Misc. Essays from previous blog
A good perspective on what is occuring intellectually at Yale
Criticizing such academic endeavors, however, has somehow become equivalent to criticizing the specific ethnic and racial identities of the students and scholars. A very recent example is the conflict between Harvard University professor and renowned African-American scholar Cornell West and Harvard's President Larry Summers. When Summers questioned the quality of West's contribution to the academic life of the university after West spent much of his time there producing a third-rate rap CD and advising Bill Bradley's and Al Sharpton's campaigns, Jesse Jackson and other black leaders threatened a boycott of Harvard and demanded a conference on racial sensitivity to be held on campus. Apparently, criticizing Cornell West's professional behavior was equivalent to attacking the black identity. If Larry Summers criticized a white professor for such behavior, however, no one would have accused him of attacking that professor's whiteness.
This is becoming dangerously close to, "believing in your own bullshit, when your bullshit was supposed to fool the idiots".
Because there is no way Jesse Jackson is doing this other than for political and economic power. A shakedown in other words. Yet so many people go right on supporting this dude and tactics like this, in universities and politics. I have to wonder, if you live a lie all your life, when do you start to believe in it? Has Jesse Jackson started believing in the inviolability of his "blackness" or does he still realize that it is just a gimmick?
History, philosophy, and even the social sciences, have also degenerated into small impenetrable camps. Marxists, feminists, and Freudians all propose non-falsifiable theories to advance their pet idea and their careers. No observation could disprove their theories. How do you prove to a feminist that a skyscraper isn't built as a phallic symbol? You can offer arguments about the cost of real estate and advances in building technology, but since it is impossible to get complete knowledge of the architect's subconscious motivations, there is no way to prove that the building wasn't built as a phallic symbol. If a Marxist begins with the principle that the rich don't reveal their true motivations, but are instead always merely advancing the interest of the bourgeoisie, no amount of evidence can disprove this claim since it is physically impossible for me to know the capitalist's true motivations. Ideas such as Marxism and radical feminism cannot be scrutinized and must be accepted as true. How convenient.
A Yale education, once intended to make its graduates more cosmopolitan, has become a mere instrument for self-confirmation.
Now this, is a rather perspective section. Because it talks about how Marxism and etc, are structured in a way that does not allow it to be proved wrong. The basic axioms cannot be proven, yet the only way to prove logical axioms right or wrong is through empiricial means or some cross indexing of logical functions.
It is a free rider. Like pacifism, it only works and can only be believed in, if there are non-pacifists. Therefore, people only believe in Marxism if the Soviet Union doesn't dominate EVERYTHING. There are more marxists in the US and Britain than there is in the former Soviet Bloc I would guess.
Posted By : Ymarsakar |
I wrote this in response to, and inspired by as well, this debate.
I was surprised and please to note that Anthony Flew was mentioned here, because it was to my knowledge that most discussions that I've seen never mention the people who have spent their lives studying the subject. More times than not, the discussion goes into abstractions, and people without the tools of theology and philosophy, get bogged down with the strict requirements of the debate for greater knowledge.
Anthony Flew posited two positions on the interview. He stated that he has changed his position on the existence of God, but that he hasn't changed his position on revealed religion in light of his new stance. I believe it is save to say that atheists, for whatever reason, believes that there is no God while theists believe, for whatever reason, that there is a God.
Therefore, whether someone believes in a God or not, is binary, but whether someone believes in revealed religion on the basis of that, is quite different. While an atheist can only disbelieve revealed religion, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc, a theist can believe or disbelieve and remain consistent in their argument.
Therefore I do not see why it is required for theists to argue about Flew's position on revealed religion in order to state his position on the existence of God. Atheists who demand that, seemingly acrues no possible benefit, as they do not believe in God therefore what use do they have for an argument about Revealed Religion?
