In the coming days, I hope to clarify my thoughts on science and faith, especially, but not limited to, the astronomy issue, in a set of articles to be posted here. For now I will post what I feel to be the main reasons I think attempts by members of the astronomical community to attack religion in general are short-sighted, detrimental, and to me, personally offensive.
Astronomy ought not, and perhaps can not, position itself in opposition to, or otherwise discriminate against, religion or the religious for the following reasons:
The Nature of Science:
1. Science, at its best, seeks to be universal in its accessibility and its benefits. This does not mean it seeks to be universally applicable, or the only system by which legitimate knowledge is created and understood.
2. Science functions best in a working democracy. A working democracy defends the minority from the tyranny of the majority. To the extent that science is, or can be, democratic - a good idea is a good idea, whether it comes from the lowliest student or the most respected researcher - it must seek to avoid the tyranny of the majority.
Economic Assessment of Product, Consumers, and Labor Force:
3. Astronomy itself depends upon a quasi-mysticism that underpins its continued relevance to society.
4. It is utterly foolish to propose to discriminate against 50% (rough percentage of Americans who consider themselves born-again Christians) of your potential labor pool. Excellence from all backgrounds needs to be encouraged and nurtured. Note that this is the equivalent (logically, morally, and even numerically) of barring women from science.
Broader Societal Tensions, Conflicts, and Dangers:
5. If there is truly a cultural/ideological war being waged, astronomy, and science in general, will lose the battle for the hearts and minds of the individual and society if science is seen to be absent of heart and spirit.
6. It plays into the hands of individuals and groups who stand to benefit from a fight between the scientific and religious communities. More specifically, by using a divide-and-conquer strategy against two of the strongest sources of legitimacy outside the legal/economic/political institutions that make up American society, those who actually control a great deal of American policy, economic wealth, and benefit from its legal structure will perpetuate their power and influence, and without checks from these alternate forms of legitimate authority, will do so at the expense of the broader community.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
response to comments on previous post, morphing into commentary on American institutions and risk
To an anonymous friend, RE: comments on previous post via Facebook -
As usual, you rightly call me on making blanket, qualitative, useless, and borderline nationalist chauvinistic comments about things that are far beyond my competence. This is why I depend upon you as a friend and intellectual-emotional counterweight to my delusions of grandeur. I've been in college too long.
However, being an intellectual-wannabe, I will of course try to discursively (word I learned in S&TS) cover my intellectual ass and defend an increasingly untenable position (e.g. French at Dien Bien Phu), possibly by referencing historical events that have no bearing on the present discussion.
I won't quote your reply, in case you wanted to keep your specific comments confidential, but I think that it's only fair to respond to your valid critique about my comments that implied that the French enjoyed greater "liberty" than Americans did, at least in the realm of protesting.
To make my point (and organize my scattered mind) I'll argue the following:
1. Liberty of the individual is restricted by laws and social norms.
2. The ability to effectively enforce law and defend life, liberty, and property depends upon a state's monopoly of force
3. The US enjoys a greater monopoly on the capacity to effectively project force within its borders, even though individual agency still exists through the availability of personal firearms.
4. Trust in American institutions is reinforced by greater domestic control of force. In turn, the trust in American institution legitimizes the government and permits even greater federal control of force and jurisdiction.
5. Consequently, protests are more controlled within this state - especially since greater stability in existing institutions provides greater contrast when order breaks down, and a potentially greater backlash because the government's legitimacy is undermined.
I try to articulate my thoughts a bit more on this.
1. Liberty of the individual is restricted by laws and social norms.
"Liberty" is a sensitive topic. Perhaps it was a poor choice of words. Maybe my mind linked it to something I read in Prof. Wright's class - philosophy of liberty and equality - in which John Stuart Mill's book "On Liberty" discusses a lot of interesting principles - including the harm principle. Basically, one option of setting the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable behavior is to constrain, regulate, or otherwise ban actions that harm anyone else. Self-harm (e.g. suicide) is difficult to regulate, not only because enforcement of law on dead people is difficult, but because it is seen by many people to represent a paternalism that encroaches on the individual's rights to govern his or her own life (however horribly a job the individual may do) provided that such injury doesn't lead to harm of others. What this means is that we can do whatever the hell we want to ourselves (drink, smoke, work in the lab 14 hours a day), provided it doesn't harm others (drunk-driving, second-hand smoking, child neglect, if we have dependents).
2. The ability to effectively enforce law and defend life, liberty, and property depends upon a state's monopoly of force
The monopoly on force that has been the core of the legitimacy of the state since 1648 (Treaty of Westphalia), and articulated in state theory since at least Locke. If you can't defend your territory, you won't be able to provide your citizens with the freedom to worry about longer-term goals like growing food, designing spacecraft, urban planning, etc. In other words, you will remain in a very primitive societal and economic structure, in which any additional resources are devoted to security until the condition of sovereignty is established.
