From panix!not-for-mail Fri Apr 15 06:44:23 EDT 1994
Article: 1635 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: CR FUTILITY: A Musical Perspective
Date: 14 Apr 1994 13:52:29 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 28
Message-ID: <2ojvst$buc@panix.com>
References: <16F90DDD2.SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu> <2o8q9h$ptq@panix.com> <16F95E178.SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu writes:
> "Diversity" is the phenomenon where which groups who come from a
>large variety of backgrounds, nations, families, races, orientations,
>genders and ages join together to discover that the principles which
>envelop behavior & human activity apply to all of them universally and
>equally, with the only variations as such occurring due to situational
>factors beyond their control.
It sounds like "diversity" means the common discovery that there aren't
really any material differences among groups of people, although
circumstances sometimes lead to the opposite appearance. If so, please
explain the connection you see between diversity and the special
popularity of black music. If there's nothing special about blacks,
how can there be anything special about their music?
> Whether this is "good" or not is insignificant; it is real and
>inevitable.
It's inevitable that groups discover they don't really differ from each
other? I get the opposite impression. Blacks and whites, men and
women, young and old have been living together for a long time, and
many of them have not yet come around to your way of thinking.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Apr 17 17:09:16 EDT 1994
Article: 1643 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Music and Antimusic
Date: 17 Apr 1994 17:09:09 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 34
Message-ID: <2os8hl$c6p@panix.com>
References: <125308Z11041994@anon.penet.fi> <2omerr$l9n@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
dbruedig@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Dena L Bruedigam) writes:
>Students are not taught to be critical, but that whatever they think is
>art, IS art, and it is all of equal value.
It's an interesting issue. Some thoughts:
1. People today think of art as expressive rather than imitative.
When people thought of art as imitative they could judge works by the
nobility of the thing imitated as well as by the skill with which the
imitation was carried out. So tragedy, which imitated noble actions of
noble men, ranked higher than farce, which imitated the opposite. But
if people think art expresses something _sui generis_ within the artist
or his experience that can't be judged by any external standard, that
kind of ranking can't be carried out, so all that is left as a basis for
judgment is technical skill and inventiveness. In any activity, though,
skill is subordinate to something else that is the purpose of the
activity, so judging art by skillfullness alone isn't possible either.
So we are left with no way at all to judge art.
2. Art is connected to particular peoples and their ways of life at
particular times. It seems to express something very deep about the
people who produce it and their way of life. So if it's possible to
say that Shang bronzes are incomparably better than the macrame
produced by the ladies of suburban Minneapolis, it seems to follow that
there is some serious deficiency in the suburban lifestyle compared
with that of Shang aristocrats. That's a notion people don't like to
deal with. Why study art if it's not going to make you feel good about
yourself?
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Apr 17 17:11:50 EDT 1994
Article: 1644 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Sovereign Citizenship
Date: 17 Apr 1994 17:11:40 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 50
Message-ID: <2os8mc$cm9@panix.com>
References:
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
priced@apple.com (David Price) writes:
>From what I could gather, there is a process that one can go through to
>renounce U.S. citizenship and become a citizen of the state in which
>one resides. The only problem was the inability to get federally-
>secured loans (that probably means loans from virtually all banks),
>inability to vote in national elections and some other
>"inconveniences".
>
>This information was received second-hand and I'm not sure how
>believable it is. I was told that some people have successfully "un-
>citicized" themselves and are living in the mountains of Montana (or
>some such state) and avoiding, quite legally, federal income tax
>payments.
This doesn't work. Even if you could get a state to recognize you as
its citizen after you renounced U.S. citizenship, resident aliens pay
Federal taxes on the same basis as citizens. Also, I'm not sure it's
possible to renounce your citizenship to become the citizen of no
independent country at all.
>Contributions to Social Security and Medicare constitute a violation of
>the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which reads:
>
>Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a
>crime whereof the party shall be duly convicted, shall exist within the
>United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Taxpayers make this kind of argument all the time, and get nowhere. My
favorite argument was the Quaker who felt responsible for the whole
world, and so reported no tax due because he had 5,000,000,000
dependents. I think a legally stronger argument would be that you don't
have to pay SS and Medicare taxes because the Constitution doesn't grant
Congress the power to set up a system for paying people retirement
income and covering their medical bills. That would be an instant loser
too, of course, because the Supreme Court has decided that
> To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the
> debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of
> the United States
means to "provide for the general welfare by spending the money any way
they choose" rather than to "provide for the general welfare through the
exercise of the powers they have been specifically granted by this
Constitution".
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Apr 17 17:12:47 EDT 1994
Article: 1645 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Sovereign Citizenship
Date: 17 Apr 1994 17:12:33 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 18
Message-ID: <2os8o1$cuq@panix.com>
References: <1994Apr16.172322.1@clstac>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
aelebouthill@csupomona.edu writes:
>When you acquired your social security card, you gave jurisdiction to
>the Federal courts on all manner of things. As such, you became a ward
>of the District of Columbia and forfeiture citizenship in your state.
>As such, you are not a citizen of your state but a resident.
>From the Constitution:
14th Amendment
Sect. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States,
and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United
States and of the State wherein they reside.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Apr 17 19:40:42 EDT 1994
Article: 1646 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Jewish Right Manifesto
Date: 17 Apr 1994 17:14:46 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 29
Message-ID: <2os8s6$ddr@panix.com>
References: <1994Apr16.013203.10772@newstand.syr.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
clstampe@gamera.syr.edu (Chris Stamper) writes:
>Spare me any anti-Semitism, please.
As in "Buddy, can you spare me a dime?" I'll do my best:
"It's nothing personal, because Jewish people are some of my best
friends, but you gotta admit a lot of them are real Jews!"
(Sorry, but it was the best I could come up with.)
>I found this on SCJ. Comments?
An interesting post. More than half of American Jews intermarry, but I
had thought the Jews in Israel were retaining more of their ethnic
consciousness because of their different history and circumstances.
It appears that the trend in Israel is in the same direction as
elsewhere, toward the universal consumer society without boundaries.
That's troubling, in part because the universal consumer society without
boundaries isn't going to exist, and if you see a uniform and growing
trend with no coherent opposition or alternative headed toward something
that's not going to happen, you suspect that what will stop it will be a
catastrophe of some sort.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Apr 18 06:47:12 EDT 1994
Article: 1648 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Nevermind
Date: 17 Apr 1994 19:51:55 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 13
Message-ID: <2osi2r$3lv@panix.com>
References: <1994Apr17.211444.27229@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <1994Apr17.211444.27229@news.cs.brandeis.edu> deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
> (goodbye Kurt Cobain, you ditz)
What's your view on Kurt Cobain, and why was he a ditz? I never heard
of the guy before his latest (and last) achievement. My son tells me
they had a moment of silence in each of his classes for the occasion.
What's going on, anyway?
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Apr 20 12:52:04 EDT 1994
Article: 5748 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: Conservative magazines/journals?
Date: 20 Apr 1994 12:50:33 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 23
Message-ID: <2p3mgp$339@panix.com>
References: <2p0r05$nrh$1@garnet.msen.com> <2p2e08$6rf@search01.news.aol.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <2p2e08$6rf@search01.news.aol.com> waterloo@aol.com (Waterloo) writes:
>In article <2p0r05$nrh$1@garnet.msen.com>, ewoertz@garnet.msen.com (Erick
>Woertz) writes:
>"What would you reccomend to someone looking for periodicals which
>represent the conservative outlook/philosophy?"
>--Policy Review. This is the quarterly publication of Heritage Foundation.
>Though it has only around 25,000 subscribers, Policy Review is the most
>influential conservative publication around, because they feature mostly
>conservative think-tank superstars and their recommendations for policy
>initiatives. It can be a bit wonkish or dry, however, for the casual reader.
If you want to go a bit farther into small-circulation wonkland and
articles by think-tank and academic superstars, take a look at _The
Public Interest_, edited by Irving Kristol and Nathan Glazer. It has a
circulation of less than 5000 and articles dealing with social science
and public policy from a neoconservative perspective.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Apr 21 19:51:54 EDT 1994
Article: 1661 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Sovereign Citizenship
Date: 20 Apr 1994 13:18:11 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 44
Message-ID: <2p3o4j$d5c@panix.com>
References: <1994Apr17.204324.1@clstac> <94110.083007U24C1@wvnvm.wvnet.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Terry Rephann writes:
>Incidentally, Raoul Berger gives a good solid, fundamentalist treatment
>of the 14th amendment in his book _The 14th Amendment and the Bill of
>Rights (University of Oklahoma Press). According to him, the bill of
>rights do not apply to the new citizens. All the 14th says about
>rights is that "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
>abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the U.S.; nor shall
>any State deprive any person of life liberty, or property without due
>process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the
>equal protection of the laws."
>
>What are "privileges" and "immunities?" Berger argues pretty
>effectively that they aren't rights and they particulary aren't
>anything in the bill of rights. What is "due process of law"? Whatever
>process the states feel is appropriate. They aren't results as current
>constitional practice holds, however. What is equal protection of the
>laws?
The obvious argument to make in this connection is that the sole
function of the Bill of Rights was to limit the powers granted the
federal government by the Constitution, and nothing in the 14th
Amendment changed that situation. However, in its capacity as
constitutional oracle the Supreme Court has decided that any violation
by a state of the limitations imposed on the federal government by the
first 10 amendments, other than the requirement that jury trials be
granted in a civil action for more than $20, is a violation of the "due
process" clause of the 14th amendment. (Don't even ask for an
explanation. You already understand the reasoning as well as anyone
does.)
It's also worth noting that on its face the Constitution imposes no
"equal protection" requirement on the federal government. However, the
Supreme Court has decided that the "due process" clause of the 5th
amendment imports all the requirements of the "equal protection" clause
of the 14th amendment, as those requirements are determined by the
Supreme Court. It must be nice to be a judge whose decisions no one can
appeal. Or maybe not. After all, you're responsible to History, as
impersonated by respectable political opinion.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Apr 21 19:51:59 EDT 1994
Article: 5760 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: Conservative magazines/journals?
Date: 20 Apr 1994 16:41:23 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 25
Message-ID: <2p441j$ai2@panix.com>
References: <2p0r05$nrh$1@garnet.msen.com> <2p2e08$6rf@search01.news.aol.com> <2p3mgp$339@panix.com> <2p3qsd$2ep@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
>Well, I'm probably going to regret getting into this, but I want to
>comment, if I may, that neocon mags, by definition, DO NOT "represent
>the conservative outlook/philosophy". Although I applaud the "Public
>Interest" for running the Jeff Snyder piece last fall, the neocons
>are just the same old liberal-statist types cross-dressing as
>conservatives. Moreover, Irving Kristol, as the "king" of the
>neoconservative philosophy, is the moral equivilant of an ideological
>transvestite. If it is your desire to try to put a friendlier face
>on the failed socialistic ideas of the past, then the Irving Kristol
>philosophy is just fine. But please...., DON'T call it "conservatism";
>another destruction of a great American word. Flame at will........
Why is _The Public Interest_ more objectionable from a paleocon
standpoint than _Policy Review_, to which I suggested it as an
alternative? The advantage of TPI is that it emphasizes social science
more than policy, so that their analyses can be useful even if many of
their writers retain an attachment to the welfare state and so on. If
investigations tend to show that liberal statism doesn't work on its
own terms, I think they become more persuasive if one has a sense that
the investigators regret their findings.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Apr 21 20:22:41 EDT 1994
Article: 1664 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Music and Antimusic
Date: 21 Apr 1994 20:22:24 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 33
Message-ID: <2p75c0$obq@panix.com>
References: <2omerr$l9n@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> <1994Apr17.014826.23216@newstand.syr.edu> <2p6cqr$2p4@gabriel.keele.ac.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
cla04@cc.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear) writes:
>Until about the 1940s most art was commissioned and bought by private
>individuals. This I suspect tended to put a break on the worst aspects
>of narcissism as those individuals were not themselves part of what we
>could call the 'arts establishment'. Unfortunately since the
>nationalisation of arts patronage we have panels of 'experts' who
>decide what is to be purchased and since these are drawn from the same
>narrow world as the main art schools the result is inevitable - the
>purchase of ideological art rather than that which can communicate to
>the general public.
What we have is academic art, or rather super-academic art, since what
we have in effect is an academy that not only sets the standards and
awards the honors but also controls the funds. So we get the usual vice
of academic art, which is conformity to standards that can be
articulated and argued. As you put it we get ideological art, or as Tom
Wolfe put it we get the painted word. What we lose is the art, which is
the part of a production that is of supreme importance but can't be put
into words. Does anyone love any of this stuff?
On a totally different subject -- the current issue of the Rothbard-
Rockwell Report has a rather good piece by Murray Rothbard on the
importance of separation that bears on some of the issues that came up
in the recent a.r.c. ethnicity talkathon. Basically, MR thinks America
worked because of a unique set of arrangements that no longer exists, so
we might as well break the whole thing up. They also have their usual
amusing scandalmongering about our American First Couple.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Apr 25 06:22:18 EDT 1994
Article: 1670 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: History and Counterrevolution
Date: 24 Apr 1994 08:50:39 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 48
Message-ID: <2pdpuv$ci2@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
For comment, if anyone wants:
"Counterrevolutionary" seems to refer to attempts to reverse fundamental
social and political changes that have already taken place. The current
style of historical and social thought assumes such attempts will not
succeed because the changes express underlying tendencies (e.g.,
advances in techniques of material production or social organization)
that are beyond conscious human control. Accordingly, the discussions
of restorations I've read lately tend to emphasize things that have
changed behind the facade of tradition, discussions of cyclical events
(the rise and fall of dynasties in China) tend to emphasize how
different the cycles have been one from the other, and so on.
One important point in this connection is that to the extent what
happens results from unconscious or uncontrollable forces, all conscious
political movements, and not only counterrevolutionary movements, become
pointless or have effects quite different from those envisioned by their
adherents. Another point is that what look like irresistible waves of
the future can turn out to be nothing of the kind. Even a wave of the
future that does express underlying tendencies might run into problems,
because there can be many underlying tendencies that conflict with each
other. A tendency to rational bureaucratic order might lead to
socialism, but conflict with technical changes that lead toward more
efficient markets and so to capitalism, and then both trends might
conflict with basic tendencies of human nature such as needs for meaning
and affiliation that lead (for example) to religious fundamentalism.
In this connection, it would be interesting to know if anyone has a
favorite example of successful counterrevolution. Recent events in the
communist countries? Attempts from time to time by various Asian
countries up to the 19th century (Japan, China) or today (Burma) to
exclude foreign influences? (Some such attempts worked for a very long
time.) Resistence against centralization in England in early modern
times? Dynastic cycles? Religious reforms or revivals? It seems to me
that one could base history on the view that man is particular species
of animal with fundamental tendencies that are not historically
conditioned, even though the way they develop and express themselves
varies from time to time. Can anyone suggest examples of history
written from the point of view of continuity and reversion rather than
cumulative change and development? To the extent history is a story of
continuity and reversion it seems that conservative or
counterrevolutionary movements would have no less standing than
progressive or revolutionary ones.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Apr 25 15:00:38 EDT 1994
Article: 1675 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: History and Counterrevolution
Date: 25 Apr 1994 15:00:16 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 48
Message-ID: <2ph400$d8m@panix.com>
References: <2pdpuv$ci2@panix.com> <2pg9vf$e9t@gabriel.keele.ac.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
cla04@cc.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear) writes:
>Although it might be unfashionable to say this in American circles it
>seems to me that the Islamic revolution in Iran is a prime candidate,
>indeed Islamic politics seems to be one of the most potent expressions
>of disgust with 'New World Order' arrangements that we have at the
>present time.
Any comments on how successful the Islamic revolution has been? The
coverage here suggests that people are getting tired of it, that more
and more they are wishing they could live in what the Eastern Europeans
call (used to call?) "a normal country", and so on.
>Anacyclosis was a very common form of looking at the world in antiquity
>- Polybius in particular springs to mind. Amongst the moderns I suspect
>Vico who emphasises that the cycles are similar bit inevitably not
>identical in form would be someone to play with.
Oddly enough, I just bought a copy of Vico's _New Science_ in a used
bookstore, so I will take a look.
>More interesting I think is looking for an historian who thinks that
>the cycle can be reversed by human action. Polybius accepts the decline
>of Rome as inevitable, even Plato by complex maths (the worst passage
>in the Republic!) accepts that his perfect state will collapse and
>advises a wiseman in a collapsing state to keep his head down. But then
>is CR simply about going backwards anyway...
Maybe historians have a professional prejudice against the view that
historical process can be much changed by conscious human action. If
things happen because people happen to choose them when they might have
chosen otherwise, then historians' accounts of causation and historical
process seem a lot less impressive.
Can the mathematics have been meant seriously? I always thought Plato
needed a transition between talking about what the ideal state is like
and talking about what really happens, and he made the transition with a
joke.
If CR isn't simply about going backward, but has to do with restoring
the substance of something that has been lost, then I would think it
happens all the time. I was wondering who the historians are who
concentrate on that side of things.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From alt.revolution.counter Tue Apr 26 19:44:35 1994
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: History and Counterrevolution
Date: 26 Apr 1994 07:27:32 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 38
Message-ID: <2pitr4$up@panix.com>
References: <2pdpuv$ci2@panix.com>,<2pg9vf$e9t@gabriel.keele.ac.uk> <1994Apr26.004515.16350@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>As for contemporary academic historians, I fear one will look in vain.
>"Philosophy of history" is right out. Spengler is a no-no, and even the
>liberal Toynbee is viewed with amused contempt. Academic specialization
>is the rule, making it that much easier to leave progressivistic
>historical assumptions unexamined. I will be happy to be proved wrong
>if anyone can cite an example of a _contempory_ historian who views
>history in a truly CR fashion - that is, cyclical and not linear. I'm
>not aware of any such.
I suppose one could stitch together a bunch of stuff on "The Failed
Revolution in Tannu Tuva: 1919-1929" (showing how immemorial patterns
of Tannu Tuvan culture continued to express themselves in new forms) and
"Nordic Sexism: The Monster that would not Die" (on various attempts to
eradicate the troubling tendency of Scandinavians to have differing
expectations for men and women) and build a case out of the contemporary
literature for a CR point of view. Out of all the tens of thousands of
historians who know the literature there's no one doing that?
It's odd (as you seem so say) that there's not much interest in
philosophy of history. Don't historians discuss what it is they are
doing, what relevance it might have to other things people do, and what
general conclusions their findings suggest? It's hard to deal with
things without some sort of at least implicit assumptions as to what
those things are and what importance they have. Don't historians on
occasion try to explicate their own assumptions as to history?
My ideal CR philosophy of history would be neither history as progress
nor history as cyclical, but history as deviations from and reversions
to norms under varying circumstances. Of course, one would have to
come up with an appropriate abstract definition of just what the norms
are.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From alt.revolution.counter Tue Apr 26 19:44:35 1994
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: History and Counterrevolution
Date: 26 Apr 1994 15:28:16 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 25
Message-ID: <2pjq0g$lil@panix.com>
References: <2pdpuv$ci2@panix.com>,<2pg9vf$e9t@gabriel.keele.ac.uk> <1994Apr26.004515.16350@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <2pjmjb$k6i@gabriel.keele.ac.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
cla04@cc.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear) writes:
>In answer to Mr Kalb's comment I wonder who the people are who talk
>about the Iranians 'tiring' of the Islamic state, I fear it might be
>its enemies.
I was speaking of the people a general reader runs into in the United
States, so I did mean enemies of the Islamic state. _New York Times_
reporters and the like.
>One interesting thing I think has been the longevity of Iran in its
>present form which must drive the Fukayama theorists mad...