It seems to be quite a bit of posturing, to evade the issue Flew brought up. Which is that, what we know of Physics becomes less and less physical to the eye and to the instruments,(more and more towards sub-particles, probability, energy) and therefore goes into a realm where energy becomes a force for creation. Given that Evolution as a Theory have some extreme flaws about how species first came about, the same question people ask of who created God is also asked about, who created the first species according to the Theory of Evolution in order for there to be any Evolution? In the end, it simply seems that those who don't like intelligent design, also don't have any concrete reasons to believe in the competition. Usually, it is wise to withold judgement until new information comes along, but most people don't do that. So given current scientific knowledge, it is easier to believe that there is a God that exists independent of physical reality, composed of energy, or some other substance that cannot be measured than to disbelieve. It may not be enough to believe in a God, but it is certainly enough to be an argument for against believing in God. It is certainly more than the 18th century theologians had when they were arguing the existence of the non-existence of God. And the Founding Fathers for some reason believed that there was a God, but didn't believe in the un-Enlightened precepts of the Bible. That itself, is a reason to believe in God.
Which brings me back to philosophy and epistemology. As a justified belief is one that has more positive justifications than negative justifications for why something is. That is, there is more Reason to believe in A, than to disbelieve in A.
What atheists have done in the past, seems to be putting holes into reasons for believing in God, but they never posit reasons not to believe in God except in relation to what others say about justifications for God's existence. Nor do they offer any physical evidence, physical evidence they note is absent in their opponent's arguments. If they do not believe in God because there is no physical proof, then how come they request physical proof of others when they themselves cannot get physical proof of God either way? Isn't it sort of unrealistic to expect others to do the impossible simply to justify your own intellectual requirements?
There seems to be no independent reasoning to argue that God does not exist, and this is a problem. Because if someone believes in a negative just because he doesn't believe in the positive, it is almost the same as voting for Kerry because you don't like Bush's policies. It is empty, without a reason to vote for the other guy. Yet, we all know people do it, and many people at that. That is an indictment of human nature though, not the existence of God.
One of the things brought up, was the existence of Good. And to that, I would say, is also a reason to believe in God and Also a reason to refrain from disbelieving in God. Because Good either exists in the objective sense, applicable to all, because it exists in a metaphysical state that is not accessible by physical apparatuses but only via mental reasoning. Or, or Good exists as a subjective criteria which is dependent on humans, sentience, and etc. If there is no God, then if humans did not exist, Good would not exist. Since there is no way a non-physical entity can exist, if you don't think another non-physical entity is even possible. It's a package deal.
If there is a God, then the Good is the Good of everyone under God, meaning that if someone pursues the Good, he also pursues the Good of everyone else. This is summed up in the argument against zero-sum, where zero-sum is when someone believes that for someone to gain, someone else must lose.
If there was no God, then what is Right and Wrong, Good and Evil, would be decided only by humans. And for humans who cannot enforce his ethical beliefs, that human simply disappears and so does his beliefs, as those beliefs cannot exist independent of the human's existence. So in the end, one of the consequences to disbelieving in God, is the disbelief of Good as well, as an objective entity existing in a non-material plane.
Good and evil would be decided only through who has the most force, who can enforce his beliefs the best and the longest. We return to might makes right, and in the end we label all our justice and fairness as nothing but pipe dreams that exist only because we want and wish for them to exist. In a sense, that is partly true as force of arms defends rights, rights do not defend rights from the fascists, but the greater question is, should it be true? If there is no greater standard, then what use is it to "allow" people to decide on their own what is good or evil, why shouldn't we just tell them what to obey instead of allowing them to seek Virtue on their own? There would no be reason, if Good/God did not exist independent of human will and existence.
I find that to be a very bad scenario. Revealed Religion can be just as bad, and I think it is a reason to disbelieve in God. Yet in the end, given a choice, I will believe in God and disbelieve in Revealed Religion. Many of the arguments against God is only arguments against Revealed Religion. Just because someone may be wrong about his judgements concerning the existence of something, does not mean that humans can't fly. Leonardo DaVinci probably had some crackpot schemes as seen in his day, and he never was able to prove his beliefs conclusively, yet it would have been wrong for anyone back then to disbelieve in flight simply because One man couldn't make it work. Revealed Religion may have its flaws, but that is no reason to disbelieve in God.
And without any concrete reasons to disbelieve in God except that you don't like anyone's arguments for God plus Revealed Religion, and with reasons to believe in God but not revelation, I see no possible reason why anyone would choose atheism over Deism.