Stalin once said, "How many divisions does the Pope have?" (Interesting comment in response: http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1492) Stalin could not have asked this before 1648. During the Middle Ages, the Pope did have military forces under his control, though his true power involved the split legitimacy (temporal (worldly), and ecclesiastical, (spiritual) ). So what? Well, if hearts and minds matter, then it means that individuals or groups whose hearts and minds belong to someone else might be a threat to the social order. The treaty of Westphalia in 1648 came at the end of the Thirty Years War, an extremely bloody religious-political conflict in which a third of "Germans" were killed. It was recognized by all military/political leaders that this split legitimacy wasn't working, and that the only way to end the mutually destructive conflagration was to create the nation-state as the unit of the international system. Individual leaders would align themselves with the Pope or Luther, but the heads of state would not interfere with the internal affairs of areas considered the domain of other heads of state. Transnational ideas like Protestantism and Catholicism were to be used by the political leadership, but strict domestic security needed to be enforced. Cultural and religious homogeneity helped ensure stability, but for the regime to last, primary allegiance was to the leader, not to the Pope. (Walsingham was evil, but he and Elizabeth did what they needed to do to keep England free and unified).
It's hard to imagine a society that exists in which the state government doesn't have a monopoly on force, yet enjoys sufficient legitimacy to govern. I suppose this would be federalism or empire, though I think our own history as a nation, the history of most empires (Roman, Holy Roman, Byzantine, British), and even the present situation in Iraq indicates that without the monopoly of force - the stability of security - it is impossible for the government of the state to enjoy legitimacy. A monopoly on force appears to be a necessary - though not sufficient - condition to making laws that matter.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." These words from the Declaration of Independence avoided the dustbin of history because the British were unable to maintain a monopoly of force.
3. The US enjoys a greater monopoly on the capacity to effectively project force within its borders, even though individual agency still exists through the availability of personal firearms.
I would say that the restriction of the right to torch cars, not in the purely legal sense, but through their effectiveness, illustrates the choice America has made that individual liberty and property ought to be protected, even if the individual liberty to violently protest is infringed upon.
The United States appears to have more efficient mechanisms of social control over force - in particular, a more effective police force/national guard, or at least policies that allow them to be deployed more readily with greater freedom of action. Maybe this isn't fair - the tragedy at Virginia Tech, and the despicable attempts by gun lobbyists to immediately use it to justify guns on campus - but though we can debate how effectively the United States controls the individual's ability to maintain access to force, I would say that the US does a pretty good job of controlling the use of force within its own borders. The FBI has national jurisdiction, and though Law and Order illustrates that conflicts between jurisdiction between federal and local authorities do exist, it rarely comes to the point of violence. My American History isn't so great, but I think that 1957 saw the last gasp of state control of force coming into conflict with the feds, and even then, the Arkansas National Guard deferred to the federal deployment of National Guardsman during desegregation under Eisenhower. (http://www.eisenhowerbirthplace.org/legacy/ike0003.htm)
I would say that the restriction of the right to torch cars, not in the purely legal sense, but through their effectiveness, illustrates the choice America has made that individual liberty and property ought to be protected, even if the individual liberty to violently protest is infringed upon.
The United States appears to have more efficient mechanisms of social control over force - in particular, a more effective police force/national guard, or at least policies that allow them to be deployed more readily with greater freedom of action. Maybe this isn't fair - the tragedy at Virginia Tech, and the despicable attempts by gun lobbyists to immediately use it to justify guns on campus - but though we can debate how effectively the United States controls the individual's ability to maintain access to force, I would say that the US does a pretty good job of controlling the use of force within its own borders.
4. Trust in American institutions is reinforced by greater domestic control of force. In turn, the trust in American institution legitimizes the government and permits even greater federal control of force and jurisdiction.
The French definitely have their problems. We don't quite have a 10% unemployment rate (http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/france-pays-price-of-liberal-jobless-benefits/2005/08/30/1125302569771.html), and I think in the French banlieues the unemployment rate was approaching 50%. By contrast, Pomona seems to be around 15% (http://www.city-data.com/housing/houses-Pomona-California.html). Caution: I think the French calculate unemployment differently than the US - I'm too lazy to get the facts, but I think the US does not count those who cease to qualify for unemployment benefits after a certain time (like the homeless people we used to feed), while the French may allow people to collect benefits nearly indefinitely.
When a state like France can't deliver on basic things like jobs, an inability to control riots illustrates the weakness of the state, the infringement upon individual liberty and property, and the delegitimization of the governing party - or in extreme cases (like Soviet Communism), of the government structure as a whole. Similarly, I think it would be fair to say that the recidivism of Russia into authoritarianism illustrates the delegitimization of post-Soviet democracy, in which democratic government was unaccompanied by greater control over the privatization process and generation-long efforts to develop democratic institutions.
Qualitatively, there appears to be a greater domestic security apparatus that helps regulate protests and helps them avoid things like the torching of property. I recall a NYTimes article mentioning that during the riots, the rate of torched cars was roughly twice that of an ordinary night. That means that if Paris was burning during the riots, it half-burns on ordinary days.
I've got no stats on the American side for comparison. But the only events in recent memory where there were comparable levels of civil disorder were in LA during the Rodney King riots, during some extended blackouts during the summer, and whenever the Lakers won (we're such fair-weather fans).
