airth's democracy

Milton Friedman

2011-10-29T07:39:00.000-07:00

A lot of people think the economist Milton Friedman (1912-2006) was a god. In his lifetime he was viewed as the god of the free market. His economic theories were adopted by, to name a few, Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Ronald Reagan in the U.S. Those economies, like may others, found new life with some of his suggestions, like those of monetary policy, tax cuts and privatization.

What first brought Friedman to prominence, and won him the Nobel Prize in Economics (1976), was his theory in monetary policy. He believed that the proper control of the money supply was the fundamental key to a healthy economy and a stable world. Good monetary policy was the key to keeping down inflation, an occurrence that has in the past caused great hardship and instability in many nations. Friedman's fame grew from his theory that if the U.S. had controlled its currency better during the Great Depression that event may not have happened. Likewise, it is believed that if Germany after WW1 had not printed money like crazy in order to fulfill the financial demands put on it by its vanquishers, it wouldn’t have descended into the economic abyss it did, making it ripe for a despotism like Hitler.

My thoughts are that we learn from experience. So I think one should take Friedman's idea, that the Great Depression could have been prevented if the U.S. had only managed its currency better, with caution and skepticism. What Friedman suggested is that the U.S. and others, in the 1920's and 30's, had the wherewithal to be good monetarists, but failed to act so. However, I think they had no such wherewithal in those days because people back then were still inexperienced in such matters, as in prudent monetary policies. Nevertheless, people still insist on transposing the knowledge we have today on a less sophisticated world of the past. I mean, sure, with the knowledge we have today we probably could have prevented WW1 or WW2. But that was a different world, absent of the knowledge and the dynamics we have today.

Friedman's policies have railed against socialism. Now, I am no socialist but I have socialist tendencies, like the belief in universal and state run health systems. Such coverage can lift an anxiety of people’s shoulders which potentially can free people to function better. And by what I see in the countries that do have it, for the most part, the practice of medicine works better than in the US and the costs are lower, and life expectancy is longer. I thus believe in a mixed economy in which aspects of capitalism and socialism are mixed and balanced off against each other. And this type of governance is what is spreading around the world, including in the U.S., albeit kicking and screaming all the way. After all, universal health care is one way to help balance the inequalities that the broader economy generates.

I appreciate and believe in some of Milton Friedman's ideas. And they would probably all work if conditions were perfect. One thing he did believe is that if you have a free and open market the facts and information about it should also be free and accessible. This is something that did not occur during the 'subprime market' in mortgages of the past decade. The information and facts surrounding subprime loans and their derivatives were not open to scrutiny and were dishonest. Many of the facts and realities about the subprime market and their 'toxic assets' were manipulated and hidden by Wall Street. This was the major reason for the financial calamity we have today, chiefly due to a lack of transparencies in the mortgage lending practices of the last decade.

Friedman realized that a measure of regulations and consumer protections had to be in place to keep markets honest, fluid and mutually beneficial. He knew that unfettered market on their own were not the 'hole grail' because of their potential for human abuses. This is something the Bush administration failed to see in its unquestioning acceptance of laissez faire, unfettered markets. As a consequence that unquestioning acceptance seriously destabilized the US economy due to the administration's blind faith that the free market on its own, with as little interference from government as possible, can solve society's major problems. (So blinded by faith was George W. Bush that he really didn't understand what went wrong.)

Milton Friedman's fundamental policies in the wrong hands have incurred a naive and reckless approach to economic activity. They have also encouraged abuses. But he would be the first to recognize that's what comes with the territory due the natural capacity to do wrong and get things wrong. Oh, if only we could hear from him today.

Parsimony

2011-09-30T06:28:00.000-07:00

In his article "Parsimony (In as few words as possible)", issue 81 of Philosophy Now, Toni Vogel Carey, wonders if nature loves simplicity. I'm sure it does, like any enterprise does, especially at the beginning when it's essential.

In business, particularly at the beginning, it is essential to be parsimonious. It helps keep one in business. There is an axiom we've all heard: If you take care of the pennies the dollars (pounds) will look after themselves. In other words, parsimony and taking care of the nominal stuff is an initial, important step in business.

There is a saying, Don't sweat the details. But that would be like not being parsimonious or taking care of the nominal stuff. Before one can have the luxury of not sweating the details one has to first make sure the details are looked after and are in place. After a business has taken off and started to succeed then one can stop sweating the details and pennies, but never take your eye of the ball, as the saying goes.