Fifteen years or so in one country isn't enough to do in a grand theory
of history. Remember that the End of History came in 1806 (or so the
theory goes) with the Battle of Jena and Hegel's completion of his
_Phenomenology of the Spirit_. Of course, it takes a while for things
to settle and the smoke to clear, and the process is not without
incident. The communist revolutions were an incident and so is Islamic
fundamentalism. Or so they say.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Apr 26 20:18:48 EDT 1994
Article: 1150 of panix.policy
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: panix.policy
Subject: Re: some of you guys...revised...
Date: 26 Apr 1994 20:13:46 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 28
Message-ID: <2pkanr$rqj@panix.com>
References: <2pgmfa$6bp@panix2.panix.com> <2pi6ng$7se@panix2.panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
taranto@panix.com (James Taranto) writes:
>To determine how principled Kim's action is, we need to consider what
>would happen if we adopted her modus operandi as a matter of principle.
>Suppose I took it upon myself to cancel every message I didn't like,
>mailing a copy to the sender and cc'ing it to staff, urging the sender
>(in highly emotional terms) not to repost the message. Clearly this
>would be intolerable censorship on such a scale. Why should we view it
>as "principled" when applied to a single message?
This isn't reasonable, say I (who have no particular ax to grind,
because I don't read any of the panix.* groups except panix.announce and
panix.policy and so don't know any of the people involved even
electronically). I imagine Kim has seen many messages she disliked, but
she apparently hasn't cancelled any up to now. The principle doesn't
seem to be "cancel every message I dislike, making a scene but
preserving for the poster the option to repost", but rather "cancel
every message directed at me personally that I find so cruel that I
spend most of the morning crying, making a scene but preserving for the
poster the option to repost". Would it really be intolerable if
everyone adopted the latter principle? Also, it seems unfair not to
admit that cc'ing staff was a move intended more to put Kim's own
position at risk than that of the sender.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Apr 27 13:26:28 EDT 1994
Article: 1688 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: History and Counterrevolution
Date: 27 Apr 1994 13:26:08 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 23
Message-ID: <2pm77g$j2r@panix.com>
References: <2pjmjb$k6i@gabriel.keele.ac.uk> <2pjq0g$lil@panix.com> <2pm4h1$d40@gabriel.keele.ac.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
cla04@cc.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear) writes:
>I suppose that one man's blip is another man's epoch the rhetoric of
>this could get terribly slippery.
People go for theories that explain things with fewer and smaller
blips. I suppose the problem is that in history new theories that
radically and unarguably reduce blips are a lot rarer than in physics.
Life is tough.
>On a totally different point does anyone know of groups who look at
>Spengler seriously? I've been rereading him and find it very
>interesting indeed.
He has lots of unexpected ideas, doesn't he? I remember being very much
impressed with his notion that the conception of space is a fundamental
distinguishing feature of a civilization. I have no idea if there are
any living, breathing Spenglerians, though.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Apr 28 14:05:16 EDT 1994
Article: 1691 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: History and Counterrevolution
Date: 28 Apr 1994 07:22:41 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 53
Message-ID: <2po6a1$blm@panix.com>
References: <1994Apr26.004515.16350@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <2pitr4$up@panix.com> <1994Apr27.234948.7874@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>I am not aware of any _academic_ historian who is "CR" in any way.
Interesting. The more people there are studying something, the more
difficult it becomes to question existing categories of discussion. If
you're specialized you produce fragments, and fragments have value only
if they are accepted as being part of a structure. No doubt that's part
of your point. Are there people you would call nonacademic CR
historians?
>For the progressivist, history is something that we are escaping from,
>and though some sort of mythical "golden age" might be postulated, the
>real focus is on the steady defeat of traditional barriers to the
>egalitarian/universal/individualistic/formless social Utopia that,
>thanks to the left, is progressively being striven for, and which in
>theory is just around the corner.
I never understood how this viewpoint could be reconciled with
perspectivism based on race, gender and class. I take it that's the
neocon objective to the latter? Also, is the logical incompatibility of
progressivism and perspectivism one of the motives for protests against
logocentric thinking? Ever since the 60s, or maybe ever since de Sade,
people have been demanding an unimaginable utopia in which there are no
restraints on the expression of subjectivity. Lots of luck.
>I gather that you see a CR philosophy of history as arguing that there
>exists a certain ideal normative state (almost a Platonic ideal type),
>which might decay over time, only to be restored at a later date, since
>this ideal state is the optimum and deviation from it will have
>predictably disasterous results.
You could fuzz things up by making the ideal normative state rather
abstract -- an equilibrium among universal and particular, authority
and freedom, and no doubt yang and yin, that could be approximated
through a reasonable variety of institutions.
>I agree, but speaking not only as a Counter-Revolutionary, but also as
>a Conservative Revolutionary, I would say that the entire system -
>that is to say, the entire historical cycle - is itself a normative
>state. Thus the historical cycle is the norm, not just the ideal state
>or its opposite.
But if the cycle is the norm, why be a CR rather than a revolutionary, a
pragmatist, a stand-patter, or (best of all) a go-with-the-flow kind of
guy? It only makes sense to be a CR is there is a particular state,
however abstractly defined, that is the norm, and if it is possible to
move toward that norm by human effort.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Apr 29 20:46:54 EDT 1994
Article: 26037 of alt.politics.libertarian
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Libertarian FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Date: 28 Apr 1994 19:39:48 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 50
Message-ID: <2pphg4$kei@panix.com>
References:
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
A few questions on the FAQ:
>Libertarians ask: is anyone violating another's rights? Is someone
>committing murder, rape, robbery, theft, fraud, embezzlement, arson,
>trespass, etc.? If so, then it's proper to call on government to help
>the victim against the wrongdoer.
The government can't do this unless it knows who has what rights. So
the FAQ should include an explanation of why people have the particular
rights libertarians think they have rather than the rights Jesse Jackson
thinks they have.
>Nothing is more personal than the way people chose to shape their
>sexual relationships. Government has no business intruding into
>people's bedrooms.
Financial matters are private too, but laws against theft, fraud, and
embezzlement are OK. So why not laws against fornication and adultery?
Theft, fraud and embezzlement cause problems for society at large, but
so do fornication and adultery -- if there were no fornication or
adultery there would be no illegitimacy and less marital instability,
both of which cause lots of problems for us all. So what's the
objection in principle?
>Respect for human rights and compassion for the world's poor require
>that we relax immigration restrictions.
Do the immigrants vote? If so, suppose they decide they like the
welfare state or the Islamic republic more than Libertopia, because
that's what they were used to where they came from? Why shouldn't the
wretched of the earth make a habit of moving to wealthy libertopias,
forming alliances with the local deadbeats and bleeding hearts, and
voting themselves generous welfare benefits?
>Libertarians want to see people of all types working in the most
>harmonious relationships. "Affirmative action" refers to laws which
>force people into relationships whether they want them or not. Not too
>many years ago, there were laws in many states which prevented people
>of different races from doing a variety of things together, working,
>eating, marriage, etc. Libertarians oppose all such laws because the
>people involved have the right to decide for themselves whether or not
>to enter a relationship or association.
Doesn't all this apply equally to any sort of antidiscrimination law?
If so, why not say so?
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Apr 29 20:46:55 EDT 1994
Article: 26073 of alt.politics.libertarian
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Libertarian FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Date: 29 Apr 1994 06:28:22 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 15
Message-ID: <2pqng6$1co@panix.com>
References: <2pphg4$kei@panix.com> <2ppq0v$sr4@gap.cco.caltech.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <2ppq0v$sr4@gap.cco.caltech.edu> phoenix@pride.ugcs.caltech.edu (Nerado) writes:
>The initiation of force and fraud are unlibertarian; thus theft is out.
>Fornication and adultery (and prostitution) consist of voluntary actions
>between people.
How about bribery? That's normally a nonviolent act among consenting
adults in private. Ditto for conspiracy to evade taxes. (I take it
that the illegitimacy of all taxes is not a required libertarian
belief.)
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Apr 30 20:49:22 EDT 1994
Article: 26154 of alt.politics.libertarian
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Libertarian FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Date: 30 Apr 1994 06:39:45 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 25
Message-ID: <2ptchh$eek@panix.com>
References: <2pphg4$kei@panix.com> <2ppq0v$sr4@gap.cco.caltech.edu> <2pqng6$1co@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In jamesd@netcom.com (James A. Donald) writes:
>> > Fornication and adultery (and prostitution) consist of voluntary actions
>> > between people.
>Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) wrote:
>> How about bribery? That's normally a nonviolent act among consenting
>> adults in private. Ditto for conspiracy to evade taxes.
>Libertarians are of course all in favor of conspiracy to avoid taxes.
Is the illegitmacy of all taxes a LP position? I understand how it
follows from the "no force" rule and libertarian views on property.
>Bribery is a breach of trust. For example if a banker takes a bribe
>to loan money to someone not creditworthy, for example the dummy
>companies of the whitewater landflip, he is of course acting
>dishonorably.
But adultery is normally a breach of trust as well.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Apr 30 20:49:24 EDT 1994
Article: 26170 of alt.politics.libertarian
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Libertarian FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Date: 30 Apr 1994 11:43:37 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 30
Message-ID: <2ptub9$dhg@panix.com>
References: <2pphg4$kei@panix.com> <2ppq0v$sr4@gap.cco.caltech.edu> <2pqng6$1co@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In bagley@hc.ti.com (Ross Bagley) writes:
>Bribery would only be illegal if you were bribing someone to commit a crime
>(the crime being something that had a victim, etc) and in that case the bribery
>would mean that you are an accomplice to the crime. The bribery itself is
>not illegal, but the fact that it links you to a crime would be where you
>were prosecuted.
Suppose I bribed the personnel officer of a company to hire me, or a
government prosecutor to exercise his prosecutorial discretion not to
prosecute me for a crime I had committed. Assume that in each case the
act I am procuring through bribery would not in itself be a criminal
abuse of the discretion of the official receiving the bribe. Is the
bribe OK?
>As for tax evasion, you are right, some taxes may not be illegitimate. Hm.
>Which tax wouldn't be illegitimite... perhaps a land tax that would fund
>the military (which is defending that land, so this acts as a user fee).
>This has a victim, namely the contractor (or bureaucracy, whatever) providing
>the defense of the country.
How did the contractor or bureaucracy get the right to be paid for the
defense of the land. Did I as the owner of the land personally decide
to hire them? Did I buy the land subject to a previous contract that a
previous owner had chosen to subject it to?
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Apr 30 20:49:26 EDT 1994
Article: 26196 of alt.politics.libertarian
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Libertarian FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Date: 30 Apr 1994 20:39:45 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 18
Message-ID: <2putoh$o99@panix.com>
References: <2pphg4$kei@panix.com> <2ppq0v$sr4@gap.cco.caltech.edu> <2pqng6$1co@panix.com> <2ptchh$eek@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In jamesd@netcom.com (James A. Donald) writes:
>> But adultery is normally a breach of trust as well.
>Strictly speaking it is an indication that someone is likely
>to breach trust - an indication that a women is likely to
>produce a little cuckoo for her husband to support, an
>indication that a husband is likely to abandon his wife.
People who discover that their spouses have committed adultery usuually
consider the adultery itself a breach of trust. Do you think such
people are simply wrong? If so, how do you account for such a common
mistake?
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Apr 30 20:49:27 EDT 1994
Article: 26197 of alt.politics.libertarian
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Libertarian FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Date: 30 Apr 1994 20:42:34 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 20
Message-ID: <2puttq$oo8@panix.com>
References: <2pphg4$kei@panix.com> <2ppq0v$sr4@gap.cco.caltech.edu> <2pqng6$1co@panix.com> <2ptub9$dhg@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In jamesd@netcom.com (James A. Donald) writes:
>> Suppose I bribed the personnel officer of a company to hire me, or a
>> government prosecutor to exercise his prosecutorial discretion not to
>> prosecute me for a crime I had committed. Assume that in each case the
>> act I am procuring through bribery would not in itself be a criminal
>> abuse of the discretion of the official receiving the bribe. Is the
>> bribe OK?
>Whoever appointed the personnel officer would certainly consider
>it fraud and a breach of trust, and rightly so, even if it were
>nominally within the powers delegated to the the personnel officer.
Why? There need be no damage to the employer. No crime without a
victim, I thought.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Apr 30 20:49:32 EDT 1994
Article: 1698 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Militant Kookburgers Stalk Washington! (Is this a hoax?)
Date: 29 Apr 1994 21:16:26 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 16
Message-ID: <2psbha$8n4@panix.com>
References: <1994Apr27.161013.438@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
monaghan@zanskar.avc.ucl.ac.uk (N.O. Monaghan) writes:
>I find the contrast between America and the "European Union" very
>interesting - there are many controls being backed in Europe at a
>'federal' level which are allowed in America to remain at the state
>level. It seems rather bizzare since 'subsidiarity' is one of the proud
>claims of the "European Economic Community".
Presumably "subsidiarity" means "these are historically independent
states and we're just getting started, so it'll be a while before we
manage to centralize everything."
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Sun May 1 09:47:01 EDT 1994
Article: 26233 of alt.politics.libertarian
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Libertarian FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Date: 1 May 1994 06:31:54 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 51
Message-ID: <2q00eq$jvs@panix.com>
References: <2pphg4$kei@panix.com> <940430.103520.5G1.rusnews.w165w@wvolusia.oau.org>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <940430.103520.5G1.rusnews.w165w@wvolusia.oau.org> drdave@wvolusia.oau.org (David Vessell) writes:
>an individual has the right to be secure in
>his person and property against force and fraud. All other arguments about
>"rights" is based on this from a libertarian perspective.
But someone might claim that all goods and services produced in the
United States, since they are produced with the aid of an extensive
system of social cooperation that involves all Americans, should be
viewed as the common property of all the participants in that system of
cooperation and divided up in accordance with democratic procedures.
Or that land and natural resources are God's creations and they and
everything made from them are accordingly the common property of all
God's children (that is, the entire human race). Or that need confers
a property right in things that satisfy that need, so that that a
hungry man who steals food is only enforcing his property rights. So
how do libertarians know that the property rights they think people
have are really the ones they have?
>The difference is that theft, fraud, and embezzlement are coercive activities.
>The other person almost certainly does not consent to those acts. On the
>other hand, fornication and adultery are consentual acts between two people
>(except in the case of rape, of course). Society need not be considered at
>all.
Embezzlement can be a consensual act between two people, as in the case
of conspiracy to embezzle. If perfectly successful, there will never
be anyone who objects to the act (because it will not be discovered by
anyone who would object). So I take it your objection to embezzlement
is not that it is coercive in any ordinary sense but that it wrongfully
injures the interests of some third party. In that regard, it is not
obviously different from adultery, since in adultery there is a wronged
spouse. In addition, given the quite serious social problems resulting
from illegitimacy, it's not clear to me why fornication should not be
viewed as damaging the interests of each member of society.
Your response might be "while adultery and fornication may injure
people's interests in some respect, they don't injure property
interests, and property interests are the only interests that
government may justly defend". Assuming that limitation on proper
government action is accepted (I don't see why it should be), marriage
is at least a contract and adultery is a violation of that contract
unless the marriage is a rather unusual one. As to fornication, it
causes illegitimacy which leads to a whole complex of bad things,
including increased property crime, so effectual opposition to
fornication might well turn out to be a good way to defend property.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Sun May 1 09:47:03 EDT 1994
Article: 26234 of alt.politics.libertarian
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Libertarian FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Date: 1 May 1994 06:37:53 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 13
Message-ID: <2q00q1$kb5@panix.com>
References: <2pphg4$kei@panix.com> <2pv06r$1d9c@inca.gate.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <2pv06r$1d9c@inca.gate.net> caliban@inca.gate.net (Caliban) writes:
>As far as I'm concerned, all that really
>matters is that whatever rights people have
>should be equal -- the same -- for everyone, so
>that Neutrality isn't violated.
How about a right to equality of condition?
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Sun May 1 09:47:04 EDT 1994
Article: 26246 of alt.politics.libertarian
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Libertarian FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Date: 1 May 1994 09:44:31 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 23
Message-ID: <2q0bnv$89@panix.com>
References: <2pphg4$kei@panix.com> <2ppq0v$sr4@gap.cco.caltech.edu> <2pqng6$1co@panix.com> <2ptub9$dhg@panix.com> <2q06bi$mjq@inca.gate.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <2q06bi$mjq@inca.gate.net> caliban@inca.gate.net (Caliban) writes:
>Seriously, though, the personnel officer or
>prosecutor have a specific, contractual
>obligation, as part of their jobs, to follow
>certain rules (e.g., pick the most qualified
>applicant, execute the laws as written, etc).
>If they violate these rules they are at fault --
>whether they do for money, or for friendship
>or family ties, or racial prejudice, or simply
>out of laziness, it doesn't really matter.
The point of the bribery example was to explore why adultery would be
legally permissible in a libertarian society, as the FAQ and some
posters seem to assume. If I recall your earlier postings correctly,
your view is that it would not or at least need not be so. If that's
right, does libertarianism impose any restraints on the permissible
sanctions against adultery?
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Sun May 1 16:37:15 EDT 1994
Article: 26266 of alt.politics.libertarian
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Libertarian FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Date: 1 May 1994 16:37:08 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 25
Message-ID: <2q13tk$ko2@panix.com>
References: <940430.103520.5G1.rusnews.w165w@wvolusia.oau.org> <2q00eq$jvs@panix.com> <2q0761$mi6@inca.gate.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
caliban@inca.gate.net (Caliban) writes:
>I personally support libertarianism myself because I believe it is the
>only social system which does not violate the principle of Neutrality.
In what sense is it neutral? If A is an ineffectual kind of guy with no
obvious talents and a lot of weird quirks who wants to live in ease and
comfort without any feeling of inferiority to other people, he won't
find libertarianism at all neutral as to what he wants out of life.
>As for fornication, if the parties involved practice contraception, or
>of there is simply no child conceived from the union, I assume that you
>would not have an objection to the act, since no illegitimacy results.
I would have no objection if it looked as if a stable constellation of
social customs and personal habits could be achieved that included
general acceptance of fornication (and presumably all other consensual
sexual activity not contractually forbidden) but did not lead to high
levels of illegitimacy, family breakup, paternal nonsupport of children,
and the rest of it. I see no reason to think such a thing is possible.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Sun May 1 19:11:35 EDT 1994
Article: 26268 of alt.politics.libertarian
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Libertarian FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Date: 1 May 1994 16:41:51 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 44
Message-ID: <2q146f$ldu@panix.com>
References: <2pv06r$1d9c@inca.gate.net> <2q00q1$kb5@panix.com> <2q0793$1ij8@inca.gate.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
caliban@inca.gate.net (Caliban) writes:
>: >As far as I'm concerned, all that really
>: >matters is that whatever rights people have
>: >should be equal -- the same -- for everyone, so
>: >that Neutrality isn't violated.
>
>: How about a right to equality of condition?
>
>Yes, how about it? :-)
>Seriously, though, I'm not sure exactly what you
>mean by this. Could you please give a definition
>for this right?
A right to the elimination of the practice of granting benefits or
placing burdens on some classes of people that are out of line with
those given to or borne by other classes. For starters, such a right
implies a right to an income equal to everyone else's, unless there is
a special condition like poor health requiring unusual expenses. Of
course, if everyone has the same income it may take compulsion to get
people to work, but universal compulsion doesn't seem to violate
neutrality, which is your concern.
