And as for Capitalism (the latest in a series of pieces on this article)

You just have to read the entire thing by one Rebecca Solnit, author of "River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West":

When Sitting Bull toured with Buffalo Bill's Wild West circus, he gave his earnings to the street urchins he met, appalled that a society that could produce such wealth could permit such poverty. He commented that white men were good at production but bad at distribution, a criticism of capitalism that's still trenchant. In the wealthiest society the world has ever seen, education, health care and housing are deteriorating into speculative commodities out of reach for many, and the "economic recovery" — of what? for whom? — is jobless. Capitalism and democracy are sometimes equated, but you only have to look at the Bush administration, with its passion for unfettered corporate privilege and loathing for civil liberties and public participation, to get over that fairy tale. Happily, it's not overrated everywhere; Latin Americans are looking for more humane models, from Argentines' surviving the collapse of their model neoliberal economy by creating community alternatives to Bolivians' ousting a president who tried to sell off the nation's natural gas, to the landless people's movement in Brazil.

The Showalter Criticism could be said to apply here as well: Ms. Solnit, befuddled by primitivism, displays a "remoteness from the world of difficult, flawed, risky, but necessary decision-making." She should read this page on Johan Norberg's website, and then his recent book.

Or she could move to France, where the sort of "more humane" model she yearns after resulted in the death of nearly 15,000 people last August.

Posted by kungfuzi at 4:16 PM | |

 
Peter Singer on America

Is America overrated? Princeton (there seems to be a trend here; see previous post) bioethicist Singer certainly thinks so (he probably thinks the same about humans and human life):

What Americans overrate most is — America. They imagine that they live in the most democratic nation on earth, but in the United States, to a far greater extent than in many other democracies, electorates are shamelessly gerrymandered, the voting system squeezes out minor parties, Wyoming has as many senators as California, and money gives the rich a wildly disproportionate share of power and influence.

Americans think they are the freest people on earth, but the president keeps American citizens in detention for nearly two years without even allowing them to talk to a lawyer, let alone putting them on trial. And no one in America has the freedom of the Dutch to choose how they die, should they become incurably ill.

Americans also favor "American pre-eminence" — the Hobbesian view that the United States ought to rule the world, simply because it has the military muscle to do so.

Is Singer not aware of his Princeton colleague Elaine Showalter's criticism of public intellectuals as "[remote] from the world of difficult, flawed, risky, but necessary decision-making"?

And is America overrated...or underrated?

(By the way, Singer was born on exactly the same day as George W. Bush - July 6, 1946. That's one more famous person whose birthday I share.)

Posted by kungfuzi at 4:00 PM | |

 
Some other overrated and underrated ideas according to the NYT intelligentsia

Overrated: Public Intellectuals, America, Straussianism, Capitalism

Underrated: Legacy Admissions, Thomas Jefferson, the Women's Movement, Honesty

Some comments:

Elaine Showalter's paragraph on Public Intellectuals is a bit confused. I agree with her that the term tends to be applied to those "who take an exclusively oppositional stance to political policies in general, and American foreign policy in particular" (such as her Princeton colleague Cornel West, for instance, or the late Edward Said). And I agree also that the public intellectuals' "remoteness from the world of difficult, flawed, risky, but necessary decision-making...makes their critical posture seem self-indulgent despite its virtue." But I disagree that bloggers just "complain" and "find fault," while the "real intellectual might try to solve problems." Andrew Sullivan is trying to resolve the problem of gay marriage through intellectual means, for example. Even those who aren't supporting specific social causes as Sullivan is contribute to the problem-solving process, part of which is to identify that problem in the first place. Blogs do that.

One also might ask: how does Prof. Showalter regard herself? She's a well-known, "pragmatic and contemporary" feminist critic, who's written on "American Idol and the search for identity" in The American Prospect, reviewed Hillary Clinton's Living History in The Guardian, and commented on journalists' views of their roles after 9/11, also in The Guardian. Oh, and what about her advice to George Bush (scroll down) on the occasion of his recent trip to London:

First, do no harm. Your state visit to the UK is risky, unpopular and awkward enough. Many Americans will be nervously peeking at the TV news from between our tightly crossed fingers and praying that you don't utterly disgrace us. Don't go all folksy and Texan, thanking Tony Blair for his friendship. He has enough to deal with already in the Labour party without receiving any more public kisses of political death from you. Don't interrupt when someone is asking you a question. Try not to puke on the Queen.

Well, I guess pre-empting problems is a step towards solving them.

Posted by kungfuzi at 3:33 PM | |

 
Take that, Monotheism!

Classicist Mary Lefkowitz, writing in an NYT article on the most overrated and underrated ideas of 2003:

Monotheism

In their most extreme forms, monotheistic religions are deeply intolerant. If there is only one right way of doing things, every other way is wrong. If we are good, others are evil. By contrast, the ancient Greeks and Romans welcomed new gods into their pantheon and worshiped them alongside the old. They had no crusades or jihads. The Roman authorities threw Christians to the lions because they mistook the early Christians' intolerance for seditiousness. They did not seek to kill them because they rejected the Christians' God.

(Lefkowitz, as I recall, was a prominent member of the Classics establishment to oppose Black Athena.)

Posted by kungfuzi at 2:38 PM | |

 
Mark your calendars

P. J. O'Rourke is coming to Dartmouth: Jan. 8, 4.30 pm, Filene.

Posted by kungfuzi at 3:13 AM | |

 
A very Happy New Year to everyone!

Meantime, here are ten predictions for 2004, in no particular order:

1) The Return of the King wins Best Picture.

2) Sean Astin wins Best Supporting Actor.

3) Dartmouth surprises me in a positive way with their choice of Commencement speaker.

4) Saddam talks and talks - and spills the beans on WMDs, Iraq's ties with terrorists, etc., to the embarassment of many.

5) Saddam is tried by the Iraqi people and summarily executed.

6) Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 are not delayed.

7) The coming winter isn't as cold as the last one. (Please, let this be so!)

8) Spain surprise everyone by winning Euro 2004, defeating France in the final in Lisbon.

9) Bush wins re-election against Dean, but narrowly.

10) Democracy in Iraq begins to take shape, slowly but surely.

Posted by kungfuzi at 2:46 AM | |

 
Musing on the Capture of Sadaam

I have been reading through the archives of newspapers that I stopped reading around Thanksgiving and have finally come to Haaretz, the leftist Israeli newspaper. An interesting article appeared on 16 Decemeber 2003 regarding the American capture of Sadaam.

In this article, the author forwards three propositions, all of which I think should be commented on by the larger reading public: 1. The US depicition of the humbled dictator was humiliating for the Arab, 2. the Arab elites, while most likely ageeing with the prevalent emotion on the Arab street--disappointment--, issued noncontrovesial or irrelevant opinions in an effort to avoid commentary, and 3. the caputure provides new oppurtunity for Washington-Tehran diplomacy.

The first proposition was interesting. Among the members in my coed fraternity, there was jubilation (and even some laughing at the beard) and some "I wonder what this means in the larger context of the war." The notes of sadness came from the House-alum email list regarding the upcoming election: "Sauron (Bush) grows stronger. It will be hard to defeat him in the next election." My own thoughts were: "Well, they have Sadaam. What will be the next move?" I do not believe that anyone suggested that this may be humiliating for the Arab population at large. Comments?

The second proposition is unsuprising. Given the number of the unelected/ autocratic regimes in the Middle East, why would the current elites celebrate the capture of the most obstinate member of their obsidian clan? According to this Israeli newspaper, the Arab street viewed Sadaam as a freedom fighter who resisted American power. (I believe that 'attempted to resist' would be the better term.) If this information is true, then who should try Sadaam? I am reluctant to hand him over to an international court who will use the sensationalism behind the event to legitimize its authority. An American or British court will never be seen as fair. An Arab court would not hear the Israeli charges against him. This a very complicated subject. Thoughts?

As two parting notes, it saddens me that the body count ranges from 7900-9700 and I shall address the questions raised vis a vis my earlier post soon.

Posted by John Stevenson at 8:55 AM | |

 
Return of the King: notable scenes [SPOILERS]

- Smeagol, pre-Gollum, right at the start. Completely unexpected, and therefore all the more satisfying.

- Merry giving Pippin the last packet of pipeweed just before Pippin rides off with Gandalf to Minas Tirith. It's not in the book, but I thought it was a very nice touch on Peter Jackson's part. This scene was meant I think to complement what happens later on when Sam gives up his drink to Frodo just before they ascend Orodruin.

- The lighting of the braziers, which gave Jackson the opportunity to indulge in some spectacular shots of snowcapped mountain tops. Howard Shore's score at this point is really quite majestic.

- Shelob. Since when did spiders have stingers on their abdomens like wasps? Who cares? Shelob was the most frightening monster in all three movies, and I can't wait to see how Weta put her together.

- The giant battering ram, or Grond as it is called in the book ("The Siege of Gondor" chapter): Great engines crawled across the field; and in the midst was a huge ram, great as a forest-tree a hundred feet in length, swinging on mighty chains. Long had it been forging in the dark smithies of Mordor, and its hideous head, founded of black steel, was shaped in the likeness of a ravening wolf; on it spells of ruin lay. Grond they named it, in memory of the Hammer of the Underworld of old. Great beasts drew it, orcs surrounded it, and behind walked mountain-trolls to wield it.

