There has been a debate going on since the 1960s regarding whether or not zombies are people. Two years ago, Dr Gary Miller was shot during a church service for performing Zombie Removal Procedures, and the debate has been raging ever since.
Dr Miller saved the lives of countless spouses, children, relatives, and friends of the zombies he had removed. "When my husband came home from work," Angela Sadako told us, "he told me he wasn't feeling well. He was sweating profusely, and slurring his words. By the middle of the night, his eyes went white, and he was clutching at me in bed. I almost didn't make it. I called Dr Miller on my cell phone as I ran out of the house. Gary saved my life."
Some, however, call Gary a murderer, and consider the lives of the "sickly" people Dr Miller had ended, such as that of Angela's husband.
Necrophiles argue that "personhood" status cannot be revoked once it has been granted: A free man cannot be made a slave, so how is a zombified corpse not considered a person? Necrophiles see hope in the "personhood" of zombies: They point to their remarkable ability to feed themselves, that they can still hear, smell, and see; they believe that it is possible to retrain them by way of positive reinforcement. They have not accounted for the fact that many zombies are missing parts of their anatomy that would be considered important in order to function, and also cannot account for the copious amount of blood lost in the course of zombification.
Deadists, however, believe that zombies are in fact dead, and point to the fact that millions of lives have been lost to zombies and trying to retrain them. In fact, they claim, New York City, Chicago, Tokyo, Beijing, Washington DC, San Francisco, the entire African continent, and all of the Middle East have been consumed by the Zombie Plague. If the Necrophiles had their way, claim the Deadists, all of humanity would be eradicated.
However, because Necrophiles see no clear distinction between zombies and live humans, they aren't concerned.
A court case in 1985 was supposed to have shed some light on this controversial subject, but the plaintiff, on whose behalf a Necrophiliac organization filed the lawsuit, allegedly attacked the stenographer, and there has been no further word on either side for 26 years. State officials claim that employees are terrified to open the doors to the courtroom where the event took place.
About 50% of the 10 million people in the United States (sample consisting only of those who were able to answer the question; zombie rights groups argue that the study was inherently biased against the vast majority of zombies. The organization claims that it did try to get the opinions of zombies on the issue, but too many of their local representatives never returned to headquarters) believe that zombies are people. 40% are quite convinced that zombies are truly dead, and 10% are still unsure. 100% of respondents have seen someone become a zombie. Republican members of Congress have been trying to pass legislation making it illegal to incapacitate a zombie, but many of these congressmen have been themselves caught shooting zombies in the head "out of necessity." Several congressmen this author has personally spoken to are very worried about the effect the current situation has had on the global economy.
Asked what she thought of the Zombie Plague, Sarah Palin said, "Well, you know, they're people. Bristol's out in the back yard. We have to keep her on a leash until she gets better, but I don't like those awful noises she makes all the time. And she ate our dog last month. We're doing the best we can to give her the help she needs."
Religious leaders were more hopeful: "This is the Ressurrection at hand!" Many Pentecostal and Millennialist believers were eager to catch the plague, seeing it as God's reward for good behavior. Becky Fisher noted, as she recalled many of the children at her summer camp eager to be zombified, "a few hours of intense pain and suffering is a small price to pay for an eternity with Jesus." No one has seen the children in at least a year.
Scientists are reasonably certain that zombies are dead. They point to the terrible stench that emanates from corpses, and say that the discoloration and gangrene consistently seen on zombified persons match perfectly normal human decomposition. They claim that the Zombie Plague is a viral infection first found in Africa, and called it a Rabies-Ebola hybrid. Scientists claimed that the virus was a consequence of the African practice of eating tainted bushmeat. They admitted that diseases spread and die out in communities where bushmeat is consumed, but that this disease was particularly virulent, combined with the fact that
"UN health officials and local communities were woefully unprepared for this kind of outbreak. Because symptoms are not seen for 6-12 hours after exposure, health officials and suppliers were zombified on airplanes and in airports, and the disease spread extremely rapidly, spreading from Africa to Europe, Asia and the Middle East in just two days. The disease spread to America by business and recreational travel."
There is currently no cure for zombification, as scientists point to the brain being mostly dead and rotted away. "There is no way to restore brain function to the degree that a normal person would have. The brain is mostly killed by the virus, except for the hypothalamus."
Friday, February 25, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
The Most Egregious Corruption
Abstract: Scott Walker has taken upon himself to neuter the bargaining power of unions, in response to an exaggerated budget shortfall. The implications of this action are catastrophic and unprecedented to our democracy itself. Corporate interest has largely co-opted our political system in a way that has been both obvious and egregious over the past two years; I argue that we are losing our democracy, and paint a picture of a future most undesirable as a result.
I wouldn't dare say that these past two years were the most corrupt in the United States' history, but I would certainly say that I have never seen such a level of corruption before.
Governor Scott Walker claims that there is a budget crisis in Wisconsin, and in response, is dissolving public sector unions. The unions have offered to take whatever cuts necessary, but Walker has resolved to destroy them completely. In a strange turn, the only public sector unions Walker is NOT dissolving are the police and fire department unions, which tend to be conservative and have supported Walker's campaign1. Furthermore, Walker's campaign was also financed by the infamous Koch brothers2.
Wisconsin is not facing as bad a shortfall as many other states, states that, while making significant cuts, have not moved to threaten their public-sector unions' existence. New Jersey, for example--which is in one of the greatest state budget crises in the country--while is in the process of making significant cuts to education (that I vehemently disagree with), has not moved to attack the teachers' union.
Even more telling is that there is nothing in the dissolution of the public sector unions that would bring in revenue to the state1. Furthermore, the Wisconsin legislature voted today to make a tax hike require a 2/3 majority3. This is absolutely asinine. It would be incredibly difficult--nearly impossible--to solve a deficit by cutting spending alone, due to interest rates. Wisconsin, thus, is running itself into the ground.
Walker has done a similar thing in the past, in which he fired his unionized security guard for not reason, and then hired Wackenhut to guard a state courthouse in 1993. The firm was investigated for lewd behavior in Kabul, and the security guard who was brought into that Madison courthouse had a criminal record! Furthermore, because he grossly overestimated the money the state would save, as well as the fact that the unwarranted firing of the unionized security guard resulted in a lawsuit, Walker's entire enterprise cost the state an additional $500k(1).
Now is not the time to be dissolving unions, or even diminishing their power. Two years ago, we suffered a remarkably preventable global economic crisis, brought on by a complete lack of foresight, complacence, and unmitigated avarice. Despite that, we have a demographic of very angry lower and middle-class Americans, who have been manipulated by these same corporate interests into attacking themselves when we should be attacking these corporations. It is extremely depressing that at a time when we should punish these corporations to the fullest extent of the law, close tax loopholes for businesses, raise the corporate tax rate to close to 50%, we have elected people who argue for deregulation (after we find out that Burger King novelty glasses are laced with lead and cadmium, and banks are using underhanded procedures to force foreclosures) and seek to destroy workers' access to leverage in negotiations with their superiors. Our middle class isn't shooting itself in the foot; the barrel of that shotgun is pressing against the roof of its mouth, and Scott Walker is going to be the one to pull the trigger.
