I have been watching the situation in the Wisconsin legislature for the last week or so, and as small-time and parochial as it may seem in the context of the current upheavals in the Middle East, I feel that it is far more important to the trajectory of democracy in the world than whatever happens on the North African coast.
The short version is that the State of Wisconsin (like most of the rest of the USA) is broke, and has to make cuts; lots of them. The (Republican) governor Scott Walker has recognized that the expense of public employees is one of the biggest drains on the treasury and wants to remove their ability to engage in collective bargaining.
Your reaction to that (under the circumstances that there isn't enough money to pay all these people what they expect to be paid) will sort you into either the Right or Left camp. All over the world we have run into that sticky point for Socialists that Margaret Thatcher warned about; we have pretty much run out of other peoples' money. If you are the source of that money (taxpayer) you will have a different idea of how this should play out than the recipients of it will.
This is standard Big Government/small Government stuff. What makes this situation important for the future of the liberal democratic system is the nature of the legislative opposition to the bill; the opposition went AWOL and called its' partisans out into the streets.
This sort of things happens all the time in tin-pot republics the world over: don't like the results? Protest and say that your opponent cheated, is illegitimate, etc. thus paralyzing the political system. This is what the 14 Democratic state senators from Wisconsin are doing by hiding in a neighboring State. By being absent and across State lines, they are preventing a quorum and subverting the will of the electorate by preventing the functioning of the legislature.
This could not happen in Canada or many other places, but the quirks of the US constitution which enable this farce throw the political stability of the most powerful nation in the world into question. This is that "Shining city upon a hill" that is supposed to be the beacon of liberty throughout the world?
Back to the aspiring democracies in the Mediterranean and the mid-east most likely next post (still very fluid; Qaddafi still hanging on as of today) but we ignore the current mob rule in Madison Wisconsin (of all places) at our peril. For want of a nail...
Friday, 25 February 2011
Tuesday, 22 February 2011
Revolution dominoes
The dust is still really well suspended in much of the Middle East (like some constitutions in the area), but I've gone long enough without updating the blog. Waiting for results is always fraught, as it's often difficult to recognize them except in hindsight.
Since my last post, Mubarak has been eased out, and the Egyptian Army will probably make sure he's allowed to live out his days in his country. The Army is in charge there for the foreseeable future and short of "less political repression" I won't make many predictions as to what will happen there.
Yemen, Djibouti, Algeria, Morocco and Bahrain are all in various states of insurrection, the latter for reasons that rather escape me. The rest of them range from manageable (Morocco) to basket case (Yemen), and have less-than-ideal governments, at least as far as you can measure that sort of thing empirically. Iran is hotting up again, and people in Lebanon are not universally pleased by Hezbollah's coup d'etat. This will not happen in Syria any time soon, for the same reasons as are being demonstrated in Libya at the time of writing.
Gaddafi has no plans to retire and has for the moment the backing of enough of the security forces to hang on, at least in the west of the country. His control of the armed forces however is unravelling rapidly and many are predicting a civil war. When he's referring to Tianamen Square you know that this will more likely turn out like Saddam Hussein than Hosni Mubarak.
Libya needs a change of management but it's already bloodied getting it, and it will be worse before it gets better. This however is not what I try to write about; I'm looking for the big picture which is separate from the breaking news. So let's try this: what do all of these revolutions expect to accomplish? Sure, regime change, but to what?
Tunisia went first, but bugger all has really happened since then, and the same can be said for the next domino, Egypt. The chronic problems are:
A lot of the world's problems would be solved if there were a lot less of us, but this isn't an apocalyptic Malthusian blog, so I won't get into that. Suffice it to say that there are certain fundamental problems (mainly frustrated young men) that no mere change of government will solve. I'll end with that thought for now, since this situation is very fluid and I can't pretend to tie it off just yet. I'll be back in a few days when I've discerned any sort of trajectory to all of this.
Since my last post, Mubarak has been eased out, and the Egyptian Army will probably make sure he's allowed to live out his days in his country. The Army is in charge there for the foreseeable future and short of "less political repression" I won't make many predictions as to what will happen there.
Yemen, Djibouti, Algeria, Morocco and Bahrain are all in various states of insurrection, the latter for reasons that rather escape me. The rest of them range from manageable (Morocco) to basket case (Yemen), and have less-than-ideal governments, at least as far as you can measure that sort of thing empirically. Iran is hotting up again, and people in Lebanon are not universally pleased by Hezbollah's coup d'etat. This will not happen in Syria any time soon, for the same reasons as are being demonstrated in Libya at the time of writing.