- Pippin and Merry charging forward to attack in the climactic battle, only to get overtaken by their longer-limbed compatriots. In the book, Merry isn't actually there because of the injuries he sustained in stabbing the Nazgul, but that absence would be inexplicable in the movie.

- The guests at Aragorn's coronation bowing down before the four hobbits, a scene marked by the triumphant return of Shore's hobbit theme from the first movie.

- Seeing Bilbo again, and to have him ask Frodo about his old ring. This is from the book, and I'm glad they put it in: although in the book, it is clear that Bilbo in his old age has forgotten about what the ring was, while in the movie, it isn't clear as to whether Bilbo knows about the ring's true nature at all (he wasn't at the Council of Elrond in the movie).

- The Grey Havens scene, which is made all the more poignant by the fact that Pippin, Merry, and Sam don't know, or at least are reluctant to acknowledge, that Frodo must leave Middle Earth (not so in the book).

More commentary to follow, once I've finished Charles Murray's Human Accomplishment.

Posted by kungfuzi at 8:55 AM | |

 
Allow me to destroy the patriarchy

At today's modern college, professors at each of the various academic departments, for the most part, spend their days teaching their disciplines and doing research in their fields. Some may or may not compare or inform their research with knowledge of other disciplines. Academia is certainly an animal of specialization, so I'm willing to believe most do not.

So it is with this in mind that I post on something that bothered me as an undegrad and continues to strike me as curious. I only took one women's studies course--and even that was more of a history of feminism(s)--but I feel that with only a cursory examination of feminist literature, campus postings, and over-heard or read feminist critiques of society, it is somewhat common for contemporary feminists to argue that we live in a patriarchy; much of the political and social oppression of women is/was caused by this patriarchy, and that the patriarchy infects everything: government, science, pop culture, etc. Almost anything in history or produced anytime before even 1980 is suspect because of the patriarchy which dominated everything everywhere. As an aside, I feel like one runs into this thing all the time in combination with multiculturalism: our constitution is bunk because it was written by rich, old, white men. Any smidgen of a baby can be tossed out with all of this tainted bath water. But let me focus more on feminism's patriarchy.

In ancient Rome, there was most certainly a patriarchy. The Pater Familias possessed the power of pater potestas. His wife, daughters, sons, were all essentially under his total legal jurisdiction/authority. Women needed permission to marry and they could stay under their father's authority or go under the authority of their husband's father. A son became truly independent only after his father died. This patriarchy was absolute. (Notice, however that the patriarchy included sons even into adulthood and the families of their sons). I doubt that feminists are really arguing that the patriarchy existing today is like the one in Rome, though maybe they feel that 19th and 18th century America might have come close. I suspect the patriarchy they cite is probably more insidious than that, since my reading of american law is that women are de jure social and political equals with men. Yet, certainly there are de facto inequalities, so is patriarchy the culprit.

To be honest, it strikes me as something of a conspiracy theory. Are men meeting in closed doors somewhere ensuring that women are kept out? Yes, men still dominant the boardrooms of American corporations. Yes, today men on average still earn more than women. But are these inequalities caused by the intentions of men or a more covert social disease working against most people's better intentions. Enter the patriarchy. But which patriarchy are feminsts fighting against? The former or the latter? Do they bother to make that distinction? Do they believe there currently exists one, the other or both?

Frankly, I don't really believe that men overtly conspire against women today, which leaves only the shadowy patriarchy. The one just beneath the surface of pop culture, law, etc. This patriarchy draws from the wellspring of the ancient one and so I've heard some suggest that we must remake the world since everything is tainted. But is the patriarchy really to blame for the inequalities of gender?

There is another very powerful pressure out there on this earth among the living and the dead often cited as directly causal: natural selection, sexual selection, and their by-product sexual dimorphism. Most of us learn about these ideas and then apply them to the "natural world" alone. But what of their implications for human civilizations far, far in the past? What about their implications for our society today? Granted even suggesting that some part of the "patriarchy" out there is driven by sexual selection and sexual dimorphism smacks of "nature vs. nurture." But is anyone out there in biology, sociology or women's studies even asking the question?

To focus this idea, am I and other men driven to out-compete each other (and by default other women in the workplace) so that I may be more appealing to potential female mates, presumably so that I may successfully reproduce? Did our ancient civilization forbears who subjected their women to a patriarchy out-duel competing civilizations which gave women equal footing? Why are women so seemingly obsessed with shoes? Although we think pretty highly of ourselves as organisms and are willing to believe that we can will ourselves beyond our primordial drives, but can we do that as collective human populations?

Until we get more of a academic challenge to the patriarchy thesis, I don't buy it.

Posted by Anonymous at 11:24 PM | |

 
Kramer on Saddam

That infamous picture of Rumsfeld shaking Saddam's hand is bound to surface sooner or later, and will probably be accompanied by claims that "Saddam is America's creation, ergo America is responsible for Saddam's crimes, ergo America has to be tried alongside Saddam." An incorrect judgment, argues Martin Kramer in his latest Sandstorm entry (complete with said picture). Concludes Kramer:

The decision that left Saddam in power in 1991 was a monumental failure, and one that history has already judged severely. But at least credit those who did organize an expedition and an armada in 2003, and who did their duty despite the criticism of feckless "allies" and the absence of "international legitimacy." Some of those who launched this expedition were party to the previous mistake and the earlier failure. By their actions this year, they have balanced the book - and then some.

And if we want to blame other nations for "creating" Saddam, why not indict the French and the Russians as well? Daniel Drezner raised this point some time ago.

Posted by kungfuzi at 7:42 PM | |

 
Return of the King: first thoughts

I'm overwhelmed: can't think of another movie that had me so moved, so often. I could barely get out of my seat at the end of it. Am going to see it again tomorrow. In the meanwhile, I'm reading the book - again.


Posted by kungfuzi at 4:27 AM | |

 
Grades

For those of you who care, Fall term grades are now up.

Posted by kungfuzi at 3:19 AM | |

 
Gimli: "I am for dead-white-male culture!"

John Rhys-Davies says:

"What is unconscionable is that too many of your fellow journalists do not understand how precarious Western civilization is, and what a jewel it is… The abolition of slavery comes from Western democracy. True democracy comes from our Greco-Judeo-Christian Western experience. If we lose these things, then this is a catastrophe for the world."

(Thanks to Little Green Footballs for the link. Oh, and congrats to LGF for being awarded Wizbang's Best Overall Blog Award.)

Posted by kungfuzi at 2:45 AM | |

 
Wagner and Tolkien

The New Yorker's Alex Ross on Wagner's Ring, Tolkien's Rings, Howard Shore's brilliant score [follow this link to preview Shore's Return of the King soundtrack], and why the movies may be better than the books:

The books tell a fantastic story in a familiar style, but the movies transcend the apparent limitations of their medium in the same way that Wagner transcended the limitations of opera. They revive the art of Romantic wonder; they manufacture the sublime.

Posted by kungfuzi at 1:32 AM | |

 
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

I'm seeing it tomorrow, and will have my thoughts posted shortly after.

But I already know that I'll like it - nay, I already know that the movie's end will have me in emotional distress.

Posted by kungfuzi at 9:10 PM | |

 
Ben Richards, Andrew Sullivan, and Free Dartmouth

Andrew Sullivan has nominated this post on Free Dartmouth for a Galloway Award (for "the most strained and mealy-mouthed statements from the devastated press and anti-war politicians and activists following the capture of Saddam"). Emmett Hogan on Dartlog was responsible for notifying Sullivan about Richards - who, if you search the DND, does not appear to exist. The closest match is a "Matthew B. Richards '05," whose middle name does not appear to be Ben.

Some additional points: 1) "Ben Richards," at this point, has not followed up to his original post, nor has he said anything in the Comments. 2) A quick Google search reveals one previous Free Dartmouth post by "Ben Richards," the subject of which is Jonathan Chait's Bush-hating. "Richards" titles his post "Jonathan Chait speaks the truth!"

Free Dartmouth administrators should identify this guy as quickly as possible: NOT because of what he said, but simply because it's not a good idea to have on your blog someone whom no one knows, who may not even be a Dartmouth student or alum, or who may be using a nom de plume.

Posted by kungfuzi at 9:01 PM | |

 
Actually Liberating Minorities

All should read Karsten Barde’s Recognition: The New Anti-Racism in the DFP. I would like to weigh in on some of his claims more charitably that ChienWen has. I feel that CW has missed the point, and in doing so, obscured and unnecessarily mocked Karsten’s argument. Feedback welcome.

K:It, to be perfectly clear, is that moment of recognition when someone with whom we've never quite been able to identify becomes a friend, or a potential friend, or simply someone else caught in a moment of honesty and vulnerability….To hear just what happens in the classroom: people of color frequently have their intelligence questioned in classroom settings, are spoken to in condescending or patronizing ways, and are expected to be representatives of their race, facing one question after another about 'the African-American perspective,' for example. Liberal students can be especially guilty of seeing students of color as specimens to be studied, interrogated, and the like.

