August 04, 2004
The Situation in Iraq is "worse than reported"
A Philadelphia Inquirer reporter recants his earlier optimism; an excerpt:
"Assassinations and kidnappings have become so common that they have lost their power to shock. More U.S. soldiers died in July (38) than in June (26), but that didn't make the nightly newscasts, either.
"The U.S.-led effort to restore basic services has become a story of missed goals and frustrations. Hoped-for foreign investment in Iraq's economy hasn't materialized - what company is going to risk seeing its employees beheaded on television?
"Simply by staving off stability and prosperity, the insurgents are winning.
"These are painful observations for me to make, because in early April, I wrote on this page that the media had been underplaying the good things happening in Iraq, and were missing the potential for a turnaround.
"I still believe the first part. But when I returned to Iraq in June, I found that the situation had deteriorated so dramatically that a lot of those good things have become irrelevant.
"As for the turnaround, I couldn't have been more wrong.
"Don't take my word for it: Listen to Sgt. Maj. John Jones, a First Infantry Division soldier who recently told my colleague Tom Lasseter that he grows annoyed every time he hears politicians and journalists on television talking about Iraq.
"'When people come over here, where do they stay? In the Green Zone. I call it the Safe Zone,' he said, referring to the heavily fortified area in Baghdad where most U.S. officials live and work. 'They miss the full picture.'"
Blog Stats
I started the blog one year ago yesterday. There have been about 1,100 postings, and more than 440,000 visits in the first year. More blog stats are available by clicking on the counter at the end of the links on the left.
Thanks to all for reading.
August 02, 2004
In Memoriam
Sidney Morgenbesser (1921-2004)
Professor Morgenbesser died yesterday; I have not seen memorial notices yet, but when they appear they are likely to be linked from the Columbia Philosophy Department page.
UPDATE: Chris Bertram (Bristol, Philosophy) has indicated he will keep track of memorial notices for Professor Morgenbesser here.
Political Philosopher Blake from Harvard's Kennedy School to Washington/Seattle
Michael Blake (political philosophy), currently an Assistant Professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government (and, before that, on tenure-track in the Philosophy Department at Harvard), has accepted a tenured joint appointment in Philosophy and Public Policy at the University of Washington at Seattle, to start in fall 2005.
I must confess to always having been surprised that Washington does not come out higher in the PGR surveys: the Department has two philosophers who are very major figures in their fields (Laurence BonJour in epistemology and Arthur Fine in philosophy of science and physics)--both clearly appointable at numerous top departments--as well as a strong contingent in ancient philosophy, and solid coverage of most other areas, augmented by several recent additions (Michael Rosenthal, Lynn Hankinson Nelson, etc.), and now Blake. I have always thought of UW-Seattle as a top 25 department; perhaps, finally, this year's surveys will confirm that this is more than my idiosyncratic assessment. Or perhaps not. We'll see.
Europe Reacts to Kerry and the Democratic Convention
Details here; an excerpt:
"[W]hile Europeans might like Senator Kerry more than President Bush, the speech contained little concrete indication of how his policies would be different from those followed in the past four years.
"Noting the line in Mr. Kerry's speech about not needing a green light from abroad before taking actions to defend its interests, Mr. Vaïsse said: 'In France, they don't have overblown expectations. Kerry would be like the second Clinton administration, not as arrogant and unilateral as Bush, but it would be no multilateral paradise either.'
"Berliner Zeitung took a stronger view, saying in an editorial on Saturday that there was little in Mr. Kerry's speech to please Europeans.
"'Europeans are surprised to hear that John Kerry is talking about America the same way as George W. Bush does,' the paper said. 'They are amazed that at the Democratic Convention in Boston, he saluted like a soldier, one hand up at his temple. They would prefer not to hear it when Kerry promises that he would never hesitate to use force in case America is under threat. They are disappointed.'"
July 30, 2004
Blogging Hiatus
The new term is in sight, deadlines are looming, and there will even be a bit of travel. Don't expect much, if anything, new between now and mid-August at the earliest. Some coming attractions for later in August, besides the usual faculty news and updates:
Germany in the 1930s and America Today
The Myth of Left-Wing Harvard
Freud Bashing under the Guise of "High Standards"
How to be a Left Nietzschean
Weber, Foucault and the "Iron Cage of Modernity"
Some of these postings are in response to reader queries; my thanks for your patience, and hopefully the responses, when they get here, will have been worth waiting for.
More thoughts on the Kerry speech and the Democratic convention
These from a young philosopher:
"I'm watching the DNC on television. It's a good show. Good production values. I just don't recognize the Democratic party anymore.
"American political culture has become an intellectual race to the bottom. This isn't populism. It's the only destructive form of intellectualism I know of. Everyone's second-guessing themselves hoping David Brooks won't snark at them.
"I'm tired of watching the Democrats fetishize Vietnam. Sure, it's a useful stick to beat George Bush without saying anything 'negative.' Kerry distinguished himself as a soldier, but he also distinguished himself as a antiwar activist. His Vietnam buddies earned their place on the stage, but so did his fellow antiwar activists."