America has enjoyed relatively stable economic growth. We have enjoyed fairly good domestic security - Europe and Russia have been dealing with Islamic terrorism well before 9/11. We have food, we have security, we have religious freedom. Consequently, we can pursue careers, argue about the finer points of science-faith issues, discuss the role of national debt on science, etc. We depend on an array of networks and institutions - from high-speed internet to grocery store supply chains to the liberalized financial markets that let us borrow money for school, consumption, homes, and cars.
For the most part, awareness of those networks and systems is unnecessary. After all, that's why system administrators, engineers, CIA analysts, Wal-Mart operations researchers, and investment bankers are paid. As groups, we are far more risk-averse, and as groups do not want to either engage in extreme violent conflict with the police or otherwise engage in activities that mean long-term risk - existential, financial, or social - to our existing interests. I don't know if it's because we're so rich that populism has lost its wind - the last time there was this level of wealth inequality in this country was in 1929, yet protests about poverty are much lower in frequency and intensity now than a few decades ago.
My French friend was fascinated by the idea that the American dollar is fiat money - that is, nothing is underpinning the value of our currency than the confidence that we have in it. Maybe I've been spending too much time with STS people, but social constructivism as I understand it - the social construction of reality based on shared norms and social interactions, rather than some "external", "objective" measure - is imbedded even within our very economic system. Yes, quantitative metrics can determine whether the valuation of the dollar relative to the yuan (renminbi?) is representative of an optimal trading system, or if a given stock is overvalued compared to its industry counterparts, and yes, the damn code either compiles or it doesn't, but ultimately a great deal of what we depend upon - the dollar, the state, and even the value and stability of my own mind - is supported by confidence, individual and shared, and a complicated, convoluted, and probably undemocratic and dynamic process of consensus norms.
It's scary when we think about how dependent we are upon the smooth functioning of various extremely complicated systems - and this fear has been motivating Richard Garwin, a high-level science advisor to many administrations who spoke recently at Cornell about the need to develop an effective emergency action plan in the event of a nuclear terrorist attack in Manhattan - he puts it at roughly 20-50% in the next couple years. One of the barriers to this is the illusion that absolute security is possible. It's a politically intractable problem. How do you convince the public that you can't provide absolute security, that you need to devote money to preparing for the event of a major terrorist attack, where without adequate preparation, more people could die from hunger, panic, and lawlessness than in the original attack.
But the main point is this: America is strong, rich, and powerful because it has delivered, its citizens believe in it, and no other nation appears (yet) to marshal the coalition of personal resources (that underpin our intellectual, financial, martial and physical* resources) needed to compete with US power at the global level. And we have been able to do this because America has made good on many of its promises to its citizens. It's not quite, "we are rich because we think we are rich and think we want to be rich", but as absurd as it sounds, it's not too far off. We can focus our mental energies toward making the nation - as a motley crew of interests united by an overall self-interest in the maintenance of American power - stronger, richer, and smarter because security is guaranteed. And security is guaranteed by our continuous efforts along these lines. Chalmers Johnson says, correctly, that "Nowhere is it written that the American Empire goes on forever." But, to a large extent, so long as we believe in the possibility of a measure of security, and that our leaders are pursuing policies that do not reveal gross domestic signs to the contrary, we will not take to the streets, we will not burn cars, we will not give up HBO to read Mao's Red Book, and we will not be wrong in our refusal to sacrifice a measure of calculated ignorance for a measure of unreasonable paranoia.
I would argue that all of these things make protests in America far more controlled, and far less effective as an instrument of change.
(*physical resources are something in that world that social constructivism fails to account for, though the decision to exploit domestic reserves of coal, uranium, etc and form agreements with partners which possess strategic resources is subject to some elements of social construction.)
Our time at HMC provides an interesting example. During our time there was only two major protests that I knew of - one was against the Iraq war, and one was in support of Kerri Dunn. Both of those events were very orderly, limited to a few hours, and - damn it - were characterized by a few left-wing individuals who believed so much in institutions that they felt that top-down approaches were the only things that mattered. Remember SLAM? Remember that their platform and mission focused on getting the administration to sign a letter? This is not the platform of a revolutionary group - this is the platform of a group who, inspired by fiery rhetoric and revolutionary fervor, still trusted the process, and still possessed enough sense to see the power of institutional legitimacy compared with a few angry students. I was swept up in the fever like everyone else - but at no time did I feel that the institution had, by a failure, become irrelevant. Cosmetic changes may have been needed, but in the end, we trusted the Judiciary/Disciplinary Board with what could have been its most important decision to date - on the fate of those participating in the cross-burning - and we trusted the academic leadership enough to not turn them out of office. No one, to my knowledge, lost their jobs, though I and many others may have lost our sense of rationality.
As such, I no longer trust the protest to become the prime tool of social change. The uncoordinated violence of the banlieues cannot be tolerated in America, pre- or post-9/11. Organization of course matters, but the insurgency lies within ideas and economics, not Molotov cocktails.
Post-script: How did I do on the intellecto-arrogantometer?
+ 5 used unnecessary word in another language to show off, and maybe disguise the fact that I'm a monolingual American chauvinist.