I was an atheist before, only because I figured I had to logically choose. Either God existed, or he did not. Given the lack of proof and positive justifications, I was forced to the choose the latter rather than the former. But my studies of philosophy, opened up a new cooridor. The ability to withold judgement, because there is a lack of information and evidence on BOTH sides. And then I learned from Deism that you could even separate the existence of God, from the truth of the Bible and Koran. It seemed an elegant solution to my doubts concerning religion, and I am surprised to this day why so many are either ignorant of it or choose not to apply it.
Posted By : Ymarsakar |
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Media bias used to be a cliche pundits on tv talked about as a way of trash talking the competition
Now it has become a war and logistical problem, in which morale and actual combat revolves around as much as physical reality as media reality. A war which is fought on the homefront and on the front lines, where the front lines cannot fight the fight of the homefront and where the homefront cannot fight the fight of the front lines. Even though many many methods have been used to help each other, such as aid packages, military blogs by onduty personel, and words of support to the morale of the military. There are boundaries which cannot be crossed.
The military cannot influence public opinion one way or another, that is not their function nor would it be appropriate to give them that function. Nor are the civilians allowed to go and hang terroists that they find in this or other countries, break up networks, and crack down on Islamicfascism. When military strategists called this new type of warfare "asymmetrical warfare", they were not kidding. Yet, I do not believe even they could have accounted for the asymmetrical qualities of a Western propaganda along with the unorthodox methods of terror and guerrila tactics. Arab propaganda they must have realized, but Western? Might as well expect loyalty of the French for aiding them in Vietnam, might as well expect gratitude out of the French for fighting a war they should have gave blood to fight themselves, might as well expect the UN to be walking upright. All things which Good men do expect, and all things in which those same men will be betrayed in.
It is not only the soldiers and officers that are noticing, but the civilians in Iraq as well
But as Instapundit so cleverely pointed out, the media is no longer trusted by the common man, since they so abused that trust with Cronkite telling the American people with a straight face what a disaster the Tet Offensive was, for our side.
The propaganda techniques the media learned during WWII, in America and in British Broadcasting, has made these new generations of journalists feel exalted among the common masses.
But to trace out the history of the whole period, to say who was fighting whom at any given moment, would have been utterly impossible, since no written record, and no spoken word, ever made mention of any other alignment than the existing one." What's frightening about the present situation with Jeremy Paxman is that a written record contradicting current chattering-class wisdom does exist, and it's readily available from Amazon -- and yet it seems to make no difference.The belief of the WWII journalists, that while truth may be good, truth at the cost of ultimate victory is not good at all, has evolved into a sort of mood. A cultural mood. The mood says, "If the people were so smart and capable of making their own decisions, then they could handle the truth. But since we know they can't handle the truth in wartime, it is our responsibility to decide what is best or not best for public consumption".
Not surprising, is it, to learn where Orwell received the on-the-job training in propaganda techniques he later put to good use writing 1984:
Orwell began supporting himself by writing book reviews for the New English Weekly until 1940. During World War II he was a member of the Home Guard and in 1941 began work for the BBC Eastern Service, mostly working on programmes to gain Indian and East Asian support for Britain's war efforts. He was well aware that he was shaping propaganda, and wrote that he felt like "an orange that's been trodden on by a very dirty boot".Jeremy Paxman is heir to a great tradition. The ability of the BBC to twist the truth until it becomes a lie, and the ability of the BBC to get away with it, is literally Orwellian.
It is no coincidence that the same people with such views are the mutated evolution strain of the Democratic party, the war party of the 20th century. It was their party that presided over wars and set policies, and it is their ideological descendants that have inherited the consequences of such policies. Civil Rights violations by Roosevelt, propaganda and sometimes outright lieing in wartime, keeping secrets from even the Vice President, and oh so many things little and small that helped set the future cultural mood.