Like other rights, the right to equality of condition will evolve as it
becomes better established and understood. So once we are well on our
way to economic equality other respects in which people's social
conditions differ become more noticeable. As one example out of many,
people who are tall, good-looking and cheerful are generally treated
better than grouchy ugly midgets ("GUMs"), so that being a GUM is a
social condition that our society subjects to special burdens. It
follows that the government (if concerned about neutrality in the sense
of not singling out particular classes for special burdens) should take
action to vindicate the right of GUMs to equality of condition. They
might get preferential access to other stuff (like extra income), so
that on balance their condition would be equal to that of other people,
or perhaps other people could be forced to go to sensitivity classes and
comply with speech codes in the interests of uprooting social prejudices
against GUMs. Again, there would be compulsion, but I don't see how
neutrality would be violated.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Mon May 2 21:11:54 EDT 1994
Article: 26330 of alt.politics.libertarian
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Libertarian FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Date: 2 May 1994 21:08:54 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 27
Message-ID: <2q4876$7vd@panix.com>
References: <2q00eq$jvs@panix.com> <2q0761$mi6@inca.gate.net> <2q13tk$ko2@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In bagley@hc.ti.com (Ross Bagley) writes:
>>>I personally support libertarianism myself because I believe it is the
>>>only social system which does not violate the principle of Neutrality.
>Libertarians don't say that life is fair.
The claim, then, is that a social system that does nothing to alleviate
the unfairness of life is Neutral. I don't understand the claim.
>Laziness is not rewarded, and neither is
>stupidity, but most of the lazy and stupid people will have similar results,
>barring selective charity, which is neutral and fair to boot.
The claim here seems to be that under libertarianism like cases are
usually treated alike, and therefore libertarianism is neutral and
fair. But what reason is there to think that libertarianism does
better at treating like cases alike than big meddlesome bureaucracies?
After all, the point of all the rules and regulations BMBs promulgate
is to provide standards intended to result in like treatment for like
cases. So why shouldn't BMBs be even more neutral and fair if
neutrality and fairness simply mean like treatment for like cases?
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Mon May 2 21:15:41 EDT 1994
Article: 26331 of alt.politics.libertarian
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Libertarian FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Date: 2 May 1994 21:14:52 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 34
Message-ID: <2q48ic$9qg@panix.com>
References: <2ptub9$dhg@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
bagley@hc.ti.com (Ross Bagley) writes:
>Since one of the duties of a government is to defend it's citizens and
>it's constitution from all enemies foriegn and domestic, and an army
>(though not necessarily a standing army) of citizens is the best way to
>go about a forceful defense, and that costs money for guns and ammo
>and training and equipment and storage and etc... Some way must be
>found to pay for the army. I prefer to have payments be directly
>attributable to the thing for which they are paying. To get a license,
>you pay a user fee, to register a patent, you pay a different fee,
>when you commit a crime, you pay a fine that covers your court costs.
>To have your land defended, you pay a fee to the army.
The idea seems to be that if there's a system going that people think is
generally beneficial, it's compatible with your version of
libertarianism to force people to support it even if they don't feel
like supporting it and apparently even if they don't think the system
benefits them personally (an American farmer who happened to be a Nazi
might not have felt personally benefited by taxes imposed to support our
armed forces during the Second World War).
Suppose that by 2004 people decide that a strict system of sexual
morality (no sex outside of marriage and divorces are hard to get) is
generally beneficial because it promotes habits and attitudes that make
for stable two-parent households for children to grow up in, and people
are convinced that's very important for the general well-being. Would
it be consistent with your version of libertarianism to force people to
support and comply with that system? If not, why is forcing them to
support the Department of Defense any better?
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Tue May 3 06:22:28 EDT 1994
Article: 1706 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: alt.revolution.counter FAQ
Date: 2 May 1994 22:06:35 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 60
Message-ID: <2q4bjb$m0s@panix.com>
References: <2q1aj4$527@panix.com> <1994May2.222016.20852@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>>isn't the present situation a necessary outcome of the thought of John
>>Locke and Thomas Jefferson?)
>
>A question often asked by European New Right types.
One response is to play up non-Lockean aspects of the Founding. People
have written books on the subject, but I don't know enough to comment.
>If by "New Age" one means the "crystals and pyramids", sappy,
>humanitarian, egalitarian, universalist crap that one hears from people
>like Shirley McClaine, then the answer is obviously no. ENR types are
>far too realistic and hard-bitten for such fluff. If by "New Age", one
>means a fundamental shift in our collective consciousness, and in our
>basic philosophical and epistemilogical foundations, then yes, the ENR
>is "New Agey". Picture thunderclouds, Odin, and Thor, instead of
>rainbows, unicorns, and Care Bears, and you've got a close
>approximation.
Some of us don't have that much more confidence in the former than the
latter. It was no accident that Odin and Thor got replaced. Read
_Njal's Saga_, a great book. (Actually some of the arguments at the
time were pretty non-substantive: "Didja hear Christ asked Thor if he
could pick up a rock, and he couldn't" kind of thing.)
Also, don't ask me to betray my sources but I recently discovered that
Alaine de Benoist, via a time-warp, is actually a reincarnation of
Shirley Maclaine. The ENR has been trying to cover up, but more and
more people are finding out and it's beginning to affect foundation
grants and so on ...
>Everything is messy, but nothing is messier than multiracialism.
Did the partitioning of British India or the breakup of Austria-Hungary
really make the world much less multi? It's hard to unscramble eggs.
The issue (apart from the difficulty of finding a generally-acceptable
way to do the partitioning) is what political form is best in view of
the multiplicity of ethnic groups, multiple unitary national
sovereignties or a federal system featuring multiple layers of limited
sovereignty and an emphasis on social ordering through nongovernmental
institutions.
>Racist sexist homophobes! Rah! Rah! Rah!
I thought of using Joe Sobran's SHARX ("Sexist Homophobic Antisemitic
Racist Xenophobes", mentioned in the most recent Rothbard-Rockwell
Report.
>>7. Q - My ex-wife in Ulan Bator wants to join a.r.c. so she can
>>discuss her plans for bringing back the Mongol Empire.
>
>To the right of Attila the Hun, eh?
On a grander scale, and it has the charm of the exotic.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Tue May 3 19:42:45 EDT 1994
Article: 26376 of alt.politics.libertarian
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Libertarian FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Date: 3 May 1994 06:58:06 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 18
Message-ID: <2q5anu$13q@panix.com>
References: <2q0793$1ij8@inca.gate.net> <2q146f$ldu@panix.com> <2q4a18$16bn@inca.gate.net>
caliban@inca.gate.net (Caliban) writes:
>it would violate Neutrality to make one particular viewpoint i.e.,
>that "equality of condition" is good) into a right.
I don't see how making "private property is good" into a right solves
the problem. Suppose someone thought we all have an equal right to use
all things and proposed securing equality of access and resolving
conflicts through bureaucratic procedures. Why would that proposal be
less neutral than what libertarians propose? Quite possibly any
attempt to base the bureaucratic procedures wholly on neutral
principles would fail, but so (it seems to me) would any attempt to
define property rights wholly on neutral principles.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Wed May 4 06:45:26 EDT 1994
Article: 1709 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Discipline today
Date: 3 May 1994 21:09:41 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 12
Message-ID: <2q6skl$hc2@panix.com>
References: <1994May2.025254.5446@news.vanderbilt.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
rickertj@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu (John Rickert) writes:
> Well, evidently the motto for discipline today is, "Spare the rod,
>spoil the child."
I'm lost. Do you mean Singapore or U.S.? Or is there a news item I
missed?
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Wed May 4 06:45:29 EDT 1994
Article: 5919 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: William Bennett (was Bennett's War on Drugs)
Date: 3 May 1994 21:14:20 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 98
Distribution: usa
Message-ID: <2q6stc$ico@panix.com>
References: <1994Apr30.173703.15983@anasazi.com> <36472@ursa.bear.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
halat@panther.bear.com (Jim Halat) writes:
>Perhaps drugs have helped a great many people deliver positive aspects
>of themselves that would otherwise never be seen, without the
>>extremeness of use that might cause an overdose and early death. And
>who are you to say what affect Joplin's songs had those who followed
>her?
Personal and public calamities have often frequently helped a great
many people deliver positive aspects of themselves that would otherwise
never have been seen. Read any account of men at war. That doesn't
mean they weren't calamities. As to the effect of Miss Joplin's songs,
presumably they were of a piece with the effect of 60s culture in
general. If you like rising crime rates, a reversal in what had been a
long-term decline of poverty, deteriorating child welfare, loss of
civility, and all the rest of it, all in the face of sharp increases in
social welfare expenditures, I suppose you will find much to approve.
>Her "culture" shared the ideals that the war and killing in Vietnam
>were bad, that free expression and openness of love (along with
>sexuality) were good. And that taking care of one another is good.
>Some things that are *not* espoused by traditional morals.
So people are more loving and take care of each other more today than in
the past? Odd, but I hadn't noticed. I would have guessed the opposite
from all the signs of the weakening of intimate ties among people since
the early 60s (divorce, illegitimacy, unwillingness of couples to commit
to marriage, declining household size, lessened willingness to care for
one's children). I also hadn't been aware that traditional morals
considered war and killing other than bad.
>Pardon me, but part of the values that made our country an economic
>powerhouse were slavery, child labor, and the subjugation of women.
Slavery? If so, it's hard to understand why places where there were no
slaves thrived most. Also, it's hard to understand how both sending
children out to work and keeping women home belong in the same category.
>And our cultural heritage was built by people like Joplin, people who
>dared to buck the values of the day.
I'm glad to hear it. I had been afraid that too much of our actual
cultural heritage was built by people like Danielle Steele who make tons
of money going with current trends and indulging an ignorant public in
its love of sensation. In fact, I had even been worried that Miss
Joplin fell in the latter category.
>Bill Bennett wants to retain a mono-cultural white european education
>system, ignoring the important contributions of other peoples to our
>own culture.
I thought BB wanted people to study the classics. The ancient Hebrews,
Greeks and Romans may have been white (and I realize that troubles a lot
of people, no doubt with good reason) but they were culturally rather
different from us. The Hebrews weren't even European. I'm broad-
minded, though, so if people also want to study Confucius I have no
objection. It might do them a lot of good.
>Progress always seems to come with somem pain, and I rather suffer and
>work through these problems than to suffer through another time of
>stifling morals.
One man's "working through" is another man's "stifling morals". Many
people find PC horribly stifling.
In any society there are accepted beliefs about which institutions,
habits, procedures and so on are best for dealing with its problems, and
the society's moral code reflects those beliefs by supporting the
favored institutions. For example, if you think the family is an
institution of fundamental importance, you'll support the things that
support stable and effective families (traditional sexual morality and
sex roles, for example). If you want to get rid of small-scale,
traditional and informal institutions like the family and rely
exclusively on government bureaucracy to solve people's problems, you'll
support measures that weaken the former and ideals like
nondiscrimination that can only be effectuated by reliance on the
latter.
>religion is no panacea and has itself in the past led to much
>corruption, opression of free thought, and countless gallons of blood.
Same could be said about politics. People often bobble important
things. It doesn't show the things are not necessary.
>Anyone who still thinks that a 2000 year old tradition is suitable to
>rule the expression and progress of society today, is not really
>thinking too much.
Our mathematical and literary traditions are both older than 2000 years.
No doubt the time has come for us to turn over a very major new leaf.
Any proposals for how to go about it? If there are, don't express them
using the English language. Invent a new one that doesn't go back
so far.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Wed May 4 15:53:42 EDT 1994
Article: 26458 of alt.politics.libertarian
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Libertarian FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Date: 4 May 1994 07:50:56 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 56
Message-ID: <2q8270$479@panix.com>
References: <2q4a18$16bn@inca.gate.net> <2q5anu$13q@panix.com> <2q6vhc$kt4@inca.gate.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
caliban@inca.gate.net (Caliban) writes:
>: I don't see how making "private property is good" into a right solves
>: the problem. Suppose someone thought we all have an equal right to use
>: all things and proposed securing equality of access and resolving
>: conflicts through bureaucratic procedures. Why would that proposal be
>: less neutral than what libertarians propose?
>I'm afraid I can't give you a good answer to your questions until I
>make sure I understand what you mean by "private property," and what
>alternative there is to it.
I was using "private property" to mean what libertarians mean by
"property" when they say "the protection of property is the sole proper
function of government".
It appears from the way libertarians speak (I am philosophizing for
other people, so please excuse me if I don't get it right) that they
want a form of society in which everything people might have disputes
over is assigned in the first instance to particular individuals, each
of whom has the right to make all decisions regarding the things
assigned to him. The things assigned to an individual and his rights in
them are referred to as his "property".
The idea seems to be that if such an assignment of rights were carried
out as to *everything* people might have disputes over, there would be
no further need for politics because there would be no possibility of
justifiable dispute. The state would be reduced to an agency for
enforcing property rights.
The initial assignment of rights includes the right to one's own body.
Once the initial assignment of rights is made, people could assign
rights to each other by exchange or gift, form partnerships and so on.
>However, if I understand you correctly, I would say that
>libertarianism doesn't need to be based on the idea that "private
>property is good" (although I'm sure that many libertarians would
>strongly agree with that assertion :-] ). Instead, I would say that
>libertarianism gives everyone the right to organize his (share of)
>property in whatever way he prefers -- whether he wants it to be
>individual or group property.
Libertarianism seems to be based on the idea that an initial assignment
of rights into individual shares, including self-ownership, is good. A
non-libertarian might say "the earth and its fruits belong to all men,
and dividing it up into individual shares subject to the arbitrary
choices of particular individuals is wrong". Another non-libertarian
might say "I gave birth to my children and cared for them when they were
helpless, so they don't own themselves -- I own them". I take it that
libertarians reject the views of such people, and a libertarian state
would back up the rejection with force. How is that neutral?
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Wed May 4 17:14:27 EDT 1994
Article: 1714 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: alt.revolution.counter FAQ
Date: 4 May 1994 17:14:18 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 80
Message-ID: <2q937a$il@panix.com>
References: <1994May2.222016.20852@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <2q4bjb$m0s@panix.com> <1994May4.152621.19213@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>>One response is to play up non-Lockean aspects of the Founding. People
>>have written books on the subject, but I don't know enough to comment.
>
>It's an approach that I have much sympathy for; however it necessarily
>involves debunking many of the myths of American history that have become
>deeply ingrained - myths not only defended by liberals, but by many
>conservatives as well.
Obviously, a lot of myths of American history have to be debunked. It
seems to me that the CR problem is the problem of what to do if your
general outlook is conservative but you are caught in a tradition that's
grown disfunctional. It's clear that some things have to go, and the
question is how much you can keep.
>Could you give precise examples of what you mean by "it was no
>accident"?
I'm not prepared to give you anything very precise. The accounts I've
read of voluntary conversions from paganism to Christianity have given
me the impression that people felt Christianity was simply a better
explanation of what the world is like and why on all sorts of levels --
cosmological, social, personal. I mentioned _Njal's Saga_ because it
seems a good depiction of what the world was like for people at the
time, as well as for the (somewhat irrelevant) reason that it's a very
good book. I suppose it's also relevant that mediaeval Iceland is the
favorite historical society of net libertarians, so the political
motives of kings don't seem to have had much effect on the process
there.
>Conversions - whether forced or voluntary - had much to do with
>politics and the relations between pagan and Christian Europeans. Are
>you saying paganism was "fated" to die out because of some form of
>inferiority? I'm not a great believer in historical inevitability.
>Pagan Kings converted their peoples for very sound (to them) political
>reasons.
Political motives go in all sorts of directions, and don't seem adequate
to explaining the process as a whole even if a political explanation
could be advanced for each incident in the process. For starters,
monotheism is more systematic than pagan polytheism, and thought tends
to become systematic. Late antique paganism tended toward monotheism,
for example.
>If one dies and is reborn as someone/something else, but one has lost
>one's memory, one's personality, one's viewpoints and opinions, then
>how is it really possible to say that the reincarnation is truly the
>same person?
God knows. (Depending on taste, you can read that either as an answer
or as a profession of ignorance.) Philosophers, and posters in
philosophy newsgroups on usenet, sometimes speculate about whether there
is anything to personal identity beyond continuity of memory or
embodiment. Usually the discussions have to do with what happens to you
when Scotty on Star Trek beams you up -- are you really the same person
afterwards, or were you killed and a duplicate created?
>>The ENR has been trying to cover up, but more and
>>more people are finding out and it's beginning to affect foundation
>>grants and so on ...
>
>Foundation grants? Now that's a laugh....
I'm telling you, it's because people are catching on to Alaine de
Benoist and Shirley Maclaine. Have they ever been seen together?
>>>Everything is messy, but nothing is messier than multiracialism.
>
>I have no problems with multiculturalism - the more the better. I was
>thinking of false multiculturalism, in which all cultural differences
>are minimized/trivialized so as to make possible a vague, atomistic
>humanism.
I would prefer partition to what you call false multiculturalism.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Wed May 4 17:17:01 EDT 1994
Article: 1715 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: alt.revolution.counter FAQ
Date: 4 May 1994 17:15:28 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 15
Message-ID: <2q939g$109@panix.com>
References: <1994May2.222016.20852@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <2q4bjb$m0s@panix.com> <1994May4.183023.22446@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>>(Actually some of the arguments at the
>>time were pretty non-substantive: "Didja hear Christ asked Thor if he
>>could pick up a rock, and he couldn't" kind of thing.)
>
>Anyway, how big was the rock???
Unfortunately, the "kind of thing" means that I couldn't remember the
exact line of argument, but it was about on that level.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Wed May 4 17:17:02 EDT 1994
Article: 1716 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Discipline today
Date: 4 May 1994 17:16:37 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 21
Message-ID: <2q93bl$1et@panix.com>
References: <1994May2.025254.5446@news.vanderbilt.edu> <2q6skl$hc2@panix.com> <1994May4.192009.15508@news.vanderbilt.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
rickertj@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu (John Rickert) writes:
>>> Well, evidently the motto for discipline today is, "Spare the rod,
>>>spoil the child."
>
> Drats. My attempt at humor was too obscure. I meant in the U.S.
>The old motto is now taken as a command, not an inference. Now does
>it make some sense?
It occurred to me you might mean that, but I wasn't sure. Sorry to be a
wet blanket.
> Different topic, somewhat: Any thoughts about Zbigniew B's new
>book "Out of Control"?
Know nothing about it. Worth reading?
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Wed May 4 20:59:16 EDT 1994
Article: 26548 of alt.politics.libertarian
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Libertarian FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Date: 4 May 1994 20:58:54 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 23
Message-ID: <2q9gce$lh7@panix.com>
References: <2q0761$mi6@inca.gate.net> <2q13tk$ko2@panix.com> <2q3l7c$6c1@inca.gate.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
caliban@inca.gate.net (Caliban) writes:
>Libertarianism is "neutral" because it gives every
>person and group equal (i.e., the same) rights, and
>doesn't privilege any particular beliefs or goals
>in life.
I truly don't understand this. Isn't it obvious that in a libertarian
society it would be easier to lead some sorts of life ("hermit";
"entrepreneur") than others ("soldier in the army of socialist labor";
"loyal servant of the king")? The sorts of life that are easier to
lead are those that are privileged by libertarianism. People who
prefer freedom and enterprise to security and solidarity are privileged
by libertarianism. Suppose A likes to do better than other people by
working hard and looking out for himself, while B likes to let things
go and do what people tell him to do but nonetheless have a safe and
comfortable life. A's goals and B's goals are obviously not going to
be equally favored by a libertarian society.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Thu May 5 13:10:16 EDT 1994
Article: 1719 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: alt.revolution.counter FAQ
Date: 5 May 1994 07:44:12 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 36
Message-ID: <2qam6c$h58@panix.com>
References: <2q4bjb$m0s@panix.com> <1994May4.152621.19213@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <2qadej$3p8@gabriel.keele.ac.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
cla04@cc.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear) writes:
>From an English perspective it is easy to see there is a vacuum of what
>you might call public spirituality - look at the abdication of
>leadership of the Church of England, but if this is to be filled I
>suspect that it will be filled either by a form of CXhristian
>revivalism or a synthesis of Christian and non-Christian belief, but
>certainly not by pretending we're all Vikings again.