But worse than that. In attacking unions, Rachel Maddow claims that Scott Walker (and, by extension, the Koch brothers) are going after the heart of the Democratic party, as the GOP at large went after ACORN (which campaigns to get people registered to vote), and, more recently, Planned Parenthood4. Unions generally support the Democratic party, and while one may not agree with the Democratic party, I would venture to suggest that it's far better at present than the alternative.
I hate to be hyperbolic, I really do. But it has never been clearer to me that despite having a very intelligent person in the White House, who can do very little, if not nothing, about the irresponsibility of the federal legislature, and nothing about Wisconsin, and was crippled from the start by an extremely effective propaganda campaign by Fox News, we are losing our democracy to corporate interests in a way that is largely unprecedented.
After Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle, the federal government was moved to step in on behalf of the lower class, and what resulted was a large body of regulations that protected--and continue to protect--greater society from corporate mal- and misfeasance, such as the FDA, the SEC, which, unfortunately, due to corporate influence, failed--or neglected--to catch Bernard Madoff, to the EPA, which is also under attack by our federal legislature. But that isn't an argument against regulation, that is simply an argument for more vigilant regulations.
It is worth nothing that the ever observant Represenative Paul Ryan remarked that Madison was like Egypt5. Did he just say what I think he said? Is Scott Walker a smaller Hosni Mubarak? Representative Ryan, much like Job, spoke far more than he knew. For annihilating the leverage of his people in negotiations in the face of an already tyrannical environment, I hope our little Egypt prevails.
What we face as citizens is what many face in countries far worse than ours. Our political will is being wrested from us by skillful manipulation and financial influence. We are being told by Fox News who we are to vote for because our corporations have already purchased them. Politicians are products, bought and paid for by an aristocracy. Imagine that Coke completely wiped out Pepsi, and then had enough resources to wipe out not only Pepsi, but even the last tiny bastions of Sarsaparilla.
Do any of us know what it's like to live under a single-party system? Worse, this isn't due to violence, a coup d'etat, but an influence alien to all of us. This influence doesn't care for political wisdom or the welfare of the community under its control. This influence merely cares for its preservation at the expense of ordinary citizens. What we will have thanks to the Koch brothers will be worse than even theocracy.
What is happening under this system is that the tax cuts are deliberately intended to dismantle the government and its services under an ideology called "Starve the Beast." This ideology seeks to eat away at the government infrastructure by reducing its revenue, much like a lack of blood flow leads to gangrene. The wealthiest Americans will not pay any taxes, but the rest of us will not be entitled even to the services we take for granted and could possibly afford. Because of the two conflicting ideologies within the GOP (Christian Dominionism and corporate libertarianism (libertarianism, by pushing for corporate deregulation, will have eradicated social liberty, as corporations would be able to control our freedoms of expression, of the press, and of association. For evidence, I point to recent firings over Facebook comments and Blacklisting during the Red Scare. The press will have been bought off by corporate interests. Anyone who tries to act like Edward R Murrow will be fired.)), we will no longer have libraries, access to effective public education, or even healthcare, which we would need most of all after the dissolution of the EPA and the revocation of smoking bans. And you can forget about trying to find a job. Thus far, corporate America has not been inclined to hire many people, even after a year of astronomical profits, and there is little to indicate that that will change in the near future.
The dystopia I have just described, while hyperbolic at first glance, is an ever-possible reality should current political trends continue. If Walker and the Tea Party succeed, we will be far worse off than we are now.
1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7e4bj5rrd8&feature=player_embedded
2) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/us/22koch.html?_r=1&src=ISMR_HP_LO_MST_FB
3) http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/22/us-wisconsin-taxes-idUSTRE71L5F520110222
4) http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/house-votes-strip-planned-parenthood-federal-funding/story?id=12951080
5) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/17/paul-ryan-wisconsin-protests-cairo_n_824499.html
6) http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2011-02-22-1Alibyagas22_ST_N.htm
The Book of Job Part II
There are a few important aspects of the story I have overlooked, which came to my attention by a series of Youtube videos totaling 30 minutes (URL found at the end of the essay), in which ProfMTH goes far deeper than I did, particularly after God's appearance to Job, and the implications are absolutely enormous.
I had already covered God's reaction to Eliphaz, but there is something here I missed the first time around.
God played Nietzsche. In playing Nietzsche ("Might is right"), and later apologizing for it, God was doing two things: He was disproving and rejecting the complacence of Job's friends, and He was establishing that there exists a standard of justice external to Him. This means that by God acting unjustly, He was admitting that Justice does NOT come from Him; furthermore, Job, by responding as he did, was holding God to an external standard of Justice, for which he was rewarded1. Job is actually making an ironic remark here: Now that he has seen God for what he is, he is terrified for the natural order (justice) that such a monster as unjust as he could be in charge of it all. God, in turn, exonerates Job for holding Him to this standard, and punishes Job's friends for defending Him.
It is no secret that I love this story. It turns what most people say about God on its head in about 30 pages. Most people are content to merely parrot the sentiments of Job's friends, without understanding the whole issue. The story of Job is as engaging as it is complex, it requires a reader to think and interpret the text on his or her own. And in the back of my mind, I can't help but wonder why nobody has turned it into a rock opera yet, or has performed it onstage.
1) Then Job answered the Lord:
"I know you can do
all things,
and that no purpose of yours
can be thwarted.
'Who is this that hides counsel
without knowledge?'
Therefore I uttered what I
did not understand,
things too wonderful for me,
which I did not know.
'Hear and I will speak;
I will question you, and you declare to me.'
I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you;
therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes." [J42:1-6]
2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cpK1zcMXWw --Part 1
I had already covered God's reaction to Eliphaz, but there is something here I missed the first time around.
God played Nietzsche. In playing Nietzsche ("Might is right"), and later apologizing for it, God was doing two things: He was disproving and rejecting the complacence of Job's friends, and He was establishing that there exists a standard of justice external to Him. This means that by God acting unjustly, He was admitting that Justice does NOT come from Him; furthermore, Job, by responding as he did, was holding God to an external standard of Justice, for which he was rewarded1. Job is actually making an ironic remark here: Now that he has seen God for what he is, he is terrified for the natural order (justice) that such a monster as unjust as he could be in charge of it all. God, in turn, exonerates Job for holding Him to this standard, and punishes Job's friends for defending Him.
It is no secret that I love this story. It turns what most people say about God on its head in about 30 pages. Most people are content to merely parrot the sentiments of Job's friends, without understanding the whole issue. The story of Job is as engaging as it is complex, it requires a reader to think and interpret the text on his or her own. And in the back of my mind, I can't help but wonder why nobody has turned it into a rock opera yet, or has performed it onstage.
1) Then Job answered the Lord:
"I know you can do
all things,
and that no purpose of yours
can be thwarted.