Gaddafi has no plans to retire and has for the moment the backing of enough of the security forces to hang on, at least in the west of the country. His control of the armed forces however is unravelling rapidly and many are predicting a civil war. When he's referring to Tianamen Square you know that this will more likely turn out like Saddam Hussein than Hosni Mubarak.
Libya needs a change of management but it's already bloodied getting it, and it will be worse before it gets better. This however is not what I try to write about; I'm looking for the big picture which is separate from the breaking news. So let's try this: what do all of these revolutions expect to accomplish? Sure, regime change, but to what?
Tunisia went first, but bugger all has really happened since then, and the same can be said for the next domino, Egypt. The chronic problems are:
- Corruption: endemic, but susceptible to amelioration with a change of personnel;
- Repression: see above, and;
- Unemployment/economy/poverty
A lot of the world's problems would be solved if there were a lot less of us, but this isn't an apocalyptic Malthusian blog, so I won't get into that. Suffice it to say that there are certain fundamental problems (mainly frustrated young men) that no mere change of government will solve. I'll end with that thought for now, since this situation is very fluid and I can't pretend to tie it off just yet. I'll be back in a few days when I've discerned any sort of trajectory to all of this.
Thursday, 10 February 2011
When things get tough, you find out who your real friends are.
Obama and his staff have made a complete mess of the situation in Egypt (still deadlocked between protesters and government at time of writing), so the following is no real surprise:
Hugh Tomlinson Riyadh
February 10 2011 12:01AM
Saudi Arabia has threatened to prop up President Mubarak if the White House tries to force a swift change of regime in Egypt. In a testy personal telephone call on January 29, King Abdullah told President Obama not to humiliate Mr Mubarak and warned that he would step in to bankroll Egypt if the US withdrew its aid programme, worth $1.5 billion annually. America’s closest ally in the Gulf made clear that the Egyptian President must be allowed to stay on to oversee the transition towards peaceful democracy and then leave with dignity. “Mubarak and King Abdullah are not just allies, they are close friends, and the King is not about to see his friend cast aside and humiliated,” a senior source in the Saudi capital told The Times.
There is one lesson that the USA's erstwhile allies have learned from bitter experience over the last 50 years or so, and that is that they'd better have a backup for when the US abandons them. Mubarak doesn't want to end up in Gen. Pinochet's shoes for his last months or years, and there are some at least who don't intend for that to happen. Since Mubarak's not likely to get nukes (the only certain way to keep the American from driving you out) a new "sugar daddy" is a necessity to maintain the current regime with or without him.
Any kind of order in Egypt in the near future is dependent on the Army and armies are expensive to keep running, so somebody's money is required. This is an even better example of the retreat of America from the world stage than my previous post; they were too clueless to see this coming (though it did come quickly after Tunisia) and compounded that by waffling in their line on the situation. Nature abhors a vacuum, and a sudden decapitation of the government in Egypt would have fearful local and geopolitical consequences.
The Saudis are not blinkered by "democracy" and therefore keep their finger on the pulse of their neighbourhood. I can't be certain, but I think the House of Saud may be regretting the export of so much fanatical religion. It has certainly come home to roost in the Arabian peninsula causing them no end of headaches, and the Ikwhan (Muslim Brotherhood) taking over Egypt would not help their theoretical coreligionists. Or anyone else that we'd like to see helped, for that matter; think of the Suez Canal in the hands of Hamas for a worst-case scenario.
Let's play that out for a bit. MB takes over, the Army supports it (I'm not saying this is likely, btw) and Egypt repudiates the treaty with Israel. The return of the Sinai after the '67 (and '73) war was part of that deal. Were I the Israelis in this or similar situations, I'd take it back, and I'd lay money on it that unless there's a major upheaval in the Gulf states, they'd at least keep their mouths shut about it. The people would likely bleat (the usual suspects anyway) but kingdoms keep an eye on the horizon, not just at their feet as they trip over them. I can't see a best case scenario where that's true for the Americans.
As I noodled on about that I almost passed over the fact that Saudi Arabia is now telling the President of the USA what's going to happen in the Middle East. The Bushes in particular were tight with the Saudis; and whatever else you might say this would never happen if someone like that was in office in the White House. Obama is on track to do the most damage to US standing in the world of any president, ever. Alliances and arrangements are already re-aligning, and in the world lunchroom the Americans will be left more often than not standing around looking stupidly as the seats at all their usual tables are taken by others.