However, there is a balance involved. For instance, if one remains too parsimonious and frugal in business, as Adam Smith cautioned against, one will stifle development and growth. So one has to learn how to keep parsimony in the background while learning to spend and take risks so that the business grows. Nevertheless, parsimony should remain a core issue.

If one examine any entity, whether in nature or in business, there is always a simple, parsimonious beginning. But there is a paradox. The option is not to remain simple and parsimonious. In order to survive and continue we must become complex and create intricate systems.

The opposite to parsimony is excess. Ironically, parsimony can has its own excess. For example, a simplistic, parsimonious mindset can lead to the excesses of fundamentalism and extremism, as we've seen with religions.

"Economics Does Not Lie"

2011-08-21T08:58:00.001-07:00

There's an intriguing thought: Economics doesn't lie.

Such was the topic of an article written by economist Guy Sorman in the summer of 2008 in “City Journal”, a conservative quarterly magazine about urban affairs. It was written prior to the financial crisis that began to unfold later that year. Was it a coincidence that it was written just before the crisis or was it meant to be a warning about what was to come?

I’d say it was more a coincidence because it didn’t foretell anything about the looming crisis. In fact, it ignored and even praised many of the economic, laissez faire activities that were responsible for the greatest recession America has experienced since the Great Depression. So it got me thinking, how did economics not lie in this instance?

I'm not saying that the discipline of economics lies. On the contrary: basically it tells the truth. It’s built on natural law and reason. I know, for instance, that free market economics is far more truthful than the planned economics of communism and totalitarian states, which are easily manipulated. However, people can still make a liar out of the free market just by not telling the truth about what’s going on. It’s made a liar when it isn’t transparent, such as happened with the opaque transactions that led to the crash of 2008. It lies when it isn’t held accountable, when the rules and regulations are deliberately flouted and ignored. Those lies gave us the greatest economic turmoil in memory. Eventually, though, the chickens came home to roost. In the end market economics freed itself from those lies and told us the truth, that the crisis was a consequence of many questionable and unethical practices. Economics teaches us to be thrifty and good managers. Sadly, though, those prerequisites and truths were lost on many who should have known better, like the bankers and politicians.

One of Sorman’s heroes is Milton Friedman, a Nobel laureate in economics who truly believed in the free market. But Friedman believed that if a free market was going to function optimally and truthfully information about business had to be transparent and up front. If business dealings are not open to scrutiny, cheating and lying are more likely to take place. Nevertheless, that’s what happen during the years building up to the financial/economic crisis of 2008. Information was withheld from investors, information that could have prevented or at least tempered the crash. Information was withheld was about ‘toxic’ assets pertaining to questionable financing. Duplicitous assets were hidden in derivatives that were then sold to unsuspecting investors. To further compound the lies, those dubious investments were approved by the very rating agencies that were meant to keep tabs on the financial industry. If Friedman were alive today he would be appalled at the breaches of trust and lies told to unsuspecting investors.

Though it was due to a combination of events, the ‘housing bubble’ was the chief culprit of the economic crisis of 2008, the economics of which represented a catastrophic lie. The bursting of the housing bubble had a devastating ripple effect on all sectors of the economy, leaving banking, the core of an economy, especially vulnerable. And there were plenty of lies to go around, encouraged by fees, greed and poor monitary policy. People deceived themselves in thinking that the price of houses would keep going up indefinitely. Mortgage brokers lied when they made loans to people they knew couldn’t afford them. Ironically the loans were nicknamed ‘liar loans’ because they were based on, what else, lies. The mortgage brokers lied when falsifying documents about the credit worthiness of borrowers. Many borrowers lied about their incomes, as to whether they could afford the monthly payments or not. Each party suspected that the other was lying but the practice continued. And to further compound the lies, these liar loans were deliberately camouflaged and bundled up with healthier securities by Wall St. brokerage houses in the form of derivatives and then sold to unsuspecting investors. To add insult to injury, and more lies, these derivates were given AAA rates by supposedly independent credit agencies like Standard & Poor and Moody’s, companies that were literally working both sides of the street. Their behavior amounted to crony capitalism, which constituted another massive lie and a major threat to the free market.

The Attorney Generals of all fifty US states tried to put an end to the lies. They knew about the liar loans and their potentiality for economic disaster. They wanted to protect consumers from the predatory loans that were being made by mortgage companies and banks knowingly for the profits they generated. But the Bush administration blocked them from implementing such laws because it interfered with a major Bush agenda, an agenda to expand the ownership of homes. It was a veiled, clumsy attempt to enrich the middle class as it had done for the rich with a tax cuts. For all its good intentions, Bush’s dreams for an expanded ‘ownership society’ was predicated on a political ideology equivalent to a house built on sand. Oh, there were economists who warned about this policy but were roundly dismissed as killjoys.