Christianity grew up in a world empire that tended toward universal
citizenship and a universal code of law and in which peoples were
becoming mere populations. It was well fitted to thrive in that
environment. To the isolated Christianity gave the fellowship of the
church and the love of a universal deity who was also a particular man,
and even a man of the people. To the troubled and fearful Christianity
gave hope and trust in a future that would overcome all sorrows. To the
skeptic Christianity gave a faith that could be subtly and profoundly
articulated by philosophy but could not be seen round or explained away.
For the deracinated Christianity created a new race with a glorious
history, unshakeable identity and lofty destiny. To put it very
crudely, all these things seem likely to be effective selling points for
Christianity in the times to come. I don't see any real competitor.
Abstract speculations about the advent of a new pagan and polytheistic
consciousness don't seem convincing to me. I might feel differently if
I could see examples of pagan polytheism as a living system experienced
by its adherents as authoritative.
>The negative form I think is best exemplified at the moment by the EC's
>growing attempts to produce a flattened 'euroculture'
What sort of attempts?
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Mon May 9 14:14:23 EDT 1994
Article: 26948 of alt.politics.libertarian
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Libertarian FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Date: 8 May 1994 19:21:51 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 62
Message-ID: <2qjs6f$irs@panix.com>
References: <2qc7pc$s9k@inca.gate.net> <2qdbk1$8qb@panix.com> <2qjl14$vf5@inca.gate.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
caliban@inca.gate.net (Caliban) writes:
>: Suppose you have a libertarian society and you add to it a progressive
>: income tax on above-average incomes and negative income tax on below-
>: average incomes, or a public health service funded by a land tax.
>: Where is the sudden failure to treat goals and beliefs equally?
>I would say that people are being treated
>differently based on their incomes, or whether
>or not they own land; and that one goal (health)
>is being treated differently from others (like
>education, security, or entertainment).
I understand your point on the public health service. I don't
understand, though, why different treatment based on income or property
ownership is an example of different treatment of goals and beliefs.
Also, I don't see why the protection of private property does not in
itself constitute different treatment based on property ownership.
People's property rights differ, so if the law protects all property
rights equally it is doing something different for you and for me. If I
am rich and you are poor, a libertarian code of law would (unless
something else happened) keep me in wealth and you in poverty. I don't
see why that would be an example of equal treatment of your goals and
beliefs and mine.
>: Your view seems to be that formal freedom and equality and minimum
>: government mean that every goal and belief is treated equally. Whatever
>: goal someone has, he has the equal right to organize with other
>: likeminded people and work to bring it about. That view seems
>: misleading to me, though.
>
>How else could we legitimately treat every goal and
>belief equally?
I find the notion that every goal and belief can be treated equally
altogether chimerical.
>I would say that while I agree that "society" in the sense of culture
>(i.e., "goals, beliefs, habits, etc.) certainly can't be neutral, the
>laws -- the system of defining rights and arbitrating disputes --
>certainly can, and should.
I was misled, then. Some of your language seemed to suggest that a
society with a libertarian legal system would also be culturally and
practically libertarian and pluralistic.
It seems to me that a society with a libertarian legal system would, in
many respects and possibly categorically, offer fewer practical
lifestyle choices than our current one. For example, women who wish to
have children would find it considerably more difficult to raise them
without tying themselves permanently to the children's father in a
libertarian state than in a welfare state, and to that extent would have
fewer lifestyle choices. The choice of a libertarian legal order over a
welfare state would not at all promote neutrality as to such women's
preferences. It is therefore not clear to me why neutrality requires
that choice. (Examples could be multiplied.)
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Mon May 9 14:14:47 EDT 1994
Article: 1726 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Paganism
Date: 8 May 1994 19:23:02 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 36
Message-ID: <2qjs8m$j1i@panix.com>
References: <2qgddl$rkh@gabriel.keele.ac.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
cla04@cc.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear) writes:
>I'm not too sure that late Antiquity should be seen as Universalist.
Here's what I had in mind:
1. Intellectually, philosophy was cosmopolitan. Philosophy was not an
epiphenomenon that can be ignored. It was taken seriously by educated
men as a guide how to live, and Stoic philosophy was a major influence
on Roman law.
2. Political particularism tended to disappear. The Roman Empire was
not viewed as one state among others, but as the appropriate master of
the world. In the 2nd century Roman citizenship became universal for
everyone in the Empire. As time went on, the Empire lost its practical
ties to the city of Rome and relied more and more on barbarians in Roman
service for defense. Also, the separate civic life of cities declined
greatly as the burdens placed on the cities by the Empire made civic
office something to avoid if at all possible.
3. Cultural particularism also declined greatly. Ortega y Gassett
comments on the process in his _History as a System_. (He thinks it
made people a lot stupider than they had been.) In the West, everyone
spoke the same Latin everywhere. Local styles of art and architecture
seem likewise to have been of minor importance.
>However should the following be added to the FAQ?
>
>Pagan Virtues by John Casey.
Will do.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Mon May 9 17:53:41 EDT 1994
Article: 1728 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Paganism
Date: 9 May 1994 14:49:16 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 44
Message-ID: <2qm0jc$9d2@panix.com>
References: <2qgddl$rkh@gabriel.keele.ac.uk> <2qjs8m$j1i@panix.com> <2qlr17$bk5@gabriel.keele.ac.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
cla04@cc.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear) writes:
>While I think it's true that the aristocracy of the Late Roman empire
>was cosmopolitan, movement amongst lower orders of society declined if
>anything.
I don't know much about the evidence on this issue. Latin became the
language of the people in most of the Western Empire, a development that
suggests cosmopolitan influences among the lower orders as well. I was
also under the impression that military colonies, invasions and peaceful
settlements by barbarians resulted in significant mixing of populations.
I believe that people who had tombstones in Rome itself, a group far
larger than the aristocracy, tended to be freedmen or the descendents of
freedmen, and thus of foreign descent. I don't know about the situation
elsewhere.
>The period also sees areas of the empire trying to break away. It is
>the case that these places tried to be microcosms of the larger Roman
>state but the principle of the 'Empire of the Gauls' say tends to
>suggest a growing regionalist trend.
What was the basis of that trend if the aristocracy were cosmopolitan
and the lower orders lacked political influence? Was it simply a case
of local commanders in a military empire trying to set up as independent
rulers when the center grows shaky?
>: In the 2nd century Roman citizenship became universal for
>: everyone in the Empire.
>
>The pedant in me say actualy in 212 under Caracalla.
Oops!
>The problem is that by this time it was a worthless qualification what
>counted was what sort of citizen you were an honestior or a humilior
>and this distinction remained and indeed became greater
But universally-applicable grades of citizenship based on wealth are
still universal rather than particularistic or regional.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From alt.politics.libertarian Thu May 12 06:19:25 1994
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Libertarian FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Date: 9 May 1994 19:10:59 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 81
Message-ID: <2qmfu3$ssj@panix.com>
References: <2qjl14$vf5@inca.gate.net> <2qjs6f$irs@panix.com> <2qm7ai$9gd@inca.gate.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
caliban@inca.gate.net (Caliban) writes:
>: I don't
>: understand, though, why different treatment based on income or property
>: ownership is an example of different treatment of goals and beliefs.
>
>It's not -- but it's an example of unequal treatment
>of individuals, which also violates Neutrality.
Suppose high-income individuals have a portion of their income taken
from them and low-income individuals receive an income supplement from
the proceeds, in all cases in accordance with a schedule that applies to
everyone. Under the system similarly-situated individuals would be
treated similarly and differences in treatment would be part of what
looks like a rational attempt to maximize the equal practical ability of
every individual to achieve his goals. Further suppose that the laws
grant each person a property right in any income supplement he has
coming to him and state that no person has a property right in his
income to the extent that income is taken in accordance with the
schedule to fund the supplement. I really don't understand why such a
system would violate neutrality because of unequal treatment of
individuals more than protection of rights to unequal property would.
>Basically, assuming that property rights exist, in order to be Neutral
>they must be based on a assuming that property rights exist, I don't
>think they violate Neutrality as long as the standard on which they're
>based applies equally to all people. For example, as long as you and I
>both have the same right to own/ control property, according to the
>same rules, this is consistent with Neutrality.
In a hereditary aristocracy that accepted the rule of law, each baby
could have an equal right to the status he is born into and be equally
protected in that status. Thus, the same rules regarding the
acquisition and security of rights would apply to everyone. It's not
clear to me why protecting me in my rights as a duke under such a
system would be less neutral, assuming you are equally protected in
your your rights as a peasant, than protecting Amy Rockefeller in her
enjoyment of her grandfather's money (I assume that like other
libertarians you think intergenerational transfers are OK), the most
recent winner of the New York Lottery in his enjoyment of his gains, or
Picasso in his enjoyment of what he earned by the exercise of the
extraordinary talent he was born with. All of us would have what we
have mostly by chance, often the chance of birth.
>: I find the notion that every goal and belief can be treated equally
>: altogether chimerical.
>
>I'm sorry to hear that. Which beliefs do you
>think should be treated as superior, and which
>should be treated as inferior, and why?
My argument that impartiality of the sort you want is impossible does
not depend on the correctness of any specific positive program, any more
than an argument that Socrates was mortal depends on the correctness of
a specific date for his death.
>It certainly could be, but that's ultimately up
>to the members of that society. There's no
>reason, for example, that they couldn't all
>decide to be fanatical, mindless conformists --
>it's just highly unlikely. :-/
Why unlikely? Count de Tocqueville observed that Americans were
conformists and thought it followed from our free and equal political
institutions that made mass public opinion the only authority. Many
people since then have thought that one of his shrewder observations.
>Neutrality requires that some people (e.g.,
>single women with children) not be treated
>differently from anyone else.
Most people aren't required to support and care for other persons with
whom they have no contractual relationship. Is doing away with the
parental obligation of support part of your version of libertarianism?
How do you deal with small children? Simply announce that like other
people they are free to sink or swim?
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Thu May 12 16:07:33 EDT 1994
Article: 1735 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: HACK-SINGAPORE-DUNGEON
Date: 10 May 1994 08:36:48 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 42
Message-ID: <2qnv50$6im@panix.com>
References: <2qnhja$olg@gabriel.keele.ac.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
cla04@cc.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear) writes:
>Personally I was pleased that Singapore had the courage to go through with
>what seemed to me an entirely just punishment and have been amused by the
>racialism of the liberal press here and it seems in America. Why did no-one
>ever worry about those yellow Singaporeans suffering I wonder?
If it had been a yellow American I presume _The New York Times_ (which
led the attack on the sentence in the United States) would have
attempted to be equally outraged. I'm not sure they would have quite
succeeded. Although they might still have made the attempt, I'm pretty
confident they would have failed if it had been a naturalized citizen
from the Orient. If it had been a black American they would have been
outraged for a different reason. They would have assumed that the
sentence reflected Chinese racism. I'm not sure what they would have
said if it had been a Brit. Probably not much. I suppose in theory
the British press should have been more upset about the Hong Kong boy
who got sentenced than about the American.
The problem, of course, is that the outrage sprang from irrational
feelings of solidarity, and it's not clear how _The New York Times_ can
in clear conscience approve of such feelings. They do, of course, when
the feelings can be strictly subordinated to their own purposes. So the
_Times_ approves of American national feeling to the extent it breaks
down lesser distinctions and centralizes ("every American has a right to
decent housing, health care and a job"; "no American should be subjected
to discrimination based on characteristics like race, religion or
gender"; "gays are part of America too"). They also approve of American
national feeling to the extent "America" can be dentified with
liberalism on the international scene.
The use of national feeling for liberal ends is, of course,
manipulative, since liberalism has reached a stage of development in
which it is clearly inconsistent with national feeling. Liberalism
can't help but be manipulative, though, because it lacks a principle of
solidarity and disapproves of other people's principles of solidarity.
So it can't do anything except parasitically.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Fri May 13 18:52:40 EDT 1994
Article: 1746 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Some history?
Date: 13 May 1994 18:52:08 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 26
Message-ID: <2r10ao$g15@panix.com>
References: <2r04ce$hfr@panix.com> <1994May13.210248.19370@newstand.syr.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <1994May13.210248.19370@newstand.syr.edu> clstampe@rodan.syr.edu (Chris Stamper) writes:
>jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes:
>>The notion of self-organizing emergence is no novelty. See _Wealth of
>>Nations_ (1776) and _Origin of Species_ (1859). Nonetheless, better
>>results can sometimes be obtained by the application of conscious
>>management to things resulting from self-organizing emergence.
>Wouldn't "conscious management" mean either some form of statism or a
>dominant managerial class?
It would include that, but I meant to include any sort of government.
Every society of any size and complexity has elites, and it's elites
who run governments, so I suppose there's going to be something you
might call a "dominant managerial class" in anything much beyond a
small band of hunter-gatherers. The phrase, of course, suggests
statism, by which I understand a failure to understand that the
self-organizing emergence is primary and the management very much
secondary. That's not at all what I had in mind, so maybe I chose the
wrong word.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Sat May 14 06:25:28 EDT 1994
Article: 1747 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: new age, assorted meanderings
Date: 13 May 1994 20:32:19 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 31
Message-ID: <2r166j$t4j@panix.com>
References: <1994May13.191418.7822@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>Michael Walker, in the last issue of _The Scorpion_, refers to the "New
>Age" suggesting that there is a cyclical historical pattern akin to (by
>analogy) the astrological system, such that the coming "Age of
>Aquarious" will necessitate certain new forms of sacrality and social
>organization different from the preceding "Age of Pisces" (i.e.,
>Christian era). I don't remember enough of his argument to say anything
>about particulars, but I think it likely that any "New Age" will in
>fact involve transformations in _essences_, even if the corresponding
>_forms_ remain the same.
I recall the article as somewhere between speculative and rhapsodic.
Not much in the way of argument. (Not that I object to speculative
rhapsodies.)
Any two historic situations are of course different. Essences are
difficult things to grapple with, though. Is the essence of the
Pythagorean theorem, or the Apostle's Creed, or Newton's Laws of Motion
different now than when those things were formulated? How about the
Pilobolus? Does it matter that the Greeks painted their statues and we
think white marble looks ever so much more refined? I suppose my view
is that if a thing seemed to express something of transcendent value
then and it still does now, then that's a good sign that the essence has
survived. Some things can in fact be communicated from one culture to
another, even another that is very different.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Sun May 15 06:50:07 EDT 1994
Article: 15019 of talk.philosophy.misc
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: Views on MacIntyre? Read Nietzche (was the other way around<199
Date: 14 May 1994 15:38:41 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 28
Message-ID: <2r39c1$3dq@panix.com>
References: <1994Mar13.194756.24714@midway.uchicago.edu> <2r2iui$j8g@search01.news.aol.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
farinahar@aol.com (FARINAHAR) writes:
>But if MacIntyre lived in a world dominated by Nazism (with a long
>history of Nazism) he would have no basis to say Nazism is wrong.
And if he lived in a paleolithic society he would have no basis to say
the top quark exists. Is it MacIntyre's point that the existence of a
tradition is what makes a statement from the point of view of the
tradition true, or is it that you need the tradition to form and
understand the statement and have grounds to believe it true?
Maybe another response to your example is that philosophy can only be
of use to rational animals and that rational animals do not form worlds
in which over time no tendencies of thought and feeling appear that are
inconsistent with Nazism.
It's hard to imagine a world in which everyone has always been a Nazi,
by the way, since it is part of the essence of Nazism (as I understand
it) to have an in-group and an out-group, and for the in-group to wage
war on the out-group in order to increase its solidarity and
demonstrate its superiority over the out-group by defeating and
enslaving or annihilating it. In such a situation it's hard to see how
the in-group and the out-group could see eye-to-eye on things.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Mon May 16 06:26:52 EDT 1994
Article: 1752 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: HACK-SINGAPORE-DUNGEON
Date: 15 May 1994 16:41:51 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 54
Message-ID: <2r61ef$jb8@panix.com>
References: <2qnhja$olg@gabriel.keele.ac.uk> <1994May13.180333.6999@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <2r5bb7$soq@gabriel.keele.ac.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
cla04@cc.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear) writes:
>Those polls seem to indicate a growing phenomenon namely the
>political/philosophical alienation of large numbers of people in
>Western countries from their ruling elites. I suspect that in part this
>may lie at the root of the anomie that we now see in the West, many of
>its own people fail to identify with the system. Our problem though is
>how to harnass that disillusion in a positive way and indeed to get
>over the message in the first place. Any ideas?
It seems to me that the alienation is in part a consequence of the New
Class strategy for achieving its goal, a state in which the New Class
elite controls the bureaucracy and the bureaucracy determines everything
significant and permits no competing powers. The strategy is to
distinguish "rights", which are statements of the long-term goals of the
bureaucracy, from "personal values", which are other goals people might
have, and establish the principle that rights always trump personal
values. The success of the strategy means that people expect the
government to supervise everything rather closely and they know they
can't expect what the government does to reflect anything they much care
about. Hence alienation.
Maybe it would clarify the point to give a couple of examples of rights:
1. People have a right not to be discriminated against on grounds
of race, sex or religion. That means that it's improper for people
to organize themselves in accordance with ethnic identity, family
ties and functions, or fundamental understanding of the world. In
order to prevent such forbidden modes of self-organization, the
bureaucracy has to exercise extensive and detailed supervision and
control over all significant organizations with respect to
relations among the people who compose them.
2. People have a right to autonomy, but they must respect the
rights of others. That means they should be supported in attacking
the authority of institutions that compete with the bureaucracy,
but not in attacking the authority of the bureaucracy itself or its
long-term goals. So schools should teach the equal or superior
worth of attitudes and habits inconsistent with the institution of
the family, but should not teach the equal worth of attitudes and
habits inconsistent with (say) the functioning of the tax system or
willing compliance with EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission) requirements.
So maybe what's needed is a different notion of rights from the left-
liberal one. Maybe rights of communal and organizational self-rule? In
the United States such rights used to be protected by states' rights,
property rights, and limited government. Maybe they should be brought
up to date, at least in presentation.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Mon May 16 06:59:45 EDT 1994
Article: 1755 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Pink revolution
Date: 16 May 1994 06:56:36 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 20
Message-ID: <2r7jh4$5i5@panix.com>
References: <2qnrq9$t42@gabriel.keele.ac.uk> <1994May13.203312.8889@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <2r63ib$54t@gabriel.keele.ac.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
cla04@cc.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear) writes:
>A friend of mine works for the labour party on the grounds thatvit is
>the only party which stands Conservative values i.e. those based on
>social solidiarity not atomised libertarianism. Certainly I think the
>espousal of Lib values in the 70s and 80s by the Conservative Party
>here has left a very problematic legacy
I don't know a lot about the British Labour Party. The problem with the
left-wing solidarity I know about is that it is always mass solidarity
-- in aspiration, at least, equal solidarity of every individual with
every other individual that reduces distinctions to unimportance and
tries practically to minimize them. So what it really aims at is a
universal order with nothing of importance between the universal order
and the individuals composing it.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Sat May 21 05:13:05 EDT 1994
Article: 1757 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Pink revolution
Date: 19 May 1994 20:24:25 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 41
Message-ID: <2rgvvp$97t@panix.com>
References: <2r63ib$54t@gabriel.keele.ac.uk> <2r7jh4$5i5@panix.com> <16FBA936F.SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu writes:
>In article <2r7jh4$5i5@panix.com>
>jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes:
>
>>-- in aspiration, at least, equal solidarity of every individual with
>>every other individual that reduces distinctions to unimportance and
>>tries practically to minimize them.