+ 10 word described above is French
+ 5 used a case study
+ 5 x 2 = 10 cited a website for statistical data
+ 10 trivialized legitimate grievance of disenfranchised minorities and their use of violence to articulate their discontent
+10 quoted a vogue liberal decrying American Imperialism (though nowhere is it written in this essay that I think the American Empire is more bad than good)
- 10 didn't cite a source from the acceptable literature
- 10 Didn't use LaTeX
- 10 stated clearly a caveat concerning different measures of unemployment
- 2 was too lazy to check above caveat and resolve it
+5 somewhat quotable closing to the essay
As usual, you rightly call me on making blanket, qualitative, useless, and borderline nationalist chauvinistic comments about things that are far beyond my competence. This is why I depend upon you as a friend and intellectual-emotional counterweight to my delusions of grandeur. I've been in college too long.
However, being an intellectual-wannabe, I will of course try to discursively (word I learned in S&TS) cover my intellectual ass and defend an increasingly untenable position (e.g. French at Dien Bien Phu), possibly by referencing historical events that have no bearing on the present discussion.
I won't quote your reply, in case you wanted to keep your specific comments confidential, but I think that it's only fair to respond to your valid critique about my comments that implied that the French enjoyed greater "liberty" than Americans did, at least in the realm of protesting.
To make my point (and organize my scattered mind) I'll argue the following:
1. Liberty of the individual is restricted by laws and social norms.
2. The ability to effectively enforce law and defend life, liberty, and property depends upon a state's monopoly of force
3. The US enjoys a greater monopoly on the capacity to effectively project force within its borders, even though individual agency still exists through the availability of personal firearms.
4. Trust in American institutions is reinforced by greater domestic control of force. In turn, the trust in American institution legitimizes the government and permits even greater federal control of force and jurisdiction.
5. Consequently, protests are more controlled within this state - especially since greater stability in existing institutions provides greater contrast when order breaks down, and a potentially greater backlash because the government's legitimacy is undermined.
I try to articulate my thoughts a bit more on this.
1. Liberty of the individual is restricted by laws and social norms.
"Liberty" is a sensitive topic. Perhaps it was a poor choice of words. Maybe my mind linked it to something I read in Prof. Wright's class - philosophy of liberty and equality - in which John Stuart Mill's book "On Liberty" discusses a lot of interesting principles - including the harm principle. Basically, one option of setting the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable behavior is to constrain, regulate, or otherwise ban actions that harm anyone else. Self-harm (e.g. suicide) is difficult to regulate, not only because enforcement of law on dead people is difficult, but because it is seen by many people to represent a paternalism that encroaches on the individual's rights to govern his or her own life (however horribly a job the individual may do) provided that such injury doesn't lead to harm of others. What this means is that we can do whatever the hell we want to ourselves (drink, smoke, work in the lab 14 hours a day), provided it doesn't harm others (drunk-driving, second-hand smoking, child neglect, if we have dependents).
2. The ability to effectively enforce law and defend life, liberty, and property depends upon a state's monopoly of force
The monopoly on force that has been the core of the legitimacy of the state since 1648 (Treaty of Westphalia), and articulated in state theory since at least Locke. If you can't defend your territory, you won't be able to provide your citizens with the freedom to worry about longer-term goals like growing food, designing spacecraft, urban planning, etc. In other words, you will remain in a very primitive societal and economic structure, in which any additional resources are devoted to security until the condition of sovereignty is established.
Stalin once said, "How many divisions does the Pope have?" (Interesting comment in response: http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1492) Stalin could not have asked this before 1648. During the Middle Ages, the Pope did have military forces under his control, though his true power involved the split legitimacy (temporal (worldly), and ecclesiastical, (spiritual) ). So what? Well, if hearts and minds matter, then it means that individuals or groups whose hearts and minds belong to someone else might be a threat to the social order. The treaty of Westphalia in 1648 came at the end of the Thirty Years War, an extremely bloody religious-political conflict in which a third of "Germans" were killed. It was recognized by all military/political leaders that this split legitimacy wasn't working, and that the only way to end the mutually destructive conflagration was to create the nation-state as the unit of the international system. Individual leaders would align themselves with the Pope or Luther, but the heads of state would not interfere with the internal affairs of areas considered the domain of other heads of state. Transnational ideas like Protestantism and Catholicism were to be used by the political leadership, but strict domestic security needed to be enforced. Cultural and religious homogeneity helped ensure stability, but for the regime to last, primary allegiance was to the leader, not to the Pope. (Walsingham was evil, but he and Elizabeth did what they needed to do to keep England free and unified).
It's hard to imagine a society that exists in which the state government doesn't have a monopoly on force, yet enjoys sufficient legitimacy to govern. I suppose this would be federalism or empire, though I think our own history as a nation, the history of most empires (Roman, Holy Roman, Byzantine, British), and even the present situation in Iraq indicates that without the monopoly of force - the stability of security - it is impossible for the government of the state to enjoy legitimacy. A monopoly on force appears to be a necessary - though not sufficient - condition to making laws that matter.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." These words from the Declaration of Independence avoided the dustbin of history because the British were unable to maintain a monopoly of force.
3. The US enjoys a greater monopoly on the capacity to effectively project force within its borders, even though individual agency still exists through the availability of personal firearms.