'Who is this that hides counsel
without knowledge?'
Therefore I uttered what I
did not understand,
things too wonderful for me,
which I did not know.
'Hear and I will speak;
I will question you, and you declare to me.'
I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you;
therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes." [J42:1-6]
2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cpK1zcMXWw --Part 1
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
How the Left Can Win
Abstract: Michael Lind wrote an article last week criticizing the Democratic strategy of continuously attacking Fox News for its lunacy, instead calling for a venue in which we can present our own narrative and state positive positions on the issues. We should not allow the GOP to dictate what we talk about, and here I lay out a plan for a "counter-Glenn Beck" that is intelligent and doesn't rely on fear tactics. The purpose of this plan is to wrest control of the debate from Fox News and put them on the defensive.
I read a fascinating article on Salon.com last week arguing that simply trying to correct and mock the lunatic personalities on the right, such as Beck, Bachmann, Limbaugh, etc., is a bad political strategy. As fun as it is to roast Fox News like a Thanksgiving turkey, Mr Lind is correct.
The most compelling argument Lind provides is that it cedes control of the debate to the opposition, and it provides no positive position. "No doubt this drives ratings, attracting hyper-partisan Democrats whose greatest pleasure in life is the rather low one of picking apart the statements of Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck: "Nyah, nyah, Glenn Beck is wrong again!" But it’s no substitute for a liberalism that tells its own story, on its own timeline, and lets the right react1."
Lind argues for a counter-Glenn Beck, someone who can explain things from the opposite (and hopefully more sane) point of view. The perfect strategy would be to explain things in a way that does not make the audience more afraid, but gives them a good grasp of, say, the 2008 economic recession, and lays out the real causes of their current economic hardship while at the same time outlining the plans of the opposition as they are, and how they directly impact audience members as individuals.
Furthermore, a person in this position could also go on to explain the adverse impact on society of their cuts to the EPA, PBS/NPR, and recount how these services improve life not only individuals but also for greater society. The object here would be to make the case that our government also has a responsibility to guarantee our rights and freedoms, and provide for our welfare, and perhaps come up with a plan to reduce the deficit in a way that impacts everyday society as minimally as possible with prudent foresight, considering both the integrity of society and national supremacy.
It is easier to run a clip of Sarah Palin that makes you go "What the f---?" but it may hurt us in the long run, because, as Lind also points out, it makes us look more immediately like snobs than even the Koch brothers.
Our task here is to reverse the damage done by the Tea Party (as explained so brilliantly by Tom Frank's What's the Matter With Kansas?) and win back the lower and working classes to our cause. If we could explain to them that the Tea Party is backed by enormous corporate interests that are manipulating them to vote against their own social and economic interests, we may succeed. This may be helped by the fact that there is an all-consuming civil war between the Tea Party Patriots and their grassroots affiliates involving financial misfeasance2.
The difficulty here is that people have been continually duped by conservative personalities in the past. Abortion is an extremely effective smokescreen issue, in which the working class throws their economic aspirations under the bus for a Hellerian* campagain to save unwanted fetuses. This is made ever more tragic by the fact that there is a more effective way to mitigate the necessity of abortion procedures, which many conservative leaders consider with equal disgust: Contraception.
The cynical manipulation of the lower classes by business and religious leaders in tandem is nothing short of horrific to anyone who knows anything about Jesus himself, which has been a popular point since the beginning of the Cold War and McCarthyism, and has been taken up again in response to Obama's election. Perhaps it would be possible to pull the dominance of the debate away from Fox News and the political party it controls by doing something a bit uncomfortable, like actually quoting Jesus.
Knowing that I am an atheist, you might be immediately taken aback by this suggestion. But the goal is not to inject religion into public policy, at least any more than it already is. The goal, instead, is an educational one. The Pew Research poll on religious knowledge released last September ranked Jews and atheists/agnostics as the most knowledgeable about religion generally, and if we are going to correct the damage done by the Tea Party, perhaps it would be helpful if we were able to demonstrate 1) some Biblical knowledge, and 2) that Jesus was certainly not a capitalist, let alone a Randian one. I see no clear danger from including the Religious Left in this enterprise; it is entirely permissible for them to participate in public politics so long as they respect the law, even if they privately justify their actions on religious grounds. It is entirely possible for they and secularists such as myself to work toward the same end.
In fact, many evangelical scholars lament that Biblical literacy in the United States is dismal, and I would venture to surmise that the right's claims on the subject are not doing anything to alleviate the situation, from the complexities of religious issues surrounding the Founding of the nation to the claims surrounding the vindictive and avaricious nature of their Savior. We have an opportunity to take them to task over this, not by directly engaging them, but by forming a narrative of our own that is more accurate and doesn't rely on terror and hatred.
Unfortunately, CNN's hiring practices these past few months present a discouraging reality. Not only have they hired Erick Erickson, who had called a Supreme Court Justice a "goat-f---ing child molester," but they also hired Dana Loesch, and the news network went further and joined with the Tea Party Express3. It was also the only network to take Michele Bachmann's rebuttal to the SotU seriously.
This means that the current trend in our news media leaves little room for any kind of intelligent programming; the moderators of what is to be considered our political discourse are, instead of fostering the kind of discourse that could be considered "civil," are almost deliberately making us afraid and prone to violence. We would need to find an outlet that would support something of a higher standard of commentary and reach a wider audience.
1) http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/02/15/lind_beck_bachmann
2) http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/tea-party-patriots-investigated?page=1
3) http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/473148/cnn_hires_cpac_star_dana_loesch,_who_acts_out_violent_%27metaphors%27_against_democrats/
* referring to Joseph Heller's Catch-22
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Kitzmiller v Dover Area School District: The Aftermath
Six years ago, Judge John Jones III ruled in Dover, PA that Intelligent Design was a dolled-up variation of Creationism that was nothing more than vehicle to promoting religious ideology in public schools and was in clear violation of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause.
But it's still not over.
According to the NYTimes,
"Teaching creationism in public schools has consistently been ruled unconstitutional in federal courts, but according to a national survey of more than 900 public high school biology teachers, it continues to flourish in the nation’s classrooms. Researchers found that only 28 percent of biology teachers consistently follow the recommendations of the National Research Council to describe straightforwardly the evidence for evolution and explain the ways in which it is a unifying theme in all of biology. At the other extreme, 13 percent explicitly advocate creationism, and spend at least an hour of class time presenting it in a positive light1."
Given these statistics, it is no surprise at all that we are falling further behind the rest of the world, both academically, and worse, economically, and it is easy to predict what will happen to the United States if this trend is allowed to continue.
The article goes on to say,
That's the crux of the problem. I've studied Creationism for years, and they already know what "evolutionists" are going to say. Going back to my essay Philosophy in America, or The Lack Thereof, how can we reach a demographic whose ignorance is so voluntary and so complete? How can we raise the standard for science education at least so that teachers are confident to approach controversial subjects with students, and can defend themselves against religious fanatics, who use fear and self-righteousness to cripple those who disagree with them?
