The Coulter Curve
posted by Kaimipono D. Wenger
What’s the opposite of a bell curve? How about a Coulter curve, where all of the numbers are either wonderful or terrible. Check out the Amazon reviews for Ann Coulter’s latest book, Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America:
Yes, that’s right. Out of 124 votes cast so far, 116 have been either ones or fives, and these have split almost perfectly down the middle (59 fives to 57 ones). Over 90% of people reviewing this book think that it’s either the worst book imaginable, or the best.
And the result of this crowdsourcing (to two very different crowds) is an average rating of three — which really seems oddly appropriate. Yes, you can put me in the 6% who probably wouldn’t give Coulter either a one or a five. I haven’t yet read this book as of yet, but if it’s anything like her others — and reviews indicate that it’s quite similar — then a three seems just about right.
Why neither a one nor a five? Because Colter’s books tend to be neither wonderful nor terrible. Coulter is a witty polemicist (like many polemicists, her perceived wittiness often correlates with the degree of agreement one has for her substantive views) with real talent for phrasing and timing. She’s quite gifted with many others of the polemicist’s tools, including zingers, one-liners, and cruel labels.
At the same time, Coulter’s writing is limited. She tends to stick to polemics only. Even within polemics, she typically chooses to go for easy laughs — how many gratuitous Teddy Kennedy references can a person make? — rather than more in-depth analysis. Also, not unusual for a polemicist, she tends to present starkly one-sided analysis and turn molehills into mountains.
Given those pluses and minuses, a three sounds about right. It looks like Amazon’s crowdsourcing gets it right — albeit through a very odd and circuitous route.
January 12, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Posted in: Politics
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Responses (51)
Daniel J. Solove - January 12, 2009 at 10:59 pm
I differ from all Amazon voters. I give it 0 stars. Granted, I haven’t read it, nor will I.
Patrick S. O'Donnell - January 13, 2009 at 12:08 am
I’m with Dan on this one: According any attention whatsoever in the direction of Ms. Coulter makes by comparison the choice for “bread and circuses” a noble and elevating act.
anon - January 13, 2009 at 12:10 am
Dan, I am no fan of Coulter, but you should know that your line above is an old Soviet classic, sent by countless blue-collar workers to central newspapers in the 70s: “I’ve never read Solzhenitsin, but I know his books are terrible!” Except those folks were ordered to write this crap.
Patrick S. O'Donnell - January 13, 2009 at 1:03 am
anon:
I suspect those workers could at least spell his name right!
Bruce Boyden - January 13, 2009 at 2:03 am
I’m opposed to polemics, even witty ones, from anyone, liberal or conservative. A nought on both their houses.
Hauk - January 13, 2009 at 9:27 am
As someone well on the opposite end of the political spectrum from Ann Coulter, I can’t imagine ever wasting my time reading one of her books. As a result, I find all those “one” rankings extremely suspect… there’s no way that many people just happened to pick up her book and find it to be complete crap. Someone’s deliberately trying to skew the rankings.
A.W. - January 13, 2009 at 10:23 am
Amazon reader reviews have been so screwed up for so long that they are worthless as a source of information.
That goes double if we are talking about a politicized issue. there are people out there who thinks it matters a damn whether a person’s average reader review rating is good or bad, so the “bomb” into them and skew them one way or the other.
And even outside of these ideological battles, not too long ago, they discovered an alarming number of positive reviews were written by the authors themselves. supposedly amazon has protections in place to prevent that, but i do not believe for a moment that they have set up anything truly effective.
Really, in general, don’t trust that kind of wikified content.
anon - January 13, 2009 at 10:34 am
Patrick: if you knew anything about Solzhenitsin, you would’ve known that there is no “correct” spelling of his name in Latin alphabet. So, keep your gargantuan ignorance to yourself.
Patrick S. O'Donnell - January 13, 2009 at 11:19 am
Indeed: Soulsheneetsin. But we’re relying on the Latin alphabet as used in modern (contemporary) English, in which case there is a correct spelling of his name, as the appropriate lexicographical sources and common practice both attest.
I’m rather proud of my “gargantuan ignorance,” as it testifies to the truth of the maxim that “as the circle of light expands, so too does the surrounding circle of darkness.”
Patrick S. O'Donnell - January 13, 2009 at 11:35 am
Incidentally, I do know some things, among other things, about “Solzhenitsin:” that he had a proclivity for anti-Semitic views, that he saw fit to legitimate Putin’s crypto-fascism, that he welcomed too close an identity between Russian nationalism and the Orthodox Church, that he had simple-minded views on Marx’s writings, that he supported the bombing of Vietnam and thought Daniel Ellsberg to be a “traitor”….
A.J. Sutter - January 13, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Patrick, I will resist the temptation to minimize your ignorance if you’re so proud of it
, but only point out that the surrounding circle of darkness could still expand even if the circle of light doesn’t.
A.J. Sutter - January 13, 2009 at 12:28 pm
BTW, as to the original point, the kind of distribution shown in the Coulter reviews is known as a “bathtub curve”, at least in manufacturing (rotate it 90° to the left and put time on the X-axis, and it represents a typical pattern of product failures). Whether that name or its usual significance might be evocative of anything in the present context is in the eye of the beholder.
Patrick S. O'Donnell - January 13, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Fair enough A.J.! But even if permitted by the nomological principles of physics (?), that scientific fact doesn’t accord well with the point of the maxim, so let’s ignore it for the sake of the homily, if only because “anon” will make too much of it.
And it seems my ignorance of these distribution curves is boundless.
anon - January 13, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Patrick: oh, how cute — you just read a Wikipedia article on Solzhenitsin and posted a summary of it for all of us to read! Applause. Because, you know, your comment above listed that stuff about Solzhenitsin, including Vietnam and Ellsberg, that the English-language Wikipedia article contains — and nothing that a person who learned about Solzhenitsin from other sources would first think of. The Ellsberg part was a dead (and well-known) giveaway; just hilarious. Also, nice try diverting attention from Solove’s comment, and its troubling parallels, and into a debate on the proper latinization of Cyrillic words. And how sweet of you to announce that the commercial spelling on Solzhenitsin’s name on the West constitutes the “correct” spelling.
By the way, I am no fan of Solzhenitsin – quite the opposite. But the fact that he held lots of freaky views has nothing to do with my point that the Soviet workers who wrote denouncements of his books without having read those books acted just like Solove above – and not Solove alone.
Nate Oman - January 13, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Anyone who does not appreciate the literary value of invective needs to spend some time with Cicero. While I am generally right of center (especially on this blog!), I am not a fan of Coulter or the rest of what David Frum rightly calls say-it-louder-conservatism. That said, I can appreciated a few well crafted digs at the opposition.
Patrick S. O'Donnell - January 13, 2009 at 1:49 pm
No, I recently read about Solzhenitsin in the Times Literary Supplement (specifically, the Letters section over a series of issues), but thanks for letting me what I’ve read and somehow forgot (I do have those ’senior’ moments now and again–just ask the wife)! I’m delighted to learn Wikipedia has this information and I’m happy to cite from there if it will help keep your blood pressure down. But perhaps humoring you will do the trick: in any case, I’m glad to oblige.
How did I divert attention from Solove’s comment when I explictly endorsed it, identified with it, applauded it, what have you (the blogging equivalent thereof)? My goodness, it’s a blog thread we’re all having a bit of fun with (well, almost all of us). You’re perhaps taking this a bit too seriously, but either way, please don’t deny me my fun (it’s that all work and no play thing).
Tell you what: I’ll even let you have the last word on the spelling thing if it matters so much to you.
All good wishes my anonymous friend.
Your humbled servant,
Patrick
anon - January 13, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Patrick: it is simply hilarious that someone who has taken a habit of spamming blog comments with other people’s course reading lists to substitute for an actual argument would take his info on a major 20th-centure figure from a newspaper’s Letters section. Hilarious, but not surprising. And, once again, you’ve provided a nice example of many words without a single coherent argument on any subject.
Patrick S. O'Donnell - January 13, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Oh, one last thing: Solove did NOT act at all like those Soviet workers (nor did they act like him). He simply announced to us that he has not read her book nor is planning to. It’s not even remotely a credible analogy: Coulter is not a public figure at all close (literally or figuratively) in stature or renown to Solzhenitsin; Solove is one man, sans blue collar, making one voluntary blog comment for comparatively few of us to read; and, as you note, he was not instructed or ordered by anyone to post his comment. Oh, but wait, he didn’t read her book and won’t, and they didn’t read Solzhenitsin, but made coerced public proclamations about how awful his works were, presumably in order to produce ideological effects favorable to the Party-State, or some such thing.
I see now, just like Solove! Perhaps Solove is a communist! Or, rather, pretending to act like a communist! (and not doing a very good job of it, dressed the way he is…well, his collar looks pale blue in the picture, but I suspect there are few truly prolelatarian law profs, even among the left/mpm/clt bunch).
Egg Nog - January 13, 2009 at 3:35 pm
I give it 10 stars. And I won’t read it either.
Patrick S. O'Donnell - January 13, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Oh my goodness, it’s clear now: you’re the annoying troll who follows me around the blogosphere to decry my reading references. Please ignore them, I’m really sorry they intimidate you so. Perhaps if you read some of the titles therein you’d learn something.
Who was claiming or attempting to make an argument here?
Oh, yes, yours was an exquisite exhibition of rational argumentation.
“Other people’s course reading lists”?
Please spare me your nonsense. You have absolutely no idea about what you’re talking about. I’ve composed all of my Directed Reading bibliographies and other lists wholly on my own and have never consulted any “course lists” (indeed, my worldview bibliographies are my own course lists for about 10 years now). In fact, my lists have been distributed to specialists in the respective fields and are found at not a few libraries for research purposes.
I take my information from wherever I choose to, it just so happened I was recently reading the TLS (I know, a bit too highbrow for you). So what? You’re free to visit my home and have a look at my library, even borrow few things if you’d like (especially the stuff off the floor). Maybe the day before that I was reading Boris Kagarlitsky on Solzhenitsin, So what? Who cares? Oh, you do.
But, again, I’m glad you’re laughing.
Sweet talk was to no avail.
