The Morality of Work is the Morality of Slaves

--Bertrand Russell

What a great quote. A little Greek, a little bohemian, and a little bit of upper class contempt all in one pithy comment.

In my experience, overworked people are not thoughtful people. They are not good husbands and wives or good citizens or satisfied human beings. Perhaps one explanation for the recent election's outcome is that Americans work too hard. With so little time left over, we are slaves to our consumer wants and our instincts. We were unable to vote wisely because we had insufficient time to develop wisdom.

Just a thought for the day.

Deconstructing Larry Summers

The Economist mounted a predictable defense of the Harvard president it its latest issue. To paraphrase--He's economist, of course he's a scientist, and of course he knows what he's talking about. The faculty of Harvard should stop their PC whining.--

The problem with this position is that economists aren't scientists. Yes, they do have lots of graphs and numbers. But they don't have the luxury of conducting studies according to the scientific method. And they constantly have to make judgment calls about their numbers. Economics is at best a social science and economists in particular seem to love fudging the issue by claiming to be scientists.

The other piece of earth shattering news is that academics don't tend to admit what they don't know. Actually, I'll qualify that statement. Academics who are not scientists don't tend to admit what they don't know. I've seen a physics professor admit that he hadn't read anything by Shakespeare with a look along the lines of "and why would you think I waste my time on that?" But Academics in general are not prone to admitting that they aren't qualified to evaluate something.

The final piece of the puzzle is that Americans and the American press have lately had a weird and regressive respect for authority. It probably comes from having a total boob in the white house. The press seems to have been forced into operating on the assumption that GW is competent. And since questioning this premise would be unpatriotic, we are left with day after day of news reports that imply that the president is a rational, thinking, and empathetic person. Apparently because any other kind of reporting would implicate the journalists in a massive fraud on the American people. Since Larry Summers is the president of Harvard, he also has a position of authority and therefore in our current hyper-respectful phase, the press will act from the assumption that he knows what he's talking about.

I've been weirdly fascinated with this story and I think it's because it points to larger issues in our culture. We've become a culture obsessed with things that are unquestionable and a culture uncomfortable with ambiguity. Because most people aren't educated in the sciences, things that are "scientific" are largely unquestionable for most people. For religious people, their faith is unquestionable. For liberals, racial and sexual equality is unquestionable.

If you are debating about two unquestionables, there is no room for judgment. For example, evolution vs. creationism. Either you believe in science or you believe in the Bible. The red state/blue state thing is another example. We've all picked our unquestionable standards and we follow our standard bearers.

When your ability to judge and sift through grey areas becomes rusty, any attempts at judgment are likely to be crude at best. Larry Summers' speech was objectionable on a number of levels but it is particularly notable for anecdotal evidence, a lack of consideration of alternatives, and an attempt to cloak his prejudices as scientific fact through use of scientific language without accompanying scientific rigor. Interestingly, all faults of economics as a profession with the possible exception of anecdotal evidence.

What I'm worried about is that Larry Summers is our future. If the president of Harvard is unable to coherently analyze and choose between alternatives, what does that say about our educational system? I don't think this is an idle question. Apparently, he is considered to be a brilliant man and a brilliant economist. If this is the intellectual peak, what is going on in the valleys?

What's in a blog?

I've been thinking about blogs lately. There was one of the crabby old journalists on TV on Sunday morning saying that he hopes bloggers develop the same ethical standards as journalists. He thought that bloggers unfairly brought down CNN's chief.

It is true that bloggers seem to be more inflammatory in their language than regular journalists. If you want readers to pay attention, one way is to say radical and daring things. It seems like part of what is going on is the inevitable tension between democratic forms of expression and the elites who think the mob can't be trusted.

On the other hand, the elites have long been somewhat hypocritical. They say one thing to those who are among their kind and then have another thing to say when the matter is for public consumption. The Harvard president was a perfect example of that. He thought that among other elites, he was safe in making completely stupid and damaging remarks. The kind of journalistic ethics that allows for on the record/ off the record remarks from public officials is really just a way for journalists to themselves be part of the elite.

Interestingly, journalists are currently more despised than lawyers as a profession. Possibly because they're a bunch of sanctimonious sell-outs, but I'm just a blogger with no ethical responsibilities....