Maybe we should reduce the control parents have over the education system. We would like to think that every child has a parent that wants the best for them, but after so many of these cases, from mass book banning of Fahrenheit 451, The Handmaid's Tale, and Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret and the willingness to teach something that has no basis in the observable world as a legitimate science, I'm not so sure that's the case. We have no right to let Kitty Farmer dictate our standards of education.
Like any other decision made by a democratic body, people are going to be drawn to bad logic, and the people who should have a say--who best understand the educational needs of our children--are at the greatest risk of being punished for doing what is right.
Perhaps the best thing to do is to reform how we educate teachers. There are a few things teachers will need in order to fulfill the task I am setting out for them, to arm themselves against those who weaponize religion for their own ends and scare a community out of a good education.
Teachers will need a passion for their subject, whether it be science, math, or literature, music, or visual art, and they must be able to quickly justify why their subject is necessary to build character or to give children the skills to navigate the dystopia into which they will be shoved when they become adults. The trouble is that the teachers who understand this will not be arguing in front of a prudent magistrate, but a nebulous mob of self-interested parents with severe cases of Unwarranted Self-Importance. Perhaps, worse, they will argue in front of a spineless, sycophantic supervisor whose hands are tied by that same mob of entitled parents. [*Author's note: Now you know why I chose not to be a teacher*]
Teachers are best-equipped to educate our children, but they are the lowest in the administrative hierarchy. What if communities deferred to the best teachers on questions of how to educate children? How do we choose who the best teachers are? What kind of jurisdiction would these decisions have?
There would have to be a specific set of criteria by which we can measure teacher-student success. At the extreme risk of falling into NCLB territory, I am going to try to lay out some of what I believe that this criteria should be.
Science: In my own experience, science education quickly loses focus on what science IS, and only focuses on what science has brought us. Science classes should have an intense focus on hands-on activities which are designed to teach children how to think critically, examine evidence, and design experiments. Lab assignments should ask the question, "How did you come up with your answer?" Success of a science teacher should be measured by how well his or her students perform not necessarily on tests, but on labs and projects. The creativity shown in science fairs should be a primary basis for judging teacher and student success. In sum, HOW we know what we know from science is more important than WHAT we know.
Literature: I am not concerned with spelling and grammar here; I am concerned with personal development. In truth, English classes should be considered philosophy, in a way. The primary goal of literature is to challenge students to reevaluate what they believe and how they see the world. Literature, according to my English (nation, not language) Literature professor, is designed to "entertain and to teach." The goal of Literature is personal development, and all of adolescent literature is designed to help children find their own identity as they grow up and away from their parents, and to give them insight on how they can cope with existential crises. Parents want their children to be exactly like them, and completely miss the point of the entire enterprise, punishing teachers for doing exactly what they should be doing. English teachers, thus, would be tasked with giving their students some direction and meaning in their lives, and help them to become more aware of both themselves and others; they should challenge their students to relate what they learn in class to their own lives.
Math: I personally was never good at math, so I would be wise to defer standards of education in this area to someone else.
Social Studies/History: Here, too, we are failing miserably. History classes need to cover from 1950 to the present. I have never had a history class that made it past WW2. This era is extremely important, and few of us know exactly what went on after WW2. The problem is that this era is incredibly politicized in our collective consciousness that it would be nearly impossible to teach. What could be done is, in high school, cover America's founding to the Present over the course for four years. This would give enough time to go over everything in sufficient detail. The best thing to do for general Social Studies classes is to teach the basics of law--the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution--and how to evaluate legal and political arguments. The goal here is much of a philosophical one, in which we instruct children to think critically about what they hear on the news and from their parents, and are able to make intelligent decisions as American citizens. This should start in late elementary school and extend to some high school.
The focus in Social Studies should not be on tests and quizzes, but on writing persuasive papers. Ask students to write about something they care for in order to persuade their audience one way or another. Mock debates should definitely be included in the class, and students should be evaluated on the basis of how well they are able to make logical and compelling arguments for their cause(s).
Who are the best teachers? The best teachers are the ones that not only have the greatest passion for their subject, but are best able also to motivate their students and derive the greatest effort from them. In order to measure this, we must keep the process of sitting evaluations (a supervisor sits in on a class), but modify this process a little bit. I propose that the date and time for an evaluation should be kept top secret, and that the evaluator should walk in unannounced. Evaluations should be held between five and ten times a year for each teacher, in order to measure consistent quality and performance.
So what do we do with the teachers we deem to be the most effective given the evaluation process? We notify five of the best teachers at the end of the school year, and we task these teachers with reevaluating curriculum standards and improving them. These would be individuals who have demonstrated passion and knowledge of their field, and they would be put in contact with experts and advisers in their particular field of study in order to make the best decisions possible for their students. Parents and religious organizations would be entirely excluded from this process.
The decisions made by the best teachers will stand for one year and apply to a single school district.
Principals and superintendents would be tasked with administrative and penal duties, disciplining anti-social students and holding teachers accountable to the standards the teachers themselves would devise and support. The entire mechanism of the public school system will stand behind the teachers' decisions against misguided parents, uncompromising in their adherence to a standard of education that will improve the lives of the students and make for a more prosperous community that is better equipped to meet national and international challenges.
If a teacher is challenged by a parent for teaching "controversial" material, a hearing will be held between the parent in front of an impartial judge, impervious to coercion or threats, in which the teacher will be given fair time to defend himself or herself and justify his or her decision before the parent. The parent will in turn have the chance to lay out his or her justifications and state his or her case. The burden of proof will be placed upon the parent to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the material in question is harmful, and the judge's decision cannot be appealed by the parent.
If these guidelines are followed, the quality of education will skyrocket, as teachers are empowered to defend their decisions against the onslaughts by misguided parents and sycophantic supervisors. I do not pretend to not have a severe mistrust of parents, nor do I pretend that I don't want their role in educational decisions minimized to the greatest extent. My goal is to protect teachers from parents who suffer from the Dunning-Krueger Effect in order to prevent what we have been experiencing since 1925 (2). There is no reason why, in 2011, we should be teaching bad theology as legitimate science, or that school kids cannot talk about subjugation, censorship, or menstruation.
1) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/science/08creationism.html?_r=2&ref=creationismandintelligentdesign
2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
But it's still not over.
According to the NYTimes,
"Teaching creationism in public schools has consistently been ruled unconstitutional in federal courts, but according to a national survey of more than 900 public high school biology teachers, it continues to flourish in the nation’s classrooms. Researchers found that only 28 percent of biology teachers consistently follow the recommendations of the National Research Council to describe straightforwardly the evidence for evolution and explain the ways in which it is a unifying theme in all of biology. At the other extreme, 13 percent explicitly advocate creationism, and spend at least an hour of class time presenting it in a positive light1."
Given these statistics, it is no surprise at all that we are falling further behind the rest of the world, both academically, and worse, economically, and it is easy to predict what will happen to the United States if this trend is allowed to continue.