You are a coward. By all means come and visit me as I’d relish the chance to speak with you in person. You’ll get a taste of blue-collar righteousness…and it will be my turn to laugh.
Kaimi - January 13, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Anon / anti-Patrick person, that’s enough. You’ve expressed your opinion. If you’ve got a further beef with Patrick, take it elsewhere.
Hauk - January 13, 2009 at 9:51 pm
Anon / anti-Patrick person, that’s enough. You’ve expressed your opinion. If you’ve got a further beef with Patrick, take it elsewhere.
Come on, at least be even-handed about it and tell Patrick to cut it out, too.
anon - January 14, 2009 at 11:17 am
Kaimi: you’ve got a problem, and that problem is not me. Patrick has been spamming this blog with his endless diatribes, made up mostly of bizarre epithets and loosely-connected strings of citations, destroying any nascent discussion, damaging threads after interesting posts, to the point of making the blog unreadable. I have not complained about his trolling before, but I am not surprised that someone else did, and I can understand why Patrick would prefer to believe that he is a victim of a single right-wing follower, rather than a subject of ridicule by, and the cause of annoyance to, multiple readers. I’ve stopped reading the Prawfs after Markel chose not to remove Patrick’s repeated, ignorant, and insulting lectures on public law subjects directed, of all people, at Rick Hills! Patrick has done the same thing in this tread too, starting with an unsolicited patronizing lecture in my address, even though it became immediately obvious that I knew what I was talking about, and he didn’t. All of this culminated into one of his usual long-winded unintelligible rants cataloguing his glory and accusing everyone of conspiracy. It is simply impossible to read a tread once Patrick showed up on it. Guys, I wish you best — it would be too bad if yet another blog ends up damaged by trolling.
Patrick S. O'Donnell - January 14, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Everyone is perfectly free to read what I’ve written…or not. Everyone is perfectly free to check my citations and references…or not. Everyone is perfectly free to engage me in discussion or debate…or not.
Ask Kevin Jon Heller of Opinio Juris, Dean Jim Chen of Jurisdynamics Network, Alan Childress and Jeff Lipshaw of the Legal Profession Blog, John Steele and Monroe Freedman of the Legal Ethics Forum, Ann Bartow of Feminist Law Professors blog, Mary Dudziak of the Legal History Blog, Adam Kolber of the Neuroethics & Law Blog, Manyul Im of Manyul Im’s Chinese Philoosphy Blog, Haider Hamoudi of the Islamic Law in Our Times blog, the good folks at Balkinizatrion, Steven Schwinn of the Constitutional Law Blog, the good folks of the Workplace Prof Blog, Dan and his co-bloggers at Dorf on Law, Daniel Goldberg of the Medical Humanities Blog, among others, if they concur with your mean-spirited, inaccurate as well as libelous and slanderous characterizations and accusations.
And defense of my good name is perfectly compatible with the fact that I do not in any way whatsoever “feel like a victim” (unlike, say, the many Palestinians injured and killed by the IDF in the current invasion in Gaza).
How gutless and cowardly it is to utter such things under a pseudonym.
[For the record, my wife said, 'you should not respond to such stuff' but I chose, at least on this occasion, to ignore her otherwise sagacious advice.]
My goodness, that I would have the temerity, the audacity, the chutzpah, to criticize the ideas or challenge the claims, or disagree with the views of Rick Hills! Just who do I think I am?
I’ve never “catalogued my glory” because I possess none (little glory in being a very adjunct instructor at a community college while supplementing one’s income with labor-intensive work at over 50 yrs. of age!).
A.W. - January 14, 2009 at 5:00 pm
For my two cents…
Patrick, even if you are correct, that was pointlessly snotty. No one appreciates having their grammar publicly corrected, even if they were wrong. And i say that having no idea who was right or wrong.
That’s now the second time you have been snotty in my “presence” in a way that was not at all constructive. I might add that you have gone from defending communist regimes to employing their tactics. Interesting…
Finally, what is the point of “reviewing” a book you haven’t read? It just comes down to “I hate Ann Coulter as a human being.” Well, okay, but on what planet do you think you just conveyed useful information?
Now, sometimes you can decide you want to avoid a book before you even pick it up. Mostly that occurs when non-fiction is demonstrated to be dishonest, because what is the point in reading a book meant to inform you when you know it will be misinformation? But something tells me that THAT isn’t your argument in Coulter’s case.
Instead I would guess that you find her obnoxious. Which would be ironic, given your even more pointlessly obnoxious behavior.
Anyway, guys, GIGO is the watchword: garbage in, garbage out. So don’t trust a bunch of silly wikified reviews, or wikipedia for that matter. any idiot can write that, and, in this particular case, review the author as a human being, rather than as a writer. Wikipedia, for example, has at times claimed that Condolezza Rice was an accomplished “concert penis.” And let’s not forget that it is cranks on the web who give rise to the various “truther” movements.
Patrick S. O'Donnell - January 14, 2009 at 6:08 pm
A.W.,
That was indeed two cents worth, after inflation.
I care not one whit if you think I’ve been what you tendentiously term “snotty” in your “presence”–get over yourself. And I’m not at all concerned one way or another if an anonymous blogger doesn’t like learning of an improper spelling of a proper name (at least as a conventional norm: there may be exceptions to the rule and perhaps our case was one of those, hence my willingness to concede that later on in the thread, indeed, I used the alternative spelling myself, or did you not notice?).
Who claimed to review the book? Dan? Me? OK, the “Amazon Reviewers,” but one should hardly entertain high expectations from that bunch on anything (well, yes, I have myself reviewed a book there), and thus not be surprised if putative reviewers have not read the book, especially given the kind of distributional curve A.J. explained to us.
Anyway, that’s beside the point and thus irrelevant: Some of us have heard enough from Ann Coulter to come to the informed and sensible conclusion that whatever she writes is not worth reading. My money is better spent on books like Angela Davis’s Arbitrary Justice (2007), Wolff and De-Shalit’s Disadvantage (2007), C.A.J. Coady’s Morality and Political Violence (2008), Morgan and Gordon, eds., Modern Jewish Philosophy (2007), etc., etc. (and to pick from the pile right next to me). With limited budgets it’s important to exercise wise discretion in the books one decides to purchase (assuming one buys books), and it would seem prudent if not wise to not waste money on something written by Ms. Coulter. That’s my opinion, and you need not share it. BTW: Having such a view hardly amounts to claiming–”comes down to”–”I hate Ann Coulter as a human being.” Speaking for myself, I don’t hate her as a human being, rather, I detest her political views, indeed, I find not a few of them utterly repugnant and appalling. I don’t think that reflects well on her character or personality, but that hardly justifies hating the woman as a human being. I suspect many who share my views on her intellectual products (such as they are) would say likewise.
And who in their right mind has put their trust or faith in “a bunch of silly wikified reviews, or wikipedia for that matter”? Nobody here as far as I can tell, so that’s what’s known as a straw man or red herring, is it not?
Finally, you have no idea what I think about communist regimes, Party-State Communism, Maoism, Stalinism, etc., as I’ve never attempted to explain my views on same here or anywhere. I have never “defended communist regimes” simpliciter. You are drawing conclusions that are not at all warranted from what I wrote. This suggests to me that you are neither a careful or thoughtful reader. And yet you’re quite adept at ol’ fashioned red-baiting, and that amounts to an instance of a fallacious ad hominem that is simultaneously abusive and circumstantial! Please, pray tell us, what specifically communist tactics I’ve employed. Such an accusation actually trivializes in a disturbing manner political tactics that Communists around the world have in fact historically employed, be it during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the assassination of Trotsky, or Stalinist purge trials: but by all means, insinuate that my blog comments are on par with all that! Precious. And, for what’s worth, I am in fact proud to proclaim myself a communist with a lower-case “c.” As I’m confident you have not an inkling as to what that might mean, the following gives a taste of ONE tradition in this country that it identifies with and is therefore inspired by:
‘We might borrow a term from the American philosopher Robert Nozick and consider America, in this aspect, as meta-utopia. In this conception, utopia is not one community, one vision of the good life, but a “framework for utopias,” a place which freely allows people to form and re-form themselves into utopian communities of diverse kinds. [….] Nineteenth-century America was this meta-utopia on a grander and more generous scale than ever before or since. The vast size of its still relatively unsettled territory, coupled with the utopian notions that accompanied its entire development as a nation, drew utopian groups to it as to a magnet. On both physical and ideological grounds, nineteenth-century America was the ideal framework for utopias in Nozick’s sense. It set up a dynamic counterpoint between the larger national experiment—America as utopia—and the host of small experimental communities, each pursuing its individual utopian vision. Meta-utopia, like utopia, produced a characteristic literature, the literature of the experimental community. There were the reports and survey of founders, sympathizers and observers, such as John Humphrey Noyes’s History of American Socialisms (1870), Charles Nordhoff’s The Communistic Societies of the United States (1875) and William Alfred Hinds’ American Communities (1878). Noyes founded Oneida; Hinds was a founding-member of it. There was also the autobiographies and memoirs of those who had actually been born or lived for much of their time in utopian communities, such Frederick Williams Evans’s Autobiography of a Shaker (1869), Robert Dale Owen’s Twenty-Seven Years of Autobiography (1874) and Pierrepont Noyes’s My Father’s House: An Oneida Boyhood (1937). All these combine, to a remarkable degree, personal involvement and sympathy with a wide-ranging outlook and refreshingly clear-sighted analysis.’ [...]
Indeed,
‘[T]here was probably more genuine communism practiced in nineteenth-century America than in any society, at any time, beyond the hunting and gathering stage. This certainly seemed self-evident to many Europeans. The young Friedrich Engels was among the many European socialists who were stirred by the reports of the American communities, and who first looked to them to provide the example and model for European communism. “The first people in America,” wrote Engels, “and indeed in the world who brought into realization a society founded on the community of property were the so-called Shakers.” The American communities, he confidently declared, had demonstrated that “communism, the social life and work based on the common possession of goods, is…not only possible but has actually been realized…and with the best result.” The communities were themselves to a good extent the product of a wider movement of reform that enthusiastically embraced socialism. Socialism in mid-nineteenth-century America was far from being the “un-American” thing it has now become.’ (Krishan Kumar)
Patrick S. O'Donnell - January 14, 2009 at 6:10 pm
A.W.
