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Monday, December 24, 2007

New Year, New Muse

  • We're going with
  • Polyhymnia or Polymnia (the "[singer] of many hymns", muse of sacred song, oratory, lyric, singing and rhetoric...

(The) muse[s, as a group,] embody the arts and inspire the creation process with their graces through remembered and improvised song and stage, writing, traditional music, and dance. They were water nymphs, associated with the springs of Helicon and with Pieris, from which they are sometimes called the Pierides. The Olympian system set Apollo as their leader, Apollon Mousagetēs. Not only are the Muses explicitly used in modern English to refer to an inspiration, as when one cites his/her own artistic muse, but they are also implicit in the words "amuse" or "musing upon".[2]

According to Hesiod's Theogony (seventh century BC), they are the daughters of Zeus, king of the gods, and Mnemosyne, goddess of memory.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muse

Something like Hillary "embodies change", I guess. In particular, I think I should try to appeal to their mother, Mnemosyne, "goddess of memory". Please don't let me down, Mom!



Sunday, December 23, 2007

'08 Elections: Early Reviews of the Previews

At this critical juncture of the Presidential race, in which all of us (even those few of us in a couple of predominantly-white swing states) can do nothing except hold our breath and wait, I suggest we pause. Just for laughs, or for rigor, or mortis, it might pay for me to own up to my prior previews and see how well I've handicapped events to date.

It might also be opportune to look at just how realistic those ancient scenarios are today as previews for what might be coming in the near future.


The Scenario of the Two Divergent Triangles

My first effort was an exceedingly long attempt which posted a couple of weeks before the 2006 elections. In an effort to keep from stressing out, I was looking beyond them to this '08 electoral contests.

In each of the Democratic and Republican nomination races, I foresaw at that time the likelihood of a three-way race, something that still seems likely for each. I found the prospective Republican race much more dependent on the '06 outcomes than the Dems'.

I was pessimistic for '06, giving "a 32% chance Dems win H of R this year; 20% chance they win Senate, so that's my guess as of October 15, 2006--".

Regardless of '06, though, I saw the Democratic race as ending up being a three-way race between Hillary, a "Clinton Centrist Challenger" and what I called "XXX", and meant the consensus choice of the Netroots and the left. At the moment , casting was wide open for "CCC" (Mark Warner had just dropped out), while I thought Feingold or Gore would end up with the "XXX" constituency. I came up with these probabilities for the Democratic nomination:

"Clinton 52%, Edwards 16%, Feingold 12%, Biden 8%, Gore 5%, Kerry 3%, the Field (Richardson, Bayh, Vilsack, Wes Clark, Schweitzer/Obama-type Draftee) 3%, Is there anything else? 1%, Kucinich 3 votes."

Well, at least I mentioned Obama--clearly understood today to be, indeed, the foretold Clinton Centrist Challenger--though at the time I didn't think Barack was going to run. As for Edwards, I knew he would be a factor, though I wasn't sure whether it would be as the centrist challenger or the leftist one.

I had the narrative for the electoral race. It took the DNC to preserve it, by sabotaging the attempts by Michigan and Florida to get more attention by bringing their primaries forward:

The basic theme of the Democratic nomination process will be winning in the early-season Four Corners (of a diamond?): IA, NH, and the recently promoted SC and NV. It seems improbable that anyone but HRC could win all four, but any candidate who doesn't win in SC but does win all the other three should be able to coast home. The SC winner would be the likeliest choice for the '3-C' role, while the first XXX leader will be identified before SC. (There could be more than one, someone coming in late and absorbing most of the delegates from an early XXX leader who may falter).

If Hillary doesn't win it early (at least 3 of 4), it should settle into the three-way race.

I spent a lot of effort on the Republican preview, looking at three '06 scenarios: a Bushite victory, Total Bushite Chaos!, and a Democratic Victory, the latter being defined as the Democrats winning control of at least one house of Congress (which I saw as having a 40% probability). For each outcome, I came up with an estimated "conditional probability"; and

after a Democratic Victory: GPR 25%, McCain 40%, anti-Bushite Right-Winger 35%".