Arcade Fire

I'm not much of a music person. However, one of the things I'm doing with my copious spare time is trying to find new music and this Canadian band Arcade Fire has just the right mix of what makes good music.

It's sweet and has a beat and has intelligent lyrics. I've had the CD for a month and haven't gotten sick of it.

Bands I rapidly got sick of include: Postal Service, the Shins, and Snow Patrol. On the other hand, I'm not really a music critic. I just thought I'd add this thought to my blog to say something on something besides politics.

The Bush Tapes

I caught a bit of the tapes recorded by Bush's friend and released to ABC news this morning. On the tape, Bush makes fun of Gore for admitting he used marijuana. Bush states that he would never publicly admit to his past drug use because he doesn't want to set a bad example.

This bit of hypocrisy might be more forgivable if people weren't serving prison time for supplying party boys like GW.

Bush comes off as an innocent and a bully in the tapes. As ABC News noted, his private personality doesn't appear to be different from his public personality.

Crack Attics

According to a website reviewing apartments, my former apartment complex is full of "crack attics." I've never seen one, but I suppose I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking for. Or it could be that crack addicts are revolving in out of the prison system rather than hanging out at my old apartment complex.

By 2010, over 3% of our population will either be in prison or have been in prison. A good chunk of those people will have been incarcerated for drug crimes. While lowering the crime rate is a goal everyone agrees with, options other than incarceration are seen as bleeding heart and muddle-headed.

According to the sentencing project, 60% of federal prisoners are in for drug crimes. It is worth asking how we can remain a democratic and free country if the prison experience becomes our national experience for those who are poor, black, and young.

Of course if you're rich, privileged, and white maybe you don't have to worry. President Bush apparently doesn't have a twinge of conscience that he is running the country after some wild partying days when, if he had been a different person, his partying might have led straight to jail.

Here are some interesting websites:

http://www.sentencingproject.org/losing_05.cfm

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0818/p02s01-usju.html

Here is the apartment review website:

http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate/CA-San-Jose-101-San-Fernando.html

The Tollbooth Kirk

I'm reading a book about Scotland and I just like the idea of a tollbooth kirk. Since this a blog and I'm not Montaigne, I figure it is permissible to have a title that doesn't make any sense but sounds interesting.

Actually, the book is a bit cheesy, so I'm not going to mention the title, but it is about religious history--one of my favorite subjects.

It's gotten me thinking about the current witches brew that is the American Right. I think I would be more sympathetic if they weren't so certain that Jesus loves them. Because if I were Jesus, I would certainly have a very hard time loving them. In fact, the religious right is the kind of movement that only a Jesus could love.

In order to get televangelists and all the rest, you have to decide several theological questions in ways that make Christianity and easy religion.

Does God want us to be happy or suffer?

Happy, definitely--We're Americans after all.

Is salvation a result of our actions here on earth or are we predestined?

Too hard. Next question.

What kind of life does God want us to lead?

Lot's of money and a family and taking care of what's yours.

I could go on and on. But it's amazing how in 200 years we've almost completely lost any trace of puritanism. It'll be interesting to see how well Christianity survives as it competes as a hedonistic alternative to other hedonistic alternatives...

On bureaucracy

I got to spend some time today listening to an incredibly overpaid manager fulminate against bureaucracy in the schools. Apparently, despite making his living off of bureaucracy, he hates the idea of anyonelse making their living off the bureaucracy.

I've worked in both the private and public sectors and I don't see one whit of difference on how people spend their time. My current theory is that the actual amount of work that needs to be done in this country (aside from manual labor) is not much. But without work, we have no reason for being. So, several hundred million people will spend their adult life pushing paper and grumbling about how people somewherelse never do anything.

Hoping to be lied to some more

My current theory is that the best we can hope for from the Bush presidency is that George W. is lying about more things than we already know him to be lying about.

Apparently, George W. is tacking back on social security. He will consider getting rid of the cap on social security taxes--currently income over 90,000/ year is not subject to the payroll tax. So, again that's not what he said he was going to do but it's a lot closer to a solution than the private acounts thing. Explaining how taxing more income is not the same thing as raising taxes is going to take a bigger intellect than GW has displayed thus far.