Without the core principles to check power however, as those principles checked Truman's power, power will slowly and inevitably corrupt the souless user. And the Democratic party lost or began losing their core principles when Lyndon B. Johnson began the purge of Democratic moderates like JFK and of Democratic moderate policies which would disagree with his Medicaid handout. He, like those of today, cloak their policies as beholden to the principles of the Democratic party, beholden to the beliefs of JFK even, yet the reality bears no resemblance of such a claim. The purge continues even today, as members of the Board of Education are being un-nominated by Democratic bodies because they don't pass the "bilingual test". Which means, they aren't for bilingual language standards in school. Sort of like the abortion test they give Judge nominations from the President.
Posted By : Ymarsakar |
A column by Charles Krauthammer, which I believe is one of the most perceptive of the commentators on Fox News.
"This is not an isolated case. In fact the case is a perfect illustration of an utterly commonplace phenomenon: the mainstream media's obliviousness to its own liberal bias."
I am not sure whether to agree with him or not. As it would seem, they truly do believe in their own propaganda, and that is one of the reasons why they keep making "big mistakes". Such as the coyote falling off of cliffs. But not immediately. It seems they believe if they don't percieve the bias, or the problem, or the factual errors, then it doesn't exist... until the ground actually is hit by reality. Or in this case, the coyote looks down and sees he's over thin air... air too thin to hold him up.
And yet, I don't truly think on a reductionist basis, that they don't realize what their own political beliefs are and how many don't believe in them. their problem doesn't seem to berecognizing the liberal part of the bias, but the bias part of the liberal. To be biased, is to be subjective and prone to emotional fancies. Detached from journalistic objectivity. It seems they don't truly want to believe that, and that is why they won't recognize it.
So it seems to me, it is a sort of self-deception. Where someone submerses what their mind is telling them, into their subconscious, and by feat of that can know something and not know something. As shown in 1984.
That is not a difference. That is a chasm. And you do not have to be a weatherman to ascertain wind direction. When, in February 2003, Gallup asked Americans their perception of media bias, 45 percent said the media were too liberal, 15 percent said they were too conservative. That's 3 to 1.
Bias spectacularly, if redundantly, confirmed by Rathergate. All that is missing is a signed confession.
As much as people tend to repeat that Fox News is biased, the facts tell a different. And apart from the facts even, the philosophy tells a different story. Because Fox News recognizes their bias, and works with their bias in mind. That is how they can achieve more balance, and be more fair. When liberals are confronted with media bias, they always tend to red herring the subject by stating that Fox News is just as biased towards conservatives as whatever is biased towards liberals.
Which I of course answer, Fox News is outnumbered, and Fox News leans to the right far less than CBS and NBC leans to the left. The most "Republican" spokesperson for Fox is O'Reilly, and even he isn't a Republican, but an independent, biased towards conservative values.
Whereas Rather, is known to badger US Presidents, but not Saddam Hussein in interviews. One is treated a King, the other is treated as trash to be taken out.
It doesn't just show a clear difference in extent of bias, but how close that bias turns into anti-americanism, or at least alliances with anti-Americanism forces.
In the end, the CBS report is a whitewash, but it couldn't have been anything better. Certainly CBS would not have admitted anything truly devastating and damaging. If we have problems with government commitees being partisan, a network's committe with ties to a network that is not affected by elections, will have far more, and be less likely to be influenced by the people.
Posted By : Ymarsakar |
A woman and her female friend were sitting on a bench in the Kingdom Mall, eating ice cream cones, when along came a muttawa, accompanied by a police officer. (You can always spot a muttawa by his beard, his thobe the white gown worn by local menthat is always four or five inches too short, and a mien of profound hatred of all things different.) The muttawa approached the women, pointed a menacing claw, and hissed, "Don't lick it that way!"
Not being an authority on the subject, I can't with any confidence say there isn't a sura buried somewhere in the Qur'an covering the moral etiquette of licking ice cream. I suspect, though, the muttawa had wandered a bit beyond his moral jurisdiction.
"We just looked at each other," the woman told me. "I mean, how else are you supposed to eat an ice cream cone? You have to use your tongue, right? We just sat there and watched our ice cream melt until he wandered off. Stupid muttawa."
When the muttawa are not busy harassing women, ensuring unmarried men and women don't mingle, or using camel crops to whip sluggish pedestrians into mosques during prayer time, they are up to more sinister activities.