I would say that the restriction of the right to torch cars, not in the purely legal sense, but through their effectiveness, illustrates the choice America has made that individual liberty and property ought to be protected, even if the individual liberty to violently protest is infringed upon.
The United States appears to have more efficient mechanisms of social control over force - in particular, a more effective police force/national guard, or at least policies that allow them to be deployed more readily with greater freedom of action. Maybe this isn't fair - the tragedy at Virginia Tech, and the despicable attempts by gun lobbyists to immediately use it to justify guns on campus - but though we can debate how effectively the United States controls the individual's ability to maintain access to force, I would say that the US does a pretty good job of controlling the use of force within its own borders. The FBI has national jurisdiction, and though Law and Order illustrates that conflicts between jurisdiction between federal and local authorities do exist, it rarely comes to the point of violence. My American History isn't so great, but I think that 1957 saw the last gasp of state control of force coming into conflict with the feds, and even then, the Arkansas National Guard deferred to the federal deployment of National Guardsman during desegregation under Eisenhower. (http://www.eisenhowerbirthplace.org/legacy/ike0003.htm)
I would say that the restriction of the right to torch cars, not in the purely legal sense, but through their effectiveness, illustrates the choice America has made that individual liberty and property ought to be protected, even if the individual liberty to violently protest is infringed upon.
The United States appears to have more efficient mechanisms of social control over force - in particular, a more effective police force/national guard, or at least policies that allow them to be deployed more readily with greater freedom of action. Maybe this isn't fair - the tragedy at Virginia Tech, and the despicable attempts by gun lobbyists to immediately use it to justify guns on campus - but though we can debate how effectively the United States controls the individual's ability to maintain access to force, I would say that the US does a pretty good job of controlling the use of force within its own borders.
4. Trust in American institutions is reinforced by greater domestic control of force. In turn, the trust in American institution legitimizes the government and permits even greater federal control of force and jurisdiction.
The French definitely have their problems. We don't quite have a 10% unemployment rate (http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/france-pays-price-of-liberal-jobless-benefits/2005/08/30/1125302569771.html), and I think in the French banlieues the unemployment rate was approaching 50%. By contrast, Pomona seems to be around 15% (http://www.city-data.com/housing/houses-Pomona-California.html). Caution: I think the French calculate unemployment differently than the US - I'm too lazy to get the facts, but I think the US does not count those who cease to qualify for unemployment benefits after a certain time (like the homeless people we used to feed), while the French may allow people to collect benefits nearly indefinitely.
When a state like France can't deliver on basic things like jobs, an inability to control riots illustrates the weakness of the state, the infringement upon individual liberty and property, and the delegitimization of the governing party - or in extreme cases (like Soviet Communism), of the government structure as a whole. Similarly, I think it would be fair to say that the recidivism of Russia into authoritarianism illustrates the delegitimization of post-Soviet democracy, in which democratic government was unaccompanied by greater control over the privatization process and generation-long efforts to develop democratic institutions.
Qualitatively, there appears to be a greater domestic security apparatus that helps regulate protests and helps them avoid things like the torching of property. I recall a NYTimes article mentioning that during the riots, the rate of torched cars was roughly twice that of an ordinary night. That means that if Paris was burning during the riots, it half-burns on ordinary days.
I've got no stats on the American side for comparison. But the only events in recent memory where there were comparable levels of civil disorder were in LA during the Rodney King riots, during some extended blackouts during the summer, and whenever the Lakers won (we're such fair-weather fans).
America has enjoyed relatively stable economic growth. We have enjoyed fairly good domestic security - Europe and Russia have been dealing with Islamic terrorism well before 9/11. We have food, we have security, we have religious freedom. Consequently, we can pursue careers, argue about the finer points of science-faith issues, discuss the role of national debt on science, etc. We depend on an array of networks and institutions - from high-speed internet to grocery store supply chains to the liberalized financial markets that let us borrow money for school, consumption, homes, and cars.
For the most part, awareness of those networks and systems is unnecessary. After all, that's why system administrators, engineers, CIA analysts, Wal-Mart operations researchers, and investment bankers are paid. As groups, we are far more risk-averse, and as groups do not want to either engage in extreme violent conflict with the police or otherwise engage in activities that mean long-term risk - existential, financial, or social - to our existing interests. I don't know if it's because we're so rich that populism has lost its wind - the last time there was this level of wealth inequality in this country was in 1929, yet protests about poverty are much lower in frequency and intensity now than a few decades ago.
My French friend was fascinated by the idea that the American dollar is fiat money - that is, nothing is underpinning the value of our currency than the confidence that we have in it. Maybe I've been spending too much time with STS people, but social constructivism as I understand it - the social construction of reality based on shared norms and social interactions, rather than some "external", "objective" measure - is imbedded even within our very economic system. Yes, quantitative metrics can determine whether the valuation of the dollar relative to the yuan (renminbi?) is representative of an optimal trading system, or if a given stock is overvalued compared to its industry counterparts, and yes, the damn code either compiles or it doesn't, but ultimately a great deal of what we depend upon - the dollar, the state, and even the value and stability of my own mind - is supported by confidence, individual and shared, and a complicated, convoluted, and probably undemocratic and dynamic process of consensus norms.