Countries with Highest Per Capita "Highly Cited Researchers"
More data on highly cited researchers, courtesy of the Institute for Scientific Information. Remember: this data does not include the humanities, and is tilted towards research in the hard sciences and medicine. The data also favors scholarship published in English. With those caveats in mind, here are the nations with the ten highest per capita representation of "highly cited ISI researchers"; the number in parentheses is the number of people in the country for which there is one ISI highly cited researcher.
1. United States (93,880)
2. Switzerland (96,103)
3. United Kingdom (170,454)
4. Israel (186,486)
5. Sweden (200,000)
6. Canada (219,310)
7. Denmark (234,782)
8. Netherlands (250,769)
9. Australia (256,962)
10. New Zealand (273,333)
Some other countries (not rank ordered):
Austria: 1 per 800,000
Belgium: 1 per 433,333
France: 1 per 530,973
Germany: 1 per 430,208
Italy: 1 per 1,260,869
Japan: 1 per 669,633
Finland: 1 per 742,857
Norway: 1 per 657,142
Singapore: 1 per 875,000
Spain: 1 per 3,500,000
The Sensibilities of which Totalitarianism is Made
Herewith a third year law student at the University of Houston reacting to these pictures of the "free speech" cages and this posting of mine:
"Brian Leiter can't understand how a federal judge could uphold keeping loony protestors waving various protest paraphenalia and working themselves into a frenzy a safe distance from the Democratic convention."
UPDATE: More on the "free speech" cages here:
"There was absolutely no justification for the Democrats of the DNC and the Democratic mayor of Boston to adopt the shameful strategy of the Bush Presidency for dealing with protest--fencing it in behind razor wire.
"The protests planned for the DNC, mostly by A.N.S.W.E.R., have been and were going to be peaceful.
"The alleged threats of terror, emanating from the Bush Department of Homeland Security and the Bush Department of Justice were absurd--a warning that the media would be attacked! Warnings of attacks on public transit! Look out! It was all calculated to embarrass the Democrats and, incredibly, it worked.
"The fact that the Democrats fell for this kind of paranoia-inducing hokum shows how far into madness the American public has descended.
"But the price for such lack of principle and of such cowardice and idiocy is high. A new low has been set for a Democratic Convention violating the right of free speech when even a silent protest in the hall led to a demonstrator's being dragged out in handcuffs....
"[W]e will all pay for this next step down the road of repression of dissent.
"With Bush, Cheney and the Republicans, we've come to expect the jackbooted response to protest, the shunting of demonstrators off into fenced in detention facilities out of sight of the media, the arrest of those who refuse to be so muzzled. If Kerry and the Democrats now adopt the same approach to dissent, the only response will have to be massive civil disobedience."
Early Modern Philosophy texts...
...on-line, courtesy of the distinguished philosopher Jonathan Bennett. Very nice.
UPDATE: Philosopher Matt Davidson points out something I should have noted more clearly initially: "One thing you might want to note is that he has 'cleaned up' the English in Locke, Hume, and Berkeley to try to make the texts more readable by beginning undergraduates. I make no evaluative claims here as to the merits of this particular project (though few are better candidates to do this sort of thing than JB). But it might be worth pointing out in case a reader sees your link and thinks, 'These texts already are all over the web. Why do I need to see another website with them?' The answer is that Bennett is doing something very different with his attempts to make Modern texts 'accessible.'"
Philosopher Sawyer from Kansas to Nebraska
Sarah Sawyer (philosophy of language and mind, epistemology), currently an assistant professor at the University of Kansas, has accepted a tenured offer from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.
July 29, 2004
Anyone but Bush for President!
The Democratic convention is over, and John Kerry is now, officially, the only person who has any chance of beating George W. Bush, the worst President in the history of the United States, and the most reviled internationally in the last hundred years. What can we say about this convening of the major opposition party and the acceptance speech of its nominee?
Let us put aside the chauvinistic masturbation that travels under the heading "patriotism"; the cheesey "feel-good" pop psychology about America's "can do" spirit; the implicit, and sometimes explicit, condescension to all other nations and all other peoples of the world; the romanticization of the last great immoral and criminal war by the United States--one also based on lies--in Vietnam; and the pandering to the lie that only the godly are righteous, and the erasure of the 40 million or more in America who are not "people of faith". Let us put aside, in other words, the simple fact that the entire display was an offense to truth, reason, and decency. How could it be otherwise? After all, we are only human, all-too-human.
Put that all aside, and we have this: John Kerry gave a better speech than one might have expected: less dreary, more animated than this citizen, at least, had thought possible. He pressed all the right "buttons" of the "undecided" voters, individuals who must be so ignorant as to almost defy comprehension to those of us who inhabit the realm of facts and reasons.
If, with their performance these past several days, the Democrats can not defeat the current fascist theocrats and criminal war-mongers in Washington, then America is doomed, and every nation of the world ought to arm itself in self-defense accordingly.