On March 25, 2004, Brian O'Connor was arrested by the muttawa in Riyadh for preaching Christianity. According to the International Christian Concern (ICC), Mr. O'Connor was "abducted, imprisoned, and tortured" in a mosque. He was then transferred to a police station in Olaya. The police said they didn't have any evidence against Mr. O'Connor, but would hold him anyway because the muttawa "claimed" to have evidence. Mr. O'Connor told visitors that the muttawa had beaten and kicked him. After hanging him upside down, according to Mr. O'Connor, they, "played football with me." They also lashed his back and the soles of his feet with an electric cord. Mr. O'Connor is currently wasting away in a cell, waiting to face the kangaroo court they call justice in Saudi Arabia. A swift verdict is expected in only six or seven months.
Expatriates aren't the only targets. The muttawa like to go after the natives too.
On November 29, 2004, Emad Alaabadia Saudi who converted to Christianitywas arrested by the muttawa in Jeddah. If the charge is true, Mr. Alaabadi has much to worry about. Apostasy is against the law in the Saudi Arabia. Conversion from Islam to another religion carries a sentence of death. Like mafiosi, once you become a member, you become a member for lifeor else. One shudders to imagine what the muttawa have done to Mr. Alaabadi. The ICC reported that he telephoned his mother on December 4. She said he didn't sound good. No one has heard from him since.
These are only two recent incidents showing how Christians are treated in Saudi Arabia. At least these two reports made the press. Most incidents are never reported. There was one such incident where I work, involving a Filipino who disappeared.
The Filipino had worked at the company for fifteen years. A couple of days after his disappearance management asked the Security Department to investigate. One week later, a report came back that the Filipino was not being held in any police station or hospital in Riyadh. Other than that they didn't have a clue to his whereabouts.
It was time for management to bring out the big gun: Hussain. Most reputable companies in the Arabia have someone like Hussain on the payroll. Our Hussain has the personality of a poisonous toad. When he does come to work, which isn't often, he sits in his office fuming and smoking one cigarette after another. Even though he appears to be utterly useless, Hussain had something of inestimable value: wasta. Arabic for connections, wasta is the mysterious, unseen force that gets things done in the Middle East. Hussain not only has wasta, he has big wasta, the kind with sticky tentacles that stretch all the way from downtown Riyadh to the Saudi Embassy across the street from the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C.
It is times like this, that I wonder why we just don't nuke the barbaric parts of the world and start over with new countries and colonies. The British certainly messed things up, and their "empire" was like trying to occupy foreign lands without assimilating them. We don't even have to occupy any lands, and oil pipelines can be rebuilt, and our tactical nukes are sufficient for the job without irradiation in the air over everything.
There's been talk about some this "nuclear underground" black market operating from Pakistan, leading to libya, North Korea, and Iran. Europe also is indicted, though we can be sure they've greased the right palms in the UN for there to be no official investigation. If they have sold enough components, to enrich enough uranium, and have delivered to them a delivery system, as Russia and China is certainly capable of doing, then we all know where that nuke is going to go in the end.
And there's a part of me, a small small part, that is telling the rest of the world, "Go ahead, let's see how lucky you are, punk". But then this is not a movie, nor is it a quantum universe that we can simply abandon for another one. And yet, in a sense, a small but formidable sense, I would get quite a kick out of seeing events unfold should they launch a successful nuclear attack on the US and European governments were found to be complicit. How much strength is there actually in the freest people of this world, in the history of humanity? How much fury can be contained by the rational mind and the courageous heart? How much can the protectors of the world, tolerate their protection being taken for granted and taken advantage of?
We might end up fighting another civil war, if the politicians kept talking about how we need to "negotiate" with someupteen million in dead. Tsunami happens, we help, nuclear attack happens, people are... joyous? Celebrating? Snickering behind their backs in Paris? There goes the Americans, and their "Grand Tragic Fall". We'll see who falls, won't we Charles De Gaul?