I don't think I have any conservative readers, but any conservatives out there who would like to explain how lying is better than flip-flopping...please, let me know.

It's frustrating that the best the Democrats can do is sit on the sidelines and sputter "But he lied!" We have the same problem in California with Arnold. He can do and say whatever he wants because the media is not calling him on it.

And while the utopian idea of bloggers ruling the world is appealing, bloggers have day jobs. The media is paid to give us news. What do they do all day anyways? Foozeball? X-box?

Amateur Shrink Hour

Considering all the forms of counseling and therapy, it's interesting that we don't have any kind of therapy for the relationship between the people and their democracy.

Because if our democracy were a marriage, it would be an abusive one. The government lies to us, cheats on us with the big corporations and tells us that only the it can make us safe. You've got to picture Uncle Sam in a wife-beater going to bars and picking fights with little guys to make himself feel better.

And while counseling isn't going to make an abusive tyrant into a reasonable human being, it just might help the victims see that they do have choices and they don't have to live like this.

It's only natural

On a related theme to intellectual inconsistency in politics....

The use of the words natural and unnatural by conservatives is particularly interesting. For example, differences between the sexes are something that you can't (and shouldn't) fight because women are naturally caring but fuzzy headed and men are naturally strong and logical. Homosexuality is unnatural for reasons I've never entirely figured out (the Bible? our God-given duty to all have 8-10 children? Higher taxes?)

When people throw around the words "natural" and "unnatural", it shuts down the discussion and it paints those who disagree with you as misguided, wrong-headed, and possibly unnatural themselves. I.e. The free market is our natural state, any tinkering with the free market is an attempt to monkey with nature--doomed to failure and totally wrong headed.

It tends to be that discussions of natural and unnatural practices are discussions about personal feelings masquerading as discussions of societal as opposed to personal morality. For example, if you are not gay, it would just feel wrong to have a relationship with someone of the same sex. If you love making money, it feels wrong to have pay taxes. Feelings are powerful things and they should certainly be acknowledged--but, they should also be analyzed.

Some things that feel wrong--paying taxes, overcoming racist feelings, learning to get along with managers--are things that need to be done for the good of society. Other things, (who your friends are, who you sleep with) are matters of personal choice. I think you should absolutely follow your feelings in those areas.

The problem with the use of terms like natural and unnatural in political discussion is that it encourages people to vote on their feelings without analyzing them first. Suddenly, being a narrow-minded straight racist who hates paying taxes has a moral flavor. If you're a male who doesn't think women should have abortions, you even get bonus morality points. You simply vote your feelings without considering what is properly personal morality and what is properly societal morality.

One reason why ostensibly pro-life people are often in favor of wars and state sponsored executions is that they aren't following a true ethical tenet--Christian or otherwise. Instead, they are really expressing their feelings. (i.e. I like babies. I don't like death row inmates. It seems really sad and unnatural that babies should die. It feels right that the state should execute murderers.)

Liberals often have more well-developed ethical systems than conservatives, but they can fail to account for the role of feelings. It is logically consistent to say that some things (abortion) are matters of personal choice and other things (wars, executions) are matters of societal choice. But logically consistent and appealing are two different things.

On hypocrisy

I was reading an interesting Newsweek article on how President Bush has been successful in foreign policy only when he does things that he says he's not going to do. For example, the January elections in Iraq weren't the original plan. Condi Rice is doing better in Europe by selling cooperation hard after telling the world that we would go it alone.

The cold war had that irony too. The Democrats couldn't get us out of Vietnam because they were the party that was "soft on commies" but a Republican could and did get us out. John Kerry would have had a hard time getting us out of Iraq for the same reasons. Our best hope of getting out of Iraq is probably Republican hypocrisy. Because it is established in the American mind that the Republicans are tough on terrorists and the Democrats aren't, the Republicans have more room to maneuver than the Democrats do.

So, on the question of what the Democrats should do to get back into things, one answer might be to become hypocrites too. I hope there is a better answer. Because if our elected officials are all consistently lying to us, what does democracy mean?

On the other hand, I'm going to have to continue to root for GW to lie to us because if he is telling the truth about how he will handle the war in Iraq, social security, and the separation between church and state, we're all in trouble.

