One Good Turn

Sunday, May 23, 2004

 
CMD
I just recently read an interesting article in the Smithsonian Magazine about Ricky Jay, the actor who plays Eddie Sawyer on HBO's Deadwood. It turns out that acting is just a side job for him. His real fame comes being what his website calls "one of the world's great sleight-of-hand artists." Here are some remarkable points of interest:

1. He is in the Guinness Book of World Records for throwing a playing card 190 feet at 90 miles an hour. On the basis of this peculiar ability, he wrote a book, now out-of-print and very expensive to buy on the secondary markets, called Cards as Weapons. The back of the book says "Put a deck of cards in your pocket, Put a feeling of confidence in your life"!

2. He is a historian of the con, the sleight-of-hand, and all other skills of deception, as well as people who are just odd. He has contributed to building specialized libraries on this topic and has an extensive one of his own with 4-5 thousand titles. He gives lectures and has his own radio show. Here is a list of recent radio pieces, including ones on the infamous Indian Rope Trick and the first female cannonballer.

3. He has performed in two successful one-man shows, Ricky Jay: On the Stem and Ricky Jay & His 52 Assistants, the latter winning an award called the Lucille Lortel and Obie Awards for Outstanding Achievement. The Smithsonian article has this account from one of the shows:

It is unwise to play poker with this man, as he demonstrated in On the Stem when he invited an audience member to join him for a few hands. Jay shuffled, dealt -- and won. "Was that fair?" he said. "I . . . don't . . . think . . . so." He let the man cut the cards. Jay won. He let the man shuffle and cut. Jay dealt and won. "Was that fair? I . . . don't . . . think . . . so." Finally, the man shuffled and cut the cards while Jay sat with his hands flat on the table and said, "You pick a hand for me and a hand for yourself." The man did so, then turned over the four cards he selected for himself --all losers. "Was that fair?" Jay asked, and one by one turned over the cards he had been dealt. "I" -- ace -- "don't" -- ace --"think" -- ace -- "so" -- ace.

4. And, finally, this anecdote, also from the Smithsonian Magazine:

Deschanel recalls the time Jay worked wonders with a piece of paper. "As he folded and tore the paper, it took on the
shape of a butterfly -- and then magically the butterfly flew
away. It was in fact a real butterfly. It is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. His magic is like great storytelling that brings life and reality to the level of myth. You don't feel it's a trick well done. You feel he is operating on another level that goes to the core of human instinct."

Keep your eyes open.
Eddie 12:55 PM

Friday, May 21, 2004

 
Troop Count
I have read a number of credible arguments that we need a much larger troop presence in Iraq, but I have also read consistently that our armed forces are stretched thin generally. A cousin of my wife is in the Air National Guard. He told me that, given how many soldiers we have overseas, he could make a living just filling in at bases around the country. Some also think that we are avoiding confrontation in North Korea because we don't have the manpower for more aggressive diplomacy.

I have yet, however, to read anyone carefully explain what we are to make of these two points. How could the President have sent more troops to Iraq if we are pressed now to cover all of our military needs? Where would they have come from?

And if there were no more troops to send, what then? Are those who claim we need more troops saying that we shouldn't have fought this war at all? If so, it would be nice for them to be more forthright, since there criticism of how the war is being fought is tantamount to a criticism of the war altogether. Or should we have delayed fighting until we had built up our troop strength? Perhaps, but it isn't clear to me that this kind of delay would have been politically feasible. This country has a hard enough time sticking to a course of action. Is it really possible that we could maintain our resolve during the time needed to find and train so many new people? Furthermore, I just don't see any great clamor for increasing our force size anyway. If troop numbers are the problem, why aren't there people pushing for these increases?

The perfect is the enemy of the good.
Eddie 1:35 PM

Wednesday, May 19, 2004

 
Doc
Doc Watson came to town tonight, and it was great. A friend of mine had snatched up six front row seats because the tickets went on sale weeks before they were promoted. (Only in Macon!) I'm ashamed to say how many songs I heard for the first time, but I'm glad I've heard them now. "Don't Monkey With My Widow When I'm Gone" was especially good. I also enjoyed the Jimmie Rodgers songs quite a bit, even if he did soften up "Frankie and Johnnie" a little. Frankie not only didn't get the chair, she didn't have to serve a sentence at all! He also eased up on the last line, replacing "...it goes to show that there ain't no good in men" with "some men". Oh well, I won't complain.