("GPR" meant Giuliani, Pataki, or Romney, who were pretty much interchangeable, and I felt there was a niche for only one. ) The position of "anti-Bushite Right-Winger" was up for grabs--I saw Gingrich as the one most likely to snag it--and I disparaged Huckabee like the rest. Sen. Brownback I saw as a "fourth way" and possibly pivotal figure. Again, that role went to Mike.

I saw McCain's chances hinged on winning both NH and SC, but today it seems that in South Carolina he has no chance. Regardless, today it would be hard to criticize any preview except one that had any degree of certainty about it. You don't find anyone willing to stick one's neck out and say anything about the outcome at this point, except that someone's bound to win in the end.

After the double-D Democratic victory (which I gave only a 12% likelihood), I revisited the three-cornered race I saw coming forward. Not much had changed, though there was, of course, more clarity:

Update on most likely six finalists for the two three-cornered party nomination races:
1) McCain
(now more than ever with the decisive Democratic victory, Bushite defeat.)
2) Giuliani
(Romney now heir-apparent to this role if Rudy falters, as Pataki disappears)
3)Gingrich
(over Brownback as leader of right-wing holding action and eventual VP candidate. No more chance of a significant Bushite candidate )


1) Hillary Rodham Clinton (in her own interest, HRC will be advising Nancy Pelosi on a full-time basis throughout 2007)
2) Barack Obama (the Clinton Centrist Challenger of the moment)
3) John Edwards (establishing a surprising claim to be the best "XXX" candidate)

Got one right.

It would be ironic if it comes down to these three (and, for a further fancy, say, Bill Richardson) and Edwards is the only white male left standing for the Democrats, while being the one "furthest to the left". Such a combination could actually put him over the top for the nomination.

Seems unlikely.

I still see the likely scenario for the Republicans being the right-wing stalking horse handing the laurels to McCain in mid-primary season and getting the VP nomination (not insignificant, given McCain's age).


McCain-Huckabee we're talking here, though I didn't realize it. Still kind of hard to imagine, though tactically it makes a ton of sense. And that's what I'm hoping for, a ticket without Giuliani or Romney at the top. (Cheers to the Concord Monitor for their Romney "anti-endorsement"--also known as "endorsement. Not.")

Illegal Betting Advice


In July of '07 , I gave my assessment of the posted odds: (http://chinshihtang.blogspot.com/2007/07/money-where-my-blog-is-not.html#links):

If I take the odds from one of the offshore gaming
sites--press@intrade.com--(I don't recommend gambling in such places, plus it's illegal (!?) for Americans to vote in this way.)--

they have (7/25): Clinton 47.2; Obama 38.0; Edwards 5.9; Gore 5.4; Others (by subtraction only) 3.5%...


They have: Giuliani 39.0%; Thompson 32%; Romney 16.7%; Mc Cain 6.0%; Others 6.3%.

My conclusions would be: Clinton, though rising, is still cheap for the nomination (until about 60%). Clinton for the Presidency, at 29%, also looks cheap up to about 35-38%. Sell Giuliani and Romney; buy Thompson and McCain.

Except for the part about Thompson (who knew? I was going by his Watergate committee performance, never watch Law and Order), my advice still looks good.

More recently, in my tactical endorsement (http://chinshihtang.blogspot.com/2007/11/democratic-prez-endorsement-pt-2.html#links), I wrote that I thought Obama would win Iowa, drawing upon Edwards-supporters forced by the rules to move toward their second choice. In the short time since then, Obama has surged to the Iowa lead in poll-driven expectations. As a consequence, neither Edwards nor Clinton should feel inclined to cut deals with Obama in Iowa.

The pundits seem to be hinting that Clinton is offering to deal with Edwards--which I see as more likely to help HRC, if it comes off. This, and the unreliability of counting on the youth vote, is making me a bit nervous about the "Obama the clear favorite" talk. I think that New Hampshire might still swing Obama's way, regardless, as the Graniteers choose free life rather than death.


Frank Morgan Memorial

When I consider all of Man's arts, crafts, and sciences, I am convinced that the most impressive and unique human achievements are in the worldly microcosm of sound--words, and how they are used, and especially music. I think that music best represents fulfillment of the pure ambition of human art for expression. The abstraction music can provide for human experience needs little explanation and can abide it less.

If some human voices approach the purity of tone and facility of note-playing that instruments provide, some instruments seem designed to express musical tones and emotional expression that could come from human voices--without words, of course (Peter Frampton notwithstanding). That seemed to me to be the kind of beauty that Frank Morgan could bring with his saxophone.