I was reading this conservative blog that posed this question. Why are liberals so anti war and anti death penalty, but not anti killing babies?

And I've often thought the same thing in reverse--how can conservatives claim to be pro-life when they are pro-war and pro-death penalty?

Are we all just inconsistent?

Live by the Sword/ Die by the Sword

One of the most entertaining things about being a lawyer is watching lawyers who discover in the middle of an argument that an opposing position would be better. Lawyers are clever folk. My favorite recent example was watching a lawyer for an entity that shall remain nameless. He went from claiming that the entity was not an insurance company to claiming that it really was just like an insurance company. The man gave a very moving speech about injustice and equity and all the rest of it--all on the subject of whether this particular thing was an insurance company or not.

I think this kind of thing is probably why the general public thinks that lawyers are intellectually dishonest. And it is a mean sort of entertainment to watch someone who has successfully convinced everyone of a particular proposition find out that he really needed to show the opposite thing is true. And most lawyers in this position do tend to squirm a bit.

Politicians and Journalists are probably the two professions that engage in "flip-flopping" the most. The charge against John Kerry was damning because someone who changes his mind and says "I really believed it all along" is being intellectually dishonest. Nevermind that there are worse forms of dishonesty. Giant bald faced lies don't make a person look as bad from a pure image perspective as wishy washy statements about "what I meant to say."

Because journalists police each other and aren't supposed to have opinions anyways, they're much harder to catch at it than politicians. Lately, there has been a lot of rah-rah cheering for the free market. Which is somewhat ironic considering that most journalists work for organizations that are getting closer and closer to monopolies. For example, Robert Samuelson's column this week for newsweek was on "Competition's Quiet Victory." It was a downright heartwarming ode to the free market while boosting a Clinton appointee's book (published by the American Enterprise Institute).

Unfortunately, journalists don't have judges other than their audience. So, we probably won't get the pleasure of watching Mr. Samuelson eat his words in the event that someone discovers those arcane antitrust laws and wants to enforce them to gin up some more competition.

As a side note, Is there just one phone company now? When I get crochety and old like Andy Rooney, can I actually slam down the phone and say "I'm not doing business with you anymore?"

Back on topic--There are a whole bunch of checks and balances in American democracy that are supposed to keep politicians, journalists, and lawyers intellectually honest or very uncomfortable when they're being dishonest. George W. Bush is an interesting phenomenon in that he doesn't appear to be ashamed of his lies, half-truths, and wrong assertions. We will never get to watch him tap dance the way John Kerry did. Maybe it's because the press is muzzled. Or maybe it's because we're being ruled by a tightly knit cabal of Republicans. I haven't been able to figure out what is wrong with the man. I think his appeal can be explained in part because he is a man who will live by the sword and die by the sword. He doesn't change. That is appealing after watching leader after leader from Nixon to Clinton squirm. For people who can't or don't think, it may appear that we finally have an honest leader.

But is it Art?

My taste in literature is admittedly not modern. I majored in literature and the one semester I took a class on modernism was pure misery. Virginia Wolf's "To the Lighthouse"bored me to tears. James Joyce was OK when interspersed with bouts of heavy drinking. I actually had to buy the Cliff's notes for D.H. Lawrence.

But the modernists were at least doing something new for their time.

Since I have a job that leaves me a lot of time to read, I go through 2 or 3 books a week. And because they come with tempting blurbs on the back, I occasionally wander into current fiction/literature. I liked the Kite Runner. I was entertained by the Time Travelers Wife. Middlesex was OK. But none of these books strike me as amazingly deep or life changing or even properly art. David Sedaris is even further from that category.

These books could all be described as "A bunch of entertaining and quirky stuff happens." Which is not how you would describe Hardy, Shakespeare, Austen, Milton, or any of the other big ones.

One theory is that novels are meant to be about conflict and struggle. If the character wanders around having sex, doing drugs, and talking to witty friends, there isn't exactly an internal struggle. Although a struggle doesn't guarantee anything. One of the very worst novels I read in recent years was The Corrections. I recall some sort of struggle between an old guy and a talking turd. Very modernist. Never done before. And yet not really Art in my book.