Thanks in advance for pointing out any typos or grammatical errors.
Maryland Conservatarian - January 14, 2009 at 7:52 pm
well, that was fun…my favorite line of the back and forth was Patrick’s:
“Some of us have heard enough from Ann Coulter to come to the informed and sensible conclusion that whatever she writes is not worth reading. My money is better spent on books like Angela Davis’s Arbitrary Justice (2007)…”
Well, I don’t buy Ms. Coulter’s books either but I’ve heard enough from Angela Davis to come to the informed and sensible conclusion that whatever she writes is not worth reading. My money is better spent on books like Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism (2008)…
Side Note: Professor Oman writes: “While I am generally right of center (especially on this blog!)…”
Are you kidding? On this blog, you are Ann Coulter!
Patrick S. O'Donnell - January 14, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Davis has impeccable academic and professional credentials of the sort that contribute to important legal scholarship, in this case, an excellent book on the abuse of prosecutorial discretion, a topic that should concern even conservatives of libertarian suasion. Davis teaches criminal law and criminal procedure as a Professor of Law at American University Washington College of Law. Among other items, she’s co-edited a book on criminal procedure. Prior to that, she was a public defender at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, eventually becoming the agency’s director.
More pertinent biographical information (see http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/crimprof_blog/2008/08/angela-j-davis.html#comments):
Davis is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Peter M. Cicchino Social Justice Foundation, the Frederick Douglas Jordan Scholarship Board, the Southern Center for Human Rights, and the Sentencing Project. She was a reporter for the ABA Justice Kennedy Commission and is a member of the ABA Commission for Effective Criminal Sanctions. Davis also serves as a member of the Advisory Board for the Vera Institute of Justice Prosecution and Racial Justice Project. She teaches Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, and Criminal Defense: Theory and Practice. Davis won the American University Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching in a Full-Time Appointment in 2002.
Oxford University Press had ample justification for publishing her timely analysis and “sensible [proposal] for comprehensive review and reform.”
Perhaps we could get someone like Orin Kerr to read the book (assuming he hasn’t, which may of course be a mistaken assumption) and offer us his professional opinion.
A.W. - January 15, 2009 at 9:31 am
Patrick
> I care not one whit if you think I’ve been what you tendentiously term “snotty” in your “presence”–get over yourself.
Wow, the irony of that last sentiment is so thick you can cut it with a knife. After cranking up the snottiness to 11, you then say “get over yourself”—a comment that is stunning in its lack of self-awareness.
> And I’m not at all concerned one way or another if an anonymous blogger doesn’t like learning
Oh, give me a break. You do care, and your purpose was to belittle him, because you didn’t really have a good response. He nailed you substantively and you dickered about spelling. Who exactly do you think you are fooling?
> but one should hardly entertain high expectations from that bunch on anything
Agreed.
> Some of us have heard enough from Ann Coulter to come to the informed and sensible conclusion that whatever she writes is not worth reading.
Wow, how completely close-minded you are. How do you know she writes as she speaks? How do you know she wrote this book how she spoke?
All this really is, is you defending the ideological gaming of the system going on over there. What it comes down to is you are blinded by ideology to the point that you think that dishonesty in a “good cause” is justified on a regular basis. Here’s a hint: outside the conduct of actual battlefield operations in war, or in espionage, it is almost never justified. Every time you lie to the public, what you are really saying is “I don’t believe in democracy.” But then, you are a Commie, so that is hardly surprising.
And you whine a lot about the cost of the books. Okay, then wait for it on paperback. Or go to the library.
> My money is better spent on books like…
Oh, God, you just can’t help yourself, can you?
> I don’t hate her as a human being, rather, I detest her political views,
Which in your strain of politics is just about the same thing.
> And who in their right mind has put their trust or faith in “a bunch of silly wikified reviews, or wikipedia for that matter”? Nobody here as far as I can tell, so that’s what’s known as a straw man or red herring, is it not?
Lying is lying, dishonesty is dishonesty. The fact that a person shouldn’t believe the liar doesn’t let the liar off the hook. But you are ready to do so.
And besides you are defending this behavior because you are counting on others believing such reviews; and you are terrified that someone might read her stuff and, oh no, agree with at least some of what she wrote.
> Finally, you have no idea what I think about communist regimes,
You certainly have shown much less skepticism about the claims of communist regimes than of anything coming from Coulter’s mouth.
> I have never “defended communist regimes” simpliciter.
Yes, you have. Really, who do you think you are fooling on this?
> Such an accusation actually trivializes in a disturbing manner political tactics that Communists around the world have in fact historically employed
So you say, while behaving like a classical Maoist.
> And, for what’s worth, I am in fact proud to proclaim myself a communist
Color me surprised.
> As I’m confident you have not an inkling as to what that might mean
I know what that means. That means you are one of those useful idiots who believes that if we let our betters be dictators for a while they will create “true” democracy. You’ll deny that, but that is because you are not an honest person.
But my oh my, the arrogance on display. If I don’t agree with you, I have to be ignorant, because lord knows communism and socialism has been such a ringing success that no one would ever know the theory but also think that despite utopian dreams that sound okay on paper, the reality is never so sweet.
And as for your long quoted passages, my God, don’t make me laugh. A few highlights:
> The vast size of its still relatively unsettled territory
Mmm, I don’t think the Cherokee, Sioux, Navajo, etc. would agree with that characterization.
> “The first people in America,” wrote Engels, “and indeed in the world who brought into realization a society founded on the community of property were the so-called Shakers.”
Mmm, yes, the people who believed that all sex, including in the context of marriage, was evil and therefore they didn’t do it. And of course that wonderful and perfect society is thriving today. /sarcasm
Of course Mark Steyn argues that the West today is engaged in Shakerism writ large, with the sole, hopeful exception of America. He’s one of those people you hope is wrong, but suspect is right.
Of course we could also quote George Fitzhugh who argued that slavery was the ultimate realization of socialism. He meant that as a compliment. How did those little plantation utopias work out?
You may consider that unduly harsh, but well, attempts at communism has murdered literally hundreds of millions of people around the world, from Jonestown to Nuremberg, to the USSR. How many people have to die before you figure out the whole project was a mistake? Perhaps a well-meaning one, but still nonetheless a mistake. Failure, bigotry, oppression and mass murder is not a “bug” in the communist system. It’s a feature.
Patrick S. O'Donnell - January 15, 2009 at 10:17 am
Some attempts at argument are not deserving of a response because they exhibit evidence of being conducted in bad faith, are unnecessarily ad hominem, show an inability to properly characterize the views of others, and are peppered with utterly bizarre statements on the order of “attempts at communism has murdered literally hundreds of millions of people around the world, from Jonestown to Nuremberg….”
I’ve been accused of not a few things over the years, but “behaving like a classical Maoist” is the first one I’ve heard that made me worry the accuser is exhibiting symptoms of some species of mental pathology, or perhaps from another planet (And that, my friend, is deservedly and non-fallaciously, ad hominem).
If you want to see some examples of how to conduct an argument, even in the blogosphere, see my post on the legalization of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict here: http://ratiojuris.blogspot.com/2009/01/beyond-militarization-legalization-of.html
Or the introduction to my post on Buddhism: http://ratiojuris.blogspot.com/2008/12/buddhism-basic-bibliography.html
Or my long-winded paper on critical thinking pedagogy: http://radicalpedagogy.icaap.org/content/issue8_1/odonnell.html
So, please forgive me if I move on to a more productive employment of my time.
Patrick S. O'Donnell - January 15, 2009 at 10:25 am
Incidentally, you can learn more about my thoughts on utopian thought and imagination here: http://ratiojuris.blogspot.com/2008/07/utopian-thought-imagination-part-1.html
and here: http://ratiojuris.blogspot.com/2009/01/utopian-thought-imagination-part-2.html
In a future post I’ll discuss, among other things, the virtues and shortcomings (i.e., attempt to ascertain the relevant contemporary value of) communal “experiments” with utopia.
A.W. - January 15, 2009 at 10:30 am
> Some attempts at argument are not deserving of a response because…
you have been so thoroughly shown up you don’t have anything left to say. Again, who do you think you are fooling? I just put a wrecking ball to just about everything you stand for and believe in.
Patrick S. O'Donnell - January 15, 2009 at 10:45 am
What you put a “wrecking ball to” was plausible argumentation, the formal and informal logic of real arguments, rational discussion, practical reasoning, critical thinking and the like. My beliefs, values, and principles remain firmly intact if not stronger than ever.
A.W. - January 15, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Patrick
Oh, right, real arguments like “you spelled his name wrong.” Rational discussion like, “I don’t feel like explaining myself, so here are ten books to read instead of me actually saying anything of value, and did I mention I had all of these books all around me because I want you to know I am such a learned (pronounced “learn-ED”) fellow.” Critical thought like “I refuse to read any book written by a person who disagrees with me.” And practical reasoning? What could be a less practical point of view than “communism can work”?
Look, I get it. I’ve known people like you all my life. You are deeply insecure about your own intelligence, and this is all about trying to make people think you are smarter than you are. So this is a drama of self-construction, as well as self-deception, where you try to tell yourself that you were perfectly rational, debating idea for idea and so forth, even though you really weren’t. Because the point isn’t to convince me or anyone else. It’s to convince yourself. It’s sad and wasteful, because if you devoted as much energy to actual reason as you do to being a snot, you would be much more useful to our society.
Patrick S. O'Donnell - January 15, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Again, I’m in hasty retreat to the darkness and comforts of the Platonic cave, blinded by the brilliance of your intellect, dazzled by the sparkle of your wit, even burned by the depths of your psychological discernment. I’m dumbfounded and awestruck by the strength of your argument, your facility with the faculty of reason, your clear and keen capacity for psychological assessment.
You’re wasting your gifts and talents with comments on this blog, as we’d be better served by your published thoughts, your public service and leadership, your shining example. I can’t run back fast enough with my tail between my legs and join the other dim-witted and dull denizens of the cave. I can’t thank you enough for showing us how to break the shackles of self-deception, how to be free from the fetters of self-denial so as to be better fitted for that journey of emancipation and enlightenment you’ve blazed on the path from the City of Darkness to the Celestial City.