Frank knew what he had, and he respected his talent and demanded respect--for that artistic ideal, I feel--when he played. His jazz was not background music for chit-chat and party dialogue: he wouldn't let it be so. My evidence for that was his willingness to tell his audience in so many words to be quiet when he played.

At the Remembrance event today at the Taos Inn, I watched but didn't speak up. I didn't have the incredible stories to tell that most of them had, none at least that were unique or humorous. What I had seen of him was only his public persona: warm, stylish, flirtatious with the ladies, and mild-mannered and dignified with the gentlemen. There was more, I knew, but I didn't know so much--about his health problems, about his history of addiction (though I knew of it), about his time in prison. I hadn't been hip to his talent or his career in the '80's--a time when I was living in New York and going to the jazz clubs--though he was visiting and playing there some of the time.

I can testify to his generosity in putting his talent out there for the people of Taos. He played beautifully at my mother-in-law's wake (no fee, far as I know), including a sweet bit when he made the strings of the grand piano in the room vibrate to his tones. He came to the ski valley to play to our group for the Yaxche Mountain Festival, sending his sounds resonating off the nearby rock faces for our enjoyment.

I don't know about the rest of it, but in his later life, he seemed a fulfilled person, happy to be sharing his gifts. He left us something real and permanent in the enduring dialogue between human voice and musical instrument.

Friday, December 21, 2007

EPA Outrage

The announcement by the chief of the EPA that the new 35-MPG fuel efficiency (for what? 2020?) standard trumps more rigorous standards set in 17 states (led by California) borders on the criminal.

First, the timing clearly demonstrates that this was a quid pro quo--the government promised it would protect the auto manufacturers from these tougher state standards in return for their accepting the Federal standard just set in the Energy bill. This just goes naturally with the standard Bushite approach that those being regulated get to set the regulations, under Bushite Misrule.

Second, the EPA is clearly failing in its primary mission--to protect the environment, duh--unless it can show that 35 mpg is good enough to protect us from the consequences of climate change from greenhouse gases. Of course, it isn't.

The interesting note is that the large states with stricter standards, combined with the Federal nationwide standard, would've given the auto manufacturers a chance to dump their fuel-guzzlers in the other states. Now--at least until this ridiculous ruling is reversed, either in the courts or after the 2008 elections--there will be knockdown, drag-out battles to preserve the "right" for gas-hogs to be sold in quantity in states whose legislatures have largely rejected them.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Email to David Brooks

Re: The Obama-Clinton Issue

Wow! This was your best column since coming to the Times. I admire your use of historic references to bring clarity to a choice of historic dimensions.

I liked the lead gambit of your article which brought forward, then demolished, the argument that argues for Hillary through her stronger Senate performance. Obama supporters who'd read the blurb got a jolt of reality; Clinton supporters were flattered to get their attention for the battering conclusion.

What I liked most, though, was this line: "There are reasons to think that, among Democrats, Obama is better prepared for this madness." You didn't even feel the need to explain this strange notion that madness is reality. In this, you were right--how very 21st of you!

Ch'in Shih-tang

For full disclosure, see http://chinshihtang.blogspot.com/2007/12/stoner-democratic-prez-endorsement-pt-2.html#links
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/opinion/18brooks.html

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Obama on the Issues--A Reality Check

Let's check how BHO's issue positions line up with my own.


The following are the Issue Headings, in reverse order listed, from BarackObama.com. I've taken the liberty of adding some notes (in italics) summarizing some of the key policies he advocates.

Assuming the order of topics represents something like Obama's priorities (though I note it's somewhat different on the homepage), I've numbered them that way, but omitting 6 of the last 9 listed. I found all those six to be a bit too apple-pie stuff, not too substantive, designed to reassure the moderates if they get that far down the page. We're left with my "Unofficial Obama's 10-point program".

Finally, on the issue listed first--"Strengthening America Overseas"--I give verbatim the five-point program he has under that most-important issue.