Hugh Tomlinson Riyadh
February 10 2011 12:01AM
Saudi Arabia has threatened to prop up President Mubarak if the White House tries to force a swift change of regime in Egypt. In a testy personal telephone call on January 29, King Abdullah told President Obama not to humiliate Mr Mubarak and warned that he would step in to bankroll Egypt if the US withdrew its aid programme, worth $1.5 billion annually. America’s closest ally in the Gulf made clear that the Egyptian President must be allowed to stay on to oversee the transition towards peaceful democracy and then leave with dignity. “Mubarak and King Abdullah are not just allies, they are close friends, and the King is not about to see his friend cast aside and humiliated,” a senior source in the Saudi capital told The Times.
There is one lesson that the USA's erstwhile allies have learned from bitter experience over the last 50 years or so, and that is that they'd better have a backup for when the US abandons them. Mubarak doesn't want to end up in Gen. Pinochet's shoes for his last months or years, and there are some at least who don't intend for that to happen. Since Mubarak's not likely to get nukes (the only certain way to keep the American from driving you out) a new "sugar daddy" is a necessity to maintain the current regime with or without him.
Any kind of order in Egypt in the near future is dependent on the Army and armies are expensive to keep running, so somebody's money is required. This is an even better example of the retreat of America from the world stage than my previous post; they were too clueless to see this coming (though it did come quickly after Tunisia) and compounded that by waffling in their line on the situation. Nature abhors a vacuum, and a sudden decapitation of the government in Egypt would have fearful local and geopolitical consequences.
The Saudis are not blinkered by "democracy" and therefore keep their finger on the pulse of their neighbourhood. I can't be certain, but I think the House of Saud may be regretting the export of so much fanatical religion. It has certainly come home to roost in the Arabian peninsula causing them no end of headaches, and the Ikwhan (Muslim Brotherhood) taking over Egypt would not help their theoretical coreligionists. Or anyone else that we'd like to see helped, for that matter; think of the Suez Canal in the hands of Hamas for a worst-case scenario.
Let's play that out for a bit. MB takes over, the Army supports it (I'm not saying this is likely, btw) and Egypt repudiates the treaty with Israel. The return of the Sinai after the '67 (and '73) war was part of that deal. Were I the Israelis in this or similar situations, I'd take it back, and I'd lay money on it that unless there's a major upheaval in the Gulf states, they'd at least keep their mouths shut about it. The people would likely bleat (the usual suspects anyway) but kingdoms keep an eye on the horizon, not just at their feet as they trip over them. I can't see a best case scenario where that's true for the Americans.
As I noodled on about that I almost passed over the fact that Saudi Arabia is now telling the President of the USA what's going to happen in the Middle East. The Bushes in particular were tight with the Saudis; and whatever else you might say this would never happen if someone like that was in office in the White House. Obama is on track to do the most damage to US standing in the world of any president, ever. Alliances and arrangements are already re-aligning, and in the world lunchroom the Americans will be left more often than not standing around looking stupidly as the seats at all their usual tables are taken by others.
Arithmetic on the North-West Frontier
As the Americans go through the early stages of Imperial Overstretch, the calculus of a competent empire in decline would involve which satrapies and allies to cut loose to consolidate diminishing resources and influence. There is no evidence of the USA having been at any point a competent empire (nod to Jerry Pournelle for use of his term) so it is no surprise that they are not getting any cannier about their foreign policy as they begin the slide from Superpower to mere Great Power.
The recent violation of Diplomatic Immunity of a US consular official in Pakistan gives the US State Department a fleeting opportunity to grow a pair and begin this process of retrenchment. Pakistan is fucked and is absorbing a lot of $US for no useful return; to accept this sort of treatment from a fundamentalist Islamic country that you have poured billions of dollars into in the last decade is embarrassing. There are certain standards that civilized countries hold themselves to, and this is not within that.
That particular situation is of course a molehill, but you can see the mountain from it. There is nothing in Pakistan or Afghanistan which is worth the life or limb of our soldiers or the money of our taxpayers. If they want to descend into another Islamopocalypse and drive out the last of the “infidels” the only useful thing we could do is to help those Christians, Hindus and Sikhs who remain to get somewhere safer.
The most effective way to do that will of course not happen, since it’s known variously as a pogrom or ethnic cleansing. Problems with violent Muslims in Indian Kashmir? Push them all over the border and repopulate with people who need to get out of Pakistan in a hurry. I of course don’t have a plan for that (another Indo-Pakistani war would figure prominently), but it would be 1947 all over again.
That seems a bit of a tangent, but it illustrates the whole “Clash of Civilizations” thing, and the fact that we are best off working with people who are not inimical to our way(s) of life. India has problems but one of its problems is China and another is Pakistan, both on Western radar as trouble for us. The adversary of our troublesome geopolitical adversaries should be a very close friend. More importantly, India is not in the grasp of an ideology that wants our civilization destroyed.