Patrick S. O'Donnell - January 15, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Erratum: “states of denial”
A.W. - January 15, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Translation: you have been beaten, you have nothing substantive to say, but you can’t possibly keep from replying because that would make the fact you were outmatched too obvious, so you blather for about two paragraphs, saying nothing but “you’re full of yourself.”
And witness a truly remarkable phenomenon: a continually snotty man who accuses someone else of being is full of himself. The mind boggles. You really don’t have any sense of self-awareness, do you?
Patrick S. O'Donnell - January 15, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Yes, I’ve been beaten, I have nothing substantive to say, I’ve obviously been outmatched, I’m completely full of myself.
Yes, I’m quite snotty and wholly bereft of even a modicum of self-awareness.
A.W. - January 15, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Watch you pathetically try to get some small victory out of this.
Heh.
Patrick S. O'Donnell - January 16, 2009 at 1:16 pm
OK, that last comment, although in keeping with the substance and tone of your earlier remarks, inspired me to look past the tiresome and tedious nature of this exchange and respond.
As I stated earlier, your are neither a careful nor thoughtful reader and you have a predilection for the fallacious resort to the abusive and circumstantial ad hominem argument. This means, in short, the conspicuous absence of either the taste or talent for enjoyable conversation or meaningful dialogue.
In fact, you’ve here displayed ample lack of the ability to discern a proper argument. First, it is important to be able to understand the dialogue form in which an argument is embedded, and there are at least six or seven of them, as Douglas Walton’s work makes plain. In this case, the nature of a blogging thread is akin to and thus in some respects resembles, an everyday conversation; it also features elements of a “persuasion,” “information-seeking” and, especially in the instant case, “educational” dialogue forms. In this thread, these forms eventually reduced to the most troubling dialogue form, namely, a “quarrel,” if only because of your fondness for the ad hominem argument, which relies above all on the method of personal attack and is defined by an air of emotional disquiet featuring slavish devotion to the primary agonistic goal of “hitting” out at the other, or simply attachment to a picture of the dialogue form as one that is identical in many respects to a “war” or “battle” (cf.: ‘outside the conduct of actual battlefield operations in war, or in espionage…’). Your repeated use of agonistic terms and imagery is testament enough to the tenacity with which you’ve cleaved to the quarrel form of dialogue. And the red-baiting and hurling of personal insults is clear and convincing proof that this is your preferred form of dialogue. In particular, the red-baiting and calling me “snotty” lend the overal tenor and tone to your replies. The former is of course reminiscent of the political climate of the Red Scare and specifically, McCarthyism, but perhaps you see it as a justifiable form of ideological cleansing.
Insofar as this was a “conversation,” my point of mentioning the spelling error did have an ulterior motive: to call attention to the self-importance and hubris of the comment made to Professor Solove. It was not made as an “argument,” so your repeated attempt to characterize it as such makes painfully clear you don’t understand the nature of an argument at all. Assuming you understand the dialogue form in which an argument is typically contained, you are better equipped to identify any and all arguments the form possesses, and they are not always easy to identify, as the works of Walton, but also that of Stephen Toulmin and Alec Fisher, enable us to appreciate.
Now, to reiterate, pointing out the putative spelling error was not an argument, and not only because I did not intend it to be such. However, my response to his defense of the spelling in question could be considered an argument if you wish, but given the dialogue form here, I did not invest much energy in the “argument,” nor did I care one way or another if, in the end, I was wrong: hence my willingness to concede the possibility of a technically acceptable alternative spelling, although, as stated I believe there is a (normatively: because lexicographically and conventionally supported) correct way to spell the name in question.
As the individual in question was “anonymous,” it is impossible to “belittle him” as there was no “him” there, indeed, perhaps it was a “she” or a trans-gender indiviudal, I have no idea. It’s impossible to belittle an anonymous commentator as their identity is unknown, and thus there is no “person” to be belittled. Of course your characterization of our exchange as “He nailed you substantively and you dickered about spelling,” misses the mark and once more is revealing about your inordinate fondness for the quarrel form of dialogue conducted in purely agonistic fashion. I did want to “belittle” *the remark* inasmuch as and for reasons I later spelled out, it was an awful analogy and really said nothing informative or interesting at all, apart from insinuating that Professor Solove was, and this you’ll well appreciate, acting like a communist dupe.
Incidentally, I’m not out to “fool” anyone. The fact that you repeat this accusation ad nauseum, along with repeatedly charging me with the lack of self-awareness, is a telling and troubling indication not only the inability to use the Principle of Charity (one of the things this principle entails is that ‘if interpreting as reasoning a passage which is not *obviously* reasoning yields only bad arguments, assume it is *not* reasoning) in an argument but a pathological tendency to infer motives and motivations when no such inferences are necessary to the exchange nor in any manner whatsover useful or productive to carrying on a rational exchange of ideas or arguing in a reasonable fashion. So it is reasonable to conclude from the above that you have no deep interest in or abiding concern for a rational argument if only because you flagrantly flout the conventions and norms of same. And when not doing that, you violate common norms of conversational etiquette. But I might also accord you the benefit of doubt in spite of your avowed belief that you are carrying on a rational argument and conclude, as a result of the Principle of Charity, that you are not reasoning at all but simply hurling insults (e.g., ‘close-minded’) and making bizarre insinuations (e.g., ‘blinded by ideology’ and ‘you defending the ideological gaming of the system’) and false imputations of motive (’you think that dishonesty in a “good cause” is justified on a regular basis.’). I’ll admit to feeling compelled to engage you in your preferred method of dialogue conducted in quarrelsome terms if only to make a point that you could understand, and perhaps as well for a bit of perverse fun, but I now regret doing so, for it only encouraged you to descend to ever deeper levels of the dialogue equivalent of Dante’s Hell.
The number and nature of the accusations and insults achieved its crowning glory in, nay, received its quintessential expression in, the following comment: “Every time you lie to the public, what you are really saying is ‘I don’t believe in democracy.’ But then, you are a Commie, so that is hardly surprising.” To unpack this would take far too much time and is probably not worth the effort, but I will state categorically that I have never “lied to the public” and you have not a jot of plausible evidence to the contrary. What is more, while I need not jusitfy my commitment to democratic ideals, principles and practices to you, unsuspecting readers who might think there is an iota of truth to your ridiculously churlish if not juvenile remark would be interested to know that several parts of a massive bibliography on democratic theory and practice I put together were in fact published in two issues of the journal, The Good Society (in 2005 and 2006). Not a few political scientists and political philosopers (who specialize in this area) have personally informed me of how helpful this compilation was. You might also ask students who attended my class on “political thinking” at the local college: this course is principally about democratic theory and praxis from ancient Greece to the contemporary period. My students would be happy to inform you of what I think about “democracy.” But of course, I don’t really believe in democracy, for you’ve said as much, so you’ll find some way to put an Orwellian spin on these facts and inform us of how this is yet further evidence of my disdain for democracy. But what it is really evidence of is your utter disregard for truth and a corresponding talent for hurling invectives of one kind or another.
I do not “whine” about the cost of books, I complain about their cost, as do a lot of respectable people I know. And most of us are with Erasmus: “When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.” I complain not only because I’m not wealthy, but because the cost of books has been dramatically rising (especially but not only law books) and this creates no small amount of tension in our household when I would prefer to buy books rather than more sensible things like food and clothes.
“My money is better spent on books like…
Oh, God, you just can’t help yourself, can you?”
Indeed, I can’t help but point out that instead of buying Coulter’s book, or one like it, my money is more prudently if not wisely spent on books with some degree of intellectual heft and substance on subjects that are closer to my heart. And owing to my educational background and ardent avocational pursuits, I happen to prefer books more theoretical and philosophical in nature. Which is to say I also don’t read the more popular or best-selling books written by Liberals or Leftists (there’s really very few of the latter around anymore) either.
You should enroll in a critical thinking course, a class in introductory philosophy, or at least spend some time studying the art of rhetoric as well as the art and science of hermeneutics so as to save yourself from indulging in howlers like this:
“I don’t hate her as a human being, rather, I detest her political views…
Which in your strain of politics is just about the same thing.”
It is not the same thing. If you had had an introductory course on philosophy you might have learned that it is important most of the time (there are exceptions which I won’t take the trouble to explain here) to separate the personhood or character of the speaker from the argument or ideas being spoken so as to more fairly assess the logic and reason of those ideas on their own, that is to say, without needlessly importing bias or prejudice or distorting emotional reactions into that evaluative exercise. I do not hate Ann Coulter. You have no justification whatsoever to find a hidden meaning behind that assertion. What is more, you are really clueless as to “my strain of politics.” My worldview is in fact beholden to several Eastern religio-philosophical traditions, Liberalism (which includes the likes of Locke, Hobbes, Mill, etc.), classical Greek philosophy, Marxist and anarchist traditions, philosophy of science, etc., etc. You cannot always and easily deduce from this worldview a politics that is readily identifiable on the existing spectrum of political views, even if I most often subscribe to views that are to the Left side of Mirabeau’s geography of the Assembly. That fails to explain or account for those political views which I have that are more Confucian or even Gandhian in inspiration, for example. So you have no inkling whatsoever as to my “strain of politics.”
I have no idea what you intended to communicate by the following:
“Lying is lying, dishonesty is dishonesty. The fact that a person shouldn’t believe the liar doesn’t let the liar off the hook. But you are ready to do so.”
…but I will state that I don’t in general believe in letting “liars of the hook,” be it Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, or Pol Pot. Now the person who lies about the whereabouts of the intended (possible) victim of a murderer so as to protect that person from being discovered by the murderer, that individual I can honestly “let off the hook.”
In any case, the fact that you relied on a straw man and red herring remains unassailable.
I’m not at all terrified that someone might read Coulter’s stuff and I’ve never done anything whatsoever to stop them, nor do I fancy myself possessing any such power whatsoever. In fact, I’ve long been resigned to the fact that people will read and watch all sorts of mindless crap and that is their right or prerogative. Do I wish it was otherwise? Of course, I will do everything in my power to contribute to the emergence of culture in which the likes of Coulter have little or no influence, but I’ll do the same for “reality” TV shows, backbiting gossip, gangsterism, etc., indeed, I still believe in the Arnoldian ideal of “sweetness and light.”