>
>Ah, but isn't that the point of your advocacy of an all "white"
>society?
To the best of my recollection, the only person who has posted in favor
of white separatism on this newsgroup has been Arthur LeBouthillier.
>In your aforementioned (you as in counter-revolutionary ideals posted
>by this group in Jan-March) ideal of a seceding "white" society, you
>would inevitably be reducing the distinctions among our society's
>individuals so to maintain a population that has the qualities in the
>quote above. By eradicating diversity, you gain solidarity with MORE
>LIMITED distinctions among your individual group members - hence the
>opposite of individual idiosyncrasy and identity.
It is true that what is called multiculturalism and (for example)
Naziism have a similar goal: a society whose unity is uncompromised by
significant cultural and ethnic differences. Multiculturalism tries to
achieve that goal by forbidding people to recognize the significance of
differences and by compulsory mixing for the purpose of destroying what
differences exist. Naziism tries to achieve it by establishing a
society based solely on one of the existing ethnic and cultural groups.
I don't like either. I prefer permitting people to choose the degree
to which they will associate with those with whom they feel they have a
lot in common, or will also associate with those who they feel are
different but are willing to associate with them. In other words, I
prefer allowing voluntary discrimination on racial and similar grounds.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Sun May 22 06:56:12 EDT 1994
Article: 1758 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Pink revolution
Date: 21 May 1994 05:52:37 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 35
Message-ID: <2rkll5$1vd@panix.com>
References: <2r7jh4$5i5@panix.com> <16FBA936F.SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu> <2rgvvp$97t@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes:
>I prefer permitting people to choose the degree to which they will
>associate with those with whom they feel they have a lot in common, or
>will also associate with those who they feel are different but are
>willing to associate with them. In other words, I prefer allowing
>voluntary discrimination on racial and similar grounds.
On rereading what I had written I wondered whether it was at all
comprehensible. To restate: diversity seems to me a good thing. If
differences didn't matter then diversity would be indifferent rather
than good. Therefore, the goodness of diversity means that differences
matter. To say that differences matter is to say it's OK for them to
affect the choices we make. To let one's choices be affected by ethnic
differences is to engage in discrimination on ethnic grounds.
Therefore, if you think that ethnic diversity is good you can't
reasonably claim that ethnic discrimination is bad. In other words, I
don't understand the claim "it's valuable for people to differ in some
respect, but it's wrong ever to take those differences into account in
acting". If the differences can never affect our actions, how
important can it be to have them?
Since the post I'm clarifying was intended as a response to Mr.
Sessman's description of things I said a couple of months ago, I should
add that I also proposed stricter limits on immigration. Any society
must have unity as well as diversity. At present our problem seems to
be disunity rather than lack of diversity. So it makes sense to me to
close the gates at least somewhat and let the people who are already
here organize their lives and work out how they are going to live
together.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Sun May 22 12:46:33 EDT 1994
Article: 24695 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.radical-left
Subject: Re: Single Payer Medical Insurance (was: Re: Is Health Care A Right? (essay))
Date: 22 May 1994 09:01:13 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 53
Message-ID: <2rnl2p$sla@panix.com>
References: <94May15.185830edt.243@smoke.cs.toronto.edu> <2r9cdr$12ra@inca.gate.net> <94May17.011421edt.48147@neat.cs.toronto.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:24695 alt.politics.libertarian:28220 alt.politics.radical-left:14013
cbo@cs.toronto.edu (Calvin Bruce Ostrum) writes:
>my own thesis, which has remained implicit but goes something like
>this, I guess: [A] "people's values are shaped by the institutions of
>the society in which they live. It makes sense to consider, when
>thinking about changes that are proposed, not only how people feel
>about them now, but how they will feel about them after they have lived
>with them for a while and have been reshaped by them" ... I don't think
>I am a socialist, like Cohen, but more of a liberal in the sense of
>Rawls. As such, I would probably tend to agree with the idea that [B]
>political institutions should remain as neutral as possible, to enable
>each person to form and pursue his own notion of the good.
Do positions A and B sit together easily? B seems to take the values
that people actually have as the criterion, and proposes that people be
as free as possible to pursue whatever those values may be. As to the
formation of those values, the most B seems to suggest is that their
formation should not be distorted by influences external to the
individual. A seems to look at all the values people might have and to
propose that the institutions of the society promote the configuration
of values that in the long run will prove most satisfying, even though
at the moment most people might find some other configuration of values
more appealing. The two seem quite different to me.
>Rawls does not seem to consider the power that large corporations and
>media will have in influencing people's "personal" conceptions of the
>good, and when this is taken into account, things probably turn out
>differently than he would portray them.
Could Rawls still be Rawls if he took more seriously the effect of
social institutions on the formation of conceptions of the good? It
seems to me that if the sole purpose of public institutions is to
facilitate the pursuit by each person of his own conception of the good,
whatever that may be, then the sole principles of action each of us can
reasonably expect to share with his fellow citizens are the desire to
maximize his own ability to realize his conception of the good, and the
desire that others not have greater ability to do so than oneself (at
least unless the maximin principle is satisfied). The abstract ability
to realize one's conception of the good, to the extent that ability can
be distributed socially, is money and power. So it seems that the
Rawlsian principle you describe leads to a culture, and therefore to
personal values, based on greed, lust for power and envy because those
are the only values people can legitimately assume they share. I speak,
however, as someone who found Rawls incomprehensible.
I should also say that since I have wandered into this thread late, I
don't expect a response if the issues I raise have already been dealt
with.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Sun May 22 12:46:34 EDT 1994
Article: 24696 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.radical-left
Subject: Re: Single Payer Medical Insurance (was: Re: Is Health Care A Right? (essay))
Date: 22 May 1994 09:48:39 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 24
Message-ID: <2rnnrn$309@panix.com>
References: <94May15.185830edt.243@smoke.cs.toronto.edu> <2r9cdr$12ra@inca.gate.net> <94May17.011421edt.48147@neat.cs.toronto.edu> <2rnl2p$sla@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:24696 alt.politics.libertarian:28224 alt.politics.radical-left:14015
In <2rnl2p$sla@panix.com> jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes:
>Could Rawls still be Rawls if he took more seriously the effect of
>social institutions on the formation of conceptions of the good?
> ... I speak,
>however, as someone who found Rawls incomprehensible.
To expand a little: as I recall, the representatives meeting in Rawls'
original position represent people who have conceptions of the good, but
they don't know what those conceptions are, and the negotiations leading
to Rawls' basic principles have to do with protecting and furthering the
ability to pursue those conceptions whatever they turn out to be. I'm
not sure what the negotiations would look like in Rawls' view if the
representatives got together and said "we're going to set up a society,
and the institutions of the society will heavily influence substantive
views of the good, so which substantive view of the good are we going to
have the institutions favor?" In particular, I don't see why in that
case they would end up enacting anything that looked very much like
Rawls' principles.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Mon May 23 11:01:00 EDT 1994
Article: 1759 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Neo-techno-conservatism
Date: 23 May 1994 06:31:34 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 18
Message-ID: <2rq0m6$8d6@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Any comments on neo-techno-conservatism? By that I mean the view that
microchips, fiber optics and all the rest of it mean that centralized
systems of comunications and control are outmoded, so people will more
and more be able to avoid the exactions and do without the benefits of
large formal centralized systems like the modern state.
The "conservative" part is that if large formal centralized systems
become less important then people will be forced to rely, for whatever
they can't get by exchange, on small informal systems that engage their
irrational loyalties, such as the family. Maybe
"neo-techno-primitivism" would be a better term, since the guiding
image seems to be one of small bands of hunter-gatherers wandering
through the primeval forest, computer network, or whatever ...
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Mon May 23 11:01:16 EDT 1994
Article: 24703 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Those who do not know history (was: ... a Black Thing?)
Date: 22 May 1994 16:20:52 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 64
Message-ID: <2roer4$9ej@panix.com>
References: <2rn9ti$blv@netaxs.com> <2rnvek$gn1@peaches.cs.utexas.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin) writes:
>In 1930, after a decade of prohibition, the US murder rate was an order
>of magnitude higher than it had been before prohibition, and higher
>than it would be again until the height of the next drug war in the
>late 1980s. ... I am not sure how we ever regained our sense and
>legalized alcohol. But the blessed result was that the US murder rate
>was halved in one year. This, and this alone, created the period of
>relative internal peace, from the late 30s to the early 60s, on which
>we now look back with fondness.
Something is wrong somewhere. _Historical Statistics of the United
States_ gives the following figures, arrived at by adding up state vital
statistics reports:
Year Homicides/100,000
1918 6.5
1919 7.2
1920 6.8
1921 8.1
1922 8.0
1923 7.8
1924 8.1
1925 8.3
1926 8.4
1927 8.4
1928 8.6
1929 8.4
1930 8.8
1931 9.2
1932 9.0
1933 9.7
1934 9.5
1935 8.3
[fairly steady decline]
1944 5.0
[bounces around a little]
1963 4.9
[fairly steady rise]
1970 8.3
It's worth noting that not all states participated until 1933, but the
incompleteness shouldn't change the overall picture since by 1920 states
with 80% of the U.S. population were participating.
>Statistics show that whites and the middle class are as likely to
>use the currently illegal drugs as the minorities and the poor.
I've seen this assertion a couple of times, and don't doubt that the
proportion of each group that has used illegal drugs is about the same.
Are there significant differences in the type of drugs (e.g., marijuana
vs. crack) or in degree of habitual use?
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Mon May 23 11:01:19 EDT 1994
Article: 24706 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Those who do not know history (was: ... a Black Thing?)
Date: 22 May 1994 19:55:55 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 17
Message-ID: <2roreb$444@panix.com>
References: <2rn9ti$blv@netaxs.com> <2rnvek$gn1@peaches.cs.utexas.edu> <2roer4$9ej@panix.com> <2rolkj$ilf@peaches.cs.utexas.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <2rolkj$ilf@peaches.cs.utexas.edu> turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin) writes:
>> Something is wrong somewhere. _Historical Statistics of the United
>> States_ gives the following figures, arrived at by adding up state
>> vital statistics reports:
>To add state averages correctly, one has to weight them by the
>the state populations.
The "adding up" was speaking loosely, and I didn't combine the separate
state figures, the feds did. I presume they did it correctly, although
of course I could be wrong. The very figures I gave can be seen in
_The Statistical History of the United States_, range H 972.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Mon May 23 15:17:06 EDT 1994
Article: 1761 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Neo-techno-conservatism
Date: 23 May 1994 11:49:25 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 47
Message-ID: <2rqja5$o4f@panix.com>
References: <2rq8ta$ci1@beyond.escape.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
btraven@escape.com (James O'Meara) writes:
>Your posting started off as if it were talking about Geo Gilder, but the
>last part sounds more like the TAZ (Temporary Autonomous Zone) of Hakim
>Bey.
I suppose that's because I've seen suggestions by GG and others that
radical decentralization is the wave of the future for technological
reasons, but never an account of what it would look like. I posted in
order to get people's ideas. The best I could come up with is
something like the social structure of wandering Gypsies, which
involves an ideal of individual freedom, families based on strict sex
roles and sexual morality, bands held together by the need for
cooperation in practical matters, and tribes to provide marriage
partners, arbitration of disputes, emergency assistance and so on. I
would imagine something like that was the social structure during the
paleolithic, so maybe it's the arrangement we're naturally happiest
with.
>Bey believes that anarchist should abandon the "overthrow the govt"
>model and make use of the new possibilities technology affords us to find
>temporary spaces in the control system:
>
>"The TAZ is an encampment of guerilla ontologist; strike and run away.
>Keep moving the entire tribe, even if it is only data in the Web
>(Web=Internet, or rather the semi-legal uses of it; Bey takes over from
>Chaos theory the idea of data, and thus communities, "existing" virtually
>within the Web, able to be reconstituted at random new locations)."
Gypsies have no use for non-Gypsies except as marks. Bey's guerilla
ontologists also seem to lack civic feeling. What's lost when people
feel no tie to an overall public order? Could science and scholarship
survive? If not, how much goes with them? Will there be monasteries to
preserve the heritage of learning during the new Voelkerwanderungen?
Details at 11 ...
>For more, check out the hypertext site http://www/ifi/uio.no/~mariusw/bey/
>or the review on page 61 of the new Whole Earth Review, or check out TAZ
>at your local "alternative" bookstore (Autonomedia, 150pp, $6 cheap!)
I tried to get it via ftpmail once before but only got a couple of
fragments. I'll try again.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Wed May 25 06:13:23 EDT 1994
Article: 12926 of alt.revisionism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: New German gag law
Date: 24 May 1994 18:02:47 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 15
Message-ID: <2rtti7$ich@panix.com>
References:
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In codfish@netcom.com (Ross Vicksell) writes:
>Here's something for our exterminationist friends to applaud. According
>to a feature story last Saturday's Toronto Globe and Mail, "German
>parliamentarians yesterday passes a law making it illegal to deny the
>murder of more than six million Jews by the Nazis.
As reported, it sounds like someone who said "The Nazis killed 5.7
million Jews" would be doing something illegal. Does anyone know what
the law actually says?
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Wed May 25 06:13:28 EDT 1994
Article: 1766 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Neo-techno-conservatism
Date: 24 May 1994 18:09:29 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 60
Message-ID: <2rttup$jkt@panix.com>
References: <2rq0m6$8d6@panix.com> <2rtfb2$o6t@gabriel.keele.ac.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
cla04@cc.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear) writes:
>: Any comments on neo-techno-conservatism? By that I mean the view that
>: microchips, fiber optics and all the rest of it mean that centralized
>: systems of comunications and control are outmoded, so people will more
>: and more be able to avoid the exactions and do without the benefits of
>: large formal centralized systems like the modern state.
>
>I'm not sure that this is a sort of Conservatism that I like. While
>there is something to be said for cutting down on the bureaucratic
>aspects of the state, the idea of atomised grouplets is not very
>appealing. I suspect that what we would find is the growth of anomie,
>alienation and perhaps of violence based on intolerance - one good
>aspect of work is that you are forced to confront large numbers of very
>different people and get on with them, I for one would view working
>from home with horror. I have always regarded collectivities as
>preceding individual identity and creating it not vice versa.
The usual neo-tech con argument is one of neo-Marxist historical
inevitability -- the stage of development of the means of production
(microchips and fiber optics) determines the most efficient mode of
cooperation (radical decentralization), which is inevitably adopted and
determines everything else. They need some such "inevitable outcome of
the historical process" argument, because it doesn't seem likely that
the society they envision would be created by government bureaucrats or
voted into existence. That kind of argument also enables them to say
"it doesn't matter whether you like it or not, so get used to it".
I find it hard to evaluate the form of society envisioned, maybe
because I don't know how it would look. I suppose if it were ordered
entirely by the market you'd get anomie, alienation and random violence
because that's what you get when people experience the social
structures they live by as alien, and it's hard to have warm and cozy
feelings about the world market.
Presumably it wouldn't be ordered entirely by the market, because the
market can't take care of some wants and needs people have (rearing
children, the mechanics and pleasures of domestic life, support in the
face of uninsurable risks like unemployment) as well as other forms of
cooperation like the family. If the modern state were out of the
picture the family would have no competitors as an educational
institution or as the institution that gives people what they can't buy
with money, so it might be much stronger than at present. If so, then
I don't think anomie and alienation would be a problem. The society
would be radically familistic rather than individualistic. I'm not
sure intolerance would be a problem either, since the whole theory is
based on the notion that people are becoming more and more able to
avoid each other.
To my mind, the obvious problem is the end of a public world within
which things like science, scholarship and political action for the
common good can be carried on. I sometimes get the impression that's
happening anyway, though. Of course, another issue is whether any of
this speculation corresponds to things that are actually likely to
happen.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Wed May 25 06:13:29 EDT 1994
Article: 1768 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: cuckoldry
Date: 24 May 1994 22:06:20 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 17
Message-ID: <2rubqs$ns6@panix.com>
References: <1994May24.234003.1824@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <1994May24.234003.1824@news.cs.brandeis.edu> deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>"In about 5 percent of cases, genetic
>testing reveals the nonpaternity of a child's father - information that
>might shatter a marriage."
That still seems rather high to me -- it suggests that 10% of all wives
are currently having affairs, assuming lovers and husbands are equally
active and erring wives are no more careful with contraception with
their lovers than the average woman is with her husband. It would be
interesting to know who was tested to get the 5 percent and whether any
special categories account for a disproportionate share.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Thu May 26 15:57:10 EDT 1994
Article: 1771 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Neo-techno-conservatism
Date: 26 May 1994 15:56:52 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 91
Message-ID: <2s2uu4$jp7@panix.com>
References: <2rq0m6$8d6@panix.com> <94146.081721U24C1@wvnvm.wvnet.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Terry Rephann writes:
>>Any comments on neo-techno-conservatism? By that I mean the view that
>>microchips, fiber optics and all the rest of it mean that centralized
>>systems of comunications and control are outmoded, so people will more
>>and more be able to avoid the exactions and do without the benefits of
>>large formal centralized systems like the modern state.
>
>The same arguments were made when transportation improvements such as
>the railroads networks and interstate highways were on the drawing
>board. According to proponents, the new systems would chiefly
>encourage peripheral development. What happened, in fact, was (as Adam
>Smith predicted) the extension of markets. Certain goods and services
>could be manufactured cheaper at certain nodes where greater degrees of
>specialization are possible. Unfortunately, greater specialization
>begets greater specialization. Cities become bigger cities through a
>cumulative reinforcing process. Corporations become bigger corporations
>(not unlike municipalities).
The idea seems to be that continuing improvements in communication and
information handling don't keep producing the same results forever. In
particular, they need not have a constant effect with respect to
increasing organizational size and centralization. I believe, for
example, that the average worker has a smaller employer now than 30
years ago. (At least that's what all the claims about job growth in
small business and downsizing of large enterprises lead me to think.)
It is also my impression that there are no longer states that are losing
population, because it is now easier than in the past to integrate
activities anywhere into the productive process.
>Therefore, the basic effect of such programs is not pro-competitive.
>They lead to a greater degree of spatial polarization, expanding
>trusts, and the need for more 'public services' for the alienated
>masses.
If conditions are unpropitious for large-scale managed organizations,
and economic activity is carried on through markets that are too
flexible and mobile to be effectively regulated and taxed [I have no
idea if this "if" clause makes sense], then the public services won't be
provided and the alienated masses will be forced to develop other ways
of getting what they want and can't get on the market. The obvious
alternatives to large-scale managed organizations that are reliable
because their operations are prescribed by law (e.g. governments) are
small-scale informal organizations (e.g. families) that are reliable
because people are born into them and find it hard to leave them because
there's no place else for them to go. Therefore social standards and
morality will shift in the direction of familialism.
The idea seems to be that if communications, information processing and
markets were perfect no large-scale rational organization could survive
because if it were a consensual organization whatever it did could be
done better through the market, and if it were not consensual people
could outwit and avoid it. However, it would still be true that people
couldn't get through life without some organization they could rely on
for something beyond giving them what they pay for. The organization
that would survive in such a world would be the organization that
appeals the most strongly to the irrational instincts and loyalties
shared by the most people. Once it became accepted as the organization
you look to for things the market can't do for you, its position would
be very strong because if you didn't like it you would have no place
else to go for what it offers.
I'm sorry the foregoing is so vague and speculative, by the way. I'm
finding it hard to think these issues through.
>By the way, aren't most of these computer services provided by giant
>corporations such as AT&T, General Electric, and IBM? What happens if
>they decide to selectively start turning the switches off?
There are a lot more suppliers of communications and computer services
than there used to be. It seems to me that improved electronics does
mean more routes, channels and bands for communications. If you don't
like the phone company, you'll be able to send the message by microwave,
by cable TV, through the electric lines, by means of micro-seismic waves
in the Earth's mantle, whatever.