This is the big-picture stuff that Emperors have done for millennia, at least when other groups were too powerful to conquer easily and/or more useful as allies. There are few direct parallels as modern transport and communications have changed “The Great Game” in all respects, but the key part is ensuring the interests and thereby the longevity of your kingdom, etc. This is something that modern democracies are fundamentally incompatible with and that the Americans prove themselves time and again incapable of grasping at almost every level of government.
For the United States of America today, a snippet from the late Victorian Age:
God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!
Change the scenery a bit and you have the U.S. sphere of influence today, much of it the British empire of Kipling’s heyday. America has lost much face and will be doing well to salvage any reputation with its allies, let alone hold the places that don’t like it to begin with. Some new leadership (REAL leadership) in the U.S.A. could stop the rot, but it’s looking more and more all the time like this:
Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!
The recent violation of Diplomatic Immunity of a US consular official in Pakistan gives the US State Department a fleeting opportunity to grow a pair and begin this process of retrenchment. Pakistan is fucked and is absorbing a lot of $US for no useful return; to accept this sort of treatment from a fundamentalist Islamic country that you have poured billions of dollars into in the last decade is embarrassing. There are certain standards that civilized countries hold themselves to, and this is not within that.
That particular situation is of course a molehill, but you can see the mountain from it. There is nothing in Pakistan or Afghanistan which is worth the life or limb of our soldiers or the money of our taxpayers. If they want to descend into another Islamopocalypse and drive out the last of the “infidels” the only useful thing we could do is to help those Christians, Hindus and Sikhs who remain to get somewhere safer.
The most effective way to do that will of course not happen, since it’s known variously as a pogrom or ethnic cleansing. Problems with violent Muslims in Indian Kashmir? Push them all over the border and repopulate with people who need to get out of Pakistan in a hurry. I of course don’t have a plan for that (another Indo-Pakistani war would figure prominently), but it would be 1947 all over again.
That seems a bit of a tangent, but it illustrates the whole “Clash of Civilizations” thing, and the fact that we are best off working with people who are not inimical to our way(s) of life. India has problems but one of its problems is China and another is Pakistan, both on Western radar as trouble for us. The adversary of our troublesome geopolitical adversaries should be a very close friend. More importantly, India is not in the grasp of an ideology that wants our civilization destroyed.
This is the big-picture stuff that Emperors have done for millennia, at least when other groups were too powerful to conquer easily and/or more useful as allies. There are few direct parallels as modern transport and communications have changed “The Great Game” in all respects, but the key part is ensuring the interests and thereby the longevity of your kingdom, etc. This is something that modern democracies are fundamentally incompatible with and that the Americans prove themselves time and again incapable of grasping at almost every level of government.
For the United States of America today, a snippet from the late Victorian Age:
God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!
Change the scenery a bit and you have the U.S. sphere of influence today, much of it the British empire of Kipling’s heyday. America has lost much face and will be doing well to salvage any reputation with its allies, let alone hold the places that don’t like it to begin with. Some new leadership (REAL leadership) in the U.S.A. could stop the rot, but it’s looking more and more all the time like this:
Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!
Saturday, 5 February 2011
Only one arm tied now...
David Cameron isn't the first European leader to say that Multiculturalism (as a policy) is dead, but the backlash from the usual suspects wasn't long in coming. First, Cameron:
"Let's properly judge these organisations: Do they believe in universal human rights - including for women and people of other faiths? Do they believe in equality of all before the law? Do they believe in democracy and the right of people to elect their own government? Do they encourage integration or separatism?
Or is it? Later from Cameron's address:
"We need to be clear: Islamist extremism and Islam are not the same thing," he said.
And this is where he loses focus and the spotlight gets wobbly. Not everyone who goes to the Mosque on Friday is a terrorist, but the religion puts itself ahead of everything else. There is no “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” in the Koran or the Hadiths. Speaking of the latter:
42 Al-Miqdad heard Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) as saying: There will not remain upon the surface of the earth a mud-brick house or a camel's-hair tent but Allah will instill into it the word of Islam, bringing both mighty honour and abject humiliation. Allah will either honour them by making them worthy of it and those whom He humiliates shall have to render submission to it. I said: The religion will then be entirely for Allah.
This is what we're up against. There is lots of foolishness in (especially) the Old Testament too, but Christianity (and Hinduism, Sikhism, and especially Buddhism) doesn't have a problem with secular governance. Alone amongst the major religions, Islam is NOT compatible with Rule of Law. It's a fundamental problem (not just "Islamic extremism" or other convocations of Islam) and it can't be danced around.