As one simple but plainspoken American observed::
"Kerry is sometimes described as Bush-lite, which is not inaccurate, and in general the political spectrum is pretty narrow in the United States, and elections are mostly bought, as the population knows. But despite the limited differences both domestically and internationally, there are differences. And in this system of immense power, small differences can translate into large outcomes."
If you live in Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Missouri, or Michigan--the states likely to decide the next election (assuming votes are counted)--please vote for John Kerry. Do it for my kids. Do it for yours. Do it for the Enlightenment. Do it for humanity.
UPDATE: "How They Could Steal the Election This Time." Read it.
In Memoriam
Francis Crick (1916-2004)
The memorial notice from the Salk Institute is here.
In Memoriam
Corwin Johnson (1917-2004)
Professor Johnson joined the UT Law faculty in 1947 (before air-conditioning, which, he said, made those April and May classes in jacket-and-tie a bit uncomfortable!), and although he officially retired in 1988, he continued to teach one or two courses every year since. A distinguished expert in the law of property and water law, he may have been best-known for the leading property treatise he wrote with John Cribbet of the University of Illinois. He was also an exceptionally warm and gentle man, who will be dearly missed.
I shall share one of my favorite stories Corwin told me several years ago. His first teaching job was at the University of Iowa, right after WWII. The town was swamped with returning vets, and housing was scarce. So for his first few months on the job, Corwin actually had to live in his office, and bathe in the restrooms before the crack of dawn, before the faculty and students arrived! Only once during that time did he encounter a colleague as he emerged with towel in hand from the restroom, at which point his "secret" became known.
And to think today's new faculty hires are worried about the size of their budget for research assistants! Things change...
UPDATE: Here is an obituary of Professor Johnson: Download file. My colleague Douglas Laycock notes:
"When I first arrived as a young professor, Corwin Johnson was many years my senior, but he was one of the very first to greet me, take me to lunch, and invite my wife and me to his house. He was a leading expert on Texas water law, and co-author of a leading property casebook. He was part of the first generation of faculty who came to the Law School from other parts of the country, with no prior connection to Texas -- the generation that made this a national law school instead of a very good regional law school. He was also part of the transition from racially segregated to racially integrated legal education at Texas, a change he enthusiastically supported. He served this law school well for nearly sixty years."
UPDATE: The Law School's memorial notice is here. It includes a lovely picture, which evokes the man's warmth and kind nature.
Just War Theory
Philosopher Mark Rigstad runs a useful site on "Just War Theory," with material of interest to both philosophers and lawyers.
The Religious Right/Secular Liberal Split: Is it an Illusion?
This article suggests as much. Here is the conclusion (but do read the whole thing if you want to comment):
"But as liberal practices like divorce, congregation-switching, rock music, sex toys, Medicare and therapy worm their way into the religious heartland, it becomes less easy to pick out distinctively liberal horrors from which to save the people. The gay bogeyman still half works. Evolution and atheism still work.
"It will be intriguing to watch the evolution issue over the next twenty-five years. Medicine is starting to revolve around genetics. Middle America wants its health quite as much as it wants its makeovers, sex, malls, and certainty of heaven. How can one accept gene-based medicine and reject evolution? So believe this: evolution will follow rock music and female orgasms deep into the hearts of the faithful. New reasons will have to be found to hate the liberal elite.
"Meanwhile, liberals will thrash around in their nightmare of religious takeover, for lack of actually knowing enough conservative religious people, who are all rather slowly becoming like the rest of us."
What do you think? I'd be interested to hear what readers make of this. No anonymous posts please.
Why the "Free [sic] Speech Zones" at the Democratic Convention are so Worrisome
Look again at the pictures. We're all used to seeing protesters kept behind those old police saw-horses with a line of cops in front. But political speech here is literally being caged in a demeaning, intimidating environment, designed to minimize its impact and discourage its presence.
Here's why I find this so alarming:
(1) There's no reason to think that the Democrats authorized these "security" arrangements. But the fact is they are being silent on them. The party that many of us are hoping will stand for the rule of law, civil liberties, and the rights of minorities, political and otherwise, is saying nothing about these grotesque arrangements. (Am I wrong? Has any reader seen prominent Democrats or party officials object to the treatment of political speech outside the convention?)
(2) The mere existence of these arrangements says something quite frightening about the mindset of law enforcement, and also of the judiciary, since the judiciary, in the end, approved this set up. That law enforcement professionals and judges OK these "free speech zones" means they are running scared, that they have only one concern: security at any cost. "Security at any cost" is the recipe for totalitarianism, the recipe that Hitler exploited in 1933.
If this is already the mindset of law enforcement and members of the judiciary, what happens if there is another terrorist incident? What happens when, after another incident, Congress actually suspends the right of habeas corpus as a "security" measure? With law enforcement running scared now, with law enforcement already having forgotten any countervailing values or rights, what will they do when there is no longer judicial oversight of their detentions, their intimidations, their investigations?
That is why the existence of these demeaning "free [sic] speech" cages at the convention of the Democratic Party is absolutely chilling.