In his article Sorman says that economics is no longer just theory but is now an actual science. (Being a science should have made it more truthful.) As he explained, we have learnt so much from past economic experience that the world can now depend on and ensure itself reasonable economic stability. Economists have developed models and equations that show precisely how the fundamentals work, that there is a certainty in economic outcomes. So what happened that we are now facing one of the greatest economic crises to hit modern civilization? What happened to the science we were supposed to have learned from, the science that was supposed to offset the lies?

What happened is that even though economics may not lie, humans still do. Humans still cheat and cut corners. Human are fallible and that fallibility can negatively impact economic outcomes if not kept in check. That’s why over the years, having gained a lot of experience about our weaknesses and less than truthful natures, we have formulated regulations and backup system to minimize and fend off economic disasters like the one we are experiencing today. Experience gave economics its status of science. But along the way, somehow, mostly due to political ideology, faith and hubris, the science and experience that we learned over the time was discarded in a matter of years, giving the world the economic crisis of 2008, the likes it hasn’t seen in some time.

Chicago -Toronto

2011-07-14T14:12:00.000-07:00

Chicago-Toronto

I took a walk around the neighborhood this morning. It was a gloriously rich morning with not a cloud in the shy. I walked through the University of Toronto campus. It remained me of a walk I had through the University of Chicago campus last year. One could say that the Chicago campus is more beautiful. But it is miles away from the center of the city. Toronto’s campus is right in the middle of the city. It is more accessible to city folk like me. To get to the U of C from the city center one either needs a car or has to take the train. One, though, could walk the distance, as I did one hot Sunday we were there, the day of the Chicago Marathon on October 8, I believe. That was a long, hot walk.

Toronto has the distinction of being the condominium (condo) capital of North America. Buildings have been going up like crazy. As I walked around the neighborhood this morning I pasted three condo projects in the works. That was within a small radius. If I expanded my radius just a bit more I would have included four more projects. And within the last couple of years at least another five new condos had been completed in the vicinity. One of the developments almost nearing completion is the Four Season Hotel/Condominiums, a fifty-two story elegant glass skyscraper. Its penthouse recently sold for an astonishing 28 million dollars. Another project just about ready to get under way is a 70 story building at the main intersection of Yonge and Bloor. This development was originally slated to start in 2008 but was canceled because of the global financial crisis of that year. That project was financed by Lehman Brothers, an investment bank that when belly up in September 2008.

In contrast, Chicago has not faired so well in its building projects due to the financial crisis. Another reason could be is that it had already been over built. One notable project that was canceled was the Spire, a 2000 feet skyscraper on the waterfront. When there I remember seeing the huge hole that was to be its foundation. Recently, though, the Trump Tower in Chicago was complete. It is now the second tallest building in the city, at 90 stories. Toronto too will soon have its own completed hotel/condo Trump Tower at about 57 stories high, located in the financial district.

We visited Millennium Park in Chicago. A major attraction in the park is a steel sphere-like sculpture, which you can walk inside and under. It is intriguing because once inside it you can see yours and everybody else’s reflection on its shiny metal ceiling. Looking at it from outside it looked like a helmet. It reminded me of Darth Vader’s helmet in the Star War movies. Millennium Park is built on reclaimed land, reclaimed from railroad lands and parking lots. The railroad and the station are now beneath it. It has really revitalized the area and the city. Toronto has a similar revitalization going on with the reclaiming of old railway lands near Lake Ontario for development of condominiums, parks and entertainment facilities.

I decided to walk the distance from Millennium Park to the University in the south Chicago. Walking the distance was an eye opener. I started it just as the marathon was winding down. The Park was inundated with runners who had just finished the race. In my walk I went through multiple neighborhoods. One of the most dramatic things I saw was the convention center, McCormick Place, the largest convention center in the United States and surely North America. Its size was unbelievable. I also went through some well-to-do districts and some not so well-to-do districts. The contrasts in neighborhoods is something we don’t see in Toronto.

I reached Hyde Park, the area in which the U of C is situated, about two and a half hours later. We were staying with a friend who had located there from Toronto. We were spending our Canadian Thanksgiving weekend with her. The other day I was walking through the Annex area of Toronto, which is situated quite near the U of T, and I had memories of Hype Park in Chicago. Both areas are similar, well manicured and inhabited by intellectuals and professionals.