>The systems that are created will be much less personal and much more
>likely to facilitate the spread of rational loyalties such as binary
>logic. They will help destroy family and community life as thoroughly
>as did the TV and video game phenomena. If they do create informal
>networks, they won't be the kinds that C-Rs cherish.
The issue is what happens when the systems created by binary logic that
supply all needs that can be supplied through monetary exchange become
as impersonal as nature. Do people then proceed to create a new social
order to satisfy their remaining needs? If so, what would it look like?
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Fri May 27 16:16:33 EDT 1994
Article: 24852 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.radical-left
Subject: Re: Liberalism (was: The U.S. Postal Service...)
Date: 26 May 1994 20:40:38 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 28
Message-ID: <2s3fi6$dhc@panix.com>
References: <2rtmds$rjq@zip.eecs.umich.edu> <2rtnb6$ol0@ncar.ucar.edu> <2s30nl$pug@zip.eecs.umich.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:24852 talk.politics.misc:175396 alt.politics.libertarian:28639 alt.politics.radical-left:14367
carnes@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Richard Carnes) writes:
>a just society is one whose institutions treat each individual
>impartially as an end in himself or herself ... society's institutions,
>according to the egalitarian conception, should be designed to give
>*everyone* an equal opportunity to pursue a meaningful life, except to
>the extent that inequalities would benefit the least advantaged.
Joseph de Maistre finds meaning working toward a society based on Papal
supremacy. John Rawls finds meaning becoming famous, influential and
admired writing books and articles promoting the sort of society you
describe. Joe Blow finds meaning working very hard to make a lot of
money so he can engage in his real love, ocean racing. I take it that
liberals think Count de Maistre should be absolutely forbidden to
realize his goal, while Joe Blow should be allowed to pursue his as long
as he gives some of his hard earned cash to Professor Rawls, who is
allowed to devote all his efforts to pursuing his goal, gets his views
(in an ideal liberal world) adopted by the Supreme Court as the law of
the land, and also gets an income supplement from poor Joe because Joe
makes more money than he does.
In what way do liberals give Joseph, John and Joe an equal opportunity
to pursue a meaningful life?
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Mon May 30 16:23:30 EDT 1994
Article: 1774 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Complex federalism
Date: 30 May 1994 09:41:54 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 36
Message-ID: <2scqf2$1f1@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Another query: Can anyone suggest useful discussions of forms of
political organization suitable to a civilized society other than the
sovereign territorial state? The nightmare of CRs is a society ordered
only by abstract principles equally applicable to all and motivated by
goals of finite value. The modern state tends to bring forth that
nightmare. It recognizes nothing superior to itself that justifies it,
and so can justify itself only by making an absolute value out of its
characteristic activity, the subjection of human action to a coherent
body of rules. The rules can't be motivated by anything nobler than the
state itself, since the state recognizes no such thing, so their purpose
is chosen by default: the existence and power of the state itself, the
satisfaction of whatever purposes particular people happen to have, the
denial of the possibility that one purpose can be nobler than another.
In a federal system it seems there is no sovereign state. Each of the
states recognizes the federal system as superior, at least in some
respects, and the federal system recognizes its powers as limited and
the states collectively as its superior. The balance has been rather
hard to maintain, though. One could imagine an extension of federalism
in which there were both territorial and nonterritorial communities with
a political existence of their own, and possibly such an extended
federalism might have its advantages. In the Middle Ages I suppose the
clergy and the Jews constituted nonterritorial communities of
international scope, and others (guilds and estates) were important at
least locally or within particular territorial states. No doubt more
examples could be found in other parts of the world (millets in the
Muslim world? castes in India?). I know nothing about corporatist or
sydicalist theories, but possibly they may also be relevant.
Any suggestions?
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Mon May 30 16:23:33 EDT 1994
Article: 6162 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Liberalism and our response
Date: 30 May 1994 07:15:07 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 92
Message-ID: <2schrr$l5d@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
I wrote the following to clarify my own thoughts, and am posting it on
the chance that someone may find it useful or worth commenting on.
If someone is badly off and it appears that the government can do
something for him and spread the cost among those who are better off,
the liberal view is that it should be done. The refusal to do so, in
the liberal view, is either a case of blaming the victim, a willful
refusal to redress injustice, an obscurantist denial that the failure
of government to act is also an action to be judged morally, or an
assertion (unproveable but convenient for those who benefit from the
status quo) that nothing should be done to correct the evil because the
attempt might make something else worse.
If the liberal view is right, then conservatism lacks adequate
justification and so must be accounted for on non-rational grounds. The
explanation may be more or less generous, depending on the liberal, but
a common explaination is that conservatives are creepy. Their true
principles are greed, love of domination, and irrational prejudice and
hatred. They are at best indifferent to the suffering of others, and
more often draw actual pleasure from inflicting pain on those less
fortunate than themselves. They lack the capacity to enjoy things
simply and directly, and so wish to destroy pleasures that they envy and
cannot share.
Conservatives naturally disagree. However, it is difficult for them to
counter such views with arguments that concede that the function of
government is to promote the good of society and individuals however it
can. Big-government conservatism doesn't work. If case-by-case policy
considerations are the only restraints on the scope of government
activity, then the straightforward thing for well-meaning people to do
in an uncertain and fluid world is to let the government deal directly
with everything that seems a clear and concrete evil and leave any
remote and uncertain consequences for another day. The result will be
that the responsibilities of government will expand without limit.
It follows that conservatives need more than anything to make the case
for constitutional principles that limit the authority and
responsibility of government. It's easier to say that than to know how
to do it effectively, of course. The clearest reason for favoring
constitutionalism is that in its absence modern society will eventually
disintegrate into an all-powerful centralized government on the one hand
and isolated and powerless individuals on the other. Unfortunately,
people whose livelihood and status depend on politics and government
usually don't want to hear about constitutional limitations that would
reduce their own power and importance. Nor do remote consequences
motivate ordinary people to become active in politics as effectively as
the prospect of immediate benefits. So the people who are most
interested in politics are not likely to be receptive to the case for
conservative constitutionalism. Nonetheless, that case must be made.
At one time, limited government was an accepted political principle in
the United States, but it's not much talked about now. The limitations
on the power of government discussed today are not intended to guard the
independence and authority of social institutions other than government
(e.g., subsidiary governments, businesses, churches, educational and
civic institutions, private property, the family). Rather, they are
limitations on the power of government to recognize and cooperate with
such institutions. For example, the religion clause of the First
Amendment has been used to keep religious organizations and even
motivations out of public life and the Fourteenth Amendment has been
used in a variety of ways to transfer power from states and localities
to the federal government. The things that today are viewed as
limitations on government are thus the reverse of what is needed. Far
from restraining government, they have the effect of promoting the
concentration of all power and authority in a single all-powerful state
because they tend to weaken social institutions other than government.
What then can we do? We can certainly present arguments more forcefully
and more intelligently than we do now. We can argue that salvation is
not to be achieved through political action, debunk the notion of social
justice and show what must be destroyed by attempts to bring it about,
and emphasize the dangers of centralization so that political discussion
will have to take them into account. More positively, we can promote
love of family, property, federalism, and the traditions of one's own
place and people, and defend those attachments against accusations of
greed and bigotry. But agitation and propaganda alone are unlikely to
be successful as long as the proportion of politically active people
with a strong personal interest in expanding the scope and power of
government is as large as it is. Accordingly, conservatives must change
that proportion. The obvious means for doing so are taking part in
politics ourselves, and pushing tax reductions in order to reduce the
number of those dependent on government for their livelihood and give
people generally a stake in reducing the size of government. The three
primary goals of conservatives at present, then, must be public
education, personal political involvement, and tax reduction.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Tue May 31 05:33:18 EDT 1994
Article: 6166 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: Liberalism and our response
Date: 30 May 1994 22:05:59 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 72
Message-ID: <2se627$8nl@panix.com>
References: <2schrr$l5d@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt) writes:
>>If someone is badly off and it appears that the government can do
>>something for him and spread the cost among those who are better off,
>>the liberal view is that it should be done.
>
>Although I daresay there are liberals who believe in this, in and
>of itself, I would dispute that it is "the liberal view". It is
>a frequent consequence of the liberal view, but I think there's
>a little more underneath the sentiment than that. It might fit
>a bit better if it were clear that the "badly off" and "better
>off" apply to liberties and opportunities as much as if not more
>than to financial conditions.
Let it be clear, then. The liberal theory, as I understand it, is that
being badly off financially is simply one case (although a very
important case) of lacking the liberties and opportunities other people
have, and that inequalities of liberty or opportunity call in general
for remedial government action when such action is possible. (I
suppose I could claim all that was clear in what I wrote, by asserting
that "cost" includes the burden of restrictions such as
anti-discrimination laws imposed for the benefit of persons other than
oneself. If you're inclined to credit such a claim, by all means treat
it as made.)
>> The refusal to do so, in
>>the liberal view, is either a case of blaming the victim, a willful
>>refusal to redress injustice, an obscurantist denial that the failure
>>of government to act is also an action to be judged morally, or an
>>assertion (unproveable but convenient for those who benefit from the
>>status quo) that nothing should be done to correct the evil because the
>>attempt might make something else worse.
>
>The first two seem to happen often but not always. The third I
>haven't seen.
I saw it at least touched on very recently in talk.politics.theory, I
think somewhere in Calvin Ostrum's posts, where he felt called on to
argue that lassez faire is a policy like any other. I used to hear the
denial of a distinction between state action and state inaction all the
time in law school from proponents of the activist state like Bruce
Ackerman.
>The last requires measures of better and worse, of course; but many
>people choose those measures that preserve their privilege. This is
>not to say that accusations are always right, or anything stupid like
>that (but then, this isn't an exhaustive list); but you can't just say
>that victims are never blamed, etc.
Sure. One of the points of my post was that on the face of it the
charges have a great deal of plausibility.
>Well, the liberal view IMHO is that we live in a world with
>great inequality of liberty, opportunity, and generosity.
I think that the specifically liberal view is not that such inequalities
exist, but that they are the moral feature of the world that calls for
the most attention.
>Conservatism has to address the questions of whether changes
>intended to repair these will make things better or worse,
>and what the grounds for believing their answers will be.
A main point of my post was that if those questions are treated as
matters of ordinary policy ("shall I as a government official with a lot
of discretion give this lady who seems to have lots of problems some
money?") the answers will tend to be liberal.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Tue May 31 19:45:34 EDT 1994
Article: 1777 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Complex federalism
Date: 31 May 1994 06:01:57 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 27
Message-ID: <2sf1ul$14j@panix.com>
References: <2scqf2$1f1@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
jabowery@netcom.com (Jim Bowery) writes:
>> Can anyone suggest useful discussions of forms of
>> political organization suitable to a civilized society other than the
>> sovereign territorial state?
>
>Yes, individual sovereignty.
>
>There is reason to believe that prechristian northern european culture
>had a social contract which recognized the individual's right to
>challenge another to a "fair fight" (which became the duel) -- thereby
>breaking the monopoly on force that is the foundation of the modern state.
The records of that culture I am aware of (like _Beowulf_ and the
Icelandic sagas) show societies with constant feuds, intergroup warfare,
and raids for booty on outsiders. No doubt it was better than our own
culture in many ways, but I'm not sure it would be the best thing for us
to aim at. Also, I'm not sure how great a density of population it
could support, so getting there might be much less than half the fun.
Do you know of any extended speculations as to what a modern society
based on individual sovereignty might look like?
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Tue May 31 19:45:40 EDT 1994
Article: 33897 of bit.listserv.catholic
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.catholic
Subject: Re: EEOC to ban religious articles... (long)
Date: 31 May 1994 09:45:41 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 23
Message-ID: <2sff25$2ju@panix.com>
References: <2sev9v$jbs@tierra.santafe.ede>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
>>I pretty much think this it what is
>>going to happen: discrimination in hiring (e.g. "help wanted -- no
>>Jews") will be forbidden, and some extreme cases of workplace
>>harassment will be regulated (e.g., my hypothetical superior who
>>demands that the employee attend the superior's church or be
>>fired), but other than that the law won't be involved.
>To what extent do these laws apply in regard to jobs which would require
>a specific religious belief - e.g. a caretaker in a church or a teacher
>in a Catholic school?
How about an establishment (a farm, for example) that only takes on
workers that are of a particular religion, insists that they attend and
actively participate in services at the superior's church several times
a day, supervises their lives in great detail in accordance with the
superior's religious principles, and engages in blatant sex
discrimination to boot. Such an establishment would be clearly
illegal, right?
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Tue May 31 19:45:41 EDT 1994
Article: 33963 of bit.listserv.catholic
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.catholic
Subject: Re: EEOC to ban religious articles... (long)
Date: 31 May 1994 13:14:28 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 27
Message-ID: <2sfr9k$m93@panix.com>
References: <2sev9v$jbs@tierra.santafe.ede>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
>: To what extent do these laws apply in regard to jobs which would require
>: a specific religious belief - e.g. a caretaker in a church or a teacher
>: in a Catholic school?
>They don't apply at all. Religious organizations are exempt.
What's a religious organization? Discrimination or internal compulsion
in religious matters would normally demonstrate a religious purpose, I
should think, and so on the face of it the exemption you mention should
leave laws against religious discrimination and harassment not much to
apply to.
Suppose, for example, Joe's Department Store only hires Baptists,
requires attendence at employee prayer meetings and fires people who
don't attend Sunday services at the local Baptist church. When asked
about his policies, Joe reads from the employee manual: "The purpose of
Joe's Department Store is to demonstrate that an organization operated
on Christian principles by the faithful can provide for the material
needs of its owners and employees and serve the public while providing
a setting for owners and employees to help each other grow as
Christians in a Christian community". Is Joe's an exempt religious
organization?
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Tue May 31 19:45:43 EDT 1994
Article: 34021 of bit.listserv.catholic
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.catholic
Subject: Re: EEOC to ban religious articles...
Date: 31 May 1994 17:09:03 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 25
Message-ID: <2sg91f$bpf@panix.com>
References: <2sev9v$jbs@tierra.santafe.ede> <2sff25$2ju@panix.com> <1994May31.134145.32870@hulaw1.harvard.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <1994May31.134145.32870@hulaw1.harvard.edu> hemr@hulaw1.harvard.edu (Kurt Wm. Hemr, Harvard Law School) writes:
>> How about an establishment (a farm, for example) that only takes on
>> workers that are of a particular religion, insists that they attend and
>> actively participate in services at the superior's church several times
>> a day, supervises their lives in great detail in accordance with the
>> superior's religious principles, and engages in blatant sex
>> discrimination to boot. Such an establishment would be clearly
>> illegal, right?
>Not if the farm were a monastic community or something similar. There
>are exceptions for those types of institutions built in to the fair
>employment act (indeed, the 1st Am. would require such exceptions).
Why aren't the features I described (leaving aside the sex
discrimination, which I just threw in) enough to make the farm
sufficiently similar to a monastery to qualify for 1st Am. protection?
Patently its purpose is to establish a setting in which a voluntary
group can live its life in accordance with particular religious
conceptions.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Jun 1 14:08:22 EDT 1994
Article: 34111 of bit.listserv.catholic
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.catholic
Subject: Re: EEOC to ban religious articles...
Date: 1 Jun 1994 06:05:03 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 24
Message-ID: <2shmgf$l15@panix.com>
References: <2sev9v$jbs@tierra.santafe.ede> <2sff25$2ju@panix.com> <1994May31.134145.32870@hulaw1.harvard.edu> <2sg91f$bpf@panix.com> <1994May31.194706.32883@hulaw1.harvard.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <1994May31.194706.32883@hulaw1.harvard.edu> hemr@hulaw1.harvard.edu (Kurt Wm. Hemr, Harvard Law School) writes:
>Basically, these questions aren't neatly resolved by the
>law because they just don't come up that much.
You mean there's a neat resolution in principle, but they haven't
bothered putting it in the law because from a practical standpoint it
hasn't been worth the effort?
The job opportunities
>provided by quasi-monastic communities aren't so desirable that there
>are people knocking down the doors with injunctions demanding to be
>considered for employment -- usually people want to live in those
>communities because of their religious beliefs, not because they are
>looking to advance their careers.
My Joe's Department Store wasn't a quasi-monastic community. It was
like any other store except that only active churchgoing Baptists who
participate in company prayer meetings could work there.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Jun 2 09:13:17 EDT 1994
Article: 1781 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Neo-techno-conservatism
Date: 1 Jun 1994 15:29:52 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 58
Message-ID: <2sinjg$hs2@panix.com>
References: <94146.081721U24C1@wvnvm.wvnet.edu> <2s2uu4$jp7@panix.com> <94152.083543U24C1@wvnvm.wvnet.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Terry Rephann writes:
>these smaller firms can't compete without reaching some critical mass
>of marketing capability
Presumably, lower information costs would make the critical mass easier
to reach.
>It's ultimately a political question, not a economic or technological
>one. According to a recent article in _Economic Development Quarterly_
>by Bennett Harrison, the tendency in the U.S. is toward mass production
>and larger firms. Evidently, the political questions have been
>resolved in favor of the large firms.
Obviously the government would prefer larger firms, since they make it
easier to enforce compliance with government policy. That seems to me
something on which the government will have trouble getting its druthers
in the long run. Perhaps I should look at the things you cite, though.
>the transactions costs involved in information exchange may become so
>low that familiar relations become obsolete. Some aspects of family
>relations are economic--they provide ways for individuals to hedge
>against uncertainty and change. If the risk and informational
>functions of families atrophy then we could see them replaced by purely
>economic networks.
The uninsurability of some risks doesn't depend on information costs,
though. Unemployment is an example of an economic risk that is
uninsurable because it is too much a moral risk. Also, I don't think a
purely contractual approach would work for raising children, which is an
activity that has its economic side.
>The family will, no doubt, survive. But, I suspect it will
>increasingly be coopted in those areas where economic relations are
>predominant.
Even if the welfare state is abandoned? That's an essential part of
neo-techno-con theory, as I understand it. If the welfare state goes,
I suppose the key is how much can be contracted for and insured
against.
I'm not sure, but it seems to me that in the future, even with lower
information costs, limitations on what can be done by contract will
become increasingly apparent. It seems to me, for example, that in
general honesty and reliability are not things that can be effectually
contracted or insured for because there are too many people who are
judgment proof and because it can be hard to enforce a contract when the
other party is a skilled perjurer. So in the hi-tech binary logic world
of the future, in which the common social morality formerly associated
with institutions that no longer exist has been replaced by contractual
arrangements designed to be easily enforceable, maybe all businesses
will be family businesses because people will feel they can't trust
employees who aren't relatives.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Jun 2 09:13:24 EDT 1994
Article: 6178 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: A right-wing analysis of discrimination
Date: 1 Jun 1994 18:07:01 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 106
Message-ID: <2sj0q5$rm9@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Another piece composed for my own benefit, posted on the chance someone
might find it of interest or worthy of comment.
The things classified as racism, sexism, homophobia and the like
arise from the human tendency to feel kinship on account of common
membership in groups with characteristic attitudes, perceptions,
habits, experiences, affiliations, and so on. When membership carries
with it benefits of some sort and the groups are ones that are
difficult or impossible for outsiders to enter, nonmembers often object
to being treated as such. The accepted view today seems to be that
willing failure to remove the grounds for such objections is an
inexcusable moral failing.