1. Being a ‘non-embedded’ minority* on Dartmouth campus is an interesting experience. I aspire to be an individual self-defined and to see people that I meet as an individual person irrespective of their circumstantial locators, often identified as the race, class, and gender axis. (I would also throw national origin, sexuality, and religious beliefs in as being equally important structural conditions that shape and define the identity of any individual.) Even though I can observe that the conditions enumerated in the previous sentence affect and shape identity, I am firmly convinced, for philosophical and, more importantly, religious reasons that all persons are fundamentally the same; the rest is merely circumstantial.

While I have found that my religio-philosophical beliefs are most likely the correct ones, there is something to be said for the more popular view that people are not fundamentally the same and to treat them that way is to disrespect their individuality and to ignore their identity. In that narrative, of fundamental difference rather than essential similarity, I, while John, am still an ethnic and religious minority; I must be engaged as such.

As a minority then—and I take a role here that I often avoid—I can only agree with Karsten’s statement: “people of color…are spoken to in condescending or patronizing ways, and are expected to be representatives of their race, facing one question after another about 'the African-American perspective,' for example. Liberal students can be especially guilty of seeing students of color as specimens to be studied, interrogated, and the like.” And while ChienWen’s suggestion of “[focusing] on the subject matter” would solve the problems in the classroom, I think that CW has uncharitably overlooked the main thrust of Karsten’s argument: that the classroom at Dartmouth is emblematic of the larger problem of minorities-as-a-community and their place in the American social discourse.

It is more problematic that this would be the case because it is the liberals who are as much a part of the problem as the reactionary bigots and the conservatives. Bigots substitute hate for discourse. Since no one is defending them, I needn’t deprogram their line of thinking. Conservatives, I believe, are afraid of admitting that minorities actually exist as minorities—and maybe even as communities. As each minority moves into the American ensemble and the fabled nation of immigrants becomes an actual nation of immigrants, conservatives will find that their Waspy consensus and elite will begin to break. (And if you question my accusation of a waspy consensus let me remind you that the last presidential election, and the upcoming one too, have been contests between men of the families of the old elite. I would just like to note that I am not lamenting the fact that the elite are still involved, rather, that their ubiquitous involvement arousing so little comment.)

Liberals are very welcoming of the minorities on the surface. Liberals want a representative assortment of diversity-- Justice Thomas rightly calls it window-dressing and aesthic balancing-- but fear the loss of privilege, power and social hegemony that true pluralism would create. Minorities who play the perfect gentlemen, who tell about their ‘cultural experience’, who enrich a privilege education by breaking the monotony of white have played their part and are rewarded with the deceptively warm liberal embrace, and if they play nice, may be allowed into the elite. (I always imagine the Christmas tree sitting in the middle of the snow-covered green. Multi-colored and bejeweled, it sits isolated for aesthitic purposes in a field of white.) While liberals often make noises about the populace (supporting gay marriage, housing projects for the poor, affirmative action for the less fortunate), when it comes to social equality only the most radical of the progressive want the hordes and masses to join the ranks. Like the conservatives, liberals want a few good men to represent the marginal groups, for their conscience’s sake, in the elite that they themselves will always define and control.

Other not-so-syrupy-sweet expressions of minority idenity, whether it be the fanatical zeal of a fundamentalists, the ululating of a gaggle of drag queens, the flamboyancy of some ethnic expression or, if you will excuse the term, good ole-fashion genderfucking makes liberals ‘uncomfortable’ and should be hidden away. Liberals are fine when there is a sufficient mass of a minority; it is when “someone with whom we've never quite been able to identify” attempts to engage the world directly as a individual that the tensions become unsavory. “Should I make this joke given there is a black person in the room?” “I hope this lesbian doesn’t embarrass me.” It’s the tight smiles of liberal colleagues and acquaintances who aren’t really sure where to begin a conversation with me-- this large black guy arrayed (usually) in a collared-shirt buttoned all the way to top with a distinctive manner of speaking and either an excessively grim and serious face or a loud, easy laughter—that really bother me. Interaction should not be a painful artifice of “it’s ok- I’m vitually normal.” I prefer the old-fashion bigots; I know where I stand with them

K: As a generation, we are extraordinarily well versed at the language of political correctness, but too many of us are clueless when it comes to engaging with, negotiating, or understanding difference—and more broadly, disagreement.

Well said, Karsten. I think the solution is deceptively simple: learn from everyone. Put thought and effort into your opinions and politely seek others views to accumulate more information to reformulate a stronger and more defensible position. And remember, above all, you could be wrong and may make a mistake or say something inadvertently offensive. It’s fine as long as you are collecting information to have actual opinions.

We're not so naïve as to imagine that conversations about race are easy or sufficient solutions to powerfully entrenched systems of racial (and other) difference. Especially when these are systems so many would overlook, wish away, or normalize by reference to human nature and history.

3.

There is something to be said about hierarchy and ‘privilege’, as we like to call it these days. Focusing excessively on who has the power and money I think materializes a problem, which is socio-psychological. Power, money and privilege aren’t what the battle is—or should be—about. The battle is about acceptance and assimilation. As long as the discourse is the privilege groups who socially interact with the marginal groups from one end of the totem pole to the other and not as equals the suppressive order will continue to exist. Whiteness, both liberal and conservative, needs blackness to exist; straights need gays; the socially acceptable gays need queens and dykes to remain acceptable; acceptably religious people need fundamentalists, etc. The struggle that I wage on campus is one for true assimilation. I don’t want to live my life as that black guy; I want to be John as I define it. The difference is between me being accepted as who I want to be (even if it is an identity that meshes nicely with the norm) and me being tolerated because I play an important role in someone else’s social vision. I fight so that the norm can expand and be defined by the variations. The outsider, the ‘other’, changes as well as the insider and, as Kristeva argues in Strangers To Ourselves, a hybrid culture is born from the interaction of the particularities of the two.


*That is a minority who doesn’t feel a strong attachment to his ‘group.’

Posted by John Stevenson at 10:05 AM | |

 
Daniel Pipes on Saddam's capture

"Saddam's capture will not much effect the insurgency in Iraq, which draws its inspiration mostly from militant Islam, not a desire to return a thug to power. The major effect of his capture will be to cause many Iraqis to breathe more easily and believe that they really have left the totalitarian past behind."

Read the whole post (which is quite short) here.

Posted by kungfuzi at 8:52 AM | |

 
Saddam and the French

Saddam reacts to being asked difficult questions:

Mr. Rubaie said: "One thing which is very important is that this man had with him underground when they arrested him two AK-47's and did not shoot one bullet. I told him, `You keep on saying that you are a brave man and a proud Arab.' I said, `When they arrested you why didn't you shoot one bullet? You are a coward.'

"And he started to use very colorful language. Basically, he used all his French."



Posted by kungfuzi at 8:46 PM | |

 
Free Dartmouth responds

Ben Richards writes: "Terrible news: Saddam is captured. The chicken hawks will gain in power now."

Ben, you're a moral pygmy. That's putting it kindly. (Even Howard Dean sees the situation in the right light.)

Posted by kungfuzi at 8:14 PM | |

 
Whither the insurgency?

Josh Chafetz believes that the capture of Saddam

is basically the death knell for the opposition. With Saddam gone, the locals should be less afraid of turning the guerillas in -- there was clearly fear among many that Saddam would return to power and punish those who had aided the coalition. Saddam's capture will also make it harder for the guerillas to recruit any new members, and at least some current members may well decide to give up and try to blend back into civilian life. Finally, today's pictures of Saddam looking pathetic are not likely to win his cause any converts.

Yes - true, true - but what about the Islamist as opposed to Baathist opposition?

Update: Jed Babbin writes on NRO that the capture may transform "a brewing ethnic civil war to one of Iraq and the Coalition against external forces."

Posted by kungfuzi at 8:20 AM | |

 
Reactions

The anti-war left reacts. Tim Blair has the goods. Can't say I'm surprised. (Check out the money quote in this previous post of mine.)

Eagerly awaiting Free Dartmouth's response...

Update: oh, and Dartlog, surely you've got something better to talk about than, erh, VP-RX and hockey results.

Posted by kungfuzi at 7:36 AM | |

 
Trying Saddam

This piece in The Economist seems particularly worth reading right now.

Posted by kungfuzi at 7:30 AM | |

 
Since we've been talking about Chomsky lately

Check out this review of his latest book. Money quote: "Not the least of the casualties of the Iraq war is the death of anti-fascism." And it's from a Guardian reviewer too! (Thanks to Jeff Jarvis for the link.)

Posted by kungfuzi at 6:58 AM | |

 
So, Mr. Hussein...

What can you tell us about this?

Posted by kungfuzi at 6:24 AM | |

 
YES!



Posted by kungfuzi at 5:31 AM | |

 
"Iraqi mass graves don't justify war"

So says one Mark Gery, an "Iraqi Analyst from the Orange County Peace Coalition and a member of The Education For Peace in Iraq Center, Washington DC," in this piece. Writes Gery,

What government in the world would refrain from using all necessary means to quell a violent uprising of this kind? No one denies that the regime's response was swift and merciless, or that many innocents were caught up in the retaliation and destruction. But if blame is assigned, shouldn't it start with the instigators of the carnage along with the foreign government who misled them about the forces they were going up against and yet egged them on?