I am likewise not at all terrified by people believing in Coulter’s views because I’m certain there are aleady many such folks. In fact, the views I subscribe to are rather unfashionable and belong to a very small minority and I don’t expect that to change in my lifetime or even the lifetime of my children’s children. I’ve long reconciled myself to this and other such facts (like people listeing to Rush Limbaugh on the radio). The hoi polloi do and believe in a number of disturbing or strange things but I’ve never looked to them for guidance or inspiration nor have I envisaged any dramatic change on that score in the near future. In fact, as Erich Fromm argued, “just as there is a folie à deux, so there is a folie à millions: ‘the fact that millions of people share the same form of mental pathology does not make these people sane.’”
“You certainly have shown much less skepticism about the claims of communist regimes than of anything coming from Coulter’s mouth.”
To repeat, you have absolutely no idea what I think about (the claims of) communist regimes, as I’ve never expressed any thoughts on those claims nor relied on those claims to talk about anything involving a current or previous communist regime.
Ditto: “I have never ‘defended communist regimes’ simpliciter.
Indeed, I have not, and if you believe to the contrary, show us where I defended a communist regime simpliciter. I have never done that. Again, I have never defended a communist regime as such. Need I repeat myself again? How many times do I need to say it before it sinks in? Of course, no matter how many times I say it you’ll believe otherwise, as that is intrinsic to red-baiting and symptomatic of your constitutional inability to accurately and carefully read and characterize the thoughts of others.
And again, “Such an accusation actually trivializes in a disturbing manner political tactics that Communists around the world have in fact historically employed.”
The red-baiting and false accusations are relentless and shameless: “So you say, while behaving like a classical Maoist.”
And again, the point of my earlier comment hits its target (to use the agonistic imagery you favor).
I have done nothing in a blogging thread that remotely resembles in even a figurative fashion, the “behavior of a classical Maoist.” To claim otherwise is to expose the depth and breadth of your ignorance of the behavior of “classical Maoists.” It suggests to us that you have no idea of what you’re talking about, but are all-too-adept at indulging in ad hominen insults that swarm in the muck and mire of ideological epithets.
You still evidence no idea whatsoever about what it means to call oneself a “communist” with a lower-case “c,” like Jesus and his disciples, or the early Chrisitan communities, or members of the Catholic Worker movement or those in liberation theology base communities in Central and South America, or what Ganbdhi endeavored to instantiate with his use of the ashramic ideal as part of his satyagraha campaigns and sarvodaya movement, etc., etc. It’s first and foremost about a kind of spiritual and ethical orientation that holds an individualist moral ethic up as a standard for politics or social praxis. It refuses to countenance a divide between an ethics for the individual in his or her private life and in the intimate realm and that on a collective plane or in the conventional political sphere. That is, there is no “double standard” here, and as an ethical conviction it runs contrary to dominant political theories of both Conservative and Liberal provenance.
But when I stated before you that you had no idea what I meant, you yet again provided us with evidence that that is in fact the case. But of course to call me an “idiot” and a “dishonest person” will decide the question in a rational way. You are free to ask my friends, family members, neighbors, co-workers, colleagues, students, even casual acquaintances, if they think I’m an idiot and dishonest. I suspect you’ll find that you are all alone on a deserted island when it comes to that judgment. But feel free to shout, because maybe, just maybe, someone, somewhere, will hear you.
Your throwaway remarks about communism and socialism simply show that you are not well-versed in the subject. You could not have read deeply or widely in the literature on same (for just a taste of the better part of that literature, at least of the more theoretical and philosophical sort, see here:
http://ratiojuris.blogspot.com/2008/12/marx-marxism-very-select-bibliography.html
I used those passages to illustrate the vigor of a utopian tradition of communism in this country from which we still have much to learn. The quote from Kumar which you chose to highlight was attempting to convey the perspective of those “socialists” and “communists” (indeed many Americans of that era) and was not Kumar’s belief nor did it represent mine. It was an attempt at historical description and did not in any way make an evaluative claim about the belief itself. I’m therefore puzzled as to why you found it necessary to reply: “Mmm, I don’t think the Cherokee, Sioux, Navajo, etc. would agree with that characterization.” Nor do I, nor does Kumar, so what’s your point? Yet once again we have an illustration of your inability to carefully read something and your penchant for drawing implications or imagining inferences or making assumptions that are wholly unwarranted and thus patently irrational.
“Mmm, yes, the people who believed that all sex, including in the context of marriage, was evil and therefore they didn’t do it. And of course that wonderful and perfect society is thriving today. /sarcasm”
Look, people hold all sorts of beliefs, some more plausible and rational than others, some more psychologically healthy than others. But a typical worldview, Shaker or otherwise, may contain many true propositions as well as false ones, or ones in which the question of truth remains undecided or open. It does no good to throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater, which is just what “black-and-white” thinking is inclined to do: “Classifying every particular case as an example of one of two extremes when in fact there is a range of possible postions that can be occupied with the extremes. Black-and-white thinking occurs when you try to make the world fit very simple preconceived categories.” Many of your comments are perfect exemplars, textbook examples of such thinking.
As the best socialist thinking is grounded in principles of freedom and equality (see many of the works in the bibliography cited above; the Marxist notion of “the good” as self-realization exemplifies this, as do the works of John Roemer, Jon Elster, G.A. Cohen, Michael Harrington, Michael Luntley, David Schweickart, David Miller, to select just a handful of more recent cases), it is an oxymoron of the egregious sort to equate it with slavery. The magnitude of your incomprehension here is what remains frightening, and again alerts the “learned” reader that you have no idea whatsoever as to what you’re talking about.
I don’t hold Christians today responsible for the Inquisition nor the centuries of anti-Semitism cultivated and practiced by Christians with an horrific vengeance. I trust them to be accountable and responsible for their own understanding and avowed Christian faith, beliefs and values, including their sincere endeavors to live a life that incarnates that faith and belief. And God knows there’s all manner of Christian…and so too is there all manner of socialist and communist.
BTW: Communism had nothing whatsoever to do with Jonestown or Nuremburg.
“I refuse to read any book written by a person who disagrees with me.”
Well, you’re invited, like “anon,” to visit my library and see for yourself how it is chock full of titles with views I disagree with to one extent or another. Indeed, the many bibliographies I’ve assembled and made publicly available are representative of that library and contain all sorts of views, some of which I vigorously disagree with or dissent from. Oh, I forgot, I’m a snotty liar and communist, lacking in self-awareness and a victim of self-deception, completely full of myself, insecure about my intelligence and out to fool everyone. What is more, I’ve “been beaten,” “have nothing substantive to say,” and have “obviously been outmatched.”
Patrick S. O'Donnell - January 16, 2009 at 1:24 pm
please read “Christian” and “Gandhi” in place of the typos above
reader - January 16, 2009 at 2:00 pm
How is it that you all have time for this?
A.W. - January 16, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Patrick
Wow, a short novel designed to cover up a few things.
First, you complain in a long winded passage I won’t bother to quote (because, my God, you just go on and on, don’t you?) that I drew this into a quarrel. Mmm, yeah, like as if you starting off with snottily correcting his spelling didn’t have that effect. Again you astound us with your sense of self-awareness.
You complain I used an ad hominem, but the question was your conduct so what was I supposed to talk about?
And again, it shows your usual lack of self-awareness and hypocrisy. This is how the conversation flowed:
Anon compared you and Solove to propagandists who wrote: “”I’ve never read Solzhenitsin, but I know his books are terrible!”
You said he spelled his name wrong. Oh and “Solzhenitsin” was an evil anti-semite, etc. Which is an ad hominem attack on Solzhenitsin (however you spell it), and utterly irrelevant to whether it was right for those propagandists to do what they did, or for you to imitate them.
So you had ad homs flying around long before I engaged you here.
> And the red-baiting
Excuse me a second, but you ARE a communist. “Red baiting” is only wrong when you aren’t a red.
> and calling me “snotty” lend the overal tenor and tone to your replies.
Which I guess in your mind is worse than actually being a snot. *rolls eyes* But I love how that works. You are an snot, I call you on it, and you accuse me of ruining the tone of the conversation by calling you out for your snottiness.
> The former is of course reminiscent of the political climate of the Red Scare and specifically, McCarthyism,
Right. McCarthy went around accusing people of falsely being a communist. And here I am correctly accusing you of being a communist. Eerie how similar those scenarios are.
> my point of mentioning the spelling error did have an ulterior motive
So you admit after claiming at first you had none.
> to call attention to the self-importance and hubris of the comment made to Professor Solove.
Mmm, right. Self-awareness is batting zero today.
> It was not made as an “argument,”
No, in fact you were quarrelling, to use your lexicon. Or as I said earlier:
> your purpose was to belittle him, because you didn’t really have a good response. He nailed you substantively and you dickered about spelling. Who exactly do you think you are fooling?
Moving on…
> so your repeated attempt to characterize it as [an argument]
No, I did not characterize it as an argument. It was a cheap shot, not an argument, as the part I quoted above makes clear.
> as the works of Walton, but also that of Stephen Toulmin
Well, the works of Larry, Curly and Moe tell me that you are a complete snot.
Sorry, you never bother to explain who these people are and why would should care about what they say. Just writing a book doesn’t make your views valid. Ask Bruce Ackerman. Or rather, ask anyone who has read what Bruce Ackerman wrote. “We amended the constitution and didn’t even know it!” Sheesh.
> It’s impossible to belittle an anonymous commentator as their identity is unknown, and thus there is no “person” to be belittled.
An anonymous person is not a person. Good to know.
> I did want to “belittle” *the remark* inasmuch as and for reasons I later spelled out, it was an awful analogy and really said nothing informative or interesting at all, apart from insinuating that Professor Solove was, and this you’ll well appreciate, acting like a communist dupe.
Right, pointing that you behave just like a propagandist is not fair. I mean why should we learn from all that boring history anyway?