The article goes on to say,
"'Students are being cheated out of a rich science education,' said Dr. Plutzer, a professor of political science at Penn State University. 'We think the ‘cautious 60 percent’ represent a group of educators who, if they were better trained in science in general and in evolution in particular, would be more confident in their ability to explain controversial topics to their students, to parents, and to school board members.'
"But Dr. Moore is doubtful that more education is the answer. “These courses aren’t reaching the creationists,' he said. 'They already know what evolution is. They were biology majors, or former biology students. They just reject what we told them.'
'With 15 to 20 percent of biology teachers teaching creationism,' he continued, 'this is the biggest failure in science education. There’s no other field where teachers reject the foundations of their science like they do in biology.'"
That's the crux of the problem. I've studied Creationism for years, and they already know what "evolutionists" are going to say. Going back to my essay Philosophy in America, or The Lack Thereof, how can we reach a demographic whose ignorance is so voluntary and so complete? How can we raise the standard for science education at least so that teachers are confident to approach controversial subjects with students, and can defend themselves against religious fanatics, who use fear and self-righteousness to cripple those who disagree with them?
Maybe we should reduce the control parents have over the education system. We would like to think that every child has a parent that wants the best for them, but after so many of these cases, from mass book banning of Fahrenheit 451, The Handmaid's Tale, and Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret and the willingness to teach something that has no basis in the observable world as a legitimate science, I'm not so sure that's the case. We have no right to let Kitty Farmer dictate our standards of education.
Like any other decision made by a democratic body, people are going to be drawn to bad logic, and the people who should have a say--who best understand the educational needs of our children--are at the greatest risk of being punished for doing what is right.
Perhaps the best thing to do is to reform how we educate teachers. There are a few things teachers will need in order to fulfill the task I am setting out for them, to arm themselves against those who weaponize religion for their own ends and scare a community out of a good education.
Teachers will need a passion for their subject, whether it be science, math, or literature, music, or visual art, and they must be able to quickly justify why their subject is necessary to build character or to give children the skills to navigate the dystopia into which they will be shoved when they become adults. The trouble is that the teachers who understand this will not be arguing in front of a prudent magistrate, but a nebulous mob of self-interested parents with severe cases of Unwarranted Self-Importance. Perhaps, worse, they will argue in front of a spineless, sycophantic supervisor whose hands are tied by that same mob of entitled parents. [*Author's note: Now you know why I chose not to be a teacher*]
Teachers are best-equipped to educate our children, but they are the lowest in the administrative hierarchy. What if communities deferred to the best teachers on questions of how to educate children? How do we choose who the best teachers are? What kind of jurisdiction would these decisions have?
There would have to be a specific set of criteria by which we can measure teacher-student success. At the extreme risk of falling into NCLB territory, I am going to try to lay out some of what I believe that this criteria should be.
Science: In my own experience, science education quickly loses focus on what science IS, and only focuses on what science has brought us. Science classes should have an intense focus on hands-on activities which are designed to teach children how to think critically, examine evidence, and design experiments. Lab assignments should ask the question, "How did you come up with your answer?" Success of a science teacher should be measured by how well his or her students perform not necessarily on tests, but on labs and projects. The creativity shown in science fairs should be a primary basis for judging teacher and student success. In sum, HOW we know what we know from science is more important than WHAT we know.
Literature: I am not concerned with spelling and grammar here; I am concerned with personal development. In truth, English classes should be considered philosophy, in a way. The primary goal of literature is to challenge students to reevaluate what they believe and how they see the world. Literature, according to my English (nation, not language) Literature professor, is designed to "entertain and to teach." The goal of Literature is personal development, and all of adolescent literature is designed to help children find their own identity as they grow up and away from their parents, and to give them insight on how they can cope with existential crises. Parents want their children to be exactly like them, and completely miss the point of the entire enterprise, punishing teachers for doing exactly what they should be doing. English teachers, thus, would be tasked with giving their students some direction and meaning in their lives, and help them to become more aware of both themselves and others; they should challenge their students to relate what they learn in class to their own lives.
Math: I personally was never good at math, so I would be wise to defer standards of education in this area to someone else.
Social Studies/History: Here, too, we are failing miserably. History classes need to cover from 1950 to the present. I have never had a history class that made it past WW2. This era is extremely important, and few of us know exactly what went on after WW2. The problem is that this era is incredibly politicized in our collective consciousness that it would be nearly impossible to teach. What could be done is, in high school, cover America's founding to the Present over the course for four years. This would give enough time to go over everything in sufficient detail. The best thing to do for general Social Studies classes is to teach the basics of law--the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution--and how to evaluate legal and political arguments. The goal here is much of a philosophical one, in which we instruct children to think critically about what they hear on the news and from their parents, and are able to make intelligent decisions as American citizens. This should start in late elementary school and extend to some high school.
The focus in Social Studies should not be on tests and quizzes, but on writing persuasive papers. Ask students to write about something they care for in order to persuade their audience one way or another. Mock debates should definitely be included in the class, and students should be evaluated on the basis of how well they are able to make logical and compelling arguments for their cause(s).
Who are the best teachers? The best teachers are the ones that not only have the greatest passion for their subject, but are best able also to motivate their students and derive the greatest effort from them. In order to measure this, we must keep the process of sitting evaluations (a supervisor sits in on a class), but modify this process a little bit. I propose that the date and time for an evaluation should be kept top secret, and that the evaluator should walk in unannounced. Evaluations should be held between five and ten times a year for each teacher, in order to measure consistent quality and performance.
So what do we do with the teachers we deem to be the most effective given the evaluation process? We notify five of the best teachers at the end of the school year, and we task these teachers with reevaluating curriculum standards and improving them. These would be individuals who have demonstrated passion and knowledge of their field, and they would be put in contact with experts and advisers in their particular field of study in order to make the best decisions possible for their students. Parents and religious organizations would be entirely excluded from this process.
The decisions made by the best teachers will stand for one year and apply to a single school district.
Principals and superintendents would be tasked with administrative and penal duties, disciplining anti-social students and holding teachers accountable to the standards the teachers themselves would devise and support. The entire mechanism of the public school system will stand behind the teachers' decisions against misguided parents, uncompromising in their adherence to a standard of education that will improve the lives of the students and make for a more prosperous community that is better equipped to meet national and international challenges.
If a teacher is challenged by a parent for teaching "controversial" material, a hearing will be held between the parent in front of an impartial judge, impervious to coercion or threats, in which the teacher will be given fair time to defend himself or herself and justify his or her decision before the parent. The parent will in turn have the chance to lay out his or her justifications and state his or her case. The burden of proof will be placed upon the parent to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the material in question is harmful, and the judge's decision cannot be appealed by the parent.
If these guidelines are followed, the quality of education will skyrocket, as teachers are empowered to defend their decisions against the onslaughts by misguided parents and sycophantic supervisors. I do not pretend to not have a severe mistrust of parents, nor do I pretend that I don't want their role in educational decisions minimized to the greatest extent. My goal is to protect teachers from parents who suffer from the Dunning-Krueger Effect in order to prevent what we have been experiencing since 1925 (2). There is no reason why, in 2011, we should be teaching bad theology as legitimate science, or that school kids cannot talk about subjugation, censorship, or menstruation.
1) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/science/08creationism.html?_r=2&ref=creationismandintelligentdesign
2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Monday, February 7, 2011
Mubarak's Failure, or What Every Dictator Should Learn From the United States' Media Landscape, or The Perfect Plan For Complete Totalitarian Control
Mubarak's fumbling incompetence has really shined through for the past three weeks, in that he had shut down the Internet and had every single one of his efforts backfire. NO! Here is what you do! Learn from the best in the business, the United States of America.
First, you need a little democracy. Not a lot, but a little. This allows you to artificially inseminate your population with something called controversy. There doesn't really have to be any actual controversy at all, you only need to make your population think there is. Look at how the United States reacted to global warming, or the connection between vaccinations and autism. Look at how well George W Bush was defended for so long.
In order to do this, you need your own state-run media conglomerate. In this enterprise, don't be so obvious, and always deny any connection between your media empire and the political party it serves. Also, it helps if you claim that everyone else is biased against you. Vary your commentators in levels of their support for the incumbent government (yours), and allow them to state the truth once in a while. In fact, if you do this correctly, the people themselves will campaign against your moderates. Shepherd Smith himself was attacked by conservatives1!
Always, always take control of the debate, and let your news outlet manufacture your talking points. "Obama's trip to India will cost $200 mil/day!" "Obama is taking over healthcare!" It always helps your cause to delegitimize your opponents, and call them scary names: Communists; Socialists; Trotskyists; Stalinists; Nazis; Radicals; Hippies, even. You don't even have to know what these words mean. It really doesn't matter what you do at this point, as the US rode 9/11 all the way to 2010 until the Republicans denied health care to WTC first responders. Hell, in that time we've managed to grant power to our government to see us naked as we travel and flag library books for the NSA. It always helps to bring up the Security vs Liberty debate, and then claim that the democrats are going to get everyone killed. Fear definitely works.
Don't use blatant violence, and take your time. So you have a growing faction of people who see you for the depraved despot you really are. Don't stop them! Bring their leader onto your news network to be interviewed by a "moderate" commentator, and then put words in their mouth. It worked for Bill O'Reilly yesterday2 (Super Bowl 2011). During WW1, the British would declare critics of the war, such as poet Siegfried Sassoon, "unfit for duty" and send them off to sanitariums3. One by one, as your opponents criticize you, declare them clinically insane. Also, Scientologists engage in this practice by declaring people they disagree with "Suppressive Persons"4. This in turn disavows them from any connection with the "Suppressive Person" and alienates them completely. This may definitely work if you abuse the term.
One of the things that the United States does so well is to manipulate the lower classes into believing that big business has their best interests in mind. This does WONDERS if you can coax investors to your cause, and hire people to manufacture a faux-populist movement.
The problem with the strategy of many other leaders in a similar capacity as you find yourself is that they don't give good bullshit answers to questions of economics. When pitching policies to the public, tell them you're creating jobs even as you further disenfranchise them. The Republican Party in the United States Congress wants to repeal healthcare reform because it's a job-killing bill. It doesn't matter that it won't actually kill jobs, nor does it matter that doing so will add $230 billion to the deficit, because they can turn around and attack the non-partisan and rigorous organization that said so. The people, then, will be none the wiser.
But what about when you're still in power? Bush got two terms thanks to Fox News! Tax cuts for the top 2% of the country, and reduced job growth right until the end when people finally woke up. But not really, because while we elected Obama, we also had this thing called a Tea Party, and it thinks that economic deregulation is a good idea, even when it isn't. It took two years (which is about 10 years anywhere else in terms of political time) for Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck to start hurting, so I think you'll be pretty well-off.
That brings me to another point: Conspiracy theories and political celebrity. If you equalize treatment between the sexes, you can take some backwoods tart who knows absolutely nothing about politics, coax her to support you, and turn her into a celebrity. Don't let her talk too much, though, as over-saturation will be grating on your target audience. Just enough to preserve her celebrity status and your power. Conspiracy theories is a subject matter in which you might want to be careful. There could be people out there who are crazier than you, and you don't want to empower them. Crazy people are as dangerous to your power as people who know the truth.
I know it's a little scary to let people talk freely, but they're kind of stupid. If you play your cards right by engaging in fear tactics, ad hominem attacks, and political posturing, you could be on the road to a glorious life-long reign.
One....final note, if you squander your power. When it's over, its over. Once people know how bad you are, and begin to riot in the streets, you should leave the country with all your riches and live somewhere quiet. You've earned it.
1) http://mediamatters.org/research/200906110030
2) http://www.businessinsider.com/super-bowl-bill-oreilly-interview-obama-video-2011-2
3) http://sites.scran.ac.uk/Warp/siegfried_sassoon.htm
First, you need a little democracy. Not a lot, but a little. This allows you to artificially inseminate your population with something called controversy. There doesn't really have to be any actual controversy at all, you only need to make your population think there is. Look at how the United States reacted to global warming, or the connection between vaccinations and autism. Look at how well George W Bush was defended for so long.
In order to do this, you need your own state-run media conglomerate. In this enterprise, don't be so obvious, and always deny any connection between your media empire and the political party it serves. Also, it helps if you claim that everyone else is biased against you. Vary your commentators in levels of their support for the incumbent government (yours), and allow them to state the truth once in a while. In fact, if you do this correctly, the people themselves will campaign against your moderates. Shepherd Smith himself was attacked by conservatives1!
Always, always take control of the debate, and let your news outlet manufacture your talking points. "Obama's trip to India will cost $200 mil/day!" "Obama is taking over healthcare!" It always helps your cause to delegitimize your opponents, and call them scary names: Communists; Socialists; Trotskyists; Stalinists; Nazis; Radicals; Hippies, even. You don't even have to know what these words mean. It really doesn't matter what you do at this point, as the US rode 9/11 all the way to 2010 until the Republicans denied health care to WTC first responders. Hell, in that time we've managed to grant power to our government to see us naked as we travel and flag library books for the NSA. It always helps to bring up the Security vs Liberty debate, and then claim that the democrats are going to get everyone killed. Fear definitely works.
Don't use blatant violence, and take your time. So you have a growing faction of people who see you for the depraved despot you really are. Don't stop them! Bring their leader onto your news network to be interviewed by a "moderate" commentator, and then put words in their mouth. It worked for Bill O'Reilly yesterday2 (Super Bowl 2011). During WW1, the British would declare critics of the war, such as poet Siegfried Sassoon, "unfit for duty" and send them off to sanitariums3. One by one, as your opponents criticize you, declare them clinically insane. Also, Scientologists engage in this practice by declaring people they disagree with "Suppressive Persons"4. This in turn disavows them from any connection with the "Suppressive Person" and alienates them completely. This may definitely work if you abuse the term.