Doc comes across as entirely genuine. After one song, late in the second set, he apologized for having forgotten some of the words, saying that his mind had been distracted by thinking about his wife's poor health. To quote (roughly) from him, earlier in the evening he said that "I'm foolish enough to think that I shouldn't do anything but be who I am." Amen.
Eddie 11:55 PM

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

 
Clean Sweep
At the reception for my sister-in-law's wedding this past weekend, I had the opportunity to talk with one of my favorite in-laws, an older cousin of my wife's who is an attorney in Alexandria, VA. She told me that her hearing was impaired, especially in the range of the male voice. (How convenient!) Although she knew the condition was getting worse, she wasn't sure how long she had had the problem. She now uses a hearing aid, but still has trouble with male voices, which she thinks may be due to a lifelong inexperience in hearing that vocal range. In other words, she thinks the sounds are now reaching her eardrum, but that her brain is still not processing them very well.

This fits with a lot of brain research we find in the popular press. On the ride back from the wedding, we heard a radio news report that stated that our mental abilities in different areas atrophy if underutilized. We are told then that children need to have their brain stimulated in many different ways, whatever that might mean.

It is interesting that we react so negatively to the thought that there might be mental facilities that we let go undeveloped. In an earlier age, it would be presumed that every person would develop the facilities necessary for their role. If our mental capacities are means to an end, it doesn't matter much if we don't acquire means irrelevant to our functioning.

A distinctive feature of the contemporary world is our belief in the importance of developing the whole person. For us, our mental capacities are not simply means to an end. The exercise of our capacities is taken to be an end in itself. We strengthen ourselves, not for particular tasks, but just to be strong.

Marx's political philosophy is the first that I'm aware of that explicitly makes the development of the whole person into an important political objective. Marx envisioned a life where we farm in the morning and write poetry in the evening, or whatever combination of activities brings us the greatest satisfaction. Consequently, he hated the division of labor found in modern forms of production. It stultified the mind by its repetition and the lack of autonomy given to the worker.

Marx was wrong about some important matters, I believe, but I am drawn to this vision of a good life. We are always more than what we find ourselves doing at any particular time. The stoic Epictetus said that we are actors on a stage, by which he meant to separate our identity from our role in life. Epictetus is still an ancient philosopher, in that he considers these roles to be determined by our station, but he recognizes a freedom of spirit that doesn't attach itself to any given particular. Hegel speaks of this freedom as the negativity of spirit, i.e., the ability of spirit to negate its presence and identify with something greater.

Our commercial culture is criticized as materialistic, but it is largely appealing to this sense of human freedom. Every shopping trip is an opportunity, large or small, to rethink the boundaries of one's experience. Every major purchase is a form of liberation.

There are an infinite number of television shows that now appeal to this desire to make-over one's existence. You can watch people remodel rooms, organize their belongings, learn how to dress, and even surgically alter their appearance. The aesthetic decisions are in the forefront, but who really cares about someone else's life? The real point is how to remake one's own.

While we savor our options, the ancient virtue of moderation recedes ever further from view. Our term moderation doesn't really even describe this virtue, since we apply the term indiscriminately to everything from how much sugar we consume to how much we exert ourselves on the stationary bicycle. To my mind, this ancient virtue (sophrosyne in the Greek) is primarily about determinacy. Yes, there is a sense of the not too little and the not too much, in that we should not settle for less than our potential nor strive for something beyond our capability. Fundamentally, however, I understand the virtue to be about self-possession: to have moderation is to act confidently with a full awareness of one's strength (goodness).