Didn’t your hero, Marx, say that history repeats itself first as tragedy and then as farce? Of course as usual Marx was overgeneralizing, but it is true that usually it is a farce when history repeats if only because we should have been smarter the second time. Like as we hear American liberals ignore Ahmadinjehad’s continual statements to the effect that he will kill every man, woman and child in Israel, there is an element of farce there because we made the exact same mistake with Hitler. Or hell, it is downright quixotic of you to say communism can work and cite the Shakers as an example of your ideal. Last I heard there were like three of them left: three very old, very frustrated triplet women. And that was a few years ago. For all I know, the Shakers could be gone.
> Incidentally, I’m not out to “fool” anyone.
Then why do you continually lie, indeed admitting a few posts later what you denied a few posts before?
> The fact that you repeat this accusation ad nauseum, along with repeatedly charging me with the lack of self-awareness, is a telling and troubling indication [of] … [blah, blah, blah, blah] a pathological tendency to infer motives and motivations [blah, blah, blah—more or less saying I am not being fair.]
Sorry, but you actually lie, and I refuse to cut you any slack to pretend otherwise. And yes, your hypocrisy is pretty glaring.
> So it is reasonable to conclude from the above that you have no deep interest in or abiding concern for a rational argument
So… unless I take all your words at face value with slack-jawed credibility I am not interested in reasonable argument. But on the other hand you can lie and employ screamingly hypocritical standards, but we aren’t supposed to question your interest in reasonable argumentation.
I mean, when you call another person arrogant, we are supposed to take that seriously?
When you accuse a person of making irrelevant arguments, after you made irrelevant arguments, we are supposed to take that seriously?
And on and on it goes.
> that you are not reasoning at all but simply hurling insults
Unlike you who picked on the guy’s spelling.
> but I will state categorically that I have never “lied to the public”
Except for where you have admitted you did. And where you told tales that were just plain implausible. Or attempted “rebranding” right in front of my eyes.
> this creates no small amount of tension in our household when I would prefer to buy books rather than more sensible things like food and clothes.
Well, let no one accuse you of being an impractical academic, a man who is book smart and life stupid.
> Indeed, I can’t help but point out that instead of buying Coulter’s book, or one like it, my money is more prudently if not wisely spent on books with some degree of intellectual heft and substance
So you say… not having read it. Again who do you think you are fooling?
> It is not the same thing.
Oh yes it is. Maoist politics in the 1970’s blurred the line between personal life and political life.
> My worldview is in fact beholden to several Eastern religio-philosophical traditions, Liberalism (which includes the likes of Locke, Hobbes, Mill, etc.), classical Greek philosophy, Marxist and anarchist traditions, philosophy of science, etc.,
Again, exactly who do you think you are fooling?
> I don’t in general believe in letting “liars of[f] the hook,” be it Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, or Pol Pot.
I would agree 100% with that sentiment, if only I thought for a moment you believed it. but you don’t practice what you preach.
> I’m not at all terrified that someone might read Coulter’s stuff and I’ve never done anything whatsoever to stop them,
Nah, you just support those who do.
> I will do everything in my power to contribute to the emergence of culture in which the likes of Coulter have little or no influence
You say, having never read her book. And, by the way, I haven’t either. That is why I am not actually defending her, just saying that should keep an open mind.
> I am likewise not at all terrified by people believing in Coulter’s views because I’m certain there are aleady many such folks.
Ah, sure what’s a few million changed minds going to do? I mean besides give us “President McCain” instead of “President Obama.” Please every sophisticated person know that the margins are tight right now.
> like people liste[n]ing to Rush Limbaugh on the radio
Anyone want to take a guess as to whether Patrick has listened to Rush either?
[By the way, for someone who got all snotty about the proper spelling of a transliterated Russian name, you make a lot of typos yourself.]
> In fact, as Erich Fromm argued, “just as there is a folie à deux, so there is a folie à millions
Wow, that was not at all snotty.
> To repeat, you have absolutely no idea what I think about (the claims of) communist regimes
“I will keep repeating myself without recognize I was already refuted on this point!”
Besides we know what you think: maybe next time communism will work!
> Indeed, I have not
A flat out lie.
> I have done nothing in a blogging thread that remotely resembles
Lies, rebranding, judging the worthiness of an argument purely on ideology without listening, cheap shots taking the place of argument, false intellectualism, party over principle and so forth. It all might as well be in the little red book. And it is you to a T.
You go on, giving yet another reading list… sigh.
Look if you want to read more to learn about how pointless reading lists are, I suggest you read:
War and Peace
The Stand
Williston on Contracts (unabridged version)
Corbin on Contracts (unabridged version)
Corbin Bernstein on Contracts (I think it’s just a pamphlet)
The first restatement of contracts
And the second.
All of the issues of the Yale Law Journal, ever.
Ditto with the Harvard Law Review.
All of the Vampire Chronicles
All of the Ender books
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Lord of the Rings, as translated into Klingon
The Lord of the Klingons, translated into Elvish by Tolkien
The script for Gigli
And then when you are done reading all of those books, scripts, pamphlets, you will understand fully my argument. /super sarcasm
> I used those passages to illustrate the vigor of a utopian tradition of communism in this country from which we still have much to learn.
Yes, you do, like how they are destined to fail. I mean, they only survived on the fiction that the “West” was empty and land plentiful, and once that ended, they folded like tents. The Shaker example is only the most laughable, but really, leaving out the Shakers how do you propose we replicate that situation? Should we go to, say, Africa, commit genocide and then create brief communist utopia as we fill it with our people?
> The quote from [Harold and] Kumar which you chose to highlight was attempting to convey the perspective of those “socialists” and “communists” (indeed many Americans of that era) and was not Kumar’s belief nor did it represent mine.
Yeah, translation you didn’t realize how bigoted the quote was until I pointed it out. Fair enough, you wouldn’t be the first. But that is my point. Those “utopian” societies you idealize were founded on blood.
And your passage doesn’t make it clear at all that this is not Kumar’s belief, although it might have been if you, God help us, quoted even more of it.
> may contain many true propositions as well as false ones,
Yep, “maybe next time it will work!” You’re like Charlie Brown, unable to grasp that you should stop trying to kick the football! Especially considering the fact that, to depart from my metaphor, very often when communism is tried millions of people die. The failures of communism has not generally been costless.
> As the best socialist thinking is grounded in principles of freedom and equality
Lol if you are “free” then the communist society falls apart. Take a simple farming collective. They say, “everyone eats from everyone’s efforts.” So Bob works hard all day, but Bill and Ted don’t. So Bob shares his crops, all three eating based solely on Bob’s efforts. Pretty soon Bob gets the message: working hard is for suckers. In short the farming becomes a commons and it gets pretty tragic pretty fast.
So then in comes John and he says, the solution is to make all three of them work. So John spends all of his day making sure the other two work. Now you don’t have freedom; you have coercion. You also have inequality; John has a position different from, and indeed above, the other two. And I am sure John won’t become, say, a tyrant at some point, right?
Freedom and equality are impossible in any functioning communist system.
> many of the works in the bibliography cited above; the Marxist notion of “the good” as self-realization exemplifies this
And again, why should any of these writers be seen as superior sources of information over 200+ years of unbroken experience? Communism is at best a failure, at worst a nightmare.
> is an oxymoron of the egregious sort to equate it with slavery
Right. Well, okay if you try the “everyone is free” approach mentioned above, its not slavery: it is just an instant failure. But most of the time people figure that out, so pretty soon an authority is 1) telling you what work to do and 2) not letting you keep the fruits of your labor. In what way is that not slavery?
> Communism had nothing whatsoever to do with Jonestown or Nuremburg.
Are you joking? Jim Jones was a big Marxist, and yeah, what could Communism have to do with “National Socialism.” Sheesh.
> to visit my library and see for yourself how it is chock full of titles with views I disagree with
So don’t believe my words, believe what I allege that I do.
So basically to wrap things up, you have an extremely long-winded post accusing me of doing, pretty much what you are clearly doing. The only attempt at substance was to try to claim that communism goes with freedom and equality like peanut butter and jelly. Mmm-hmm. And also generally to try to defend communism. This, after accusing me of red baiting, even though you are an admitted red.
Well, you certainly showed me.
Patrick S. O'Donnell - January 16, 2009 at 5:58 pm
You persist in displaying an impressive inability to appreciate “distinctions with a difference” as, say, between Communism and communism: red-baiting has everything to do with the former and nothing to do with the latter. You intend the former, as I explained, I’m interested in the latter, there’s a world or two of difference between them, for instance, the latter does not involve political parties, commitment to the revolutionary overthrow of the commanding heights of the State, revolutionary violence or indeed belief in violence as a means or method, etc., etc.
I understand Jonestown as a religious cult, not a Communist party or Communist movement or Communist state, whatever the bizarre rhetorical use and social engagement of “Communist” ideas. I think it’s best understood and explained as a religious phenomenon. Jones was a preacher if I recall correctly, a fact that would appear to rule him out as a Marxist, at least as usually understood. In graduate school we spent a fair amount of time in one seminar examining Jonestown as a religious phenomenon, relying on insights provided by Jonathan Z. Smith’s Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown (1982). I also happen to believe, with the late Ninian Smart, that some worldviews, like Mao’s brand of Communism, can be fruitfully explained in many respects with the concepts, categories and methodological tools in general used by students of religion.
National Socialism was at best a nominal appellation for what political scientists and theorists, political philosophers, historians, and other experts on the matter refer to as Fascism. Again, a distinction with an important difference. Communism is not the same thing as Fascism. Hitler and the Nazis well understood the attractions of socialism and tried to co-opt that appeal (not unlike the manner in which the centrists in the Democratic Party successfully took over much of the rhetoric and some of the policy ideas from the Republican Party’s ‘Contract with America’). As to why the Nazis succeeded on that front, one could do worse than consult Erich Fromm’s pathbreaking study, The Working Class in Weimar Germany: A Psychological and Sociological Study (English tr., 1984).
There are fallacious and non-fallacious ad hominem arguments: yet again, a distinction with a difference. Yours is an aptitude for the former.