One of the things that the United States does so well is to manipulate the lower classes into believing that big business has their best interests in mind. This does WONDERS if you can coax investors to your cause, and hire people to manufacture a faux-populist movement.
The problem with the strategy of many other leaders in a similar capacity as you find yourself is that they don't give good bullshit answers to questions of economics. When pitching policies to the public, tell them you're creating jobs even as you further disenfranchise them. The Republican Party in the United States Congress wants to repeal healthcare reform because it's a job-killing bill. It doesn't matter that it won't actually kill jobs, nor does it matter that doing so will add $230 billion to the deficit, because they can turn around and attack the non-partisan and rigorous organization that said so. The people, then, will be none the wiser.
But what about when you're still in power? Bush got two terms thanks to Fox News! Tax cuts for the top 2% of the country, and reduced job growth right until the end when people finally woke up. But not really, because while we elected Obama, we also had this thing called a Tea Party, and it thinks that economic deregulation is a good idea, even when it isn't. It took two years (which is about 10 years anywhere else in terms of political time) for Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck to start hurting, so I think you'll be pretty well-off.
That brings me to another point: Conspiracy theories and political celebrity. If you equalize treatment between the sexes, you can take some backwoods tart who knows absolutely nothing about politics, coax her to support you, and turn her into a celebrity. Don't let her talk too much, though, as over-saturation will be grating on your target audience. Just enough to preserve her celebrity status and your power. Conspiracy theories is a subject matter in which you might want to be careful. There could be people out there who are crazier than you, and you don't want to empower them. Crazy people are as dangerous to your power as people who know the truth.
I know it's a little scary to let people talk freely, but they're kind of stupid. If you play your cards right by engaging in fear tactics, ad hominem attacks, and political posturing, you could be on the road to a glorious life-long reign.
One....final note, if you squander your power. When it's over, its over. Once people know how bad you are, and begin to riot in the streets, you should leave the country with all your riches and live somewhere quiet. You've earned it.
1) http://mediamatters.org/research/200906110030
2) http://www.businessinsider.com/super-bowl-bill-oreilly-interview-obama-video-2011-2
3) http://sites.scran.ac.uk/Warp/siegfried_sassoon.htm
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Philosophy in America, or, The Lack Thereof
This is kind of a follow-up to my previous essay, because the theme is basically the same, but it has more to do with why we behave in ways that do not warrant respect.
The opening line of volume II of Democracy in America states, "I think that in the civilized world there is no country less interested in philosophy than the United States1" But the reasons he gives for this are at best inadequate, and at worst flatly wrong. He claims that Americans aren't interested in philosophy because they are more concerned with private matters, but this fails to explain the kind of disrespect vomited out by our political commentators every single day. If it were merely the kind of apathy de Tocqueville described, Americans would at least be tolerant of others' views, and they clearly are not.
Americans engage not in debate, but rather in personal attack. Glenn Beck personally attacked a sociology professor, and he personally attacked George Soros for stating their opinions. Many people, some I've even heard myself, have personally attacked everyone from Nancy Pelosi to President Obama, and, when pressed, cannot give sufficient justification for their attitudes.
I have personally accused Sarah Palin and most of the GOP/Tea Party establishment of being stupid, so I'm not blameless either, but I can cite numerous specific examples to justify why I believe most of the prominent figures in the opposing party to be intellectually impaired (Michele Bachmann's 'rebuttal' to the SotU is a good start).
When we aren't talking about beliefs or facts; when someone's beliefs are nebulous at best, and their knowledge of the facts is grossly lacking, we may not have a choice but to point this out to them. I realize here that I am defending what I have set out to stop.
But back to the issue at hand: Why is there 'anti-intellectualism' in America, and why is it so pervasive? Even in matters of religion, people who have studied it most--atheists--are accused consistently of being bitter and angry, even when they are not, and even if their justifications for abandoning religion are quite good. Ironically, most of this comes from people who have not once opened a Bible or a Koran in their entire lives.
Continuing with this religious theme, there exists a paradox: People want to believe whatever makes them feel good, regardless whether or not that what they believe is actually true, but they get offended if their beliefs are proved untrue. Beliefs that have nothing to do with being true or false and have no relation to actual reality, it would follow, have no place in directing the real world.
But is that where we are as a country? For if the condition exists in our political system that we care not whether our attitudes are true or false, how could we function? How could we possibly make decisions that impact not only our society generally, but also our lives individually if we didn't rely on standards of truth and falsehood? Or, perhaps we didn't so much as completely eliminate these standards, but expanded the criteria much too far as to cease to be useful.
Let us once again take the Tea Party and the deficit. If the Tea Party truly wanted to reduce the deficit, they would not have argued with the Congressional Budget Office about its estimation that repealing health care reform would add $230 billion to the deficit. Or, in another example, if the Christian conservative demographic truly wanted to reduce the number of abortions in the country, they would have to concede that abstinence-only sexual education was ineffective and join the rest of the world in advocating for contraception. But I'm talking about a utopia (the Greek meaning; "nowhere") in which political and everyday decisions are made based on fact.
The point is that these circumstances render philosophy absolutely impossible by virtue of the simple fact that we as a society no longer care about what is factually true. If we lose the ability to distinguish between truth and falsehood, we cannot make rational decisions that get us where we want to go. The Catholic Church is probably dumbfounded as to why people in Africa are still dying of AIDS.
Philosophy is "the love of wisdom," and wisdom is the ability to admit what one does not know, and to make sound judgments. These judgments, are again, based upon standards of truth and falsehood that we in America no longer respect.
The stakes of our political success or failure are high, and there is cause for us to get excited. But if we delegate authority to angry demagogues, we will have forfeited any chance of success. A professor of Russian history appeared on CNN's AC360 (substituted by Soledad O'Brien) who made this one quick and important point before he was cut off: In America, we have confused celebrity with political leadership2. This is an enormous detriment in itself to our political landscape, because we actually give people who know absolutely nothing about politics or history a venue in which to speak and be heard, and cloud out what really matters. Ed Rollins in the clip I cited complained that the panel should be concerned with Paul Ryan, who gave the Republican rebuttal to the SotU, but instead they were talking about Sarah Palin's idiocy.
But worse than Sarah Palin, of course, is Glenn Beck, who, as Joe Scarborough said, was a "nobody" before being put on Fox News3. Scarborough beautifully illustrates the problem of Glenn Beck in the video clip by stating that people who watch him will start to believe what he says and he will have a "corrosive impact on our politics." Of course, this is unequivocally true, evidenced by the pervasiveness of conspiracy theories--once found only in the dark recesses of the Internet--in our mainstream political landscape. Furthermore, I would venture to say that before Beck mentioned her on his program, no one had any idea who Frances Fox Piven was. This could only mean that Beck is directly responsible for the threats she has received since his program aired.
What is the "mainstream" anyway? How do we define what is "normal" in our political discourse? Is it a numbers game? How does something like the Tea Party go from a fringe element to a mainstream phenomenon? Of course, the Tea Party was manufactured in such a way as to be made to look like a grassroots movement, when in fact it was first organized by Sal Russo and Dick Armey and their PACs.