Our modern condition, on the other hand, celebrates our indeterminacy, our ability to alter course at any moment. In some sense, I believe this to be cultural progress, because our capacity to appreciate humanity and civilization as a whole stems from the development of our many different mental facilities. Our interest in the many forms of human excellence is an interest in the limits of our species, which is itself a kind of self-understanding. Consider this point a view to be a necessary corollary of the doctrine of original sin: if all sin is mine, so is all virtue as well.

The ancient conception of moderation, insofar as it supposes our social roles to be a consequence of our specific natures or social class, will therefore no longer satisfy us, because we do not feel bound to identify only with our natural talents or the accidents of our origins. All the same, the celebration of indeterminacy can go to far, leading each of us to become what Robert Musil called A Man Without Qualities. Hegel, while characterizing the human spirit as infinite negativity, i.e., capable of taking on any specific form, recognized that the task of each individual is to become someone in particular. We cannot accomplish anything by attempting to leave all of our options open or by constantly remaking the course of our life. To cherish one's own potential is to cherish a kind of fantasy. While we grasp humanity generally by developing all of our facilities to some degree, we learn best about human excellence by trying to develop an excellence of our own. I have put enough energy into truth seeking, for example, that I can usually identify others who are doing the same, even if they are seeking truth in different areas than I am. I also have an awareness of the discipline needed for accomplishment and can tell when others are faking it.

There is a tension here. On the one hand, we identify with the species as a whole, and further that identification by our efforts to develop all of our facilities. On the other hand, we make something of ourselves and understand the excellence of the species by pursuing specific forms of excellence ourselves. Both are important, yet the pursuit of one diminishes the other.

The ancient virtue of moderation, understood in our own terms, is ultimately a coming to terms with our own mortality. Were we to live forever, the tension just mentioned would not be a serious one. We could then follow farming, poetry, and everything else in due time. As it is, we will have to live with a problem that has no resolution. I admire Socrates, in his old age, for attempting to take up an instrument. I admire him too for realizing that this was not his vocation.
Eddie 8:31 PM

Monday, May 10, 2004

 
Tidbits
Sullivan's soliloquies of self-doubt are becoming too painful to bear, which I thought I'd never say. There are many people making important and interesting contributions to the discussion of Iraq, and he is no longer one of them. Not living in D.C. is a fine thing, as far as I can tell. I follow the news and politics avidly, but when I put them down, I put them down. I don't live in an environment where political setbacks turn so naturally into anguish.

For those keeping track, I did receive tenure this year, though not a promotion. It is unusual to get one without the other, but, in this case, I don't consider it unfair. I knew all along that I don't value many of the kinds of contributions that my colleagues value. I don't get to set the policies and expectations, however, so I should expect to pay a price. Materially, the significance is not too great, given the minimal pay adjustment for changes in rank. Nonetheless, I will be working with the Dean over the next year or two so that I can bring myself "up" to community standards and reapply. (Perhaps I should start by losing those quotation marks!)

Now that the semester is over, I heartily endeavor to blog more regularly, maybe every other day. Well, except for this week, since I have a wedding to go to in New Jersey. Thanks again to everyone who stops by.

P.S. Is it really too much to expect the Blogger spell-checker to know the word "blog"?
Eddie 4:49 AM

Friday, May 07, 2004

 
Our Shame
Let me begin by reviewing, from the Taguba Report, the acts against prisoners committed at the Abu Ghraib Confinement Facility:

a. Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet;
b. Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees;
c. Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing;
d. Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time;
e. Forcing naked male detainees to wear women's underwear;
f. Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped;
g. Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them;
h. Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture;
i. Writing "I am a Rapest" (sic) on the leg of a detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year old fellow detainee, and then photographing him naked;
j. Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee's neck and having a female Soldier pose for a picture;
k. A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee;
l. Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee;
m. Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees.