It's scary when we think about how dependent we are upon the smooth functioning of various extremely complicated systems - and this fear has been motivating Richard Garwin, a high-level science advisor to many administrations who spoke recently at Cornell about the need to develop an effective emergency action plan in the event of a nuclear terrorist attack in Manhattan - he puts it at roughly 20-50% in the next couple years. One of the barriers to this is the illusion that absolute security is possible. It's a politically intractable problem. How do you convince the public that you can't provide absolute security, that you need to devote money to preparing for the event of a major terrorist attack, where without adequate preparation, more people could die from hunger, panic, and lawlessness than in the original attack.
But the main point is this: America is strong, rich, and powerful because it has delivered, its citizens believe in it, and no other nation appears (yet) to marshal the coalition of personal resources (that underpin our intellectual, financial, martial and physical* resources) needed to compete with US power at the global level. And we have been able to do this because America has made good on many of its promises to its citizens. It's not quite, "we are rich because we think we are rich and think we want to be rich", but as absurd as it sounds, it's not too far off. We can focus our mental energies toward making the nation - as a motley crew of interests united by an overall self-interest in the maintenance of American power - stronger, richer, and smarter because security is guaranteed. And security is guaranteed by our continuous efforts along these lines. Chalmers Johnson says, correctly, that "Nowhere is it written that the American Empire goes on forever." But, to a large extent, so long as we believe in the possibility of a measure of security, and that our leaders are pursuing policies that do not reveal gross domestic signs to the contrary, we will not take to the streets, we will not burn cars, we will not give up HBO to read Mao's Red Book, and we will not be wrong in our refusal to sacrifice a measure of calculated ignorance for a measure of unreasonable paranoia.
I would argue that all of these things make protests in America far more controlled, and far less effective as an instrument of change.
(*physical resources are something in that world that social constructivism fails to account for, though the decision to exploit domestic reserves of coal, uranium, etc and form agreements with partners which possess strategic resources is subject to some elements of social construction.)
Our time at HMC provides an interesting example. During our time there was only two major protests that I knew of - one was against the Iraq war, and one was in support of Kerri Dunn. Both of those events were very orderly, limited to a few hours, and - damn it - were characterized by a few left-wing individuals who believed so much in institutions that they felt that top-down approaches were the only things that mattered. Remember SLAM? Remember that their platform and mission focused on getting the administration to sign a letter? This is not the platform of a revolutionary group - this is the platform of a group who, inspired by fiery rhetoric and revolutionary fervor, still trusted the process, and still possessed enough sense to see the power of institutional legitimacy compared with a few angry students. I was swept up in the fever like everyone else - but at no time did I feel that the institution had, by a failure, become irrelevant. Cosmetic changes may have been needed, but in the end, we trusted the Judiciary/Disciplinary Board with what could have been its most important decision to date - on the fate of those participating in the cross-burning - and we trusted the academic leadership enough to not turn them out of office. No one, to my knowledge, lost their jobs, though I and many others may have lost our sense of rationality.
As such, I no longer trust the protest to become the prime tool of social change. The uncoordinated violence of the banlieues cannot be tolerated in America, pre- or post-9/11. Organization of course matters, but the insurgency lies within ideas and economics, not Molotov cocktails.
Post-script: How did I do on the intellecto-arrogantometer?
+ 5 used unnecessary word in another language to show off, and maybe disguise the fact that I'm a monolingual American chauvinist.
+ 10 word described above is French
+ 5 used a case study
+ 5 x 2 = 10 cited a website for statistical data
+ 10 trivialized legitimate grievance of disenfranchised minorities and their use of violence to articulate their discontent
+10 quoted a vogue liberal decrying American Imperialism (though nowhere is it written in this essay that I think the American Empire is more bad than good)
- 10 didn't cite a source from the acceptable literature
- 10 Didn't use LaTeX
- 10 stated clearly a caveat concerning different measures of unemployment
- 2 was too lazy to check above caveat and resolve it
+5 somewhat quotable closing to the essay
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Comments on the Cornell Bus Pass issue
This post is in reference to a Cornell Facebook group post on the anticipated end of free bus passes for incoming and first- and second- year graduate students students.
I don't think a protest will accept policy, especially because of the fairness issue highlighted by another post in this group.
If you want to get free bus passes, it would probably be a good idea to make a case for the cause based on economic as well as environmental impact. Cornell grads are pretty smart, know how to handle simple formulas in excel, conduct decent surveys, and do literature reviews.
To make the case, a few questions have to be asked:
If the Cornell bus pass is revoked...
1. how many grad students will decide not to purchase a bus pass?
- could probably do an electronic survey, with control group more senior grad students (confounding variable: effect of classes on need for frequent transportation to campus)
2. how many grad students would try to drive to campus instead?
- could probably do an electronic survey, with control group more senior grad students (confounding variable: effect of classes on need for frequent transportation to campus)
- important because of parking crunch, carbon emissions from cars;
3. How would this affect the price that TCAT can charge local businesses for its advertisements?
- a significant downturn in public transit usage would mean a smaller audience for bus ads, making them less valuable to local businesses/charities that advertise on the bus
4. How would this affect the frequency and range of bus routes?
- if the impacts were geographically or temporally localized, certain bus routes would close
- this could lead to secondary effects along the lines of (1), (2) and (3)
5. Using (1) and additional statistics on distance to campus of grad student residences and properties of cars typically owned by grad students (e.g. MPG), how much additional greenhouse gas (GHG) and other emissions would result?