There are several possible methods of eliminating, neutralizing or
reducing the effects of discrimination of the sort objected to. All
have major problems:
1. The "affirmative action" approach is to equalize benefits for
all groups. Such equalization is hard to achieve, however. One problem
is that benefits arise from what the members of a group do as well as
what is done to them, so attempts to equalize them create resentments
and, by their further effects on perceptions and behavior, create new
distinctions that then also have to be equalized. If blacks are
guaranteed an equal share of jobs and honors then non-blacks competing
for the remaining jobs and honors will be resentful, talented blacks
will feel less need to compete and their performance will suffer, and
any honorable distinction will confer less honor on a black than on
another person receiving it because the common view will be that it
stands for less.
2. The strict antidiscrimination/equal opportunity approach is to
forbid people to act on feelings of kinship based on common group
membership, at least if the group is determined to be a privileged one.
A problem with this method is that people feel membership in groups of
the kind in question is part of what makes them what they are. That is
why discrimination can be painful, but it is also why it is an extreme
measure to tell people that in the common practical affairs of life
they can't associate by preference with those they view as their
fellows.
Such feelings of kinship are often called irrational or worse, but
calling them that doesn't make it reasonable to ignore or try to abolish
them. Man is a social animal, and his good is typically realized
through participation in communities tied together by common history,
beliefs, habits, attitudes, and the like. It is just such ties that
give rise to loyalties of the kind that antidiscrimination laws require
people to ignore. Accordingly, such laws by their nature require people
to ignore and deny affiliations of the kind that facilitate attaining
their good.
For example, different groups have different standards regarding
intangible things that determine how institutions subject to
antidiscrimination laws function: manners and courtesy; honesty, good
faith and loyalty; the relative importance of organizational harmony,
profit, public spirit, and personal goals; the appropriate relationship
between authority and individual initiative and between rules and their
exceptions. (The list could be extended.) The standards of no one
group can be taken as a universal ideal, but if there are no particular
accepted standards within an organization the organization is likely to
become more a place for misunderstanding, conflict and self-seeking
than for effective cooperation carried on in a manner and spirit that
fits it to be part of a good life for those involved. Accordingly,
every successful organization must be particularistic in the sense that
it must have its own accepted ways. Since the ways of any organization
will be far more compatible with the ways of some groups than others,
it is hard to see how the organization could avoid being more
hospitable to people from compatible groups than to others without
undercutting the basis of its own success.
3. The libertarian approach is to reduce government regulation.
This approach will sometimes reduce the amount or effect of
discrimination if the government has required discrimination or has
otherwise made it difficult for people to enter into relationships they
view as advantageous. For example, governments sometimes in effect
promote discrimination by imposing professional licensing requirements
or supporting trade unions. However, this approach will not eliminate
discrimination, if only because discrimination is often functional, and
it tends to require government to treat discrimination as legitimate
conduct when enforcing contracts and property rights. Accordingly, to
accept this approach is to abandon the view that discrimination is by
nature a gross evil that should be eradicated.
It is not altogether clear why discrimination on racial and similar
grounds is considered so profoundly and disgracefully wrong today. It
is said to deny the human dignity of those discriminated against, but
that seems clearly wrong. We all pick and choose our associates, for
good reasons and bad, without necessarily denying the human dignity of
those we reject. It is said to inflict material and emotional damage on
those discriminated against, but so does discrimination on any other
grounds, and prohibiting discrimination also causes damage since it
forbids people to carry on the way of life they prefer in the community
to which they are attached. Also, to be the object of discrimination is
to be challenged to develop one's own community and way of life, while
to be a member of a disadvantaged group protected from discrimination
can be to see one's own group and way of life disintegrate as its most
active and capable members leave it. Contemplation of the history of
the Jews since emancipation or since arrival in America or of Jews and
blacks since the late 1960s need not lead to the conclusion that
restraints on discrimination are always favorable to the group that had
been burdened.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Jun 2 09:13:28 EDT 1994
Article: 34209 of bit.listserv.catholic
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.catholic
Subject: Re: EEOC to ban religious articles...
Date: 1 Jun 1994 15:23:33 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 16
Message-ID: <2sin7l$g65@panix.com>
References: <2sev9v$jbs@tierra.santafe.ede> <2sff25$2ju@panix.com> <2shmgf$l15@panix.com> <1994Jun1.134954.32892@hulaw1.harvard.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <1994Jun1.134954.32892@hulaw1.harvard.edu> hemr@hulaw1.harvard.edu (Kurt Wm. Hemr, Harvard Law School) writes:
>> My Joe's Department Store wasn't a quasi-monastic community. It was
>> like any other store except that only active churchgoing Baptists who
>> participate in company prayer meetings could work there.
>This is an exam question, not an example of a typical real life scenario.
I was misled then. I thought early on someone mentioned requiring
membership or attendance at a particular church as a clear example of
something the EEOC guidelines would be aimed at.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Jun 2 18:54:57 EDT 1994
Article: 1785 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Neo-techno-conservatism
Date: 2 Jun 1994 10:10:37 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 63
Message-ID: <2skp8t$t1k@panix.com>
References: <94152.083543U24C1@wvnvm.wvnet.edu> <2sinjg$hs2@panix.com> <94153.070930U24C1@wvnvm.wvnet.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Terry Rephann writes:
>>Also, I don't think a
>>purely contractual approach would work for raising children, which is an
>>activity that has its economic side.
>
>I'm not so sure about this. Boarding schools and Nannies have been
>doing these things for years.
Could they be mass-marketed, though? In the old English system a
wealthy and well-placed class with coherent standards and strong family
feeling had a quite definite institutionalized way of raising their
children that didn't require much day-to-day parental involvement. I'm
not sure anything similar could be set up in the free-to-be-you-and-me
consumer society. There's also the matter of expense.
>Children are bought and sold in adoption and black markets. A Uterus
>can be rented to the highest bidder for test-tube pregnancies. NPR
>reported this morning about a Swiss millionaire who would provide
>$2,900 per month to a women who birthed and raised his first child.
Sounds expensive and not much fun, so I don't think it will sweep the
nation. If you're going to hire people to bear and look after your
kids, and you don't live in a society where continuing the family is a
prime value, why bother?
>I'm assuming that the state is able to raise enough revenue for its
>operations and still have enough left over for transfers.
One theory on this is that economic activity will become mobile enough
to avoid taxes by hiding, moving to another jurisdiction, restructuring
in a form that isn't taxed, and so on. Another is that the techno-flexo
economy of the future will reward energy and cleverness enough to create
a large class of energetic, clever, and very rich people who will be
able to control the state in their own interests. On a less speculative
plane, it appears that over time redistributive policies require more
and more redistribution to maintain any particular minimum level of
welfare, so in the long run it won't be possible to base a social order
on them.
>I think that honesty and reliability can be contracted for. Like
>registered mail delivery from the U.S. Postal Service, however, it
>costs a lot more.
I think that's usually right. But the large extra costs will lead
people to value institutions that provide reliability cheaply.
Presumably those will be institutions that feature long-term connections
that are difficult to opt out of.
>What are the effects of the new informational technologies on trust?
>That's a tough question. Under certain circumstances, they might
>improve trust. It all depends on the behavior of the other.
I suppose better informational technologies mean less need for trust, so
habits of trustworthiness will be less cultivated. On the other hand,
they also mean it will be easier to check up on people, so maybe habits
of dishonesty will also be less cultivated. As you say, it is an
interesting question.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Jun 3 06:10:48 EDT 1994
Article: 6183 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: A right-wing analysis of discrimination
Date: 2 Jun 1994 22:25:05 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 229
Message-ID: <2sm4a1$a7i@panix.com>
References: <2sj0q5$rm9@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt) writes:
>There is an ethos in society that favours the idea of meritocracy, of
>Horatio Alger working his way up, of any person having the potential to
>achieve the presidency if they try hard enough.
I'm not sure about the U.K., but over here that's rather a right-wing
notion (not as right-wing as my notions, but right-wing nonetheless).
The emphasis over here has definitively shifted, I think, to
inclusiveness and diversity rather than meritocracy. I think of Bill
Clinton's "cabinet that looks like America", which he apparently thought
was a mass-market selling point, and a pronouncement I just read on
diversity from my wife's employer, a major bank, in which they say that
their goal is to have their personnel reflect the society they do
business in and to develop an appreciation of the different sorts of
contributions different sorts of people can make. As a practical matter
it's hard to avoid such an approach, since from the standpoint of the
U.S. civil rights laws there's no good way to explain away a workforce
that's not reasonably similar in composition to the pool of eligible
workers. Therefore employers and other institutions have to emphasize
inclusiveness over meritocracy, and if an institution has to do
something that superior authority tells it is good it develops an
ideology that says the thing is good.
I suppose there's also a question as to how devoted most people ever
were to meritocracy. I would imagine it was always strongest as an
ideal among people in skilled professions who considered career the most
important thing in their lives, and that's not everyone. "The best man
should get the job" is a principle most people would assent to, I agree,
but people assent to lots of things they won't stick to if they see
something else that matters more to them. For example, most people
would also prefer to work with people they feel they have a lot in
common with personally and who they think will fit in with their
fellows, and would consider that a good basis for a hiring decision.
>This depends on a lack of the cliquishness you describe in particular
>kinds of human relationships, in particular those having to do with
>commercial/professional actions. Anything interfering with this is
>seen to be immoral, as you note; but this realm of interaction is
>carefully separated from that of personal, private goings on. It is
>true that such a division is (to a large extent) a fiction, a clear and
>bright line drawn over a muddy continuum (much as the age of majority
>distinguishes the "mature" from the "immature"); but in non-borderline
>cases, most people have a good sense of when personal characteristics
>should be taken into account in favouring individuals, and when they
>should not.
I can't help but wonder why if all this is so, and people in general
agree on what they should and shouldn't do, the broad construction and
vigorous enforcement of civil rights laws is seen as such an important
duty of government.
>As far as I can tell, the overall consensus among blacks is that
>discrimination is still so widespread that they are not concerned with
>second-order effects like feeling less need to compete, or receiving
>less honour. They feel that even when talented, they are forcing their
>way against an opposing current; even when honour is due them it is
>offered only grudgingly.
I think that is indeed how they feel. If the second-order effects are
real, how likely is it that they will ever feel differently?
It seems to me bad to have the career success of blacks depend on
programs that are just only if it's assumed that they're not ever going
to run into people who'll give them a fair shake. In order to view his
own life and successes as justified every prominent black will have to
tell himself that whites generally have been against him.
>The question of resentment is harder, but again the sentiment I've
>heard is that it is not the AA causing resentment so much as providing
>a (legitimizing) focus for a pre-existing bias. Whether this is true I
>don't know, but it has a certain plausibility.
If you think AA is just, that's the sentiment you'll have. AA is needed
because whites are biased, and if you want proof of how biased whites
are just look at how much they object to AA.
>Again, here we have to look at the kinds of interactions in question,
>and the harm caused by interference vs. non-interference. Nobody would
>try to tell anyone who their friends had to be; but systematically
>excluding people from opportunities to advance themselves has to be
>considered unfair. It is the large grey area in the middle that causes
>so much grief; I don't think there is a general principle that allows
>us to rule one way or the other every time.
Suppose all civil rights laws were repealed. How much systematic
exclusion would be possible? To take the case of blacks, there are 30
million of them in the U.S. and enough whites who don't mind mixing with
them that civil rights laws can get passed. So who would do the
excluding? Even if no American whites at all wanted to have economic
dealings with blacks, markets and economic processes have gotten far
more flexible and far harder to exclude people from in the past 25
years. On the face of it, 30 million blacks who are surrounded by
whites who don't want anything to do with them would be no worse off
than 2.5 million Singaporeans who are surrounded by water, and Singapore
is thriving. It's worth noting, by the way, that the economic condition
of blacks improved steadily from WWII until the late '60s, when the
civil rights laws and the War on Poverty were first taking hold, and
since then has on the whole stagnated (there are more black
professionals but also a bigger black underclass).
>In the larger, communal sense, allowing a group to exclude cannot be
>justified if it causes undue harm to those excluded (and of course
>"undue" is where the trouble starts). We have to try to characterize
>those forms of bonding that are positive, both in themselves and for
>society as a whole, and contrast them with bonds that although positive
>for the people concerned, cause so much damage elsewhere. This is a
>somewhat utilitarian approach, I suppose; but the sense of belonging
>that a group of skinheads achieve with one another when they join in
>kicking a helpless victim is not one that we can afford to tolerate.
I would say that sex role differentiation and bonding on ethnic and
religious grounds are necessary to a society that anyone would want to
live in. Sex role differentiation because practically speaking that's
the only way most children will ever get raised decently, and ethnic and
religious bonding because that's how communities maintain and develop a
way of life that goes beyond individual self-interest.
As to paki-bashing by skinheads, we can agree it should be suppressed.
You don't need civil rights laws to do that though. Old-fashioned laws
against assault and battery are good enough.
>there is a surprisingly wide and shared view of what "decent" behaviour
>and respect consist of, even though these may be reflected in a wide
>variety of actions. An organization built upon fear and scorn will
>always generate resentment; one built upon concern and honour will tend
>to build loyalty, even if individual rules of behaviour are misguided
>and biased.
Sure. Everyone agrees, for example, that politeness and loyalty are
good things, but what they demand specifically differs greatly from
group to group. An ethnic group is a bunch of people who have lived
together for a long time and so have developed particular modes of
cooperation (like particular standards of loyalty and politeness). On
average, people who have grown up with a common mode of cooperation will
work together with less friction and irritation than those who don't.
In the U.S. we are always hearing about businesses looking for ways to
meet the challenge of diversity. Colleges here are now having freshmen
show up a week or so early for special training in how not to offend
each other, and a number of them have instituted speech codes for the
same purpose. Schoolchildren are subjected to nonstop propaganda about
race relations and so on (actually, that's not quite true since schools
also need time for antismoking and environmentalist propaganda). Why
wouldn't things work better if we forgot about all the reeducation and
allowed people to stay out of each other's way by separating to the
extent they want to do so? In places like Switzerland or the Balkans
where there is some geographic separation of ethnic groups people think
granting local autonomy is a good way to reduce friction. Why not apply
the same principle of allowing groups to separate and run their own
affairs to a place like New York City? You speak of exclusion, but NYC
is far too diverse for anyone to exclude anybody from anything. It's
more a matter of people trying to establish islands on which life can go
forward in a way the inhabitants agree makes sense.
>Surely the reason discrimination is considered so wrong is because it
>has a long history of doing exactly that: denying human dignity.
So does government, but we need it. If you believe discrimination is
illegitimate because it sometimes causes damage and has no positive
function, you should think through just what the world would look like
if discrimination on grounds like ethnicity, religion and sex were
eradicated. For starters, there would be no cultural standards for
anything whatever, because cultures are ethnic and religious and to
treat any cultural standard as authoritative is to discriminate in favor
of a particular ethnic and religous group and to stigmatize all others
as inferior and wrong.
>Furthermore, whenever it crops up, it still seems to do so. The
>motives of those who discriminate seem, generally, not to be the high
>and mighty desires to pick the best, but rather the base wish to
>exclude, to deny others opportunities for no reason other than to gain
>a cheap sense of superiority. It doesn't have to be that way; but the
>practice is so consistent that suspicion is not unjustified as a rule
>of thumb.
That's not my impression of what had been going on in the publicized
cases I'm aware of (mostly those leading to civil rights proceedings).
You seem to think it a very rare occurance for someone simply to prefer
to work with people whose background is similar to his own. I don't
understand that. People are more likely to marry those with a similar
ethnic, religious and class background than others. Plainly, that is
not solely for the sake of a cheap sense of superiority. Part of the
reason may well be that people simply prefer to be with people who are
like themselves in those respects, and usually find it easier, other
things being equal, to work closely for long periods with such people.
If that's so, then such considerations would be relevant to employment
decisions and I don't see why it would be so rare for people actually
to act on them. It's also worth mentioning that since the
mid-nineteenth century when new countries have been created the people
who drew the borders have engaged in ethnic discrimination by
attempting to draw the borders between ethnic communities. Was that
also for the sake of cheap thrills or did someone have something
public-spirited in mind? If it can be public-spirited to separate
ethnic groups by drawing borders, why is it wicked to allow them
voluntarily to separate themselves from others within a state to the
extent they like it that way?
>Do you remember the experiments where classes were divided into blue-
>eyed and brown-eyed people, and one group was told they were better
>than the other? Do you think the "lower" group benefited by being put
>in a position where they were "challenged"?
There's no real challenge if there's no real group with a heritage and
way of life that add something irreplaceable to the world and so are
worth preserving and developing. I take it that is not true of brown-
eyed people but it is (for example) of blacks and Jews. The challenge I
had in mind, by the way, is not a gratuitous hardship like black slavery
or laws excluding Jews from most occupations. Rather, it is a sense on
the part of the discriminating group that the other group is different
and incompatible in some way. Therefore, in a libertarian world (which
is the one I prefer on this point) it would be up to the other group to
define what it is and make its way in accordance with its own
capabilities and view of things.
>As for the best leaving, you would have to argue the causal
>relationship; do people leave *because* of the protection? Or rather,
>do they leave because, despite the protection, they are well aware of
>residual discrimination, and are doing their best to get to a point
>where this doesn't hold them back?
Obviously, the people who leave think that for a number of reasons they
are thereby advancing their own overall good. The point of my comment
was that something valuable is lost, not that nothing is gained.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Jun 5 18:36:37 EDT 1994
Article: 6186 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: A right-wing analysis of discrimination
Date: 4 Jun 1994 08:19:51 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 83
Message-ID: <2sprh7$t8@panix.com>
References: <2sm4a1$a7i@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt) writes:
>Inclusiveness and diversity don't have to be at the expense of merit;
>the argument is that over the long term, they actually enhance it,
>since people are not so isolated from other sections of society that
>they reject people on the basis of non-merit-related differences.
It's been a long time since that argument has been used much. The idea
of "merit", I think, is the idea that functions can be rationally
defined and the best person chosen for the function in accordance with
impersonal criteria. The problem with that idea from an equality
t(standpoint is that when attempts are made actually to carry it out (for
example by developing job-related aptitude tests) some ethnic groups do
far better than others. So now the line tends to be that diverse
characteristics in a workforce is intrinsically a source of strength and
it is the job of management to use it creatively. Not exactly a
meritocratic line, although I agree it includes a claim that
inclusiveness and diversity can promote organizational goals other than
themselves as long as management is doing its job.
>Every prominent black will have met many incidences of prejudice, and
>form opinions on that basis; why should the presence or absence of
>programs have much effect when contrasted with a lifetime of dealing
>with people?
Most incidents can be interpreted in a variety of ways, and people
choose the interpretation that fits their overall undestanding of how
the world works. AA programs dispose their beneficiaries, for the sake
of their own self-esteem, to favor a particular understanding of how the
world works.
>look at the arguments against AA. You notice that none of them attempt
>to deal with the residual discrimination that you see in people's
>behaviour. After all, that behaviour was present before AA ever came
>on the scene, and it's the sort of thing that takes a long time to die
>away...
For AA to have an important function you need more than some residual
discrimination. To get a job and advance you don't need every employer
to be willing to treat you equally, you only need one. It seems to me
the libertarian arguments regarding the effects of free markets on
discrimination work unless the propensity to discriminate is strong and
pervasive. That's plainly the belief, though. If what AA mostly does
is undo discrimination and it requires major changes in every
organization to which it is applicable then there must be lots of
discrimination everywhere, even in institutions where one would not
have expected to find it.
>I have nothing against religious and ethnic bonding, but don't see
>either as necessary for the preservation of a culture, which I see as
>far more important for the stability of a community than either.
Religious and ethnic groups are the bearers of culture, though. That's
why "multiculturalism" is one of the antidiscrimination buzzwords.
>There is a difference between discrimination in the workplace (and
>common places in general) and that level of non-discrimination which
>eradicates cultures.