And I know the question, what is Art is old fashioned. And I know that nobody is going to write a Five Act novel. My real objection to the talking turd was that it was a self-involved annoying talking turd that was beating up on a buttoned up Midwesterner who never showed emotion. So, while it's hard to critique a talking turd for lacking realism and falling into easy cliches, that particular talking turd scene can be faulted on both those points.

So, I'm looking to expand my horizons and read something by someone who is still living. I'm open to suggestions.... Off the top of my head I can think of John Irving, Alice Munro, and Billy Collins as examples of living authors of books I've read more than once.

San Francisco apres les dot coms

I've been reading Po Bronson's book "What should I do with my life?"

I'm not sure if I'm going to finish it. It strikes me as a bit typical for the overprinted 30 somethings that live in San Francisco or Silicon Valley. I like Studs Terkel's "Working" better although that book is pretty dated.

Basically, Po goes around and talks to people who are friends of friends. These people often worked for Clinton. There are more lawyers than doctors. More investment bankers and scientists than teachers. So far the one teacher quit and got married. He nicknames a woman who wants to find herself "Fluffy" despite listening to a lot of whinging men. His description of the dot com boom involves this gem of a sentence: "Men who no longer had big bank accounts were ditched by their girlfriends." Po is a weirdly traditional kind of guy for being such a hip young thing.

The weird thing for me is that I grew up in the Bay Area and then lived other places and then came back. So, I wasn't here for the dot-com boom and bust. In my view of the world, computer geeks are an overall good thing. They are sweet and myopic and they spend their time doing things that are essentially harmless. So, if the city were awash in computer geeks--even out of work bitter computer geeks, I would be OK with it. But those aren't the people who came here for the dot-com boom. At least in my neighborhood, it's the girls with the pointy toed shoes and the dyed hair. It's the guys with the cashmere sweaters and the business books. It is essentially people who have no scale of judgment other than money and cool. Money is used to purchase cool. Cool is there to help you make money. Occasionally you can trade one for the other. I.e. Cool guy marries Rich girl.

Of course there's still the Haight or the Mission or Castro. But I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of those dread locked white kids have trust funds.

On the other hand, San Francisco has always existed primarily in the imagination. And the people I like the most in this city don't see it the way I do. They hang out in the coffee shops and the dusty used book stores. They eat pork and beans to afford an apartment with character in a bad neighborhood. They don't want to be cool as much as they want to experience cool things. And they're just hanging in there. They give me hope.

Social Security and the Historical Fallacy

The topic of social security is probably going to take up a bunch of posts in the future.

However, I just wanted to point out that just because something has been a certain way in the past, does not guarantee that it will be that way in the future.

The argument for allowing younger workers putting money into stocks instead of social security goes like this. The stock market has risen at an average of 10% per year in the past. It has weathered recessions. It has lost 40% in one year and bounced back. The stock market is a great American Success Story. Of course it will continue over the long haul to go up approximately 10% a year. We have a whole 100 years of history on our side.

Of course tulips will go up in value, they always have. ... There's no safer place for your money than tulips.

But what about the baby boom? What about all those Americans that will be retiring at the same time and taking their money out of their 401ks at the same time? What will that do to the stock market? I read that promoters of the social security plan are going to spend 100 to 150 million to convince the American public of the wisdom of stocks. You don't lay down that kind of change if you don't stand to make money off of the plan.

To insert a bit of Keynes here: Maybe the reason the stock market has done so well in the past is that American workers have had a bit of job security and a bit of security in their old age. The post world war two generation was the first generation that didn't have to support both aging parents and children in their prime income producing years. They turned into consumers and they begat consumers.

If businesses were run in the interest of shareholders rather than CEOs and cronies, they would be fighting this social security thing tooth and nail. Because in the long term, capitalism needs consumers. Consumers need to be free to spend their money. If every last cent is taken up supporting parents and children and Uncle Hank who didn't do too well with the stocks, the American consumer will not be consuming.

If we change our policy on social security, that will affect stock prices. If baby boomers retire, that will affect stock prices. If American companies become so bloated and mean that workers can't consume, that will affect stock prices.

History is only the story of the past. Things that happened may affect stock prices in the future. But History itself--the golden age of the 10%-- does not affect stock prices.