Now let me quote from Mark Bowden's excellent article, entitled "The Dark Art of Interrogation," published in the October 2003 issue of Atlantic Monthly. The first selection is Bowden speculating on the approach taken against Sheikh Mohammed, a high ranking member of al-Qaeda who was captured around March of last year:

On that third day, once more hooded, Sheikh Mohammed was driven to Chaklala Air Force base, in Rawalpindi, and turned over to U.S. forces. From there he was flown to the CIA interrogation center in Bagram, Afghanistan, and from there, some days later, to an "undisclosed location" (a place the CIA calls "Hotel California"), presumably a facility in another cooperative nation, or perhaps a specially designed prison aboard an aircraft carrier. It doesn't much matter where, because the place would not have been familiar or identifiable to him. Place and time, the anchors of sanity, were about to come unmoored. He might as well have been entering a new dimension, a strange new world where his every word, move, and sensation would be monitored and measured; where things might be as they seemed but might not; where there would be no such thing as day or night, or normal patterns of eating and drinking, wakefulness and sleep; where hot and cold, wet and dry, clean and dirty, truth and lies, would all be tangled and distorted.

Intelligence and military officials would talk about Sheikh Mohammed's state only indirectly, and conditionally. But by the time he arrived at a more permanent facility, he would already have been bone-tired, hungry, sore, uncomfortable, and afraid, if not for himself, then for his wife and children, who had been arrested either with him or some months before, depending on which story you believe. He would have been warned that lack of cooperation might mean being turned over to the more direct and brutal interrogators of some third nation. He would most likely have been locked naked in a cell with no trace of daylight. The space would be filled night and day with harsh light and noise, and would be so small that he would be unable to stand upright, to sit comfortably, or to recline fully. He would be kept awake, cold, and probably wet. If he managed to doze, he would be roughly awakened. He would be fed infrequently and irregularly, and then only with thin, tasteless meals. Sometimes days would go by between periods of questioning, sometimes only hours or minutes. The human mind craves routine, and can adjust to almost anything in the presence of it, so his jailers would take care that no semblance of routine developed.

Questioning would be intense, sometimes loud and rough, sometimes quiet and friendly, with no apparent reason for either. He would be questioned sometimes by one person, sometimes by two or three. The session might last for days, with interrogators taking turns, or it might last only a few minutes. He would be asked the same questions again and again, and then suddenly be presented with something completely unexpected: a detail or a secret that he would be shocked to find they knew. He would be offered the opportunity to earn freedom or better treatment for his wife and children. Whenever he was helpful and the information he gave proved true, his harsh conditions would ease. If the information proved false, his treatment would worsen. On occasion he might be given a drug to elevate his mood prior to interrogation; marijuana, heroin, and sodium pentothal have been shown to overcome a reluctance to speak, and methamphetamine can unleash a torrent of talk in the stubbornest subjects, the very urgency of the chatter making a complex lie impossible to sustain. These drugs could be administered surreptitiously with food or drink, and given the bleakness of his existence, they might even offer a brief period of relief and pleasure, thereby creating a whole new category of longing and new leverage for his interrogators.

Deprived of any outside information, Sheikh Mohammed would grow more and more vulnerable to manipulation. For instance, intelligence gleaned after successful al-Qaeda attacks in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia might be fed to him, in bits and pieces, so as to suggest foiled operations. During questioning he would be startled regularly by details about his secret organization: details drawn from ongoing intelligence operations, new arrests, or the interrogation of other captive al-Qaeda members. Some of the information fed to him would be true, some of it false. Key associates might be said to be cooperating, or to have completely recanted their allegiance to jihad. As time went by, his knowledge would decay while that of his questioners improved. He might come to see once-vital plans as insignificant, or already known. The importance of certain secrets would gradually erode.

Isolated, confused, weary, hungry, frightened, and tormented, Sheikh Mohammed would gradually be reduced to a seething collection of simple needs, all of them controlled by his interrogators.

Later, in the same article, Bowden relates the following:

Preparing a subject for interrogation means softening him up. Ideally, he has been pulled from his sleep, like Sheikh Mohammed, early in the morning, roughly handled, bound, hooded (a coarse, dirty, smelly sack serves the purpose perfectly), and kept waiting in discomfort, perhaps naked in a cold, wet room, forced to stand or to sit in an uncomfortable position. He may be kept awake for days prior to questioning, isolated and ill-fed. He may be unsure where he is, what time of day it is, how long he has been or will be held. If he is wounded, as Abu Zubaydah was, pain medication may be withheld; it is one thing to cause pain, another to refuse to relieve it.