So, in other words, the Bush administration was responsible for the mass graves, as were the Kurds and Shias who rose up against the Baathists - but not Saddam. No, he was just laying down the law.

And I thought that the anti-war movement couldn't sink any further. (Thanks to Little Green Footballs.)

Posted by kungfuzi at 5:28 AM | |

 
Pejman's Dilemma

It appears that Pejman Yousefzadeh has had an email exchange with the great Chomsky himself over the latter's (ridiculous) recent remarks about the dearth of anti-Semitism in the West, and is mulling over whether or not to publish the details of that exchange on his blog. Chomsky has apparently not consented to having those emails published verbatim, but Pejman is wondering if he can just go ahead and say something about the exchange. Now why would Chomsky, a leading public intellectual, not want his views to be published in full on a popular blog? Is there something about those views that he doesn't want the public to know?

I say respect Chomsky, but go ahead and talk about the exchange. I for one can't wait to read about how Chomsky tried to worm his way out of this one.

Posted by kungfuzi at 5:13 AM | |

 
The Latest DFP

Several comments on Karsten Barde's "Recognition: The New Anti-Racism":

So too do well-meaning professors, in an attempt to be inclusive, engage in a form of tokenism that can further perpetuate stereotype and discourage future participation from other students of color who see through the charade. One step toward better relations in the classroom would be the recruitment and retention of more faculty of color. Minority faces at the chalkboard are role models for students of color, and they play an equally important role in reshaping the racial imaginations of white students.

How ironic that Karsten says just before this about people being spoken to in "condescending or patronizing ways." This statement of his is hugely condescending - and wrongheaded as well. It assumes that minorities should look to minority faculty for guidance. It implies that minority faculty are more valuable for their minority status than for their scholarship and teaching ability. Worst of all, it proposes to reeducate "white" students by "reshaping" their "racial imaginations" - whatever that means - into something more in line with multicultural ideology. Replace "white" with "black" (a useful exercise whenever you're dealing with multiculturalists) and the sinister implications of the phrase become much clearer.

If professors want to avoid "tokenism," then they should treat everyone in their class as individuals, and stop trying to be "inclusive." Focus on the subject matter, and no one will ever think the class is a "charade."

It isn't our fault we were brought up in a PC world, but liberals and progressives have been all too reluctant to challenge this trend, allowing conservatives to lead the charge (winning adherents and shaping the dialogue) on an issue that is neither naturally left nor right.

Ah, honesty - almost. Karsten's semi-right that liberals and progressives have been "all too reluctant" to challenge the trend of political correctness. What he doesn't go on to say is that said leftists have been overwhelmingly responsible for institutionalizing PC. See FIRE's website for the details. It is someone's fault, after all.

In particular, we are learning that the point is not to make 'perpetrators' feel guilty, but to provide relief for the offended person or group, and then—the sooner the better—encourage dialogue about the situation.

Again, this is the wrong approach. Being able to cope with feeling offended without having to seek "relief" is a very, very useful ability to have once one steps out of Dartmouth and into the real world. It builds character, so to speak. It is also a waste of time and energy to obsess about what are in nearly all cases bad attempts at humor. Rise above the situation by ignoring it and getting on with the more important things in college life. If, according to Karsten, I am a "reactionary" for proposing this "laissez-faire attitude," so be it.

We're not so naïve as to imagine that conversations about race are easy or sufficient solutions to powerfully entrenched systems of racial (and other) difference. Especially when these are systems so many would overlook, wish away, or normalize by reference to human nature and history.

But as white and non-white students begin to recognize discrimination and alienation equally clearly and urgently, and men and women both start to realize the ugliness of so much social conditioning about sexuality, we know that we have made some progress.

Ah yes: no such article would be complete without mentioning "powerfully entrenched systems of racial (and other) difference." I'd very much like to hear those systems described in more detail at a future date. Otherwise, speaking from personal experience, I just don't buy their existence. But of course, since they are so "powerfully entrenched," they can't really be systematically (hah!) and clearly defined, just hinted at, right? Furthermore, if they really are so deeply-embedded within culture, what hope do we have of purging them? (And who cares if they really exist, so long as they give some people causes to fight for?)

==

I'm hugely unsympathetic towards pieces like these. They are, with only a few exceptions, not well-written: they rely on buzzwords and catchphrases to evoke an atmosphere of goodwill, but furnish those thought-cliches with very few details. In this particular case, Karsten's point would appear to be that recognizing "our fellow students and their own lived experiences" is important. How perfectly banal - and dare I say it, typical.

Posted by kungfuzi at 9:28 PM | |

 
FrontPage 1-2

Two great pieces on FrontPage Magazine today: the first, which David Horowitz calls "the most disturbing that we at frontpagemag.com have ever published," concerns Republican Grover Norquist's involvement, via his own Islamic Institute, with radical Islamism. The expose comes from Frank Gaffney, a former Reagan defense official, and it can (and should) be read here.

The second is a FrontPage symposium on the anti-war movement, featuring Greg Yardley, Michelle Goldberg, John Fonte, and Pat Caddell. Particularly interesting is Fonte's idea of "post-Americanism" (sounds a lot like post-modernism): citizenship "based not on individual rights but on group rights, not on the American Constitution but an international law and transnational law." Is this a challenge to Fukuyama's thesis? Is it desirable (Fonte doesn't think so, of course)? I'll let the IR/Political Theory people take it away...

Posted by kungfuzi at 8:41 PM | |

 
A few facts...

that may interest only me:

From SI.com:

Rams CB Aeneas Williams declined an academic scholarship to Dartmouth to follow in the footsteps of his father and brother at Southern University.

Can anyone imagine how good Dartmouth football from 1987-90 would have been if Williams, a definite HOF-er, had attended school? And what has happened to football recruiting since the brief, probably illegal, resurgence of Dartmouth football in the late '80s that brought in players like Fiedler and four Ivy championships ('90-'92 and '96)?

More Williams-related trivia: his brother's name is Achilles.

Posted by Jon at 2:30 PM | |

 
Ah, Brown

Received an email today called "IVY FILM FESTIVAL SUBMISSIONS" from someone at Brown. It was unremarkable except for this sentence :

Brown University is a leading Ivy League institution with a distinctive and talented student body and a rigorously liberal curriculum.



Posted by kungfuzi at 10:41 PM | |

 
Chomsky on Anti-Semitism

Scarcely exists in the West nowadays, says he. Pejman Yousefzadeh takes on this ridiculous claim here. Further links here, here, here, and here. (Thanks to Instapundit.)

Posted by kungfuzi at 6:27 PM | |

 
"I'm not a racist, but..."

...But John was just getting started. These people are not Africans, he insisted. They are African-Americans. The whole "Africa" thing is a charade; racial separatism and identity politics are tearing this country apart; people have to realize that if they live in this country, no matter how they got here, they are Americans first, and something-Americans second.

...Would he remember the seminar as the class in which his right to free speech and debate was trampled by politically correct groupthink?

The full deal here.

Posted by verligte at 5:04 PM | |

 
Gripe

A great many Dartmouth students - upperclassmen even - either don't know how to make effective presentations, or else can't be bothered. I say this having taken three presentation-intensive classes this term, all of which featured seniors or juniors doing the following:

1) Going beyond the time limit, thereby depriving others of their opportunity to present. When the professor says 10 minutes with 10 minutes for questions, so that three people can go within the hour, don't take 25 minutes to say your stuff. Rehearse your presentation before hand and time it. Doesn't take that much effort.

2) Not speaking clearly, sending everyone except the professor to sleep. You are not chatting with a close friend. Speak with conviction, in a clear voice, and neither too quickly or too slowly. Don't mumble. Do your utmost not to pepper your sentences with annoying Americanisms ("like"). Write out your speech if you have to (I always do) - just don't recite it.

3) Not structuring one's presentation. It may be all clear in your head, but we can't read your mind. Like an argument on paper, your presentation must flow logically from point to point. Have an outline, and write it on the board, or prepare handouts. Don't improvise unless you're supremely confident of pulling it off.

Take some advice from this guy.

Posted by kungfuzi at 1:09 PM | |

 
Hugh Kenner, RIP

Rather belatedly, I thought I should mention that literary critic Hugh Kenner has just passed away. You can read sterling obituaries of him by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt of the New York Times, Benjamin Ivry, also of the NYT, and in the Daily Telegraph. By all accounts, he was a man of remarkable and diverse talents; he wrote on Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Chuck Jones (the creator of Looney Tunes), and Buckminster Fuller. I myself would like to thank him for his small book, Ulysses, which has illuminated my reading of Joyce's novel throughout this term.