Obama's Issues (Reverse Order)
Reconciling Faith and Politics
Strengthening Families and Communities
Cleaning up Washington’s Culture of Corruption
Honoring our Veterans
10. Protecting Our Right to Vote
9. Immigration—Comprehensive Immigration Reform
Homeland Security—9/11 Measures
8. Improving our Schools—more Funding for Poor School Districts
Fulfilling our Covenant with Seniors--protect Social Security and Medicare
7. Technology and Innovation for a New Generation—Broadband for all
6. Energy—CAFE, Renewable Fuels, and Clean Coal
5. Environment—Global Warming Plan
4. Fighting Poverty—Job Programs, and see Education (BHO's #8), Healthcare (his #3); Rebuild New Orleans
3. Healthcare—Govt offered Insurance—no mandate
2. Plan to End the Iraq War—1-2 Brigades per month; history of being right. Short on prescription for Iraq, beyond new convention with UN support. Doesn’t mention future bases.
1. Strengthening America Overseas First, we will bring a responsible end to the war in Iraq and refocus on the critical challenges in the broader region. Second, we will rebuild and transform the military to meet 21st-century threats. Third, we will marshal a global effort to secure, destroy, and stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Fourth, we will renew the alliances and partnerships necessary to meet common challenges, such as terrorism and climate change. And fifth, we will strengthen impoverished, weak and ungoverned countries that have become the most fertile breeding grounds for transnational threats like terror and pandemic disease and the smuggling of deadly weapons.

Now, the point-by-point comparison with my own 10-pointer, with reference to Obama's where applicable.

1.. Get control of climate-changing gases. Yes; #5
2. Preserve our biosphere. Not really, beyond the energy plan. Brings up enforcement of existing law; preservation of federally-protected status where applicable—way down the page!
3. Rebuild our relations with the world. Yes; #1
4. Visualize our children’s / grandchildren’s society, and the implications of that vision. Somewhat; see #9 and #7. Generally very future-oriented.
5. Reform the UN Charter. No such luck.
6. Get control of armaments. Yes; see #1
7. Establish clearly the political dimensions of privacy and of permissible government intrusions into it. Nope.
8. Provide health care to our people. See #3; some doubt whether his plan would solve the problem if people don’t sign up. One good idea was to extend parental coverage of children up to age 25—this would help cover an age group with low health cost (to get the benefit for others) that generally isn’t covered today.
9. Electoral reform. #11 is mostly about removing obstacles to voting, which is half the problem. The other is how they’re counted (and applied).
10. End the "War on Drugs" (or at least give it some focus on the more harmful ones). Mention of the topic is conspicuously absent anywhere on the website. Off the website, he has a fairly responsible position today and shows more honesty than most, so I do not see him having much problem with it once this hoo-ha with Clinton campaign intriguers passes.


I'll give him 4 A's (on green house gases, vision for the future, general foreign relations, and arms reduction), 2 B's (electoral reform and healthcare), and 2 C's (environment and Drug Wars). The topic of the UN gets an Incomplete--Grade TBD. On protecting civil liberties, though, he gets a failing grade by failing to address a major issue.

Most importantly, Obama's implicit priorities recognize the fact that the primary duties of our President--though not the ones most American voters would cite as most important to them--are in the areas of foreign affairs and military policy. Here, he's not as strong as Biden or Richardson, perhaps, but he blows away someone like Huckabee or Romney.

In Dem Prez Endorsement--Pt 4, we'll take a look at HRC's 10-pointer and how it rates--for me--compared to Obama's.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Reasons to Declare "I Just Don't Know..."

Here's my response to the editorial by Eduardo Porter, "Campaigns Like These Make It Hard to Find a Reason to Believe", published today (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/14/opinion/14fri3.html?th&emc=th):



By failing to consider the perspective of the agnostic, Porter nearly re-creates Mitt Romney's omission on a smaller scale.

Declared agnostics clearly have on their side the combination of rationality and honesty. Most agnostics don't declare themselves, though: Pascal's wager-type situations occur too often in daily life, not only when running for office. There are plenty of agnostic Presidents in our history (more in memoirs than as a publicly stated view), and I daresay there are more than a few in Jerusalem, too.

If it came down to the Wager itself, we'd be on the losing side, whichever side we chose. The truly devout would never accept us who only professed belief for motives of gain. So we're with the atheists. Why don't they acknowledge us?