Incidentally, the bibliographies and references that clearly intimidate you exist for a reason: should you not understand that rationale please don’t hold it against the rest of us. As a well-known professor in the blogosphere recently wrote to me in regard to several of these lists: “They are really great and will be very useful. You’re reviving the lost art of bibliography here.” I’ve saved several hundred letters expressing similar gratitude for the compilations. It is in fact quite exasperating to discuss any topic in which one of the interlocutors demonstrates an unusual degree of ignorance of the relevant literature (of course we’re all ignorant to one degree or another, but if one decides to speak in an authoritative manner on a topic, it behooves that person to be familiar with the bulk of the relevant literature). In such cases, I do indeed prefer to say, well, familiarize yourself with the relevant literature and then get back to me, as there’s no common ground from which to have a meaningful dialogue. In the social sciences and humanities this is, rightly, part of the formal process for earning one’s doctorate: mastering a basic grasp of the relevant literature (and often then some).
Alas, the rest is not worthy of reply.
A.J. Sutter - January 16, 2009 at 10:57 pm
I think A.W. meant Corbin Bernsen on contracts, though his agent is probably more of an authority, and I expect the contracts themselves are quite lengthy.
A.W. - January 19, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Patty
> You persist in displaying an impressive inability to appreciate “distinctions with a difference” as, say, between Communism and communism
Ah, here we go with your rebranding, too, a truly dishonest tactic.
> I understand Jonestown as a religious cult
A commie one.
> National Socialism was at best a nominal appellation
No, that is just what is said to cover up the very real connection.
> Incidentally, the bibliographies and references that clearly intimidate you
Well, isn’t that revealing? You admit finally why you do this irritating thing: you hope to intimidate the other person. I should’ve seen this more quickly.
But really all it does is avoid discussion. If those books have a point, YOU make it. if they contain useful facts, present them. If they have useful arguments, present those as well. because if you think someone is going to go and read 14 books and then comment back to you, you are kidding yourself.
But the point isn’t to discuss, it is to try to intimidate.
> As a well-known professor in the blogosphere recently wrote to me
Is this professor a person other people can see, or is he just an imaginary friend.
Hey, but a former president wrote to me and said, “Pat is being kind of a schmuck. By the way, I am genuinely surprised, after having written the Emancipation proclamation, that tomorrow a black man is going to be sworn in as president. That is great. Signed: Abe.”
> it behooves that person to be familiar with the bulk of the relevant literature
Right, right, its not experience that matter or even a good history book, but some person writing about how gee maybe this time communism would work. You know, I like that this blog is more intellectual, but you have to be careful not to become so cloistered that you disappear up your own arse. There is a whole world outside those books of your, Professor, and I suggest you get acquainted with it. Anyone who defends Cuba’s health care when Fidel Castro himself would have nothing to do with it, is clearly a person who is book smart but life dumb..
> Alas, the rest is not worthy of reply.
Ah, so what is not worth a reply:
You degraded the tone here in the first place.
The “utopian” societies of the 19th century was based on the bloody “fiction” of an empty America a situation we shouldn’t replicate.
Communism with freedom and equality inevitably fails; authority is always needed, and authority ends freedom and equality.
Reading lists, without saying a word to establish that these people are authoritative on their subject, is worthless.
And much, much more. But who are we kidding? It really means you are waving the white flag of surrender on those points.
Patrick S. O'Donnell - January 19, 2009 at 4:32 pm
As I said, you’re not a careful reader: my first name is Patrick, sometimes people call me “Pat” or Mr. O’Donnell.
At this juncture your replies are rather embarrassing so by all means retain your anonymity and refer to my “imaginary friend.”
I didn’t say I wanted to nor do I hope to intimidate anyone, what I said and you apparently can’t make sense of plain English, is that YOU are intimidated, in other words, you’ve made clear the subjective experience of intimidation on your part.
Comments like this suggest your emotions have gotten the better of you: “you have to be careful not to become so cloistered that you disappear up your own arse.”
Don’t be ashamed to admit you’re ill-read, as it’s now clear to everyone. If you were familiar with the literature in question you would appreciate the expertise from which it was generated.
I’ve raised two adult children who are by conventional standards successful but more importantly wonderful human beings: honest, bright, good-natured, etc. I’ve been married for close to thirty years. I excelled in school and have held all sorts of jobs and continue to work in several areas outside the academy. I’m well known by my neighbors many of whom I count as friends. So you’re in no position to say anything whatsoever about me being “life dumb” as you have not the faintest idea about my life.
I’m not waving any flag of any sort but celebrating the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday and looking forward to tomorrow’s presidential inauguration ceremony.
Wishing you the best in mental health,
Patrick
A.W. - January 20, 2009 at 11:25 am
Patty
> I didn’t say I wanted to nor do I hope to intimidate anyone, what I said and you apparently can’t make sense of plain English, is that YOU are intimidated
Of course you didn’t say it, but you hallucinated that I was intimidated because that is what you are really hoping for. You know as well as I do that it is not constructive to any discussion to suddenly start listing books as reference without a word establishing that they are an authority. And your wish-fulfilling hallucination that I was intimidated, rather than just pointing out how your bibliographies add nothing to the conversation, is the dead giveaway as to their real purpose.
Apparently you were not being so careful in your reading. Heh.
Take this next line:
> Don’t be ashamed to admit you’re ill-read, as it’s now clear to everyone.
See? Clearly you believe your bibliographies are giving you an advantage.
> If you were familiar with the literature in question you would appreciate the expertise from which it was generated.
Right. The fact I never heard of these books proves that I don’t know what I am talking about. You know, because these books are so self-evidently great that no other books can inform me on their subjects.
The fact is I am a student of reality, not fiction, which is why I don’t bother with books that claim that we can learn anything from the utopian societies of the 1840’s other than the fact that this style of communism is doomed to fail. The fact you cited with no self-awareness the example of the Shakers is only the most laughable example of that.
I am, unlike you, a working lawyer. It is amazing how literally decades of legal theory can be proven utterly wrong in only six months of real world experience. For instance, law and economic theorists, such as Guido Calabresi or Tony Kronman, love to cite Holmes’ various pronouncements that really a contract gives the person two options: to honor it, or to break it and pay the damages for such breach. From there, Holmes gives us the theory of efficient breach. But Holmes is wrong. There are actually 3 options in any contract: honor it, breach it, or hire a lawyer to try to get you out of it. Three years in law school, and I never heard any of my “law and economics” professors figure that one out, but I did based on my experience in my first case. I don’t hate academics, but I don’t put half as much truck in their supposed “expertise” as you do, apparently. Meanwhile, you continue to hoppy that this time Pepperming Patty will let you kick the football.
And before I went to law school, I was a student of history. I am aware, on a level that you don’t apparently get, how the rubber of your theories met the road of reality. Communism is and always will be at best a failure, and at worst a nightmare. Anyone who denies that either 1) doesn’t know history or 2) knows it but doesn’t get it. The fact you knew of the Shakers and didn’t understand how problematic it was to cite them, suggests that you are more likely in the second category than the first. Or for that matter the fact you continued to insist the Cuban healthcare system is great even though Fidel Castro would have nothing to do with it, when his life was on the line. The fact that you can’t understand or admit, that it is a devastating indictment of the Cuban health care system is telling.
But in the spirit of your argument, I will cite to you:
“Why Patty is a Deluded Commie” by I.P. Oncommunists.
What? You never heard of that book? Well, it just shows how utterly ineducated you are. Everyone who is educated has read that book. Reading that book is what all the cool kids are doing.
And please don’t tell me you live in the real world. You don’t. The fact you can’t even refute my common sense and indeed classical attacks on your silly commie theories proves that. I mean you would think by now you would at least be able to address the tragedy of the commons argument. Its only been around since 1968.
See, that is the horns of the dilemma every commie finds themselves in. If everyone is free and equal, then the product of the collective becomes a commons and things turn pretty tragic pretty fast. But the “cure” of authority is worse than the disease, and pretty soon you have transformed a free and equal people into classes of masters and slaves, and you get what they used to call on American plantations “fooling old master,” or the Soviet version, “you pretend to pay me, I pretend to work.” In other words, you get failure either way, but the authoritarian route staves off failure a little longer, but not after pogroms, concentration camps and other fun things like that.
So let me give YOU a bibliography. First, if you don’t know of the “Tragedy of the Commons” by Hardin, that is basic economic literature, so go find it (and by all evidence, you have no idea what I was talking about the first time I mentioned it). I mean you should read it regardless. Unlike the crap you listed, you are not even literate on economic matters if you haven’t read it. It’s like talking about evolution without having read Darwin; you can do it, but you really are missing a lot. You seem to know about the utopian societies of the 19th century in America, so I am not sure any particular history book on that subject will help. Your problem is not knowledge but understanding. So, to the extent that those societies were communist (and some were and some weren’t), Hardin makes you understand why failure was built in.
Further I think you would benefit from a few lessons about the economics of slavery. Jeffrey Rogers Hummel has a nice economic analysis of slavery in his book “Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men.” His basic argument is that in economic terms slavery is like as if every day you work, you go to the bank to get your paycheck and then as you leave, someone holds you up and steals it from you. His flaw is a common one among economists: he underappreciates, I think, the morality of the situation. I am not saying he thinks slavery is okay or anything, but I think he fails to understand just how evil it was. Still, his economic arguments do shed light, although I have given you his basic idea.
And then there is Ralph Korngold’s biography of Thaddeus Stevens. First, its just plain a wonderful book. The problem with civil war historiography is that the biggest consumers of Civil War history books are the descendants of Confederates, or southern, or otherwise not in the mood to hear anything bad about the Confederacy. Now while Stampp, Franklin, et. al. have made great strides toward reversing the revisionism of Bowers et. al. (later mimicked in “Birth of a Nation” and to a less obvious extent, “Gone with the Wind”), and no one today would say that slavery was a positive good, etc. (I mean, besides commies who instead deny that authoritative communism is morally and economically indistinguishable from slavery), there is a palpable desire among civil war historians not to offend the descendants of confederates by, say, pointing out what a sham the “states’ rights” theory of the Civil War is, or just how intractable the south was in reconstruction, or how reconstruction became our first “war on terror” (which, by the way, we lost). In other words, those who purport to sympathize with the southern cause, do so out of ignorance of the fact that the only real southern cause was the maintenance of slavery, and ignorance that most historians allow its audience to maintain. But Korngold is admirable in that he pulls none of those punches, and points out a lot of really uncomfortable facts from that era. That is enough to recommend the book, but also germane to the discussion, Korngold (unintentionally) shows how Hummel’s economics of slavery links up with the cold calculus of war. Really, despite the fact that Hummel’s book comes long after Korngold’s, Hummel’s and Korngold’s books work very well together on the economic front. And Korngold has a moral sense that Hummel lacks.