Let me be clear about what I'm saying here. You can believe WHATEVER you want, as long as it doesn't become MY problem. Forcing your religion on me violates that right out of the gate, so keep what you believe to yourself, and certainly out of public policy that I as a taxpayer am paying for.
I don't see Stephen Harper saying anything like this in the near future, but we don't yet have the sort of problems with multi-culty that Europe and the U.K. do . Hopefully they can manage their problems with this and we can avoid ours getting worse. This is a good start for the U.K. but Cameron needs to drop the gloves and tell everyone flat-out that Religion (that means yours too, Jack!) and the State will remain separate. Have no fear though; even if we whip this problem (not likely) there are plenty left to keep life interesting.
"Let's properly judge these organisations: Do they believe in universal human rights - including for women and people of other faiths? Do they believe in equality of all before the law? Do they believe in democracy and the right of people to elect their own government? Do they encourage integration or separatism?
"These are the sorts of questions we need to ask. Fail these tests and the presumption should be not to engage with organisations," he added.
So far, so good. However, look at the list of traits we're validating here, and it's pretty obvious that there is a major religious group whose very basic tenets specifically deny those "universal human rights". Again, guess who. Well, here's part of the other side to spoil your fun figuring it out:Meanwhile, the Muslim Council of Britain's assistant secretary general, Dr Faisal Hanjra, described Mr Cameron's speech as "disappointing".
He told Radio 4's Today programme: "We were hoping that with a new government, with a new coalition that there'd be a change in emphasis in terms of counter-terrorism and dealing with the problem at hand. In terms of the approach to tackling terrorism though it doesn't seem to be particularly new. Again it just seems the Muslim community is very much in the spotlight, being treated as part of the problem as opposed to part of the solution."
"Part of the problem"? Who keeps blowing things up and killing people for insulting their religion? Muslims, that's who. Any other groups are vanishingly small statistical anomalies in the group violence which threatens our transport and general security. Until that changes, the spotlight is where it should be.Or is it? Later from Cameron's address:
"We need to be clear: Islamist extremism and Islam are not the same thing," he said.
And this is where he loses focus and the spotlight gets wobbly. Not everyone who goes to the Mosque on Friday is a terrorist, but the religion puts itself ahead of everything else. There is no “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” in the Koran or the Hadiths. Speaking of the latter:
42 Al-Miqdad heard Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) as saying: There will not remain upon the surface of the earth a mud-brick house or a camel's-hair tent but Allah will instill into it the word of Islam, bringing both mighty honour and abject humiliation. Allah will either honour them by making them worthy of it and those whom He humiliates shall have to render submission to it. I said: The religion will then be entirely for Allah.
This is what we're up against. There is lots of foolishness in (especially) the Old Testament too, but Christianity (and Hinduism, Sikhism, and especially Buddhism) doesn't have a problem with secular governance. Alone amongst the major religions, Islam is NOT compatible with Rule of Law. It's a fundamental problem (not just "Islamic extremism" or other convocations of Islam) and it can't be danced around.
Let me be clear about what I'm saying here. You can believe WHATEVER you want, as long as it doesn't become MY problem. Forcing your religion on me violates that right out of the gate, so keep what you believe to yourself, and certainly out of public policy that I as a taxpayer am paying for.
I don't see Stephen Harper saying anything like this in the near future, but we don't yet have the sort of problems with multi-culty that Europe and the U.K. do . Hopefully they can manage their problems with this and we can avoid ours getting worse. This is a good start for the U.K. but Cameron needs to drop the gloves and tell everyone flat-out that Religion (that means yours too, Jack!) and the State will remain separate. Have no fear though; even if we whip this problem (not likely) there are plenty left to keep life interesting.
Monday, 31 January 2011
On civilized debate
As an obviously opinionated guy I am no stranger to controversy. This does NOT however automatically mean that I am experienced/talented in debate; I'm not bad at it as it turns out, but having an opinion and being willing to debate it is not as common as a lot of people would like. You can count me in with those people. I will go old-school here and take the Oxford definition from an actual paper dictionary:
debate: discuss or dispute about (an issue, proposal, etc.) esp. formally in a legislative assembly, public meeting, etc.
Coming back to the 21ieme siecle, the Internet can be considered a "public meeting" for purposes of this definition, as this is as public as it gets. At least it would be if more than a handful of people (thank you, btw) actually read it. I have over the years continued to put a lot of shaky propositions up on this site in the nearly vain hope that people would take the bait and call me on it. I need the mental exercise which only comes from challenging what I believe to a death match with the wits of others, but that doesn't mean that I'm kidding about what I write.