What I mean to show from this comparison is that the incidents at Abu Ghraib differ from standard interrogation practices, not in their cruelty, but in their amateur quality. As Bowden tells it, the primary tactic of modern interrogation is to disorient the prisoner, through fear, discomfort, and disruption of routine, in order to alienate the prisoner from his previous commitments, such as his terrorist organization, and to get him to focus only on his own well-being. Some of the tactics at Abu Ghraib seem consistent with this approach, such as keeping the prisoners naked for days and the simulated torture, but most do not. For one, I would think that putting the prisoners together like they did would be very counter-productive, since it would allow them to commiserate and strengthen their loyalty to one another. Also, humiliating a prisoner would not, to my mind, disorient him. A successful interrogator would need to convey the impression that the treatment of the prisoner is tied entirely to the prisoner's cooperation. Making it personal, by taking pleasure in the humiliation of the prisoner, would get in the way of that impression.

There have been some especially heinous accusations, such as the rape charge and another charge I've seen concerning pouring chemicals into the eyes of the prisoners, but otherwise the acts at Abu Ghraib are not particularly cruel, relative to the standards of the trade. I would rather be forced to simulate a homosexual sex act than to have my psyche broken to the point that I would be willing to betray the ones I cared about the most. I write this not to lessen the horror of the former but to put it into a larger perspective.

Many people, of course, would reject all of the means of coercion that I've mentioned, and they would have significant domestic and international law on their side. I would agree that these measures should not be common, but I am unwilling to forswear their use altogether, because we find ourselves sometimes with precious few choices as to how to combat apocalyptic ideologies. And anyone who is willing to forswear their use needs to explain how we can, in good conscience, allow the deaths of many in order to preserve the dignity of a twisted few.

When I see the pictures from Abu Ghraib, I too am disgusted, but I think my reasons are different from many others that I've read discussing the matter. Extreme interrogation is always horrible, so its execution must be carefully controlled and in keeping with narrow objectives. With such poor judgment being exercised at the prison, it seem inevitable that many of the prisoners are either outright innocent or have little useful information to give. The likelihood that people were put through such abuse with no reason truly sickens me. In spite of the ready-at-hand outrage from certain elements of the Arab "street," I suspect that the Iraqis who have some trust in us realize that we have good reason to respond strongly to the threats posed to us and them by the insurgents. If they come to believe, however, that the American forces are not terribly concerned with distinguishing the good from the bad, we really will have lost the war. I am disgusted also at the image of Americans taking pleasure in the humiliation of others. It shows a weakness of character and calls into question the moral superiority of the civil society that we are attempting to manufacture. If there are Iraqi prisoners who have valuable information concerning threats to the safety of others, I am prepared for us to use the necessary means to extract that information. Breaking a person's spirit, however, is not an occasion for joy.
Eddie 2:34 PM

Saturday, May 01, 2004

 
Fog of War
There has been a good deal of consternation around the blog world over the apparent withdrawal of the Marines in Fallujah, to be replaced by an Iraqi security force. I believe a lot of us sense that Fallujah is important, not because it is typical of the situation in Iraq, but because it is the closest thing to having a face that the insurgency has. We need the Iraquis to believe that their self-government is inevitable. If we can clean up a situation like Fallujah, then maybe people will think we will clean up the situation everywhere. It is therefore troubling to see us handing over power to the Iraquis, who so far have shown little ability to handle intense combat situations.

The easy assumption here is that this is yet another Rumsfeld fantasy that we can avoid the difficult work of nation building by just having the Iraquis take responsibility for themselves. This may still prove true, but I have my doubts. It seems irrational that the Marines would simply walk away from the present situation, after seemingly making such careful progress through the city. Such a volte-face doesn't even fit a Rumsfeld fantasy.