Chicago and Toronto are similar in may ways. Both names are derived from native Indian words. They are both Great Lake cities. They both lost in their bids to host the Olympics. They both had Great Fires that destroyed much of their city centers. Both are major transportation hubs for air and rail traffic. Because of their railroads both are large, pivotal freight distribution centers. Apart from being two great university towns they are both great cultural centers. Both cities at one time had the similar moniker of ‘hog town’.

Chicago has one thing Toronto never had, a famous gangster, Al Capone. Chicago is famous and notorious around the world because of Capone, probably the most famous gangster in the world. I don’t think Toronto has anything to match that notoriety. However, one area Toronto beats Chicago in is theater. Toronto is the third largest theater production center in the world, next to New York and London. And Toronto does have the famous CN Tower and a sports arena with a retractible roof, build side-by-side on former railway land.

2011-04-19T10:57:00.000-07:00

Frankenstein

2011-02-21T09:40:00.000-08:00

I started reading Mary Shelley’s gothic classic Frankenstein for the first time on a cruise ship we boarded in Barcelona. At the time we were bound for Tenerife in the Canary Islands. In a wine museum on the island I discovered that Mary’s future husband, poet Percy Shelley, had visited there. I was aroused by the connection and wondered how many others there might be.

Mary Shelley was the daughter of Mary Wollestonecraft, a famous philosopher and feminist who advocated women’s equality late in the 18th century, a person I had read and written something about.

In the introduction to this edition of the novel Wendy Lesser explains that the name Frankenstein may have been derived from two German words, frank — which in English means giving currency to, and stein - which means stone. So the name, I am thinking, comes from the idea of giving life to an inanimate object with a galvanizing currency of electricity. (The ‘en’ was probably added to make the pronunciation easier.) As Lesser added, Shelley was fascinated with lightening storms. But that doesn’t explain how Shelley herself came upon this name. Perhaps she was influenced by the knowledge that Benjamin Franklin at the time was experimenting with electricity. Perhaps the first draft of the title might have been ‘Franklinstein’. Subsequently, though, I discovered from a Google search that Frankenstein was the name of an aristocratic German family whose ruined castle Shelly used to pass on her way home. The name literally means stones of the Franks, people who had settled in Germany after the decline of the Roman Empire.

The electricity/stone explanation reminded me of something I had learned earlier, an idea that the physicist Niels Bohr introduced, the complementarity principle. My first introduction to this principle was furnished by none other than a stone and someone explaining that when a stone becomes other than an inanimate objected and useful, like a door stop or a weapon, it’s due to a complementarity or supplementary action. In the case of the motionless mass that Frankenstein’s monster was, it was given life and currency by the complementarity of an electric current.

It’s not easy to understand what motivated Mary Shelley to write a book about a monster. Lord Byron, a close friend, suggested she write a ghost story. She said she was inspired by a dream. But perhaps it had to do more with the times, a time in which science's progression was outstripping human knowledge and wisdom to handle it, a lack that at times ended up with disastrous consequences. Nevertheless, it is astonishing that a nineteen year old girl, when she started it, could have image and written such a story. (Somewhere it is said that Byron ran out of the room screaming when he read it.)

The science Mary Shelley had Victor Frankenstein preform in her novel would today be called pseudo-science or junk science. It was science fiction (the first of its kind), because it was impossible and could not achieve reality or sustainability. However, it did have a legitimacy about it. In a sense it laid out a dangerous scenario for humankind if it continued to tinker with things and combination of things ( playing God) it had no understanding or mastery of . Since then civilization has witnessed many instances of Frankenstein-like human constructs that have had disastrous consequences, both abstract and physical.

It was pointed out that Frankenstein is a novel devoid of strong women. That is especially interesting in the fact that it was written by the daughter of an important feminist. All the women in it are passive. Like sometimes happens a quirky thought came to mind: Perhaps there was a hidden meaning here, portent to the future, about the monstrous consequences to the world’s order if feminism were to flourish. (Conversely, if equality were denied women no doubt it would be a more monstrous world.)

From the outset the word Frankenstein became a metaphor for freaky occurrences and jarring changes to the order of things. Today we talk about things like Frankenfood, which is genetically modified food, a modification not unlike Frankenstein’s monster. Metaphysical events that have defied explanation and rationalization, like the attacks on 9/11, often summoned Frankenstein type explanations. The financial crises the world experienced in 2008 was a product of weird Frankenstein-like financial derivations.