Even more old fashioned, I was raised to back up what I say. This was always rare in the opinionated, but is vanishingly so these days and the schools don't help. I find this ironic due to the ready access to reams of information which (admittedly with many grains of salt and a lot of fact checking) puts debating gold at your fingertips. We are in fact overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information, and a valuable skill is the ability to limit your intake of it.
Boundaries need to be pushed to test them, something I do for fun as often as I can. As I get older I'm slowing down on this (been there, done that), but here's one rule I adhere to: I will always admit if I'm wrong. That sounds easy, and sometimes it it, but you will need to convince me that I am incorrect. There's another problem with many topics; convincing me to care enough to argue about it. People who take contrary positions to EVERYTHING are very annoying, so I try to be discriminating.
People have a lot invested in their view of the world, and you undermine that at your peril. Religious zealots are simply the most obvious; they have in many cases an entire lifetime of indoctrination in whatever it is and it's faith-based so there is really no point in debating religion. It can be dangerous too...
Secular beliefs are often structurally identical to religious ones and often as difficult to debunk. In theory there is no faith involved, but in practice there is a willing suspension of disbelief which is identical. I was going to get into a whole Left-Right thing, but I found that I don't have much interesting to say about that.
Last post's topic of getting along flows more naturally into this. There are times and places (and people) when you can "agree to disagree", and that is the key to civilized debate. This post at WUWT was the catalyst for my ramblings today and it hits that most critical of ingredients for civilized debate: self-selection of participants.
Just building "it" doesn't mean that "they" will come, (faith-based example) and in fact generally the worst reactionaries (of any stripe) will avoid an honest balanced debate like the plague. We like people who agree with us, but you don't learn and grow by preaching to the converted. People who want to convince, not bully, will engage in debate. Bullies will YELL and call you unpleasant things to distract from their inability to support their position on its' merits. In many cases that's their default position, even when they have an easy rhetorical target.
Much like what I proposed for the G8/20 meetings, if you want to keep out the great unwashed masses (e.g. the rabble described above) you need to control the venue, real or virtual. This will allow you to invite people, and if you're honest about it you'll invite your glibbest intellectual opponents. Stacking the deck in your favour only cheats you and your cause of legitimacy. So, the keys to civilized debate seem to be:
debate: discuss or dispute about (an issue, proposal, etc.) esp. formally in a legislative assembly, public meeting, etc.
Coming back to the 21ieme siecle, the Internet can be considered a "public meeting" for purposes of this definition, as this is as public as it gets. At least it would be if more than a handful of people (thank you, btw) actually read it. I have over the years continued to put a lot of shaky propositions up on this site in the nearly vain hope that people would take the bait and call me on it. I need the mental exercise which only comes from challenging what I believe to a death match with the wits of others, but that doesn't mean that I'm kidding about what I write.
Even more old fashioned, I was raised to back up what I say. This was always rare in the opinionated, but is vanishingly so these days and the schools don't help. I find this ironic due to the ready access to reams of information which (admittedly with many grains of salt and a lot of fact checking) puts debating gold at your fingertips. We are in fact overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information, and a valuable skill is the ability to limit your intake of it.
Boundaries need to be pushed to test them, something I do for fun as often as I can. As I get older I'm slowing down on this (been there, done that), but here's one rule I adhere to: I will always admit if I'm wrong. That sounds easy, and sometimes it it, but you will need to convince me that I am incorrect. There's another problem with many topics; convincing me to care enough to argue about it. People who take contrary positions to EVERYTHING are very annoying, so I try to be discriminating.
People have a lot invested in their view of the world, and you undermine that at your peril. Religious zealots are simply the most obvious; they have in many cases an entire lifetime of indoctrination in whatever it is and it's faith-based so there is really no point in debating religion. It can be dangerous too...
Secular beliefs are often structurally identical to religious ones and often as difficult to debunk. In theory there is no faith involved, but in practice there is a willing suspension of disbelief which is identical. I was going to get into a whole Left-Right thing, but I found that I don't have much interesting to say about that.
Last post's topic of getting along flows more naturally into this. There are times and places (and people) when you can "agree to disagree", and that is the key to civilized debate. This post at WUWT was the catalyst for my ramblings today and it hits that most critical of ingredients for civilized debate: self-selection of participants.
Just building "it" doesn't mean that "they" will come, (faith-based example) and in fact generally the worst reactionaries (of any stripe) will avoid an honest balanced debate like the plague. We like people who agree with us, but you don't learn and grow by preaching to the converted. People who want to convince, not bully, will engage in debate. Bullies will YELL and call you unpleasant things to distract from their inability to support their position on its' merits. In many cases that's their default position, even when they have an easy rhetorical target.
