Philosophy and Cognitive Science

From The Stanford Encyclopedia Of Philosophy Entry On Eliminative Materialism…

Repost-Dinesh D’Souza And Daniel Dennett at Tufts University: Nietzsche’s Prophesy

Evolutionary psychology and moral thinking: Franz De Waal At The NY Times 10/17/10: ‘Morals Without God?’…

Friday Poem-Gary Snyder

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Four Poems For Robin

An Autumn Morning In Shokoku-ji

Last night watching the Pleiades,
Breath smoking in the moonlight,
Bitter memory like vomit
Choked my throat.
I unrolled a sleeping bag
On mats on the porch
Under thick autumn stars.
In dream you appeared
(Three times in nine years)
Wild, cold, and accusing.
I woke shamed and angry:
The pointless wars of the heart.
Almost dawn. Venus and Jupiter.
The first time I have
Ever seen them close.

–Gary Snyder

Monday Poem-Marianne Moore

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No Swan So Fine

“No water so still as the
   dead fountains of Versailles.” No swan,
with swart blind look askance
and gondoliering legs, so fine
   as the chintz china one with fawn-
brown eyes and toothed gold
   collar on to show whose bird it was.

Lodged in the Louis Fifteenth
   candelabrum-tree of cockscomb-
tinted buttons, dahlias,
sea urchins, and everlastings,
   it perches on the branching foam
of polished sculptured
flowers – at ease and tall. The king is dead.

–Marianne Moore

From Vinheteiro: ‘Sweet Dreams Are Made Of Memes’-If You Bring Back The 80’s, Please Don’t Do It In Public

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I had always thought the deep bass note is the driving force behind the song. Much like the low rumbling and deep bass sounds indicate foreboding and fear in a cinema experience.  Relentless with a hint of dread.

But then again, the chord progession is rather haunting and Annie Lennox’s vocals (top-notch) are stark and beautiful.  Maybe it’s the syncopation?

From the description (arranged for order):

I’m going with the 8-bit or the dual piano (2 and/or 4).

‘Piano version, 8 bit version, ragtime version, dual piano version or the terror version…’

The original video is mildly surrealistic 80’s shock-pop; just cheesy enough to flirt with schlock, but the combination of lyrics, story, musicality and simplicity give this song serious staying-power:

 

The Brutalist Anglosphere Blues-Sometimes It’s Not Even The Art, But The People Gathering Around The Art Which Can Be So Fun To Criticize-Ok, Sometimes It’s The Art

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I eagerly await commentary pointing how good some of the art is, and how shot through with ignorance the criticism is…:

Theodore Dalrymple (a Brit visiting Australia):

Via Mick Hartley (a Brit in Britain): Photo set and link here. Eric Tabuchi homepage here.

Clearly there are many ideas in the modern world deeply idealistic and utopian, which even officialdom can take up by way of architecture and the arts: Some people who commissioned Boston’s City Hall were probably thinking they were bringing something new and wonderful into the world: Inspiring, modern, transformative.

The folks at bureaucratic levels up-top would steer this concrete ship, scanning the Horizon for The Future. The People down below, justly and benevolently guided, would feel welcome and do people-y, citizen-y things as though in a terrarium.

Maybe that’s why it’s not so popular.

Well, at least it isn’t Buzludzha, The Communist Spaceship plopped down as though from a world of Pure Ideology, Nature properly subdued:

As previously posted:

–Visit Lileks.com. A fine humorist with a sharp pen and a keen eye (American in America).

Here’s Australian art critic Robert Hughes (Aussie in America) discussing the Albany plaza, and almost hyperbolically criticizing the aims of modernist architecture.

***Fun fact, he pronounces the “Boogie Woogie” the “Boo-gie Woo-gie.”

Modernism goes to the movies.

Some pictures at the link.

There’s mention of the Mt. Rushmore house at the end of North By Northwest. I suspect some among us have wanted to live in a modernist lair.

From an article in Der Spiegel on the Bauhaus, where modernism got its start:

‘The real feat achieved by Gropius and his cohorts was to have recognized and exposed the sociopolitical and moral power of architecture and design. They wanted to exert “effective influence” on “general conditions,” fashion a more just world and turn all of this into a “vital concern of the entire people.”‘

I don’t know, Picasso was pretty good, man:

See Also: They designed a city in the heart of Brazil that really doesn’t work for people: Brasilia: A Planned City

No thanks to living in planned communities upon someone else’s overall vision.: Roger Scruton In The City Journal: Cities For Living–Is Modernism Dead?…Repost-Via Reason: ‘Salvador Allende’s Cybersocialist Command Center’…Cities should be magnets for creativity and culture? –From The Atlantic: Richard Florida On The Decline Of The Blue-Collar Man…From Grist.Org Via The New Republic Via The A & L Daily: ‘Getting Past “Ruin Porn” In Detroit’… some people don’t want you to have the economic freedom to live in the suburbs: From Foreign Policy: ‘Urban Legends, Why Suburbs, Not Cities, Are The Answer’

A structure in the desert…not even a city Update On LACMA, Michael Heizer And The ‘Levitated Mass’-Modern Art And The Public;..where is modernism headed? Via Youtube: Justin, The Horse That Could Paint…

Denis Dutton suggested art could head towards Darwin (and may offer new direction from the troubles of the modern art aimlessness and shallow depth…the money and the fame) Review of Denis Dutton’s ‘The Art Instinct’