The world would be a better place if more of us faced the facts, accepted the plurality of humanity's religious beliefs, and got on with making this colossal living experiment a success.
— chinshihtang, Taos

It's not so much that I need to declare that I don't know (what's the big deal, anyway?--I don't), it just seemed like there was a pretty large animal in the room that hadn't been named.

Rate Reduction Reactions

We've seen the pattern now two or three times: the stock market rises in anticipation of a reduction in rates by the Fed, then we get it, then the doldrums creep back in. Net result is basically no movement in the market as a whole (at a level that I would argue is about 20% too high).

This time it varied slightly: market expectations (at least from some) were for a 50-basis point (in plain English, that's half a percent) reduction. The market dropped on the announcement of a 25-bp reduction. One day of rebound (at least there was something; also some infusion of funds was announced the next day), then back to the doldrums.

I have a little different take on the ongoing story. I think the initial 50-bp reduction (September?) was the right move--then the Fed should have sat and watched. For one thing, these moves have a delayed reaction in the world--months, not minutes or seconds. Bernanke and the Fed got pressured to do more when there were continuing danger signals of a possible future recession after the first move. So?

The second point is that weak resolve from the Fed is going to end up leading to galloping inflation. We have all the engines for future inflation already in place: high and rising energy prices, increased costs as we substitute higher-cost sources of energy, trade wars about to set in, and a weak economy going into an election year. The scenario looks like this: jobs drop, rates drop, a brief recession accompanied by more rate reductions, a strong recovery and prices go out of control.

The Fed should announce that its reductions are over for several months and then gird its collective loin for the political attacks that will follow. Anybody remember stagflation? The pain required to get out of it (Volcker's recession of '80-'82)? I do.

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Romney the Mormon

Many people seem mystified that Romney has felt the need to defend his right to be a Mormon and run for President.

I just look at it as another form of pandering, one that will probably not work very well. Ah, but he needed to do something as Huckabee was daily stealing his bread (and Fred's bread, too) as the evangelist-cum-huckster choice--a role that is guaranteed about 25-30% of the Republican primary vote.

The key point of Romney's speech was his claim that the Mormon church never influenced his policies as Massachusetts governor, so it would never influence him as President. I'll grant that, as President, he'd be more powerful than even the most-senior Elder (Chairman of the Board) of the church in Salt Lake City (he might not have been so in MA), so he wouldn't have to listen to them. What I believed before his speech, and what I still believe, is that Romney consulted the church elders and got their OK to shift his policies some to get the governor job, and then again to get their OK to run for President as a Republican. So his flip-flops, the main item to debate regarding Mitt, would have a subtle church influence under that theory.

I believe this simply because I don't really trust the Avatar of Ken on anything. This, in particular, would be something that he would be stretching the truth about. Is this bigoted?

When it comes to the Mormons themselves, I find their theology, their view of society, and especially their account of the discovery of the Book of Mormon, along with its contents, all absurd in the extreme. About par for the course, I guess. What I can't disparage is their design for living; flexible though it has been, it has always provided for long, untroubled lives; for extensive procreation (one wife or many), and broad proselytizing.

It all makes for an intensely rapid growth rate: it's clearly a winning business model. Perhaps Mitt should go into it in more depth as an example of the competent management along Bushite lines that his campaign wants to promise. It wouldn't sway me, but so many of us want to be part of a winning team, and he can help us to join up on the mystery tour.

Football Mess

This year, the annual college football mess has been unusually chaotic. None of the top-ranked teams has proven it can win consistently thruogh he whole season, and the number of top 5 (top 2, top 10--take your pick) teams who have lost to unranked teams has hit a record high.

To be fair, the commentators this year have shown their impatience with the mess and the lack of a playoff system to resolve it.

I'd advocate a six-team playoff which takes three play dates to resolve (separated by two weeks, ideally). Teams 3-6 would play seeded games in the first round, and the winners would go up against the top two, with the finals to follow. This puts some emphasis, as is the case now, on finishing first or second in the rankings, and even more emphasis on finishing sixth vs. seventh.

I don't think you would let all the major conference champions have an automatic berth in that system. In order to do that properly, you'd need one additional round and make it a 12-team playoff. Teams 5-12 would play in the first round, and winners (perhaps re-seeded) would play vs. 1-4 in the quarterfinals, etc. I like this system even better, but it does require a fourth play date. One could begin the week after Thanksgiving; then you'd have the quarters in mid-December, the semis sometime around the New Year, and the finals in mid-January. It could catch on!