As the Japanese admiral in charge of the Pearl Harbor plan Yamamoto said, "wake this sleeping beast, and you'd better get in a quick kill". Embelished. He liked America too, and therefore he realized the full potential of this battlestation. He was right too, he left us 4 carriers, and that was enough. More than enough perhaps, for providence and Navy, Marine, Army fury decided the rest.
America was last on a full war footing, and unified, at a time when America was a itty bitty power. Many European nations misunderstand the nature of American power, in that they believe we really really tried hard to achieve it, and we were just the lucky nation to have the right stuff to make it work. WWII devastated not American economies, but European, and nada nada nada. That kind of thought pervades those who misunderstand the secret of American full military might.
Which is that America is a nation of merchants, sports fans, and farmers. People who are so good at creating wealth, that they have no need to steal the wealth of others, to go to their countries and steal their resources and people, or to even take over those other countries for land. As their land is pretty crappy compared to what we have here. As the Europeans in NY who are buying up the realestate, already knows. But unlike money pinching merchants, these merchants are quite willing to pour money into protection and research, and they even send their sons and daughters to cement the relationship between the merchants and their protectors.
The Europeans have a history of going to other places to loot because they lost their creative geniuses and bankers and Jews and what not to America. Therefore they had to keep expanding militaristically, because they could not do it domestically. They failed, as I am sure, they wish us to fail. Misery loves company after all.
In the time of the Roman Empire, the "sinews of war were gold and silver". And a nation that produces gold and silver all the time, is a nation concerned more with creating wealth than divisions. Therefore there is no need to expand, when everything can be made at home, and better too. Also when the military is small, leaders don't have this urge telling them to take over a country. You hear talk about made in China, but China makes crappy stuff. The highest technology is made here in the US. There is no "Made in China" stamped upon the Interceptor body armor of our Marines and Army infantry. And our Carriers aren't made in China either.
Of course, history teaches many lessons, one of which is that if you have money, people will take it if you can't defend yourself. So the mettle of a nation is tested at the time of their greatest need... for defense. Britain survived the Air War and the US survived having their complete Pacific battleline destroyed, in a time when the US navy already was small and using its resources in the Atlantic.
France... did not survive. Germany... did not survive. Russia... survived. Australia... survived. Japan... did not survive. And well they did not too.
Therefore strength is most evident in nations that can defend themselves. Those nations were the ones who took a risk, and did not surrender, while those who surrendered, took no risks. And given that France's population, who supported surrendering to the Nazis didn't get punished in anyway, history set the precedent that those who take no risks will be protected by those who do take risks.
The nations who risk are the ones who have earned the respect of other nations. We always feel sorry for someone who can't defend themselves. I certainly do. I don't feel sorry for those people who don't want to defend themselves, but would rather place someone else in the line of fire.
Back to Yamamoto. What is funny, is that by drawing America into a full time war stance, Japan's fate was sealed. The Japanese believed that surrender was a dishonor, and that hence Americans had no honor but if they had ever set foot on the US, they would have realized that just because a people surrenders in your land, does not mean they will surrender in their homes and states. Not after what they knew what you did at Nanking.
America's money turned into something else, power. A power that could literally reach across the globe and strangle people and nations.
So we have today. 100% Naval supremacy. Something the British and Roman Empires never achieved. Piracy exists because no one is supreme at sea, no law that extends to the sea. The US Navy extends that law. We have air supremacy, from a time when we had inferior jets over Korea to when we have the best dogfighters and bombers that any nation can ever hope to glimpse. The F-16 Falcon, the premier dogfighter. And the F-18 Super Hornet with its payload of next generation JDAMs.
Human shields don't even work anymore.
And all, is paid by money, moola, denariis. And so, I am interested on an intellectual note, what happens should America devote, once again, 50%+ of her GDP to waging a world war. And this time, starts to expand her military, instead of downsizing it after each war.
An American uber alles, in a different universe, would probably be far more humane than many of the governments in place in this universe. The only question is, will such a parallel universe depict the story of a nation and her people that were forced to use ultimate power and got corrupted, or of a people who found a way around the cliche that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Or at least found a loophole. An exception.
If I had a quantum machine that could spy on other universes, that would be quite entertaining, as well as educational.
posted by Ymarsakar at 1/24/2005 12:49:00 AM
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