Repost-Continuing On A Theme Found Elsewhere: Painting The American West

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Below is Albert Bierstadt’s ‘Puget Sound, on the Pacific Coast, 1870″ which is on display the Seattle Art Museum (SAM). Bierstadt painted the picture without having seen Puget Sound! More on the Hudson River School here, with its strong roots in romanticism.

photo
From KentOfKent’s photostream on Flickr, part of his Olga Comes To Seattle series.
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The Smart Set had a recent article (with a reproduction of one of the paintings) of Xie Zhiliu, a Chinese painter taken with Yosemite:
“Then you get to the last room of the exhibit, where something special happens. In 1994, Xie traveled to Yosemite National Park with his painter wife Chen Peiqiu. There, he produced a series of paintings that are a testimonial to cognitive dissonance. He paints the mountains and trees of Yosemite, but they look vaguely Chinese.”
How do we come to know nature? What do we do with all this wilderness?

Also at SAM: A Reaction To Jeff Koons ‘St John The Baptist’

How might Nietzsche figure in the discussion (was he most after freeing art from a few thousand years of Christianity, monarchy and aristocracy…something deeper?), at least with regard to Camille Paglia. See the comments: Repost-Camille Paglia At Arion: Why Break, Blow, Burn Was Successful

 

How’s That Iran Deal Going, Exactly?

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Perhaps the Valerie Jarrett connection, and the idea that inside every Persian is an activist yearning to bend with the arc of history towards peace, are both at work.

Perhaps too the idea that ‘colonial’ oppression has generally been a force for ill: American military strength is only really morally justified by bending it towards international institutions and ideals of peace activism.

But, what do I really know?

From afar, I recall thinking our foreign policy was being driven by a rather naive grab-bag of Western secular humanism, activism and Model UN-type inexperience during the Obama years.

The logic led to empowering many who displayed adherence and allegiance to the ideas and the policy vision. Or maybe just more than usual.

We could well end-up having removed much ‘will’ of the international community by removing the economic sanctions in place against Iran; emboldening a deeply corrupt, dishonest regime seeking deliverable nukes, running guns, money and terrorism around the region.

We could make the likelihood of an arms race (in an unstable place where we really don’t want a nuclear arms race) as likely, potentially kicking the inevitable conflicts over deeper issues down the road.

What have we as American citizens gained in terms of security, economic interests and influence?

What have we lost?

Repost-Henry Kissinger & George Schulz Via The WSJ: ‘The Iran Deal And Its Consequences’

From The New Criterion: ‘Solzhenitsyn’s Cathedrals’

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Thanks, reader:

‘Like Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Gulag is literary without being fictional. Indeed, part of its value lies in its bringing to life the real stories of so many ordinary people. When I first began to read it, I feared that a long list of outrages would rapidly prove boring, but to my surprise I could not put the book down.’

and:

‘One lesson of Gulag is that we are all capable of evil, just as Solzhenitsyn himself was. The world is not divided into good people like ourselves and evil people who think differently. “If only it were so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

I believe within the Western canon (traditions, laws, works of art, literature, moral philosophy etc.) there is enough knowledge, experience, and wisdom to light the way.

Take heart, but watch out for yourselves.

The classical liberal tradition…looking for classical liberals in the postmodern wilderness: Isaiah Berlin’s negative liberty: A Few Thoughts On Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts Of Liberty”… From George Monbiot: ‘How Freedom Became Tyranny’…Looking to supplant religion as moral source for the laws: From The Reason Archives: ‘Discussing Disgust’ Julian Sanchez Interviews Martha Nussbaum.New liberty away from Hobbes?: 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, but wasn’t exactly classically liberal:  Repost: Another Take On J.S. Mill From “Liberal England”

From Edward Feser: ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity?’

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Full post here.

“Surely you’re not against liberty, equality, and fraternity?!” you ask.  Well, no, not necessarily – depending on what you mean by those terms.  The trouble is that though some of the ideas that commonly go under those labels are good, others are very bad.’

Hmmm…:

‘Modern egalitarianism makes essentially this mistake.  In the name of equal concern for all, it resists or even rejects the idea that different members of society have different roles, aptitudes, and needs.  Hence socialism’s hostility to the very existence of different classes.  Hence feminism’s hostility to traditional sex roles within the family and to the idea that men and women naturally tend to differ in psychological traits no less than they do physiologically.  Hence the liberal’s dogmatic insistence on seeing persistent differences in economic and other outcomes as a result of unjust discrimination and insufficiently vigorous social engineering.’

Just providing a reasoned, principled critique of such liberal political idealism may actually be beneficial to us all.

Edward Feser In The Claremont Review: ‘Looking For Meaning in All The Wrong Places’

From Edward Feser: ‘Nagel And His Critics Part IV’

Leo Strauss seems to have had Burke succumbing to historicism? A response here.

As to the American and French Revolutions:

“In both cases the political leaders whom Burke opposed insisted on certain rights: the English government on the rights of soverignty and the French revolutionists insisted on the rights of man.  In both cases Burke proceeded in exactly the same manner:  he questions less the rights than the wisdom of exercising the rights.”

“What ever might have to be said about the propriety of Burke’s usage, it is here sufficient to note that, in judging the political leaders whom he opposed in the two most important actions of his life, he traced their lack of prudence less to passion than to the intrusion of the spirit of theory into the field of politics.”

Update And Repost- From YouTube: Leo Strauss On The Meno-More On The Fact/Value Distinction?’