- mitigated somewhat if certain bus lines close
- could quantify by assigning a somewhat arbitrary anticipated market rate for GHG emission per ton
6. Using (2), and possibly estimates of the increased wear and tear on cars and maintenance costs, how would the decrease in disposable income of grad students affect certain sectors of the local economy?
- gas stations and mechanics would benefit
- consumer retailers might lose slightly
- I doubt the elasticity of demand for these goods has been measured for grad students; can you generalize from studies of regional/national consumer behavior?
7. What is the cost of the Omnibus pass for the university for each graduating class?
- important to compare with the costs outlined above
Calculate all of these, and probably a few other things. Either the cost-benefit analysis will come out in favor of the free bus pass, or it won't. Even if it doesn't you could make an argument about certain externalities that haven't quite been internalized, such as
- damage to Cornell's reputation for being green
- damage to student-administration relation
- damage to school's reputation in community
- increased financial pressure for some members of the graduate community (e.g. humanities students more impacted than the engineers/scientists)
- lost productivity from grad students taking time away from research to organize, petition, conduct a cost-benefit analysis, negotiate with the administration...
Ok, what other options? Those listed on the website include -
picket
petition
A petition is easy, though I'm pessimistic about the ability of it working. It's better than nothing though - someone volunteer to draft the text, and someone be responsible for consolidating the petitions into one document after they have about 10 signatories each, vetting them for repeats.
A picket could happen, though my experience with protests is that (1) if you don't get enough people, they look really, really sad; (2) even if you get a lot of people, they tend to have credibility if the cause is (a) universal in its impact, and (b) have a clear opponent, (c) avoid the taint of self-interest, (d) are attended by individuals with credibility.
Weber cites three sources of legitimacy - charismatic, institutional, and traditional. The student protest depends heavily on the first, where charisma is understood to be a combination of passion and rationality (i.e., a Nobel Laureate is often better than a convicted felon). By their nature protests are not institutionalized, though the existing institutional framework may exist through a set of established advocacy/environmental organizations. Legitimacy from tradition has also been hindered because of the failure of the protest to become as part of student culture as it was during the Vietnam war, its perceived powerlessness to stop the Iraq war, and a culture (vis a vis France) that prefers the security of rule of law to the liberty and risk of frequent labor/student protests.
Quite frankly, if you can find someone who has the ability to get a crowd worked up about bus passes without coming off as self-serving or quixotic, such a talent is squandered in graduate study and should be readily employed in resurrecting American populism. With roughly one-half to two-thirds of the graduate community not standing to lose from this policy, it will be short work to exploit that division to give the appearance that the protesters are self-serving first- and second-year students. Therefore, I would conclude that charismatic legitimacy will be absent from a protest.
So what do you do? Barring insurgency, which at some level could have been reflected in the Redbud Woods 2005 incident, I believe you are left to operate within the system. Organize a coalition of businesses and community interests likely to be impacted, as determined from the analysis outlined above. Then go to President Skorton and the Board of Trustees to make your case. I would assume that most of this analysis has been done internally; the student case will be to claim that certain costs were not accounted for in the economic analysis, and that these are sufficient to warrant a change in the policy.
My two cents. I'm not a policy analyst, or even a particularly competent student of organizational behavior. I'm actually a burned-out volunteer who got tired of seeing people protest and go home, or let ego interfere with a cause or mission, instead of working toward long-term, incremental changes in culture and valuations through the creation of institutions and the painstakingly slow process of winning hearts and minds. Best wishes on your efforts.
I don't think a protest will accept policy, especially because of the fairness issue highlighted by another post in this group.
If you want to get free bus passes, it would probably be a good idea to make a case for the cause based on economic as well as environmental impact. Cornell grads are pretty smart, know how to handle simple formulas in excel, conduct decent surveys, and do literature reviews.
To make the case, a few questions have to be asked:
If the Cornell bus pass is revoked...
1. how many grad students will decide not to purchase a bus pass?
- could probably do an electronic survey, with control group more senior grad students (confounding variable: effect of classes on need for frequent transportation to campus)
2. how many grad students would try to drive to campus instead?
- could probably do an electronic survey, with control group more senior grad students (confounding variable: effect of classes on need for frequent transportation to campus)
- important because of parking crunch, carbon emissions from cars;
3. How would this affect the price that TCAT can charge local businesses for its advertisements?
- a significant downturn in public transit usage would mean a smaller audience for bus ads, making them less valuable to local businesses/charities that advertise on the bus
4. How would this affect the frequency and range of bus routes?
- if the impacts were geographically or temporally localized, certain bus routes would close
- this could lead to secondary effects along the lines of (1), (2) and (3)
5. Using (1) and additional statistics on distance to campus of grad student residences and properties of cars typically owned by grad students (e.g. MPG), how much additional greenhouse gas (GHG) and other emissions would result?