Posted by kungfuzi at 2:39 PM | |

 
Chomsky and America

In a New York Times interview earlier this month [you need to pay to read it - don't], Noam Chomsky surprised quite a lot of people by saying that America was "the greatest country in the world." Now, nearly a month later, he claims in an interview with the Guardian that "That interview never took place...It was a senseless contraction of an hour-and-a-half telephone conversation in which I explained question by question why I am not going to answer this question or that question, because it is not a sensible question." Pressed further by his interviewer to give a straight answer, he proceeds to say:

My feeling is, to answer your question, that evaluating countries is senseless and I would never put things in those terms, but that some of America's advances, particularly in the area of free speech, that have been achieved by centuries of popular struggle, are to be admired.

No one, of course, could ever accuse Chomsky of evaluating America.

Posted by kungfuzi at 11:32 AM | |

 
Poet turns down OBE; attacks Blair/Queen/Empire

Quite why Benjamin Zephaniah was even awarded an OBE in the first place is beyond me. For writing good poetry? I don't think so:

Smart big awards and prize money
Is killing off black poetry
It's not censors or dictators that are cutting up our art.
The lure of meeting royalty
And touching high society
Is damping creativity and eating at our heart.

The ancestors would turn in graves
Those poor black folk that once were slaves would wonder
How our souls were sold
And check our strategies,
The empire strikes back and waves
Tamed warriors bow on parades
When they have done what they've been told
They get their OBEs.

Don't take my word, go check the verse
Cause every laureate gets worse
A family that you cannot fault as muse will mess your mind,
And yeah, you may fatten your purse
And surely they will check you first when subjects need to be amused
With paid for prose and rhymes.

Take your prize, now write more,
Faster,
Fuck the truth
Now you're an actor do not fault your benefactor
Write, publish and review,
You look like a dreadlocks Rasta,
You look like a ghetto blaster,
But you can't diss your paymaster
And bite the hand that feeds you.

What happened to the verse of fire
Cursing cool the empire
What happened to the soul rebel that Marley had in mind,
This bloodstained, stolen empire rewards you and you conspire,
(Yes Marley said that time will tell)
Now look they've gone and joined.

We keep getting this beating
It's bad history repeating
It reminds me of those capitalists that say
'Look you have a choice,'
It's sick and self-defeating if our dispossessed keep weeping
And we give these awards meaning
But we end up with no voice.

Update: As James Panero '98 notes on Armavirumque, quite why Mr. Zephaniah should be so angry at an institution (the British empire) that opposed slavery is baffling. History, it seems, is optional for some people.

Posted by kungfuzi at 1:56 PM | |

 
Missing from Buzzflood's coverage

After finishing my beer and watching the Chiefs defeat the Oakland Raiders at the last minute in Kansas City, I couldn't help but be drawn into watching Sixty Minutes' lead story on pornography in the USA. I couldn't really tell if there was a angle to the story (legality, morality, etc), given that tv magazine's target audience, but what did surprise me was that one of the adult industry's leaders, Vivid Entertainment, has a Dartmouth alumnus at the helm. Bill Asher '84 is the president of Vivid, a studio that earned $150 million in revenue fiscal year 2003. Asher provided some business-side commentary for the PBS's Steve Kroft, who mentioned in a voice over that Asher graduated from Dartmouth and has an MBA. (I suppose they were trying to surprise us that successful businesses--even "distasteful"? ones like pornography--have their respectable, intelligent, ivy-league executives).

Though I guess we can't fault Buzzflood for not picking up on this right away and for avoiding this potential can of worms, I think the real question here is can we negotiate recruitment for interns and entry-level employment? (kidding,...or am I?) You can't argue with double-digit growth each of the past 5 years. Adult films and content are relatively cheap to produce, but because there is a social stigma still attached to pornography, the industry can charge a premium for their dvds, videos and internet content. A quick scan of porn empress Jenna Jameson's clubjenna online store lists the going rate for one of her newest dvd's at $29.95. According to Sixty Minutes, adult entertainment companys can produce such dvd's at a rate of 3 films a week. Compare that to the average cost/time of producing and distributing a film by mainstream Hollywood studios and porno's profit potential is obvious. Its contentious moral and social impact aside, adult entertainment is big business and increasingly mainstream. Perhaps we can celebrate Asher's business excellence, if not his business.

Posted by Anonymous at 8:31 PM | |

 
Dartmouth Mocked On ESPN, Again...

Twice in one week! Hey, our teams may suck, but right now we're sucking really well. From Jaws' column on the BCS:

"It's official: Barring another bizarro New York Times computer poll of 1) Iowa State, 2) Dartmouth, 3) Oklahoma), you now can't spell BCS without SC."

Since he mocks the NYT as well, I suppose it evens-out.

Posted by Anonymous at 8:37 PM | |

 
Political Correctness and the European Union

As the Financial Times reports today, the EU's European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) "has shelved a report on anti-semitism because the study concluded Muslims and pro-Palestinian groups were behind many of the incidents it examined...When the researchers submitted their work in October last year, however, the centre's senior staff and management board objected to their definition of anti-semitism, which included some anti-Israel acts. The focus on Muslim and pro-Palestinian perpetrators, meanwhile, was judged inflammatory."

(Thanks to Oxblog.)

Posted by kungfuzi at 11:12 AM | |

 
Groan

Check out Dean Larimore's tiresome and banal piece in today's D. (Larry was on to it before me.) Best quote:

As a person committed to fairness, respect and openness, I object to actions that demean or threaten any person. We do not have a speech code at Dartmouth, nor do we want one. So we must affirm on a daily basis the need for people to be accountable for their speech and actions.

So Dartmouth doesn't have a speech code (a statement that is in itself inaccurate, as Emmett Hogan has pointed out), meaning we don't have to worry about what we can or cannot "say." But, but - we do have to affirm, on a daily basis no less (how about an hourly basis?), the need for people to be accountable for what they say and do. This is an instance of the College's Orwellian logic at its most pernicious.

Now check out the principles behind the "bias response system" (what?) Dartmouth has testing for this past year:

* Safety - maintaining safety for all.
* Prevention - early detection, reporting and implementation of follow-up protocols.
* Education - promoting respect and appreciation for diversity.
* Civic dialogue - encouraging dialogue and free speech to strengthen community.
* Communication - coordinating communication to ensure timely and accurate reporting.
* Collective responsibility - mobilizing all the good will and good intentions that exist here.
* Community caring - letting people affected know they are not alone.

No speech codes right? But "early detection" (followed, presumably, by pre-emptive action) and "follow-up protocols" (meaning?) are okay. Free speech? We want it, but we want it "strengthen community" (in other words, we don't really want you to speak freely).

Wrapping up his piece, Larimore says: "Acts of intolerance require a response that asks all members of our community to uphold our shared values and principles of community." So, since "acts of intolerance" (defined as?) require - that is to say, demand - a response, speech codes are then justified, censorship is okay, and the collective moral might of hypersensitive may be harnessed in the service of "shared values and principles of community."

I can't stand it when college administrators - or anyone else, for that matter - write this way. Buzzwords and catchphrases are employed without being accurately defined (bias incident, act of intolerance, shared culture, appreciation for diversity, etc.); logic is abused; good prose goes out of the window.

Posted by kungfuzi at 5:35 PM | |

 
KEGGY ON ESPN!

Turn on ESPN's Pardon The Interruption right now!

Posted by Anonymous at 2:33 PM | |

 
And more

"Bill O'Reilly gets his own section of Intellectual Conservative" [Scroll down to nearly the bottom; it's on the left column.] Is this meant to be ironic?

Posted by kungfuzi at 5:30 PM | |

 
You call this "intellectual conservatism"?!

The Left is nothing new, nothing "progressive," and nothing "liberal." Anyone who has correspondence with a Leftist quickly learns that. Leftists stand for nothing and against everything that stands in the way of their power. Their "love letters" show this perfectly, and each one I revise is like a version of the famous World War Two films "Why We Fight." We fight because the Left is manifestly indifferent to any notion of truth or compassion.

Read more (if you can stand it) here.



Posted by kungfuzi at 5:26 PM | |

 
Saddam and Al-Qaeda

Fox News links to a Weekly Standard piece that gives fresh evidence for the existence of a relationship between Saddam and Osama.

David Adesnik on Oxblog is skeptical, and perhaps rightly so.

Posted by kungfuzi at 11:56 AM | |

 
Attack of the Killer Tards, supplement

And Grace will share her email with you too. Go Observer.

"Date: 13 Nov 2003 13:35:13 EST
From: Ahmad M. Abdur-Rahim
Reply-To: hollaatme
Subject: sorry for the cluttering

i know all this may seem sort of confusing, but i didnt have the time to carefully plan my actions since the incident happened last night and i thought that it warranted immediate action. forgive me for my negligence.

this is an explanation i got from one of the Aires...

--- Forwarded message from Ivan J. Grant ---

>Date: 13 Nov 2003 03:10:40 EST
>From: Ivan J. Grant
>Reply-To: froaire
>Subject: Re: ARE THE AIRES AIRHEADS?!
>To: Senam Y. Kumahia

--- You wrote:
you're an Aire, right? what's this all about?
--- end of quote ---

The freshmen are required to write a skit for their first greek show. ALL FOUR of them wrote it together. That's 2 white guys and 2 black guys. They're ALL GOOD FRIENDS. Actually, the one black guy, I KNOW, wrote some of the more offensive stuff. The idea was that they would make fun of the stupid stereotypes laid out in culture about black and white. It was supposed to be light-hearted and a statement to the fact that the AIRES OBVIOUSLY AREN'T THAT WAY. The skit didn't quite go the way the blitz explained, but I'd rather explain in person than on blitz.

