Lasch on Argument

A number of writers in the blog ring (specifically Trumwill and Robin, although durned if I can find the links) have discussed human reason and suggested that its evolved purpose is less to find truth than to win arguments.  I’ve been working my way through Christopher Lasch’s last book, Revolt of the Elites, and he argues in his chapter “The Lost Art of Argument” that this is less a bug than a feature:

As for the claim that the information revolution would raise the level of public intelligence, it is no secret that the public knows less about public affairs than it used to know.  Millions of Americans cannot begin to tell you what is in the Bill of Rights, what Congress does, what the Constitution says about the powers of the presidency, how the party system emerged or how it operates.  A sizable majority, according to a recent survey, believe that Israel is an Arab nation.  Instead of blaming the schools for this disheartening ignorance of public affairs, as is the custom, we should look elsewhere for a fuller explanation, bearing in mind that people readily acquire such knowledge as they can put to good use.  Since the public no longer participates in debates on national issues, it has no reason in inform itself about civic affairs.  It is the decay of public debate, not the school system (bad as it is), that makes the public ill informed, notwithstanding the wonders of the age of information.  When debate becomes a lost art, information, even though it may be readily available, makes no impression.

What democracy requires is vigorous public debate, not information.  Of course, it needs information too, but the kind of information it needs can be generated only by debate.  We do not know what we need to know until we ask the right questions, and we can identify the right questions only by subjecting our own ideas about the world to the test of public controversy.  Information, usually seen as the precondition of debate, is better understood as its by-product.  When we get into arguments that focus and fully engage our attention, we become avid seekers of relevant information.  Otherwise we take in information passively – if we take it in at all.

I have written critically of the impulse to approach issues from a partisan position prior to the acquisition of any actual knowledge about the issues themselves.  But I am reconsidering whether we can realistically expect otherwise.  Using myself as an example, in my youth I became know among my peers as a politics geek because of my relatively high level of knowledge about current world issues, but on reflection I must admit that it was “motivated knowledge” gained specifically to reinforce my own worldview.  (If I were fully candid I might admit that this is true even today, though hopefully to a lesser extent.)  On the other hand, my knowledge was no less real for having been motivated by the desire to have an informed opinion about something.

Perhaps the trick is not the disinterested pursuit of knowledge, but rather maturing our minds to be open to assimilating contrary facts as well, even to be persuaded by the weight of the evidence.  Our capacity for even this may be limited, however, and I can’t say that I know the formula for getting there in any case.

How to Spot a Slow News Day

When the AP runs stories like this:

DENVER - Two senior officials at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., were negligent in statements they made about credentials of the school's faculty, Air Force investigators said.

Now, it strikes me as a vital bit of background to know what were the statements. Yet it isn't until the very last sentence of the article that we read this:

[Former USAFA economics associate professor David] Mullin's original complaint alleged that about 60 percent of academy cadets who took introductory calculus classes between 1996 and 2006 were taught by instructors who did not have master's degrees in mathematics, statistics or mathematics education.

Substantively, this complaint is nonsense. I know for a fact that ALL active-duty faculty at USAFA have at least a Master's degree, and all civilian faculty I know about have a Ph.D. Why an econ professor is concerned that physicists and engineers are teaching first-year calculus (a subject that all cadets are required to take) is something of a mystery. But nothing about having an MS in statistics makes an instructor a better calculus teacher than one with an MS in, say, EE.

But that's just my (and the USAFA math department's) opinion. Did somebody claim that all math instructors have MS degrees in math?

The letter [to Mullin from the IG investigators] said Brig. Gen. Dana Born, the dean of faculty, was negligent in a statement she made to a newspaper. The letter didn't identify the newspaper, but the statement by Born cited in the complaint appeared in the Colorado Springs Independent.

That's all the AP gives us. The Independent, as you might imagine, is more lively, and informative:

Among active-duty military faculty, only 40 percent have doctoral degrees, compared to 80 percent of civilian faculty. Yet Born denies allegations that military instructors are less educated than their civilian counterparts. One reason for the disparity is the academy's practice of having captains and majors with master's degrees teach low-level courses. Born asserts that all AFA instructors have graduate degrees in the areas they teach, or related areas.

So basically, Mullins (and the IG, AP, and Independent) want to quibble about whether or not physics and engineering are math "related" fields. Seriously? I took this as self-evident last summer when I was applying to the math department of our local community college for an instructor position that asked for degrees in "related areas".

What's this about, really?