Friday, December 07, 2007

Democratic Prez Endorsement--Pt 3

The Aftermath

I based my recent endorsement of Obama for President on a tactical analysis of how best to achieve my strategic objective from the 2008 Presidential election. So far, it seems as though my pinhead-sized drop in the political sea has joined with a substantial surge rising all around me, even in landlocked Iowa. The next month or so will decide whether the wave of Obamania (it’s the second wave of it, really) will carry all before it, or crash ineffectually onto the banks of the Mississippi, receding before Her Royal Colossus. So far, both the decision and the timing seem good from this vantage point.

Now, I have to comment on The Nation’s November 27 issue, entitled “Time To Choose” (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071126/vidal#list). Like me, they saw this was the time, but they decided not to make a choice.

The cover piece has eight short essays, by eight different writers, each endorsing a different Democratic Presidential candidate (even one for Mike Gravel!) This seems to be a fair way to go at the difficult decision of choosing the best from this excellent field of contenders, but it will not change The Nation’s modern tradition of providing no effective endorsement to anyone.

At its best, we would get eight brilliant, totally convincing essays by prominent and articulate expert practitioners of rhetoric, thus confusing us hopelessly. Actually, that’s pretty much what the reader gets, omitting the hyperbole. The eight writers are all skilled, medium-to-well-known, not the usual Nation columnists (impressively neutral, the Editorial Board stays out of it, except to make the minimalist, and irrelevant, endorsement of all viz. the incumbent), and sincere.

I’d say the people they got to speak for some of the more minor candidates (Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson for Richardson, New Mexico’s John Nichols for Biden, and all-time fave Gore Vidal for Kucinich) have names more prominent than those recruited for the Big 3: Ellen Chesler, Michael Eric Dyson, and Katherine S. Newman (in order of descending national poll popularity of the endorsees).

For leaners/undecided Democrats like my wife and me, we found the overall impact to be less clarity in our decision-minded thinking and less certainty in our tendencies. In other words, the issue provides little to no help in the requisite choice, except to emphasize its difficulty.

Reading them for clues to my own feelings and thoughts, I was struck by the mix of different types of argument and rhetorical style employed. The brevity required (1000 words max?) didn’t allow individual writers to attack their thesis from various angles: each basically got one shot at it, plus or minus a twist to open or close the deal. Crafting the piece perfectly would involve harmonizing its style with key characteristics of the candidate to be endorsed, identifying the type of appeal most likely to succeed with those leaning toward the candidate, and employing ironclad logic.

The main choices were emotional or rational appeals, being more or less assertive in terms of strength of preference, and whether to utilize implicit or direct criticism of the other candidates in the argument. These break down as follows:

Biden (Nichols): rational; less assertive; Contrasts: Yes—he’s “the one Democrat Republicans feel compelled not merely to attack but to answer”.

Clinton (Chesler): rational;* more assertive; No—the other Dem candidates barely are in her Hillary’s field of vision.

Edwards (Newman): rational; more assertive; Yes—opposed to “tepid, middle-of-the-road, blow-with-the-wind candidates”.

Dodd (Bruce Shapiro): rational; much less (“Will I vote for Chris Dodd? I don’t know.”); No.

Gravel (Richard Kim): emotional; not very (he knows he’ll have to switch allegiance); not really antagonistic (as opposed to Gravel himself).

Kucinich (Vidal): emotional; not assertive; Yes—his cool knife inflicts a thousand cuts (or approximately one cut per word).

Richardson (Anderson): rational; assertive; Yes—repeatedly attacks all of the Big 3 on Iraq.

Obama (Dyson): emotional; assertive; No (does not mention another candidate, even indirectly). +

Dyson’s piece ended with an appeal so eloquent that it is worthy of Barack:

“Barack Obama has come closer than any figure in recent history to obeying a direct call of the people to the brutal and bloody fields of political mission. His visionary response to that call gives great hope that he can galvanize our nation with the payoff of his political rhetoric…he is our best hope to tie together the fraying strands of our political will into a powerful and productive vision of national destiny.”

Like a speech from Obama, these words say nothing…and everything.