Don't agree. A culture is a shared way of life people grow up with
that includes the values and standards a group takes most seriously,
such as those that determine the group's style of living together. I
don't see how much can be left of it if it can't govern anything of
public concern. Suppose the population of Newcastle were a quarter
English, a quarter Chinese, a quarter Hindu, and a quarter Zulu, and
antidiscrimination laws required diversity (roughly equal
representation) on the part of every employer, every educational
institution, every media organization, every public agency and every
provider of housing. What do you think would happen to English,
Chinese, Hindu and Zulu culture in Newcastle?
>People don't use the same criteria for choosing marriage partners
>as they use in choosing compatible workmates, as far as I can tell.
Really? I agree they are not identical, but when you choose a marriage
partner you are among other things choosing someone you are going to
have to work closely with for a long time under circumstances that can
become difficult. The criteria don't seem unconnected to me. Also, it
seems to me the "marriage partner as workmate" approach would be
strongest among traditional types, who are also the ones most likely to
marry within their ethnic group and religion.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Sunt lacrimae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt.
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Jun 7 07:05:05 EDT 1994
Article: 6188 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: A right-wing analysis of discrimination
Date: 5 Jun 1994 21:14:13 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 128
Message-ID: <2stt95$mbm@panix.com>
References: <2sprh7$t8@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt) writes:
>I don't trust "objective" tests very much (speaking as someone
>who has always been good at them, and who has tried to set them
>for some time now); so I can understand why people would complain.
The tests aren't perfect, but they aren't worthless either. My
understanding is that standardized intelligence tests, for both blacks
and non-blacks, are the best single predictor of academic success, and
also of job success for most jobs. Blacks on average do markedly worse
on them than most other groups (their scores average about a standard
deviation lower). I don't know of any indications that blacks tend to
have other strengths that compensate for their relative deficit in
whatever it is that intelligence tests measure, which evidently has to
do with an ability to solve certain sorts of problems that may not
matter much directly but does correlate strongly with success in other
things.
Obviously, the extent to which the difference in black and non-black
occupational success results from current discrimination or from other
factors, such as different culture and aptitudes, matters for the
assessment of AA. If you favor the former explanation AA is going to
look a lot better than if you favor the latter. It's probably relevant
to our differences that I favor the latter. Quite apart from the
evidence of intelligence tests and such things, black rates of
criminality and illegitimacy are far higher than those of other groups,
even correcting for factors like income and occupation, and suggest a
degree of cultural disorganization that one would expect to have
occupational and other consequences.
Maybe I should add that one bad effect of AA and other government
programs that intervene to promote what is thought to be economic
justice is that you can't discuss them intelligently without getting
into public discussions of offensive theories about just why particular
people or classes of people have problems. For that and other reasons I
don't think that our current form of democratic welfare state is going
to last forever. (Just an aside.)
>>AA programs dispose their beneficiaries, for the sake
>>of their own self-esteem, to favor a particular understanding of how the
>>world works.
>
>Well, we'll just have to disagree here for the most part. I
>think their understanding is formed predominantly by other
>things: their previous experiences, the ways they are treated
>that don't depend on AA being either present or absent. You don't.
I'm not sure the "you don't" is right. My point is not that in the
absence of AA blacks today would think bias is not a major problem, but
that AA looks to me like a permanent bad influence on the future
development of race relations.
>Consider 20 jobs, 36 whites and 4 blacks applying, 18 employers anti-
>black (numbers made up to yield roughly 10%s). So 18 jobs are 50-50
>for the whites; and 2 jobs are 10-1 against for the blacks in the
>initial stages. After the whites have taken their jobs, it's only 5-1
>against for the blacks, against the whites who lost their 50-50
>chances. It would be 50-50 for the blacks if the 2 unbiased employers
>were definitely going to employ a black; but that's not unbiased,
>that's biased the other way, and it's pretty rare.
But the unbiased employers could reduce their offering salaries somewhat
and still have the pick of the blacks even though the best of the whites
wouldn't work for them. So it seems to me the whites would have a 50-50
chance of being hired and so would the blacks. It's true the blacks
would be paid somewhat less, but not that much less (if they were only
paid half as much then the least biased of the 18 biased employers would
hire them). So if the unbiased employers were economically rational and
if not all the biased employers had ironclad policies of never hiring
blacks the results would not be all that different for blacks and for
whites.
>>If what AA mostly does
>>is undo discrimination and it requires major changes in every
>>organization to which it is applicable then there must be lots of
>>discrimination everywhere, even in institutions where one would not
>>have expected to find it.
>
>Depends what you count as a major change. Hopefully, just
>getting personnel officers to check that they aren't biased
>should be enough.
That's not AA. The idea of AA is that you don't discover bias by
inspecting people's state of mind, you discover it by looking at what
they do. If black hirings don't correspond at least roughly to black
availability, that's bias unless there's a very good explanation for the
discrepency and rectifying it is a major business goal for the employer.
The attempt to hire proportionately involves major changes in hiring
practices for almost any employer.
>They're among the bearers; I don't think they're the only
>bearers, though. Geordies aren't very different in religion
>or ethnicity from Yorkshire folks, for instance, but there's
>quite a culture gap.
Can you tell me in words of one syllable what a Geordie is?
>Gateshead (across the river) has a considerable ex-mining community, a
>large orthodox-ish Jewish community (because of a rabbatinical
>college), and a growing Indian community. Now, I'm not sure what kind
>of discrimination laws you mean, since most every one I've seen had
>exemptions for small organizations,
Why not for large organizations, then? If discrimination is wicked and
disgraceful for large and medium-sized organizations I'm not sure why it
becomes OK for small organizations. I think the tendency has been to
reduce the size of the organizations to which antidiscrimination law
applies as the wickedness of discrimination has become more firmly
implanted in conventional public morality.
>but there is a race relations board in the UK which can take companies
>to court. It hasn't done so, to my knowledge, and the three cultures
>seem to get on. Not without occasional incident and conflict, sure;
>but it's nothing that threatens the fabric of the community.
It's hard to comment without knowing more. Orthodox Jewish communities
tend to be somewhat separatist, which usually suits other people just
fine. My impression is that Indian communities tend somewhat in the
same direction, perhaps as a legacy of the caste system. Both peoples
seem to favor small to medium-sized family businesses, which as you
point out tend to elude the antidiscrimination laws. I don't know much
about ex-miners. If they are among history's losers they may be used by
now to being pushed around. So I'm not sure, at least without hearing
more, that this example of a multicultural society that works supports
the view that the elimination of discrimination is the key to harmony
and happiness.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Sunt lacrimae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt.
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Jun 7 18:08:48 EDT 1994
Article: 1790 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: How will antiegalitarian views resurface?
Date: 7 Jun 1994 09:00:15 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 62
Message-ID: <2t1r0v$ckr@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Thoughts for comment, other ideas, whatever:
The current ideological rigidity on equality issues evidently results
from a sense that at bottom people don't really accept radical
egalitarianism but have found no way to articulate their doubts that
they can accept themselves. Therefore we have thought police, to make
sure the doubts remain unarticulated and unacceptable. So how will this
particular one-horse shay disintegrate? Some possibilities:
1. The scientific evidence for material differences in the innate
abilities and propensities of the sexes and of various racial stocks may
eventually become too strong to be ignored. However, too much is at
stake for disinterested science to determine such things. The people
involved in science are only human, and the presentation of evidence can
be muted or lines of research suppressed for fear of social ostracism,
loss of funding, disrupted classes, vandalized offices, and the like.
Also, evidence needs to be interpreted, every particular piece of
evidence can always be criticized or explained away, and superstrength
arguments to the effect that for methodological reasons no conceivable
evidence could establish the unwanted conclusion can be deployed. Such
things are normally resolved within the scientific community, as I
understand the matter, by the public consensus of the most admired
scientists. But it will always be possible for the most authoritative
scientific bodies to take a pro-egalitarian position by choosing to
accept the right arguments, and such bodies are sufficiently part of our
ruling elite that they will do so unless something else changes.
2. The multiplication of channels of communication (e.g., talk radio
and the net) means that it will be easier than in the past for
underground inegalitarian theories to develop, spread, and eventually
surface in public discussions. That's why liberals and moderates worry
about the use of the new technologies to spread "hate". One problem
with talk radio chatter and net discussions is that the practice is to
carry on disciplined investigations through other institutions, so the
alternative media are the natural home of half-baked, frivolous and
crackpot ideas. Of course, to the extent the official channels of
disciplined investigation become less useable because of ideological
pressures the alternative media may become more important. Such a
change may take place, for example, to the extent ordinary scholarly
and scientific institutions are shaped by affirmative action and
therefore become unuseable for carrying on lines of investigation that
lead to antiegalitarian results.
3. People eventually get tired of things that are tiresome. It is
tiresome to have to believe or at least give lip service to things that
do not explicate experience but rather contradict it. That's what
happened in the case of Holmes's original one-horse shay (New England
Puritan orthodoxy) and more recently to the Soviet one-horse shay.
Presumably at some point it will happen among us as well.
4. Part of the reason people fear antiegalitarian ideas is that that
they can lead to horrifying results unless they are tempered by notions
of universal human dignity or something of the sort. Notions of
universal human dignity are neither hedonistic nor materialistic, and
therefore our time finds it hard to take them seriously.
Egalitarianism isn't going to last forever, though, so people who are
afraid of what happens when it goes should spend their time looking for
some ground for human worth that transcends the natural and social
distinctions among men rather than engaging in the destructive task of
uprooting such distinctions.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Sunt lacrimae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt.
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Jun 7 18:08:54 EDT 1994
Article: 6193 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: A right-wing analysis of discrimination
Date: 7 Jun 1994 09:10:09 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 22
Message-ID: <2t1rjh$eds@panix.com>
References: <2sm4a1$a7i@panix.com> <2sprh7$t8@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt) writes:
>>Religious and ethnic groups are the bearers of culture, though. That's
>>why "multiculturalism" is one of the antidiscrimination buzzwords.
>They're among the bearers; I don't think they're the only
>bearers, though. Geordies aren't very different in religion
>or ethnicity from Yorkshire folks, for instance, but there's
>quite a culture gap.
I'm told that Geordies are people from the northern counties in
England. If so, I would say that the differences between them and
Yorkshiremen are the same in kind as ethnic differences although
presumably less in degree. By "ethnic" I don't primarily mean
"racial". An ethnic group is a group of people who have lived together
and married mostly among themselves for a long time, who have developed
a common and distinctive culture, and who understand themselves as a
group with a common past and future. I would imagine that the
distinction between Gs and Ys is an ethnic distinction by that
definition (which I don't think is an arbitrary one).
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Sunt lacrimae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt.
From alt.society.conservatism Tue Jun 7 20:04:05 1994
Path: panix!not-for-mail
~From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
~Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
~Subject: A right-wing analysis of discrimination (revised)
~Date: 7 Jun 1994 18:05:05 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
~Lines: 205
Message-ID: <2t2quh$n2m@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Here, for anyone who's interested, is a revised version of the original
piece I posted.
Those who belong to a group with characteristic attitudes,
perceptions, habits, experiences, affiliations, and so on have a
natural tendency to feel kinship with each other. When membership
carries benefits with it, and the group is one that is difficult or
impossible for outsiders to enter ("straight white males"), nonmembers
often object to being treated as such. The view publicly accepted
today is that it is morally inexcusable to ignore such objections, at
least if the benefits are anything but idiosyncratic, intangible and
personal in nature.
Several methods have been proposed for eliminating or neutralizing
the effects of discrimination of the sort objected to. Of these, I will
discuss affirmative action, pure equal opportunity, and libertarianism.
For the reasons given below, I believe that none of these approaches can
come close to doing what is intended without a great deal of social
damage. Of the three, I favor the libertarian approach because it is
least destructive, and because I am less convinced than most that the
goal is a good one.
1. The "affirmative action" approach is to equalize benefits for
all groups. Such equalization is hard to achieve, however. Benefits
arise from what members of a group do as well as what is done to them,
so attempts to equalize benefits create resentments and, by further
effects on perceptions and behavior, create new distinctions that then
also have to be equalized. For example, if blacks are guaranteed an
equal share of jobs and honors then non-blacks competing for the
remaining jobs and honors will be resentful, talented blacks will feel
less need to compete and their performance will suffer, and any
honorable distinction will confer less honor on a black than on another
person receiving it because the common view will be that it stands for
less. The affirmative action approach thus deals with material issues
at the cost of making other aspects of intergroup relations worse. The
deterioration of relations feeds on itself, since black beneficiaries of
affirmative action are able to justify their own position only by
finding that they are surrounded by powerful antiblack bias and can do
so by treating non-black resentment of affirmative action programs as
proof of such bias. Thus, the more unjust non-blacks consider
affirmative action to be the more convinced blacks become that it is
necessary and that an equal share of benefits is simply their right.
The foregoing argument loses much of its force to the extent
affirmative action only puts blacks in the position they would be in if
they were treated in accordance with their conduct and ability rather
than subjected to arbitrary discrimination. In that case one could hope
that non-blacks would eventually come to understand the justification
for the programs and stop discriminating, so that the programs would no
longer have a function and could be done away with. However, if the
primary effect of affirmative action policies is to redress arbitrary
discrimination, then biases against blacks must be very strong and
pervasive, since such policies have required major changes in all
institutions to which they have been applied, including the institutions
one would have least expected to be engaging in discrimination. If
antiblack bias is so strong, though, it is hard to understand how such
policies could ever have been adopted.
In addition, there seem to be no grounds other than faith for
believing that lesser black occupational success is mostly due to
current discrimination rather than other factors such as black culture
or lesser average aptitude. The differences between black and non-black
success rates are very large in fields, such as athletics and the
quantitative sciences, where performance is most easily judged and
arbitrary discrimination should therefore play the smallest role. On
the other hand, such things as the very high rates of criminality and
illegitimacy among blacks, and their low average scores on intelligence
tests, suggest that there are important reasons other than
discrimination for their lesser occupational success.
2. The strict antidiscrimination/equal opportunity approach is to
forbid people to act on feelings of kinship based on common group
membership, at least if the group is thought to be a privileged one. A
problem with this method is that people feel that their membership in
groups of the kind in question is part of what makes them what they are.
That is why discrimination on grounds like race or religion can be
painful, but it is also why it is an extreme measure to tell people that
in the common affairs of life they can't associate by preference with
those they view as their fellows. As extreme measures,
antidiscrimination laws have been very difficult to enforce, and in
practice the government has fallen back on the "affirmative action"
approach.
Feelings of kinship based on ethnicity and the like are often
called irrational or worse, but calling them that doesn't make it
reasonable to ignore or try to abolish them. Man is a social animal,
and his good is typically realized through participation in communities
tied together by common history, beliefs, habits, attitudes, and the
like. It is just such ties that give rise to loyalties of the kind that
antidiscrimination laws require people to ignore. Thus, such laws by
their nature require people to ignore and deny affiliations of the kind
that for most people are basic to a good life.
People normally lead a good life through participation in a
particular culture. Cultures differ, of course, and such differences
are not private matters. They are essentially public, because they
relate to a shared way of life that includes a style of living together
and a common understanding of what things are important. Since ethnic
and religious groups are the bearers of culture, to demand that ethnic
and religious affiliation be made irrelevant to matters that are
publicly important, such as government, economic activity, education and
housing, is to is to demand that culture be deprived of its essential
functions. The consequences of full compliance with such a demand would
not be liberation from narrowness but rather the destruction of culture
and therefore public brutality and squalor. The more diverse society
becomes the worse such consequences will be, because less will remain as
a publicly acceptable common culture after particularisms are excluded.
To be slightly more specific, different groups have different
standards regarding intangible things that determine how organizations
function. Examples are codes of manners, moral points of honor, the
appropriate relationship between authority and individual initiative,
and the relative importance of profit, organizational harmony, public
spirit, and personal goals. The standards of no one group can be taken
as a universal ideal, but if there are no particular accepted standards
within an organization the organization is likely to be more a place for
misunderstanding, conflict and self-seeking than for effective
cooperation carried on in a manner and spirit that fits it to be part of
a good life for those involved. Accordingly, every successful
organization must be particularistic in the sense that it must have its
own accepted ways. Since the ways of any organization will be far more
compatible with those of some groups than others, and since it will
normally be easier for an organization to deal with people who grow up
with compatible outlooks and habits than people who have to learn them
as adults, it is hard to see how an organization could avoid being more
hospitable to people from some groups than others without undercutting
the basis of its own success. To be particularly hospitable to one
group, though, is to discriminate against all others.
Another problem with the strict antidiscrimination/equal
opportunity approach is that some distinctions between groups are
necessary to a successful society. The distinction between the sexes is
the most prominent example. Every known human society has recognized a
difference in function between men and women, with men dominating the
public sphere and positions of formal authority and women dominating
childcare and the domestic sphere. The difference in function, which
corresponds to differences between the sexes in average inclinations and
aptitudes, has made possible stable unions between men and women that
give women the protection and support they need to care for their
children while socializing men's aggressive and domineering impulses.
No substitute for that difference in function has yet become visible,
and it is not clear what such a substitute would look like. The radical
attack that has been mounted in recent years on sex role differentiation
has therefore been an attack on a fundamental principle of social order,
and the consequences we see around us, which are those that should have
been expected, will continue until the attack is abandoned.
3. The libertarian approach in dealing with intergroup relations
is to reduce government regulation. This approach would reduce the
amount or effect of discrimination if the government itself
discriminates, requires people to discriminate, or makes it difficult
for people to enter into nondiscriminatory relationships (for example by
licensing requirements or support of trade unions). Although this
approach would reduce the potential harm from discrimination, it would
not eliminate it, if only because discrimination is often functional.
Also, since this approach tends to require government to treat
discrimination as legitimate when enforcing contracts and property
rights, to accept it is to abandon the view that discrimination is by
nature a gross evil that should be eradicated.
It is not clear, however, why that view should be retained. The
doctrine that discrimination on racial and similar grounds is a moral
outrage is novel, and its basis has never been made clear. It is said
to deny the human dignity of those discriminated against, but that
seems clearly wrong. We all pick and choose our associates, for good
reasons and bad, without necessarily denying the human dignity of those
we reject. It is also said to inflict material and emotional damage on
those discriminated against. So, however, does discrimination on
grounds such as incompetence. The issue is whether permitting
discrimination or attempting to uproot it causes more damage. Modern
trends have reduced the potential damage from private discrimination,
since they have made markets more efficient and therefore made it
harder to keep a worker from realizing the full potential value of his
labor. If one employer is biased and unwilling to employ a worker to
his full capacity, another will, and if none will then a market
irrationality has been created that an entrepreneur (possibly from the
group subject to discrimination) or foreign investor can take advantage
of. In addition, as discussed above, prohibiting discrimination causes
damage by forbidding people to carry on the way of life they prefer
among the people to whom they are attached, and such damage becomes
greater as society becomes more diverse; a prohibition of
discrimination is ineffective without affirmative action programs,
which cause their own problems; and it is hard to understand how
antidiscrimination programs could ever get adopted if public attitudes
were such as to justify them.
A final point is that if discrimination means only a lessened
ability to have dealings with members of other communities, as it would
in a libertarian society, then to be subjected to discrimination is
simply to be thrown on one's own resources and challenged to develop
one's own community and way of life. In contrast, to be a member of a
group protected from discrimination can be to see one's own group and
its way of life disintegrate as its most active and capable members
leave it. Contemplation of the history of the Jews since emancipation
or of American blacks since 1964 need not lead to the conclusion that
the legal abolition of discrimination tends to be favorable in all
respects, or even on balance, to the groups that had been its object.
Those who believe there is something valuable and irreplaceable in the
separate culture and way of life of such groups will not necessarily
favor measures that if successful will result in their absorption by an
increasingly featureless larger society.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) Sunt lacrimae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt.
Back to my archive of posts.