Mullin seems to be engaging in a bit of trade unionism. As the Independent implies, USAFA makes a point of rotating Air Force officers through three-year instructor assignments so they can serve as roll models for the cadets. This may or may not be worthwhile, but the AF has vastly more engineers and physicists with graduate degrees than it does mathematicians proper, and more business management majors than economics majors. Mullin, whilst at USAFA, didn't like the competition from military officers, and ran to the media with his non-story.

The rest of them are just doing what they do: attempting to embarrass USAFA, no matter how thin the facts.

Conservative Power

In the course of an interesting critique of Charles Murray's book Coming Apart, the substance of which I addressed here, Andrew Gelman (via Steve Sailer) writes:

The conservative elites tend to live in different places than the liberal elites and they tend to have influence in different ways (consider, for example, decisions about where to build new highways, convention centers, etc., or pick your own examples), and those differences interest me.

Let me try to articulate what's wrong with this statement. It may well be that many if not most liberals and conservatives buy into the notion that development per se is a partisan issue; if so, it reflects badly on both of our inability to perform rational cost-benefit analysis. But I will nonetheless assert that there is nothing especially conservative about development.

But let's stipulate that conservatives are "pro development". I don't want to minimize the impact that development projects have on local communities, and making decisions about "where to build new highways" represents the power to materially impact people's lives, for good and ill. But even if we agree that nominal conservatives make these decisions, I can't see how such decisions are made on behalf of conservatism, or at least any conservatism that I would recognize.

Voldemort 2012

“Many of our oldest family trees become a little diseased over time,” Voldemort said as Bellatrix gazed at him, breathless and imploring.  “You must prune yours, must you not, to keep it healthy?  Cut away those parts that threaten the health of the rest.”

“Yes, my Lord,” whispered Bellatrix, and her eyes swam with tears of gratitude again.  “At the first chance!”

“You shall have it,” said Voldemort.  “And in your family, so in the world . . . we shall cut away the canker that infects us until only those of the true blood remain . . . .”

Voldemort raised Lucius Malfoy’s wand, pointed it directly at the slowly revolving figure suspended over the table, and gave it a tiny flick.  The figure came to life with a groan and began to struggle against invisible bonds.

“Do you recognize our guest, Severus?” asked Voldemort.

Snape raised his eyes to the upside-down face.  All of the Death Eaters were looking up at the captive now, as though they had been given permission to show curiosity.  As she revolved to face the fire-light, the woman said in a cracked and terrified voice, “Severus!  Help me!”  “Ah, yes,” said Snape as the prisoner turned slowly away again.

“And you, Draco?” asked Voldemort, stroking the snake’s snout with his want-free hand.  Draco shook his head jerkily.  Now that the woman had woken, he seemed unable to look at her anymore.

“But you would not have taken her classes,” said Voldemort.  “For those of you who do not know, we are joined here tonight by Charity Burbage who, until recently, taught at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

There were small noises of comprehension around the table.  A broad, hunched woman with pointed teeth cackled.

“Yes . . . Professor Burbage taught the children of witches and wizards all about Muggles . . . how they are not so different from us . . .”

One of the Death Eaters spat on the floor.  Charity Burbage revolved to face Snape again.

“Severus . . . please . . . please . . .”

“Silence,” said Voldemort,with another twitch of Malfoy’s wand, and Charity fell silent as if gagged.  “Not content with corrupting and polluting the minds of Wizarding children, last week Professor Burbage wrote an impassioned defense of Mudlboods in the Daily Prophet.  Wizards, she says, must accept these thieves of their knowledge and magic.  The dwindling of the purebloods is, says Professor Burbage,k a most desirable circumstance . . . .l  She would have us all mate with Muggles . . . or, no doubt, werewolves . . . .”

Nobody laughed this time:  There was no mistaking the anger and contempt in Voldemort’s voice.  For the third time, Charity Burbage revolved to face Snape.  Tears were pouring from her eyes into her hair.  Snape looked back at her quite impassive, as she turned slowly away from him again.

“Avada Kedavra.”

The flash of green light illuminated every corner of the room.  Charity fell, with a resounding crash, onto the table below, which trembled and creaked.  Several of the Death Eaters leapt back in their chairs.  Draco fell out of his onto the floor.

“Dinner, Nagini,”said Voldemort softly, and the great snake swayed and slithered from his shoulders onto the polished wood.

-- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, Chapter 1

The Protocols of Heartland

Contra Megan, I'm not especially upset by Peter Gleik's phishing Heartland's tax returns. I mean, I don't think liberal bloggers should get any breaks that conservative bloggers don't get, I'm just saying that my admittedly weak ethical intuition isn't as mortified as Megan's is.