Notes:

*But note the emotional rhetorical flourish (a “1-in-10” kind of blind shot) when Chesler throws in at the end “one more thing”: that she’s supporting her “because she is a woman”!

+In the order of the articles, except with Richardson and Obama reversed (one must save the best to last, of course!)



Living, Philosophy of (I)

I’ve got no lead (lede?) whatsoever for this one, except that “It should be obvious by now to my theoretical readership that there is something going on consistently in this blog, and sometimes it just has to be spelled out.” Maybe better to say “…it just has to spill out”—does that flow better?

In the perfect society, as envisioned by the Taoist sages, people would not need to ask themselves why they live the way they do. They would be fully committed to the life they live and would find their motivation from the intrinsic value of what they did. This notion is very close to the artistic ideal, though I would admit that my description of it overemphasizes the product and does not give full value to the process.

Human life is not perfect, though, and a philosophy of living must help people deal with inevitable dislocations from their perfect path: sickness, death, conflict with others, failure. What we need in our difficult moments is the wisdom gained from others’ experiences and their hard learning, with the hope that it may either prevent or ameliorate our problems.

I see this as the genesis of the Tao te ching by Lao-tse. The traditional story of its provenance is that of a middle-aged, middle-level official of the ancient Chinese empire, named Li Erh, who was leaving the empire’s boundaries for parts unknown. A border guard sought his wisdom for the benefit of civilized society, and “The Book of The Way and Its Power” was the result.

It was only the dislocation—before, we can hypothesize, he was content in his job and place in society, but now he clearly was not--and the sage’s pity for us Left Behind which caused us to receive those deep, cryptic notes. In the Tao te ching, though there are hints about ultimate realities, the guidance for “the Prince”—the many would-be practitioners who would receive these words—has to do with getting it right the first time, about making one’s way through life as it is, not fixing things. If one can not be directly the agent for Tao, at least one can proceed from second principles: how It works in the real world.

Unlike the ancient Chinese Old Master, the Greek philosophers—at least the ones of the Socratic school—saw the practice and study of philosophy itself as an ideal vocation for life. The ideal philosopher’s role, as portrayed through the example of Socrates’ death and Plato’s “cave analogy”, was to bring light unto mankind (more accurately, to help us to find it for ourselves), so that we would move toward it in our lives. For them, as for the second great Taoist philosopher Chuang-tse, and for the later Romantics and Marxists, the principal motivation was somehow dealing with this gap between the real and ideal; the art of the project was in the beauty of the objective: attempting to redeem humanity.

What was not artistic, as it turned out, was the product of their struggles. Their actions produce the drama of history, and sometimes even changes in our lives, in the form of the progress that makes our lives more complex, less pure. Hence, the Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times!” In today’s world, as in all eras of civilization so far, we must keep our heads down if we don’t want them to be lopped off by the wild swings of those who prescribe for others. This is the source of our reverence for classic conservatism.

Most people, most of the time, have had neither the luxury nor the distancing required to look around and examine their place in the scheme of things. They learn, as part of their native culture, their “parochial” view of these far-off First Movers—the gods. The stories that thrived and survived—our great religions—even gave us comfort with our place within it. At least they helped make it bearable.

In our time, we—many of us, anyway—have more space for maneuver. We are not as bound by the accidents of our birth, our race, gender, nor even the locally-accepted view of cosmology. We can accept that the design has its intelligence within its manifestations (the Darwinist view); we can insist that the intelligence is inherent in the design; or we can make our own design, if we have the time, the intelligence, and the discipline.

It can hardly be wrong for us to live our lives in the way we think best, but that design needs somehow to take into account the harm from the dislocations that others face, since we recognize that we must face them ourselves someday (my version of The Golden Rule, which all long-term successful philosophies and religions acknowledge). We can decry as folly the designs of those who live in this world without care for others or who deny their own vulnerability. Hence, we accept this central tenet, if not the practice, of our latter-day “liberals”.

In our lives, we have seen how dangerous it can be to come forward, to speak plainly, to try to rise above. We have seen that, while the ways in which one can express one’s ideas unmediated have flourished, most people absorb their information pre-chewed and artificially flavored. Our role model for exerting one’s influence positively while living artfully is Thomas Pynchon—as we imagine him—who moves the Monster with many small cuts, at a safe distance.