[By the way, don’t bother with either Fawn Brodie’s book on Stevens or Richard Current’s. Current’s book is actually bigoted against Stevens, I guess for not being a proper commie and for being club footed—as silly as that seems to modern Americans. (There were some people who believed that a clubbed foot in particular was a sign that you were the child of the devil.) Brodie doesn’t share Current’s politics, and claims not to share his anti-disability prejudice, but instead argues that Stevens’ experience with discrimination twisted his heart so that it became a self-fulfilling prophesy. On the other hand, Woodley’s account of Stevens’ life is the only one to consider a more uplifting possibility: that his experience with disability discrimination was educational and led him to understand the immorality of all discrimination in a way that he otherwise wouldn’t. Woodley’s problem is his thesis is only clear after far more work than he should have required of the reader. Its almost like a secret code, but if you read him very carefully, you will see that this is precisely what he is saying. There was a fifth book written more recently on him, but I honestly forgot the author’s name and the title, probably because the book was pretty forgettable, offering little insight, indeed not even seeming very interesting in the subject.]
[And this is truly off-topic, but Brodie is famous for a biography of Jefferson where she argues in a very flakey fashion that Jefferson was sleeping with Sally Hemmings. The fact she was right is proof that even a broken clock is right two times a day. She seemed to be attracted to this theme for Stevens probably had an affair with a free black woman named Lydia Smith. It is an interesting contrast, because where Jefferson’s relationship with Hemmings was probably abusive (I mean how do you “consent” to sex with a person who purports to own you, exactly?), Stevens’ and Smith’s was probably beautiful in the ordinary way love is beautiful, and only tragic in the sense that they had to keep it in the closet.]
Finally, you should read everything that George Fitzhugh wrote, especially “Sociology for the South,” but also “Cannibals All!” Mind you, you will want to take a shower afterward. His writings are the closest thing to Mein Kampf ever produced on American soil. But these books will expose you to some very uncomfortable applications of your pet theory.
Now you might get why I think you need to read about slavery as it existed, but you might wonder why I focus much on the destruction of slavery. That is because in some ways you can learn more from its destruction than its life. Toward that end, let me recommend two more things. First is not a book of an episode of Civil War Journal, on the History channel. It’s the one on Grant. I was frankly surprised at how brilliant this episode was, because I never expected the history channel to offer anything but standard vanilla approaches to history. But this one revised wholly my understanding of Grant as a general. The short version is this. There is a difference between strategy and tactics. Tactics is winning the battle, Strategy is winning the war. Lee was a brilliant tactician, but Grant was the better strategist. Grant never beat Lee in a single battle until the very end, but in battle after battle, Grant bled Lee’s forces dry. I am reminded of Tom Clancey speaking on the Gulf War, arguing that with the technological gap the Iraqis didn’t even understand what we were doing to them. Grant didn’t have a technological advantage, but Grant, being one of the first truly modern generals, was so far beyond Lee that Lee didn’t even understand what Grant was doing to him. Grant was like a brutal accountant, making sure that each fight resulted in losses that Lee could not sustain. That and the fact that Grant simply refused to accept defeat, led to his final victory.
The second, I would also recommend that you read the stump speech of Carl Shurz, given during the 1860 elections. You see back then presidential candidates didn’t campaign on their own behalf (with Douglas being an exception). So Shurz was Lincoln’s surrogate. Shurz was an uncommonly brilliant man and really any time he expressed himself, it was worth paying attention, and his stump speech was a perfect example of that. In a winking fashion, he argued that the South would not dare secede, because the North would crush them. Of course, I say it was “winking” because I think his real message was more “so what if they secede, we will beat them.” And in that description of how the North would win, he laid out exactly how it would occur, even explaining why Sherman’s march (whose brutality has been overestimated because of the nature of the civil war history market I discussed above) was vital to victory, long before anyone else conceived of it. It also will depress the hell out of you, because you realize that if everyone had listened to him, the war would have been done within months and yes, with full emancipation for the slaves. But sadly I can’t tell you exactly where to find that speech, so that will take some digging. Its not the most important piece of the puzzle, but it is very illuminating and will help you understand how the economics of slavery worked with military strategy. So it helps, but it is not so vital that you don’t have a chance of understanding without it.
But when you can come back to me and say that you know why it is very likely that the emancipation proclamation was the true turning point of the Civil War, then I will know you understand slavery well enough to discuss whether authoritative communism is morally indistinguishable from slavery. And you need to be able answer the inherent problems in a collective identified by Hardin. Then you will finally understand why I say non-authoritative communism as doomed to failure, and authoritative communism as morally indistinguishable from slavery.
And you can consider yourself schooled.
Patrick S. O'Donnell - January 20, 2009 at 2:51 pm
And all this time you gave us ample reason to believe you were a struggling 1L student!
Incidentally, the fatal problems with Hardin’s argument (actually, for analytical purposes we might distinguish the claims involving ‘carrying capacity’ from the wider argument that concludes with the putative ‘tragedy of the commons’) are well-known, and the policy proposals and implications derived therefrom fare even worse (e.g., his proposal to offer licenses for reproduction on the open market, or the reduction of allocative principles of distributive justice to a concept of economic triage as crystallized in his infamous essay on ‘lifeboat ethics’).
Hardin’s argument is not even original, having been resuscitated from a parable from a pamphlet written in 1833. Several of its assumptions are shared with those of Thomas Malthus in the latter’s polemic against Condorcet, Godwin, et al., An Essay on the Principle of Population…. Malthus’ essay, despite its well-known shortcomings and eminently contestable presuppositions and assumptions, is at least more respectable as an economic argument, in any case, Hardin was a biologist (a geneticist) and ecologist by training and temperament and it shows. Here, as elsewhere neo-classical economists have attempted to lend the epistemic legitimacy of natural science to what is a *social* science and one in an embryonic state of development at that. [For a succinct and devastating analysis of Malthus' argument, see Alec Fisher, The Logic of Real Arguments (1988): 29-47]
The assumption of short-term rationality by the agents involved is problematic and often empirically refuted in practice. Hardin is quick to resort to coercion and the rule of elites for solutions to his highly abstract and overly idealized model of the commons (not without reason did he later suggest we should refer to it as the ‘unmanaged commons’). His single-minded focus on population was unduly narrow and his willingness to resort to coercion when efforts at education fall short are on par with the Chinese government’s efforts at population control. What might be salvaged from Hardin’s efforts are not unique to him: the significance of the prisoners’ dilemma and the “free rider” problem, of which there is an enormous literature that takes us far beyond Hardin. Hardin’s colleague at my alma mater wrote a book that deals with these issues in a more ethically sensitive, theoretically sophisticated and real-world fashion than Hardin: William W. Murdoch’s The Poverty of Nations: The Political Economy of Hunger and Population (1980).
Rather than Hardin, you’d be better served by reading Kaushik Basu’s Prelude to Political Economy: A Study of the Social and Political Foundations of Economics (2000)…and the works of Amartya Sen, Partha Dasgupta, Meghnad Desai, Parnab Bardhan, Philip Mirowski, S.M. Amadae, William I. Robinson, Anwar Shaikh, Paul Sweezy, Robert Pollin….
A.W. - January 20, 2009 at 3:37 pm
My oh my, Hardin’s most useful insight, that the commons are inevitably abused, has been around since 1968, and yet you can’t seem to lay a glove on it… Probably because it is obviously true, but its cute to watch you try.
> the fatal problems with Hardin’s argument (actually, for analytical purposes we might distinguish the claims involving ‘carrying capacity’ from the wider argument that concludes with the putative ‘tragedy of the commons’) are well-known
But you aren’t going to state them. Are they well known among the same imaginary friends you mentioned?
> The assumption of short-term rationality by the agents involved is problematic and often empirically refuted in practice.
Practice? Anyone who has ever picked up a public school (K-12) textbook knows about how tragic the commons can be.
That’s why you assert it has been refuted in practice, but in fact even describe in what way it has been refuted. Did your imaginary friend refute it in practice for you?
> Hardin is quick to resort to coercion
I didn’t cite him for everything he ever thought or said, just for the notion that communism doesn’t have a chance because of what happens in the commons.
> Rather than Hardin, you’d be better served by reading Kaushik Basu’s…
Why? Hardin tells a basic and undeniable truth. Which is why you haven’t done a particularly good job denying it. You first talk about everything but the central issue which is the inefficiency of the commons and its application to non-authoritarian communism. You get into Malthus, which has nothing to do with that, and so on. You mention supposed failures in practice, but every person in reality sees what happens in practice. You cite 50 million books by people I never heard of and whom you gave me no reason to respect. I cite your 11th grade textbook, scribbled on, cut up and otherwise destroyed not necessarily by you, but by people who don’t care because they 1) did nothing to get what they were receiving and 2) will pay no price for the book’s destruction. In other words, you cite the content of books and I cite the reality of collective ownership of textbooks.
By comparison, see how things change when you get to college and you have to buy each book, and you will often sell it back at the end of the semester. Those books are treated kindly, gently. Keeping what you create, and earning what you receive, is the cure for the shortcomings of the commons. In other words, the problem is the commons itself; the commons always becomes, well, tragic. And getting all communist with our labor only has tragic results.
And don’t even get me started on how our socialized educations system in the k-12 levels cause educational quality to degrade, and breeds inequality, not equality.
But go on, please tell me why impractical treatises should trump common reality that every person can observe. It should be amusing.
By the way, clearly you didn’t read my whole list before getting back with me. Why not? I gave you an instruction and you should follow like a zombie, right? Or does that rule only apply to those you talk to, because you are so clearly a wise man who of course already knows everything. You have gone to the Yale Library and read all 4 million books, including those on my list, right?
If I tell you an imaginary friend wrote to me praising my bibliography, would you read them, then?
Or are you going to finally admit you don’t really find a reading list a useful tool in this kind of discussion? Oh, except you hope to intimidate with it.
Btw, is it beginning to dawn on you that as cocksure as you are, as snotty as you are, you are actually quite thoroughly outmatched?
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