Megan uses the term "wire fraud" to potentially describe Gleik's activities. Personally, I would reserve that term, both legally and ethically, for stealing actual money, or something of value the theft of which deprives the victim of the use of the thing being stolen. I will say parenthetically that I'm not trying to articulate a full-blown property rights metaphysic here, nor am I trying to piggyback this matter onto the debate over IP protection generally. I am saying that it's a Public Good for the Public to know more rather than less about a Public Organization. This doesn't justify anything and everything. But it justifies some things.

Gleik's alleged fabrication of a Heartland "climate strategy" memo, in contrast, is a Public Harm, and AGW enthusiasts deserve all the opprobrium now being heaped upon them for, basically, doing what Dan Rather did when confronted with evidence that his famous Bush National Guard memo was fake: keep pushing the lie.

It occurs to me how difficult it is to pass off a fake -- or cover your tracks -- in the internet age. Think of all the typeface experts that emerged to take on Dan Rather, or in the present case, to recover the pdf metadata pointing to dubious origins.

Φ Joins the 47%

I did my taxes this week.

As my loyal readers know, I spent the first five months of 2011 in Southwest Asia, for which trouble I was reasonably well compensated.  But did you know that, subject to certain limits which never applied in my case, money earned in a war zone is free of federal income tax?

It gets better than that.  Between my tax-free earnings and 2 1/2 months unemployment, my adjusted gross income only barely covered my itemized deductions and exemptions.  Which left me with a taxable income of:  less than $2k.  Needless to say, I'm getting every dime of the income taxes I did pay refunded.

It gets better yet.  It turns out that, with two children and a taxable income of $2k, TaxAct.com qualified us for the poverty programs.  That’s right:  you, my good tax-paying readers, actually subsidized my refund by an additional $3k under the Earned Income Tax Credit, over and above the refund of the income taxes I actually paid!

Thank you, 53%!

Suckers.

Military FUBARs

From Military.com:

WASHINGTON -- Louie Castro is a 28-year-old religion major at Florida State University who should have started the final semester of his senior year last month. Instead, he spent 12 days in jail after being arrested at Miami International Airport because of an administrative error the Army apparently made when he left the service more than nine years ago.

The Army considered him absent without leave.

Okay, thus far the story is about ordinary, every day mindless government incompetence.  A bored, inattentive file clerk in the bowels of the Pentagon hits the wrong button and everybody else is Just Doing Their Jobs.

But from here, the story crosses into full-afterburner incompetence:

Castro was told he must fly to Fort Carson, Colo. — a base where he never served, but where his old Fort Hood unit, the 4th Infantry Division, relocated in 2009 — to resume his old life as an Army private long enough for military personnel officers to fix his paperwork. In the meantime, he missed the start of classes and was forced to withdraw, costing him his financial aid. He will not graduate on schedule.

Just so we’re clear on this, an unnamed adult of legal age, given power and authority by the United States government, decided with all deliberation that the rational solution to the Army’s screw-up was to pull an honorably discharged veteran back into the Army while the information was fixed.

Now you might think that some level of the military chain of command would realize that further detaining a private citizen in contravention of his constitutional rights over what no one disputes is an Army screw-up might be, ya’ know, illegal, unethical, and abuse of power, etc., and put a high priority on finding competent people to make decisions on the government’s behalf.  And of course you would be wrong, because it turns out the government has bigger fish to fry:

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has asked the Marine Corps to investigate the photo in which a group of Marine scout snipers posed before a flag bearing the lightning-bolt double S of the Nazi SS.

"Racist and anti-Semitic symbols have absolutely no place alongside the men and women of America's armed forces," Panetta spokesman George Little said in a brief statement this afternoon.

 

Oops, that’s not it.  But given the dismal state of historical knowledge, it’s pretty obvious what these guys are referring to.

Which is pretty much what the Army originally decided.

The investigation being ordered by Panetta follows one carried out quietly by the Corps in 2010, when the photo was taken in Afghanistan. The Marines in the photo were with Charlie Company, 1st Marine Battalion, which is based at Camp Pendleton, Calif.

The Corps said Thursday that none of the Marines in the photo are currently assigned to Charlie Company, but did not say if any of the Marines were disciplined. The Nazi SS flag in the photo is spread just below an American flag.

But of course, that’s not good enough for the usual people:

Panetta's decision to take a deeper dive into the embarrassing photo comes as civil and human rights groups, among them the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, turned up the heat on the Pentagon Thursday, within hours of the image going viral over the Internet.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The Associated Press he does not believe it was an innocent mistake and insisted the American public has a right to know what happened.