Believe me, the aires are not racist. . .

It's an awful awful thing when things are read out of context. In my opinion, the skit went too far, and it's all about knowing the people who wrote it and what they meant, and unfortunately, that's not always clear.
--------"

Straight from the horse's mouth, just what we thought.

Posted by verligte at 9:21 PM | |

 
Attack of the Killer Tards, part II

So I receive the following blitz this morning. (Twice...)

"--- Forwarded message from Kwabena A. Safo-Agyekum ---

>Date: 13 Nov 2003 01:17:40 EST
>From: Kwabena A. Safo-Agyekum
>Subject: ARE THE AIRES AIRHEADS?!
>To: (Recipient list suppressed)

Hey everyone,

So, after going to Ramuntos for some free pizza, Una and I decided to go check out the Aires show at Alpha Xi and to our surprise we heard more than just singing. After the group had perfromed several songs, they took some time to introduce their newest members - two of whom were white and two of whom were black. The two new white members were introduced by their names while standing before the crowd, and the the two new black members were back stage as their names were just quickly rambled off.

Then, the two black members came on to the stage and one of them performed and attempted to teach two white members (I don't know if these two white members were the two newest members who had just been introduced or the two who had done the introductions) how to step. The two white members who were being taught to step, feigned the movements and made mockery of them. This seemed to be funny and was well received by the crowd.

And now here is the part of the show where Una and I were completely offended. So, after trying to perform the step, the two white members proceded to teach the two black members something, too. They said something along the lines of, "Now we are going to teach you something that our people have had for a long time, and that is words." (This is not an exact quote but it is very close to what was said).

The two white members then pulled out a sheet of white paper with the word "CAT" written on it in capital letters. Then they said to the two black members that "CAT" is made up of letters that make sounds, which are read to make words. At this point, Una and I could not stand to hear anymore and by the silence that was very present in the room, others had been shocked by what they were seeing as well.

Una and I don't know what the intentions were behind this skit but we felt you all should know what happened and felt obliged to share this with you. I apologize in advance if you get this more than once and please forward this to other people."

I just deleted and shook head until this baby came across the channel:

"--- Forwarded message from Ahmad M. Abdur-Rahim ---

>Date: 13 Nov 2003 12:42:45 EST
>From: Ahmad M. Abdur-Rahim
>Reply-To: hollaatme
>Subject: ARE THE AIRES AIRHEADS?!
>To: James E. Wright
>Bcc: John A. Stevenson

Dear President Wright,

I don't know if you have been informed of this event yet, but it is very disturbing to me not just as a member of the black community but as a member of the Dartmouth community at large. I think this event is an extreme form of racial bigotry and quite frankly it is embarrassing that this level of ignorance exists here at Dartmouth, one of the most prestigious institutions in the country. We at Dartmouth pride ourselves on intellectualism, acceptance and at the very least open-mindedness, but if we truly possesed these qualities, these manifestations of racial prejudice and bigotry would not manifest themselves so blatantly at least at our institution. And even subtle manifestations of racism are to be condemned, but the first step is to address the obvious ones first.

I don't see this incident as any different from the incident that occured at the University of Auburn a couple of years ago where some young men at a Fraternity party dressed up in black face mimicking the days of black faced minstrelsy and pretended to be lynched by a group of clans members who were also their fraternity brothers. I think as a member of this community that it would behoove us to take this incident into consideration and seriously consider how to prevent similar situations from occuring in the future. This incident can be taken as a step back from the diversity we seek to promote here at Dartmouth or a step forward in combating this issue. If we step and deal with the matter the way we should, addressing racial prejudice and bigotry in an open forum and condemning it in this recent manifestation and all other forms of it we will be moving in the right direction from this incident. In this way, we will benefit from this incident as it may serve as a means of promoting diversity and acceptance. However, if we merely allow it to pass us by unaddressed, we will only be facilitators of the gross reality of social predujice and racial bigotry that still exists in our society despite our many efforts to dispel them. I am sure Dartmouth College would not like to be seen in this light. It is not a true reflection of what we stand for as a college, nor should it be misconstrued as the type of people we have here. "

I usually just shake my head at the things that some people concern themselves with, but today I decided to intervene from my detached and dispassionate position. I had this to say:

"--- Forwarded message from John A. Stevenson ---

>Date: 13 Nov 2003 15:04:11 EST
>From: John A. Stevenson
>Reply-To: Truth and Order
>Subject: Re: ARE THE AIRES AIRHEADS?!
>To: James E. Wright

Dear President Wright,

First I would like to apologize for sending you one more blitz on what has probably been, given your job, a busy day as usual. That being said I would like to point out some mitigating factors that I, also African-American, observed in the reporting of the incident and in the culture of the college at large that should have caused Mr. Abur-Rahim to soften his claim if not forgone writing them at all.

1. The cast of the skit was multi-racial.

Given the relatively small size of an organization like the Aires and the strength of the bonds that form among members of talent-based groups, everyone in the group had not only agreed to particpate in said event but most likely were involved in the shaping of the event itself. When I read the blitz that reported these incidents, my first reaction was not one of horror, it was rather to wonder why, given the gravity and awkwardness of the discourse surrounding race relations on campus, a shock humour approach was taken. What were these individuals attempting to communicate/ offer commentary on concerning the nature of campus life?

2. Aires skits are usually a form of social commentary in which a lot of time and thought have been put.

This skit was something that both the black and white students in the group wanted to do. When it was being thought of and written, members of the group probably engaged in editing it and were most likely aware of the ramifications of this skit. Thus it seems to me that calling this skit "racist", which would imply lack of knowledge and/or sensitivity, does not do justice to amount of thought that went into said skit.

3. (most importantly) Dartmouth College, as an institution, can never be accused of ignoring the presence and persistence of in egalitarian social structures.

This college, in my short stay here, has followed the multicultural wisdom as much as any institution could have. Students from less privileged walks of life can enjoy the bounty that is Dartmouth due to a generous financial aid program. Efforts are continually being made to solicit more alumni donations to increase the endowment toward that end. Dartmouth has supported, both socially and financially, student groups that spread the message of diversity. There is no end to the diversity programming and discussion. Dartmouth has created the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity to serve as a watchdog organization and a source of vision. The Office of Pluralism and Leadership now coordinates the deans who address many issue areas that some individuals on campus find central to their conception of personal identity- whether that be race, ethnic origin or sexuality.

You yourself have, in numerous public occasions, expounded a historical and intellectual philosophy of multiculturalism. You even went so far as offer an opinion on the two Michigan cases, which at that time were still up in the air, and filed a 'friend of the court' brief to outline the values that Dartmouth, as an institution of higher learning, held regarding this issue.

I think that given these three salient realities, Mr. Abur-Rahim's letter was stirring rhetoric, had this actually been an issue.

Again, the apologies regarding your time,

John A. Stevenson '05 "

Read the Observer: because John will share his mail with you...

Posted by John Stevenson at 12:17 PM | |

 
Random post on non-American politics

Hi again. I haven't been here in a while. I should be writing a Donne paper for my English freshman seminar (it may be Donne but I still have to Do it) but I'm pointedly distracting myself.

--
Excerpt from transcript of BBC HARDtalk interview with PM Goh Chok Tong, aired September 23, 2003

(BBC's Tim Sebastian): "(Human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson)
says one of the great ironies is how Singapore's Internal Security
Directorate concentrates on prosecuting liberals instead of worrying
about the people who are running unlawful arms and explosive
shipments which would cost hundreds of lives in the region."

Mr Goh: "No, that's not so. The Internal Security Act has not been
used against the liberals. I mean, you have so many of them running
around in Singapore. They are free to air their views. They are not
persecuted."

Mr Sebastian: "They are not free to air every view that they want,
are they?"

Mr Goh: "No. They are (free)."

Mr Sebastian: "You need to get a police permit for more than five
people to assemble."

Mr Goh: "Within the law, within the law, yes, you have to do that."

Mr Sebastian: "And the permits are often turned down."

Mr Goh: "Yes."

Mr Sebastian: "Aren't they?"

Mr Goh: "Yes."

Mr Sebastian: "So that's not exactly freedom of expression, is it?"

Mr Goh: "No. That's freedom because it depends on your definition.
In our case, the laws have been there all the time and it is for the
parties concerned to change the laws if they win the elections. So
they've got to convince the people that we are wrong and they are
right."
--

I spy with my little eye a tiny difficulty in that last sentence. It's a lot harder than PM Goh makes it sound, to 'convince the people that (the PAP is) wrong and (the opposition is) right'. Particularly if you as an opposition party are not allowed to assemble with more than five people in a public place. What other (cheap easy speedy) means do you have of convincing the populace at large?


Posted by verligte at 9:11 PM | |

 
Are conservatives winning the culture wars?