A parallel example where the point may be made more clear is in religion. No "mainstream" religious leader or person wants to admit that the fundamentalist element has any power. Theologically, fundamentalism is certainly indefensible, but fundamentalists have gone on to:
1) Campaign massively and effectively against gay rights
2) Build a Creation Museum
3) Take out two of the tallest buildings in the United States
4) Affect public policy to an astounding degree in areas where religion does not belong (sexual education, high school English classes, science curriculums, stem cell research, etc)
5) Dominate policy in the Middle East, even as the people ruled under them understand how dangerous they are.
6) Wage a very effective campaign of guerrilla warfare against the United States and its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan
My point here is not to give credit or legitimize fundamentalism, but to merely ask at what point does a movement or demographic once relegated to "the fringe" become mainstream, regardless of whether we agree with them or not? What would it take, for example, for the KKK to become mainstream?
1) de Tocqueville, Alexis Democracy in America Penguin Classics ed. p. 493
2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-FJ2jnj7No
3) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/12/joe-scarborough-glenn-beck-feud_n_807892.html
The opening line of volume II of Democracy in America states, "I think that in the civilized world there is no country less interested in philosophy than the United States1" But the reasons he gives for this are at best inadequate, and at worst flatly wrong. He claims that Americans aren't interested in philosophy because they are more concerned with private matters, but this fails to explain the kind of disrespect vomited out by our political commentators every single day. If it were merely the kind of apathy de Tocqueville described, Americans would at least be tolerant of others' views, and they clearly are not.
Americans engage not in debate, but rather in personal attack. Glenn Beck personally attacked a sociology professor, and he personally attacked George Soros for stating their opinions. Many people, some I've even heard myself, have personally attacked everyone from Nancy Pelosi to President Obama, and, when pressed, cannot give sufficient justification for their attitudes.
I have personally accused Sarah Palin and most of the GOP/Tea Party establishment of being stupid, so I'm not blameless either, but I can cite numerous specific examples to justify why I believe most of the prominent figures in the opposing party to be intellectually impaired (Michele Bachmann's 'rebuttal' to the SotU is a good start).
When we aren't talking about beliefs or facts; when someone's beliefs are nebulous at best, and their knowledge of the facts is grossly lacking, we may not have a choice but to point this out to them. I realize here that I am defending what I have set out to stop.
But back to the issue at hand: Why is there 'anti-intellectualism' in America, and why is it so pervasive? Even in matters of religion, people who have studied it most--atheists--are accused consistently of being bitter and angry, even when they are not, and even if their justifications for abandoning religion are quite good. Ironically, most of this comes from people who have not once opened a Bible or a Koran in their entire lives.
Continuing with this religious theme, there exists a paradox: People want to believe whatever makes them feel good, regardless whether or not that what they believe is actually true, but they get offended if their beliefs are proved untrue. Beliefs that have nothing to do with being true or false and have no relation to actual reality, it would follow, have no place in directing the real world.
But is that where we are as a country? For if the condition exists in our political system that we care not whether our attitudes are true or false, how could we function? How could we possibly make decisions that impact not only our society generally, but also our lives individually if we didn't rely on standards of truth and falsehood? Or, perhaps we didn't so much as completely eliminate these standards, but expanded the criteria much too far as to cease to be useful.
Let us once again take the Tea Party and the deficit. If the Tea Party truly wanted to reduce the deficit, they would not have argued with the Congressional Budget Office about its estimation that repealing health care reform would add $230 billion to the deficit. Or, in another example, if the Christian conservative demographic truly wanted to reduce the number of abortions in the country, they would have to concede that abstinence-only sexual education was ineffective and join the rest of the world in advocating for contraception. But I'm talking about a utopia (the Greek meaning; "nowhere") in which political and everyday decisions are made based on fact.
The point is that these circumstances render philosophy absolutely impossible by virtue of the simple fact that we as a society no longer care about what is factually true. If we lose the ability to distinguish between truth and falsehood, we cannot make rational decisions that get us where we want to go. The Catholic Church is probably dumbfounded as to why people in Africa are still dying of AIDS.
Philosophy is "the love of wisdom," and wisdom is the ability to admit what one does not know, and to make sound judgments. These judgments, are again, based upon standards of truth and falsehood that we in America no longer respect.
The stakes of our political success or failure are high, and there is cause for us to get excited. But if we delegate authority to angry demagogues, we will have forfeited any chance of success. A professor of Russian history appeared on CNN's AC360 (substituted by Soledad O'Brien) who made this one quick and important point before he was cut off: In America, we have confused celebrity with political leadership2. This is an enormous detriment in itself to our political landscape, because we actually give people who know absolutely nothing about politics or history a venue in which to speak and be heard, and cloud out what really matters. Ed Rollins in the clip I cited complained that the panel should be concerned with Paul Ryan, who gave the Republican rebuttal to the SotU, but instead they were talking about Sarah Palin's idiocy.
But worse than Sarah Palin, of course, is Glenn Beck, who, as Joe Scarborough said, was a "nobody" before being put on Fox News3. Scarborough beautifully illustrates the problem of Glenn Beck in the video clip by stating that people who watch him will start to believe what he says and he will have a "corrosive impact on our politics." Of course, this is unequivocally true, evidenced by the pervasiveness of conspiracy theories--once found only in the dark recesses of the Internet--in our mainstream political landscape. Furthermore, I would venture to say that before Beck mentioned her on his program, no one had any idea who Frances Fox Piven was. This could only mean that Beck is directly responsible for the threats she has received since his program aired.
What is the "mainstream" anyway? How do we define what is "normal" in our political discourse? Is it a numbers game? How does something like the Tea Party go from a fringe element to a mainstream phenomenon? Of course, the Tea Party was manufactured in such a way as to be made to look like a grassroots movement, when in fact it was first organized by Sal Russo and Dick Armey and their PACs.
A parallel example where the point may be made more clear is in religion. No "mainstream" religious leader or person wants to admit that the fundamentalist element has any power. Theologically, fundamentalism is certainly indefensible, but fundamentalists have gone on to:
1) Campaign massively and effectively against gay rights
2) Build a Creation Museum
3) Take out two of the tallest buildings in the United States
4) Affect public policy to an astounding degree in areas where religion does not belong (sexual education, high school English classes, science curriculums, stem cell research, etc)
5) Dominate policy in the Middle East, even as the people ruled under them understand how dangerous they are.
6) Wage a very effective campaign of guerrilla warfare against the United States and its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan
My point here is not to give credit or legitimize fundamentalism, but to merely ask at what point does a movement or demographic once relegated to "the fringe" become mainstream, regardless of whether we agree with them or not? What would it take, for example, for the KKK to become mainstream?
1) de Tocqueville, Alexis Democracy in America Penguin Classics ed. p. 493
2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-FJ2jnj7No
3) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/12/joe-scarborough-glenn-beck-feud_n_807892.html
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