Belmont Club, which is becoming a daily read for me, has another take on the matter. From his analysis, which I won't try to recreate, the Iraqui security force is not a replacement for the Marines but a force that will be working under the command of the Marines in order to identify and disarm the insurgents. This makes sense in itself and in relation to Rumsfeld's ambitions, since a successful initiative by the Iraquis, even with the Marines holding their hands, will encourage future police operations.

The truth remains to be seen, but the situation spotlights again how useless democratic processes are in a time of war. We simply know too little as citizens to be able to evaluate the performance of our political and military leaders. Not that there is a better alternative.
Eddie 10:12 AM

Tuesday, April 27, 2004

 
Another Question
I've been talking lately about the notion of political rights to my Intro classes, and using the Declaration of Independence as an example. It is a long-standing question about why Jefferson replaced Locke's right of property with the infamous "pursuit of happiness," but I have a different question. What is the difference between the right to liberty and the right to the pursuit of happiness? Is my right to liberty not necessarily identical to my pursuit of happiness?

If we think of rights as legitimate demands we can make upon society, and that others in society can make upon us, then it should be possible to think up cases where we would appeal to one right rather than another. If it isn't possible, then it would seem like the rights are redundant. In the case of Locke's division of rights, this isn't difficult. If I am in constant danger from my fellow citizens, I can appeal to my right to life to enlist aid. If I am constantly put under house arrest or restricted from pursuing a particular career, I can appeal to my right to liberty. And if the government is taking my land and other goods for its own use, I can complain about an infringement of my right to property.

I am unable, however, to think of a case where an infringement upon the right to liberty is not also an infringement upon the pursuit of happiness, or vice versa. What then did Jefferson think he was saying?

I am too occupied to research the question with any great seriousness, but I have looked around a little and talked to some colleagues, and have come up with the following unsatisfying possibilities:

1. Jefferson thought "property" sounded too crass, but it is pretty much what he had in mind anyway. I don't doubt that Locke's familiar formulation would press itself upon the mind of all of the Founders, but this response seems to turn "the pursuit of happiness" into mere rhetorical flourish. This is always a fall-back position, I suppose, but it is not very satisfying to think that Jefferson would sacrifice coherence for something that just sounds good.

2. "Liberty" refers to a right that is more political, and public, while "the pursuit of happiness" refers to more private ends. This is actually coherent, but I'm not familiar with Locke or the Founders using "liberty" so narrowly.

3. "The pursuit of happiness" provides a teleological element that Locke's list omits. Well, I'm all for giving an account of human ends, but this answer still leaves Jefferson's list as incoherent, because presumably happiness is the ultimate end for the rights to life and liberty as well. In other words, the list of rights would, by this account, lack parallel structure. Surely if Jefferson wanted to make a teleological point he could have done so elsewhere in the Declaration.

4. "The pursuit of happiness" is just a catch-all phrase to cover a range of rights not covered by life and liberty. This makes sense except that Jefferson had already stated that the rights listed are among a possibly larger group of inalienable rights.

I'm losing my faith. Any help would be appreciated.


Eddie 7:21 PM

Friday, April 23, 2004

 
Solid South
Following a link from Sullivan, I took a look at this site that indicates who, in a given area, has made contributions to a Presidential candidate. I looked at every standard zip code in the Macon area and could not locate a single person who has given money to John Kerry's campaign. Most of the donations were for Bush, but there was also a healthy smattering for Edwards and Dean, a few for Graham, and even one for Sharpton! I would expect that some of these Democratic supporters will end up contributing to the Kerry campaign as well, but this evidence would indicate that there is little native interest in him down here. No wonder he has largely written off the southern vote.
Eddie 8:36 AM

Sunday, April 18, 2004

 
About Time
The past four weeks my wife has been largely immobile due to a couple of foot surgeries, so I have been spending a lot of time with my infant son. He has lately become interested in books, even though he doesn't yet speak. One book after another, we flip through the cardboard pages. Anyway, I have enough experience now to realize that I am finally part of an aggrieved segment of society: fathers. A great many of these books depict loving relations between mothers and children, but fathers are hardly to be seen. The indignity! And what kind of message is this sending to our children? I think I'll start a support group and a political action committee.
Eddie 8:46 PM