- mitigated somewhat if certain bus lines close
- could quantify by assigning a somewhat arbitrary anticipated market rate for GHG emission per ton
6. Using (2), and possibly estimates of the increased wear and tear on cars and maintenance costs, how would the decrease in disposable income of grad students affect certain sectors of the local economy?
- gas stations and mechanics would benefit
- consumer retailers might lose slightly
- I doubt the elasticity of demand for these goods has been measured for grad students; can you generalize from studies of regional/national consumer behavior?
7. What is the cost of the Omnibus pass for the university for each graduating class?
- important to compare with the costs outlined above
Calculate all of these, and probably a few other things. Either the cost-benefit analysis will come out in favor of the free bus pass, or it won't. Even if it doesn't you could make an argument about certain externalities that haven't quite been internalized, such as
- damage to Cornell's reputation for being green
- damage to student-administration relation
- damage to school's reputation in community
- increased financial pressure for some members of the graduate community (e.g. humanities students more impacted than the engineers/scientists)
- lost productivity from grad students taking time away from research to organize, petition, conduct a cost-benefit analysis, negotiate with the administration...
Ok, what other options? Those listed on the website include -
picket
petition
A petition is easy, though I'm pessimistic about the ability of it working. It's better than nothing though - someone volunteer to draft the text, and someone be responsible for consolidating the petitions into one document after they have about 10 signatories each, vetting them for repeats.
A picket could happen, though my experience with protests is that (1) if you don't get enough people, they look really, really sad; (2) even if you get a lot of people, they tend to have credibility if the cause is (a) universal in its impact, and (b) have a clear opponent, (c) avoid the taint of self-interest, (d) are attended by individuals with credibility.
Weber cites three sources of legitimacy - charismatic, institutional, and traditional. The student protest depends heavily on the first, where charisma is understood to be a combination of passion and rationality (i.e., a Nobel Laureate is often better than a convicted felon). By their nature protests are not institutionalized, though the existing institutional framework may exist through a set of established advocacy/environmental organizations. Legitimacy from tradition has also been hindered because of the failure of the protest to become as part of student culture as it was during the Vietnam war, its perceived powerlessness to stop the Iraq war, and a culture (vis a vis France) that prefers the security of rule of law to the liberty and risk of frequent labor/student protests.
Quite frankly, if you can find someone who has the ability to get a crowd worked up about bus passes without coming off as self-serving or quixotic, such a talent is squandered in graduate study and should be readily employed in resurrecting American populism. With roughly one-half to two-thirds of the graduate community not standing to lose from this policy, it will be short work to exploit that division to give the appearance that the protesters are self-serving first- and second-year students. Therefore, I would conclude that charismatic legitimacy will be absent from a protest.
So what do you do? Barring insurgency, which at some level could have been reflected in the Redbud Woods 2005 incident, I believe you are left to operate within the system. Organize a coalition of businesses and community interests likely to be impacted, as determined from the analysis outlined above. Then go to President Skorton and the Board of Trustees to make your case. I would assume that most of this analysis has been done internally; the student case will be to claim that certain costs were not accounted for in the economic analysis, and that these are sufficient to warrant a change in the policy.
My two cents. I'm not a policy analyst, or even a particularly competent student of organizational behavior. I'm actually a burned-out volunteer who got tired of seeing people protest and go home, or let ego interfere with a cause or mission, instead of working toward long-term, incremental changes in culture and valuations through the creation of institutions and the painstakingly slow process of winning hearts and minds. Best wishes on your efforts.
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Wrinklies!
This morning I heard on NPR about a book titled Boomesday, a satirical work by Chris Buckley (former speechwriter for Bush41) describing a modest proposal that would solve the impending Social Security disaster caused by a mass exodus of Baby Boomers from the workforce. While I'm against -isms as much as the next aspiring limousine liberal, I find "Wrinklies" too irresistible and hilarious to let it pass without mention. Note: this is a NOVEL, not a detailed policy analysis of a serious issue.
Recognizing that fact, and also recognizing that for a modestly intelligent man I have completely neglected my personal finance obligations, I have recently opened a Roth IRA with Vanguard. Their targeted retirement funds have low expense ratios and enough international exposure that I can sleep better knowing that I have a modest hedge against a weakening dollar. (As a further hedge against inflation and a growing China, I also buried a stash of gold bullion, cheez whiz, and John Tesh CDs in the wilds of unwashed laundry that now decorate my room - my disgustingness provides a fairly foolproof security measure against theft.)
Finally, I had a wonderful dinner with a beautiful French postdoc. It's a shame I see too many flaws in academic life, because it does have its advantages...
Recognizing that fact, and also recognizing that for a modestly intelligent man I have completely neglected my personal finance obligations, I have recently opened a Roth IRA with Vanguard. Their targeted retirement funds have low expense ratios and enough international exposure that I can sleep better knowing that I have a modest hedge against a weakening dollar. (As a further hedge against inflation and a growing China, I also buried a stash of gold bullion, cheez whiz, and John Tesh CDs in the wilds of unwashed laundry that now decorate my room - my disgustingness provides a fairly foolproof security measure against theft.)
Finally, I had a wonderful dinner with a beautiful French postdoc. It's a shame I see too many flaws in academic life, because it does have its advantages...
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