Yes, according to the City Journal's Brian Anderson in this piece, in which he argues that "[t]he Left's near monopoly over the institutions of opinion and information — which long allowed liberal opinion makers to sweep aside ideas and beliefs they disagreed with, as if they were beneath argument — is skidding to a startlingly swift halt." The factors he lists include Fox News, South Park, the Internet (Sullivan, Drudge, Erin O'Connor, Arts & Letters Daily, Frontpage Magazine, and NRO all get mentioned in the same breath), and conservative book publishers. As a result of these developments, young people no longer consider conservatives "uptight squares." South Park Republicans is what Andrew Sullivan calls them.

Anderson's argument is premised on the first eleven words of his piece, which I quoted above. Is he constructing a straw man here? Has there been, up until only recently, a "near monopoly" of opinion and information by the Left? Conservatives make this assumption all the time, but the Left would say just the opposite: they'd argue that Reagan, the end of the Cold War, and 9/11 have all contributed to a conservative recrudescence in American culture.

Thoughts?

Posted by kungfuzi at 12:00 PM | |

 
The Problem of Today’s Politics by Judiciary

In her November 3rd op-ed in the Daily Dartmouth, Amie Sugarman cited the intervention in a terminally-ill case by Florida Governor Jeb Bush and the Florida state legislature as evidence of a “separation of powers” crisis because of its conflict with a decision of the United States Supreme Court. Bush and the legislature passed a law written to over-ride the actions of her husband and by extension a ruling of the Supreme Court. Miss Sugarman fears that this course of events could prove disastrous as state legislature or the Congress become drunk with power and assert their authority over the courts. What is disturbing to me is not only her fundamental misunderstanding of history and the interplay between American branches of government, but also how she is representative of an all-to-common aberration of our democracy.

First, Miss Sugarman makes several material errors in her understanding of the United States’ Constitution, to whom what powers are assigned by the authority of that Constitution, and how this dynamic has played out over history. The formal powers given to the judiciary are enumerated in Article III, Sections 1 and 2. In 1788, those powers included jurisdiction of all conflicts under the Constitution, cases involving the federal government, cases between states, foreign citizens and ambassadors. The power which concerns Miss Sugarman most, judicial review is notably absent. This is part of the problem with logic, rather than a cornerstone of our written constitution, judicial review is an inheritance of our common law system. Judicial review as it exists today began of course in 1803 with Marbury v. Madison where the Marshall court justified judicial review. In practice over the years, judicial review has generally been a “good thing.” Laws written by Congress or state legislatures found to be incompatible with our Constitution and the rights it grants us as citizens can be struck down. But note a famous caveat to judicial review, attributed to President Andrew Jackson in 1830 is “Marshall has his decision, now let him enforce it.” The point here is that courts can issue all the decisions they want, but they are enforced only by the good will of the Executive (and as I will argue later an abdication by Congress.)

Two hundred years later judicial review is a growing and monstrous cancer on our democracy, misunderstood by many in what I can only describe as some sort of cultural assumption. Decisions handed down by the Supreme Court of the United States become law if enforced by the President of the United States or set as precedent and authority over lower courts. Yet on many occasions, Congress has in fact written laws specifically to over-ride decisions by the Supreme Court. Congress does have this authority and has used it before, and as we will see later rightly so. It is in fact the President and the Supreme Court that have become too powerful. The action by Governor Bush and the Florida legislature are historically common, passing laws is precisely the method by which the Executive and Legislature check the power of the Judiciary. If pressed, even Constitutional Amendments have been passed. Supreme Court decisions are not immutable either by reversing themselves or by act of a legislature.

But here is the most important point I have to make. Increasingly, over the past half-century or so, interest groups have strategically pushed their agendas through the court system, rather than pursuing the more costly route of beseeching Congress to pass a law. Not only is it financially cheaper to sue than to lobby, but interest groups have a chance of succeeding with logic when they might fail at popularity. Popularity? Yes. Popularity. By its very definition, for a law to pass in Congress it must have the support of the majority of its members in both the House and Senate. Afterwards it must be signed by the President. The House, Senate and President all serve slightly different constituencies and by design capture the will or our representative democracy. This is the very embodiment of our Republic. However, law by judicial decree do not go through this process and do not have the legitimacy that it provides. Agree or disagree with the recent law banning partial-birth abortion, it has the constitutionally defined support of The People--the essence of democracy. Roe v. Wade, whether you are a supporter of it or not, does not have this legitimacy. (I choose Roe v. Wade because it serves as the best and most recognisable example) Roe currently exists as law only because of judicial review. Could abortion supporters have congress pass a law making abortion legal? I don’t know. But this is the insidiousness of judicial review, it provides the means for the circumvention of the democratic process. Now, Amie Sugarland puts more stock in 9 non-elected judges than any combination of elected branches of government. Shouldn’t we, as a nation, be shocked at this development?

Of course, the Supreme Court alone is not to blame. They are only doing their job as best they can. There is another devil at work here. What must also be understood is the shift in institutional responsibility that occurred over the past 80 years. The 20th century saw two successive waves of increasing Presidential authority and responsibility at the expense of Congress. First, FDR’s first administration made the presidency the dominant actor in policy concerning labor and the economy. Second, World War II and its immediate aftermath in the nuclear age, saw the presidency become the dominant actor in policy concerning defense. The demands of these two successive crises and the inability of Congress do answer their rapid and critically important or strategic demands created the presidency we recognize today. Now, the President is the expected source of policy initiatives in all manner of arenas. Congress has conceded most of its role in the formulation of policy and law. Without Congress to initiate writing laws and with the President formulating his own agenda, interest groups naturally see litigation and the Supreme Court as the avenue that strategically gives them the best chance of making the changes they desire.

Combined, these two dynamics of judicial review and institutional responsibility have coalesced over the past century into the true dilemma facing our democracy today. Citizens are disenfranchised by a process and system that enables non-elected judges to make law. I personally find this the most trouble issue of our day because it seems nobody is talking about it and yet it most clearly threatens us all. Interest groups and individual citizens now fear the very organ of government that is constitutionally endorsed source of law. The solution I foresee is a difficult one. Congress must re-assert its institutional position to formulate policy and create law. Congress, that most unwieldy and despised organ of government, is our best hope.


Posted by Anonymous at 4:29 PM | |

 
This is funny

From Andrew Sullivan's email folder:

A major research institution has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest chemical element yet known to science. The new element has been tentatively named "Governmentium". Governmentium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 11 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of Governmentium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete when it would normally take less than a second. Governmentium has a normal half-life of three years; it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to speculate that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass". You will know it when you see it.


Posted by kungfuzi at 11:41 AM | |

 
Would the author care to clarify?

Sarah Morton on Lady-Likely: "It reminds me of endless debates in literature and theory over *why* a woman or other member of a marginalized group wrote or expressed what s/he did. Of course, everything in a culture affects all the people in it, even if just by limiting or increasing each person's exposure to different ideas and tropes, and you can find that in the product of anyone's expression. But it's interesting that so often that is the principal mode of exploration/axplanation (I am guilty of this) - I don't think it's bad, I think it's indicative... marginalized identities affect not only what we write/create, but every iteration of its interpretation. That's why all the products of the culture wars in universities are "interdisciplinary" departments. feminism, etc. are modes of interpretation - but the texts they interpret are not designed solely as feminist - they are pieces of writing, art, science... sometimes not feminist at all... the interpretations recreate them and interpellate them in the mode of the interpretation."



Posted by kungfuzi at 9:31 PM | |

 
The Twilight Zone

Just came across this blog, "The Cardinal Collective," from Stanford, primarily made up of current and former members of The Stanford Review, which, correct me if I'm wrong, is the conservative publication in Stanford.

I nearly choked on my cereal when I noticed a few familiar issues that kept cropping up. To wit:

1) The ability of other campus publications to distribute door to door. Hmm, sounds familiar...
2) That pesky daily paper that keeps publishing mediocre writing. (Sample criticism: "DAILY PUBLISHES GREAT OP-ED: That's not a blog title I'd ever thought I'd write.")

Just a few coincidences? You be the judge...

Sidenote: If only the contributors didn't put such an arrogant subheadline on their blog ("the brightest american thinkers under forty"), I'd look at them in a more favorable light.

Posted by Jon at 10:45 PM | |

 
"Female-Free Dartmouth?"

We don't often link to feminist blogs in bright orange, but I thought I should mention that Laura Dellatorre '03 (my very good friend who used to post here), Sarah Morton '05, and Lauren LeBlanc MALS '03 have started their own blog called Lady-Likely.

This post seems to explain why they started their blog.

Posted by kungfuzi at 10:19 AM | |

 
Save Classics and Stop Quibbling!

Over on Dartlog, Christian Hummel makes a good point in echoing Professor Edward Bradley's criticism of the announcement of the "Center for Teaching and Learning," which reportedly will cost the school $3 million. The Classics department has gotten horrendous treatment from the College in the last few years; the College is unwilling to hire qualified replacements for several of the professors approaching retirement. As it stands, more than a quarter (four) of the faculty (only 15 total) are visiting professors or lecturers, while a few others are nearing the end of their academic careers. Speaking from, among other things, the very real fear that the department is approaching either extinction or mediocrity, Bradley made this criticism:

"I just wish there were a little more discussion," Bradley said. "I speak from a small department who has been denied the replacement of a senior faculty member, where $3 million is not a small item."