Much like what I proposed for the G8/20 meetings, if you want to keep out the great unwashed masses (e.g. the rabble described above) you need to control the venue, real or virtual. This will allow you to invite people, and if you're honest about it you'll invite your glibbest intellectual opponents. Stacking the deck in your favour only cheats you and your cause of legitimacy. So, the keys to civilized debate seem to be:
- Transparency, which equals a good reputation for those who display it;
- tread carefully on faith based beliefs;
- be enough of a threat to what "they" believe that "they" feel compelled to counter your argument (but not so compelled that they want you dead; see point above), and;
- control of the debating venue.
Again I welcome discussion of this, like everything else you'll find here. Lots of it can be better researched and presented, but as always this is what you get for free. I promise that if challenged I will always give back as good as I get, which will involve more than my usual cursory web searches and pulling things from the dusty corners of my brain. The latter is more fun and sufficient for the "jaw-jaw" part; if it starts getting serious references will start to appear as appropriate before it turns to "war-war". Look for that from any serious pundits, as well as how they talk about their opponents. Civility requires restraint, but doesn't need to be boring...
Wednesday, 26 January 2011
Can we agree to disagree?
I don't follow the State of the Union speeches as a rule, but this one happens to tap into a vein of thought commonly shunned; talking to people you don't agree with.
First quote (from linked article, emphasis mine):
Former House Speaker Thomas "Tip" O'Neill and President Ronald Reagan would be proud of their heirs -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- for truly demonstrating what civility could look like. We don't all have to agree with each other, but for the good of the country, it's important that we sit together as Americans. After all, this could be good for the country, too.
Nice and touchy-feely boilerplate "why can't we be friends?" stuff. It occurs to me that if it were that simple/easy people would do a lot more of it.
Second quote, Lt. Col Tom Kratman, SF author, from an exchange in the Chaos Manor mail (emphasis again mine):
“In any case,” Kratman concluded, “nobody converts anybody; we, as a society, are way past that. Right and left don’t share basic assumptions, don’t use the same words with the same meanings, and generally just talk past each other.”
Ah, fundamentals; where most mortals fear to tread, but the bread and butter of my blog. People are indeed people wherever you go, but nobody pretends that we're all clones of each other. The nutcase who shot Gabrielle Giffords (and killed those 6 other people, but who remembers them now?) is a garden-variety wacko with a grudge who happened to take it out on a local politician (and bystanders). Most people don't do that sort of thing, nor would they under any reasonably probable scenarios. Here is an automatic Us/Them that nobody in their right mind will argue with.
We start here with proclivities, and from the obviously violently insane we can move to mushier boundaries. How about criminals vs. non-criminals? Here lines start to blur, but most people would see them pretty clearly until past the psycho and sociopaths. There are things which are just "not done" which most people will agree on. Killing for fun isn't part of anyone's culture, at least not one which has survived, as their neighbours would quickly eliminate them.
Not that killing for other reasons is so proscribed; a monothestic religion which will remain nameless (but has over 1B adherents) contains within its basic tenets that killing or enslaving unbelievers is perfectly acceptable. No points for guessing who I'm talking about, but needless to say everyone else doesn't think this is a good idea, at least if they bother to know how things actually are. Could be important to them, but sticking heads in the sand is popular pastime.
No amount of hand holding or exhortations to "civility" will change the fact that people often have very different worldviews. I know lots of people who don't share my basic assumptions about life, but I find as I get older those friends sort of drop off. This is as civil as it gets, but at the end of the day it takes a lot more work to either confront or avoid ideological differences, and like-minded people are more relaxing to hang out with.
I have been in huge arguments with people who see exactly the same information as me completely differently. This was fun sometimes, but it stops being fun pretty quickly when the topics are not hypothetical/recreational. People continue to die for differences far smaller than those I have had with my lefty aquaintances. I like to think I'm reasonably civilized, but the veneer is stripped away rapidly from the best of us if we feel threatened. In my case the list of what I will kill to protect is limited to my immediate family, but history tells us that Ideas have killed a lot more people than Self-Defence ever will.
So can we all be friends? Not everyone with everyone else, and NOTHING will change that, certainly not cheap talk from politicians. Like goes with like, birds of a feather, oil and water, all that is as inescapable as magnetism, which of course repels as well as attracts. This is not a Yin-Yang thing of complementary interconnected opposites, but polar ones, separated from each other. Ideas are trouble when they divide people, and you'll be hard pressed to find any significant Idea (caps intentional) that can't polarize people.