The understatement in Bradley's words probably needs to be explained to Administrative types -- even a portion of the amount is enough to salvage a department with a history of significant contributions to its field. It would be nice to have this issue brought to the general attention of the Dartmouth community. It would be nicer to have people care.

***

As an aside, I find it amusing that in the immediate post above Hummel's, Emmett Hogan accuses the Left of propagating semantics. It would seem to me that Hummel's small jab against The D is nearly as quibbling as any on the part of the Left (a position that I am not writing from). Furthermore, it's a longstanding Review convention to point out any last exclusion of the Review's name in The D.

As for the idiotic slight itself: "The Daily Dartmouth's account of Wright's faculty address may not be accurate (that's the risk of using the D)"), Hummel is in no position to talk -- unless he happened to have attended Wright's speech (unlikely since he's an '01). Also, when the Review starts to attempt to practice something resembling journalism again, it can regain the right to criticize.

Matthew Kelly's article was solidly written and not the typical D screed that gets torn apart on smarterdartmouth. If Hummel wants a "more accurate" story, perhaps he should eschew newspapers in favor of the full printed text of the speech. Or perhaps he can check out a video of the speech at his local Blockbuster if the text doesn't give him the full picture. But I digress...

Posted by Jon at 6:19 AM | |

 
Brought Tears To My Eyes

http://blackcommentator.com/61/61_cover_rogers.html I was quite sad upon reading this article, and not only because they disagreed with me (I am able to tolerate wrong opinions), but because it is so very unnecessarily slanderous.

"Janice Brown is a Jim Crow-era judge, in natural blackface." (And re our ealier conversation, in case anyone was wondering about the disposition of conservatives: "Janice Brown is mean, too – vicious, even. Angered that all of her court colleagues disagreed with her opinion on a particular case, she raged that high school students were capable of better legal research.")

It saddens me that these sorts of things still happen. Hatch had it right on the money when he observed: "But Justice Brown faces a second hurdle beyond the abortion litmus test that all nominees face. She is a conservative African-American woman, and for some that alone disqualifies her nomination to the D.C. Circuit, widely considered a stepping stone to the United States Supreme Court. Now, I want to make clear that I am not referring to any of my colleagues here on the Committee. But let me show you what I AM talking about – an example of how low Justice Brown’s attackers will sink to smear a qualified African-American jurist who doesn’t parrot their ideology."



Posted by John Stevenson at 8:24 AM | |

 
"Murky Pacificism"

I stumbled across a though-provoking article in the Financial Times today. (The article was for the weekend edition concerning the dates October 25th to October 26th.) It is by Christopher Caldwell and is entitled "'Murky pacificism' is a parody of the old virtue." The article opens considering the claims of former Solidarity activist and Warsaw editor Adam Michnik. Michnik, who suggests that the anticommunist activists in Poland didn't understand the west European pacifists who urged unilateral disarmament while staring at the Soviet threat, urged attendees of the PASS (Programme of Atlantic Security Studies) to "reject murky pacifism, which in essence is an act of cowardice and capitulation towards totaliarian dictatorships."

Michnik was quick to distinguish between the craven-- present day political pacificism-- and the courageous --religious based-- of pacificism. The Catholics were brave souls in the Polish solidarity movement and religious pacificism, with its turning of the other cheek, may actually increase the dangers to those who practice it. The old religious pacifism was a critique against all war-- founded in Aquinas's just war tradition-- that attempted to break the "cycle of violence" by renouncing the use of force. This position could be summed up in the announcement, scorned by Caldwell, of the National Council of Catholic Bishops that "Catholic moral teaching began with a presumption against war." The new pacificism is really an excuse for indifference and cowardice according to Michnik. These pacifists are, quoting Caldwell here, "people who have objections to particular wars, not to war itself; and such a view involves less sacrifice and rigor."

Caldwell goes one step further and suggests that the very foundations of the just war theory--from Aquinas to Walzer-- are breaking down. (If this is true, then it will strip oppositionists of intelligent arguments.) His first reason is: "the questions of jus ad bellum...have been unsettled by the threat from non-state actors. The traditional requirement that war be a last resort, once non-military means are exhausted, is increasingly hard to apply." Most of the concerns sorrouding the laws of war, to use Kant's phrase, existed because states lived in a state of war, devoid of a juridical condition. Because states were always in a war-prone condition, they gave themselves the laws of war. It is primarily to govern and constrain state behavior. The presence of non-state actors, who exist outside and independent of state borders, whose monetary assets can be moved, accessed and protected by the structures of globalization, are very difficult to deter by 'conventional' means. His second reason is: questions of jus in bello are more complicated. Clearly using chemical weapons is a violation of the principle but does possessing them constitute a casus belli? "Can one conduct a just war to remove such weapons using depleted uranium shells and half-ton bombs? And what are we to make of the attack on Serbia during the Kosovo war, when NATO conducted a military campaign without fear of retaliation?"

It may be that as the foundations of the just war theories shake, so does the moral fiber of the opposition.

Posted by John Stevenson at 10:52 AM | |

 
Derrida on the Middle East!

The father of Deconstruction at UCSB (thanks to Volokh):

He said that although Israelis and Palestinians are not living together peacefully, they are still living together.

The D couldn't have said it better. Unfortunately, some people didn't seem to be paying that much attention. One audience member commented:

"I found it very difficult to follow. My sense of it was that it was like a meditation, where there was no sequence of thought that I could discern. I sort of went into a quiet state and let it all go by," said attendee Steven Glauz-Podrask, the father of a UCSB student.

Posted by kungfuzi at 7:07 AM | |

 
An Ideal Christmas Present (for Jon Eisenman, perhaps?)

Yep, it's the Ann Coulter Talking Action Figure.

Posted by kungfuzi at 9:57 AM | |

 
Ouch, talk about caricature

"Ten years ago I held a professorship at Dartmouth College, one of the Ivy League colleges on the east coast of America, an extremely privileged place where one student in 17 came from a family of millionaires," Hillenbrand explains. "I gave a course on the art of Umayyad Syria and in my class not one student had ever studied any religion except Christianity, not one student had ever studied a foreign language, not one student had ever studied any history except American history and not one student had studied even American history earlier than 1776. Now those are meant to be the cream of the cream of American society, and I didn’t so much as open their minds as crack their skulls open."

From an article in today's issue of the Lebanese paper, The Daily Star. Now I'm not exactly sure what Dartmouth was like in 1993, but unless it was comprised totally of cavemen, I'm pretty sure that students would have studied other religions, or at least other foreign languages. It seems more likely that instead of telling the truth he's giving a purposefully distorted view in order to lionize himself for a Middle Eastern press and appear as the great figure of transition in bringing "Oriental" knowledge to the other side of the world. Is he trying to say that there were no Jewish students without an inkling about their religion, no international students with knowledge of foreign languages, no one from the southwest who might have studied Spanish? Or what about how he points a finger at the millionaire Dartmouth students? Had none of those privileged, presumably prep school students come across a little Latin or French in their days at Groton or Exeter? I have a hard time believing any of the facts in this article, and I'm not sure who to blame -- the person conducting the interview (Samia Nassar Melki) or the professor at the University of Edinburgh himself (Robert Hillenbrand). Obviously the good professor never took his AP US History course. For that matter, I wonder if he ever taught at dear old Dartmouth!

Posted by Jon at 12:52 AM | |

 
Woe to the old research university, or Dartmouth for that matter

This new orientation for the research university means a shift away from the disinterested search for knowledge, what used to be called, in Germany at least, Wissenschaft, to research that will produce marketable products, products that will help make us competitive in the global economy. United States universities are no longer so much covertly part of the military-industrial complex, as they were during the Cold War. They are now overtly part of a global technology complex.

This isn't particularly timely in an immediate sense, but it is in a global sense, because it is on an important topic, the future of the university and particularly the future of literary study. J. Hillis Miller writes an excellent essay in the Fall 2001 issue of Diacritics called "Literary Study Among the Ruins." In the essay, he contends that the methods of reading we know are ending with the advent of new technology and in fact were a fairly "recent" phenomenon beginning in the 18th century. The study of literature as we know it is an even more recent phenomenon, centered around the Cold War, and is slowly metamorphizing into a new form. Cultural Studies, he asserts, is an unfortunate bi-product of the change.

Miller believes that the study of English literature will be used as a means of learning how we fit into the rest of the world; English will be studied more according to geographic region as a result -- South Asian Studies, Atlantic Studies, any general area that produces works written in some version of English. These changes must come about, he says, as the university becomes globalized.

The issue as a whole is interesting and actually readable, whatever you may think of the points made, and it is refreshing for literature students accustomed to having to parse titles such as: "Trans-American Constructions of Black Masculinity: Dany Laferrière, le Nègre, and the Late Capitalist American Racial machine-désirante" (if you're so inclined it's in the latest issue of Callaloo).

Posted by Jon at 11:50 AM | |