Ideas also distort language, imparting particular meanings to ordinary words; the Bolshevik revolution in Russia changed the connotations if not the outright meaning of the word "red". It was to denote "good", but of course the other side (us) uses "Red" to mean "subversive Commie", a meaning it holds to some extent today. And then of course there's the classic Humpty Dumpty dissertation on meanings:
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’ ” Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for youu!’ ”
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master that’s all.”
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. “They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!”
This brings me back to the Left-Right divide, and I think I'll tackle what I think that means another day; that will hopefully be less "impenetrable" than the above. I'll sign off for now by saying that compromise (from ALL parties) is necessary if we're going to keep the lights on and the wheels turning, but that will be done by Centrists, and I guess I'll work up a definition for that next time too.
First quote (from linked article, emphasis mine):
Former House Speaker Thomas "Tip" O'Neill and President Ronald Reagan would be proud of their heirs -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- for truly demonstrating what civility could look like. We don't all have to agree with each other, but for the good of the country, it's important that we sit together as Americans. After all, this could be good for the country, too.
Nice and touchy-feely boilerplate "why can't we be friends?" stuff. It occurs to me that if it were that simple/easy people would do a lot more of it.
Second quote, Lt. Col Tom Kratman, SF author, from an exchange in the Chaos Manor mail (emphasis again mine):
“In any case,” Kratman concluded, “nobody converts anybody; we, as a society, are way past that. Right and left don’t share basic assumptions, don’t use the same words with the same meanings, and generally just talk past each other.”
Ah, fundamentals; where most mortals fear to tread, but the bread and butter of my blog. People are indeed people wherever you go, but nobody pretends that we're all clones of each other. The nutcase who shot Gabrielle Giffords (and killed those 6 other people, but who remembers them now?) is a garden-variety wacko with a grudge who happened to take it out on a local politician (and bystanders). Most people don't do that sort of thing, nor would they under any reasonably probable scenarios. Here is an automatic Us/Them that nobody in their right mind will argue with.
We start here with proclivities, and from the obviously violently insane we can move to mushier boundaries. How about criminals vs. non-criminals? Here lines start to blur, but most people would see them pretty clearly until past the psycho and sociopaths. There are things which are just "not done" which most people will agree on. Killing for fun isn't part of anyone's culture, at least not one which has survived, as their neighbours would quickly eliminate them.
Not that killing for other reasons is so proscribed; a monothestic religion which will remain nameless (but has over 1B adherents) contains within its basic tenets that killing or enslaving unbelievers is perfectly acceptable. No points for guessing who I'm talking about, but needless to say everyone else doesn't think this is a good idea, at least if they bother to know how things actually are. Could be important to them, but sticking heads in the sand is popular pastime.
No amount of hand holding or exhortations to "civility" will change the fact that people often have very different worldviews. I know lots of people who don't share my basic assumptions about life, but I find as I get older those friends sort of drop off. This is as civil as it gets, but at the end of the day it takes a lot more work to either confront or avoid ideological differences, and like-minded people are more relaxing to hang out with.
I have been in huge arguments with people who see exactly the same information as me completely differently. This was fun sometimes, but it stops being fun pretty quickly when the topics are not hypothetical/recreational. People continue to die for differences far smaller than those I have had with my lefty aquaintances. I like to think I'm reasonably civilized, but the veneer is stripped away rapidly from the best of us if we feel threatened. In my case the list of what I will kill to protect is limited to my immediate family, but history tells us that Ideas have killed a lot more people than Self-Defence ever will.
So can we all be friends? Not everyone with everyone else, and NOTHING will change that, certainly not cheap talk from politicians. Like goes with like, birds of a feather, oil and water, all that is as inescapable as magnetism, which of course repels as well as attracts. This is not a Yin-Yang thing of complementary interconnected opposites, but polar ones, separated from each other. Ideas are trouble when they divide people, and you'll be hard pressed to find any significant Idea (caps intentional) that can't polarize people.
Ideas also distort language, imparting particular meanings to ordinary words; the Bolshevik revolution in Russia changed the connotations if not the outright meaning of the word "red". It was to denote "good", but of course the other side (us) uses "Red" to mean "subversive Commie", a meaning it holds to some extent today. And then of course there's the classic Humpty Dumpty dissertation on meanings:
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’ ” Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for youu!’ ”
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master that’s all.”
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. “They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!”
This brings me back to the Left-Right divide, and I think I'll tackle what I think that means another day; that will hopefully be less "impenetrable" than the above. I'll sign off for now by saying that compromise (from ALL parties) is necessary if we're going to keep the lights on and the wheels turning, but that will be done by Centrists, and I guess I'll work up a definition for that next time too.
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