I was coincidentally remained by a friend of an architectural style known as Brutalism, a subcategory of Modernism that came into prominence in the 1960s and 70s. Today architects and observers alike are running away from this style because it doesn’t bowed well with today’s sensibilities about design. Its appearance conveys an architecture of bigness, large proportions and brutality. I was struck by a similarity with the monster I was reading about, that people are shunning architectural brutalism today in the same way that they were shunning and running away from the brutalism of Frankenstein’s monster.

Frankenstein is a novel with many story lines. That’s probably what made it the sensation it became, because it offered many overlapping narratives of life. One of them, often hidden, is about the paradoxical nature of life — its simultaneous beauty and ugliness, good and evil, meaningfulness and meaninglessness. The monster was sensitive to both, simultaneously experiencing the creative and destructive aspects of life, which he saw in himself and had difficulty reconciling . The monster’s predicament is emblematic of life and the world. Perhaps Shelley was genetically disposed to understand the paradox because of her mother’s situation in which she was a feminist but couldn’t live independently of a man because she needed one to survive.

I imagine that Shelley also wrote this book to show what she had learned from reading science and the world’s great literary works. But she may also have written it the way she did to provoke empathy, her point being, even though one is disfigured or different from others, like the monster was, that doesn’t mean one doesn’t have feelings or shouldn’t be treated with respect and dignity. The “Hunchback of Notre Dame” was another novel that elicited empathy in much the same way.

Since I found and read this book onboard ship I thought I should make a connection between the two. It’s not an aesthetically pleasing one but neither was the appearance of Frankenstein’s monster. Nor is it a very kind one. Nevertheless, here goes: As I looked around the ship I saw people that looked disfigured and moved awkwardly like the monster did, mostly because of their age. I thought about the modified bodies many of the passengers had, like Frankenstein’s monster, with alien parts like artificial hips, refurbished knees and transplanted organs.

I am surprised that Shelly didn’t give the monster a name. That explains why all these years it has been erroneously called Frankenstein. I also pondered a subject Shelley omitted that I thought might have made the monster a little more human. She never mentioned his bodily functions.

King

2010-11-17T11:06:00.001-08:00

January 18 is Martin Luther King Day in the US. That observance prompted an admirer to say that he is perhaps one of the greatest philosopher of our time.

I never thought of Martin Luther King as a philosopher but I guess he is, even though he is not listed in any philosophy dictionary. Nevertheless, his philosophy transformed America, and as a result, the world. His philosophy was aimed at ending segregation and racism in America, and improving human rights. To paraphrase Bertrand Russell, circumstances determined King’s philosophy and in turn his philosophy determined circumstances. He is what is known as an operational philosopher, an advocate who put his philosophical beliefs to work. Other operational philosophers who advocated and advanced the human condition were Freud (psychoanalysis) and Benjamin Spock (child rearing).

It probably was the inability of the US Supreme Court’s 1954 decision to achieve desegregate in schools that provoked King to do battle against segregation and racism. Even though the Court’s ruling was unanimous (9-0) on it own it had little power or influence to improve race relations in America. It was a start. But many jurisdictions, especially in the south, ignored and fought that ruling. And there still existed a cultural stubbornness and a lack of will in the country that had to be addressed before the old folkways on race would change. As an abstraction the Court’s dictate was insufficient to change cultural attitudes and norms. Real social reform would have to come from beneath, not through court rulings, but through peaceful activism and the process of appealing to people’s better instincts. It was the mechanism of King’s philosophical conviction about America doing right by its people, and not the law per se, that started to turn things around and began transforming America racially for the better.

But would his philosophy have resonated as well in another time as it did in the 1950-60s? Would people have listened to his message 20 years earlier, before WWII? My feeling is that earlier Americans wouldn’t have been so receptive to his call for social and racial justice because they were preoccupied with other issues. But the era of the 1950-60s was different. His message was in tune with the times, with people thinking more about the future and wanting change. His philosophical outlook alined itself perfectly with the demographics and sociopolitical sensibilities of the day.

What made his philosophy especially poignant and powerful was not just that he was a great orator but that American and the world was ready for it. Prior to King the world was engrossed in other issues, like wars and economic recovery. Moreover, the technology to distribute his poignant message did not exist yet. It was television that created the mass audience that made the difference. Without television I don't thing enough people would have visualized or appreciated what King was talking about, that race relations in America were scandalous. The people who counted and could make a difference saw on television for the first time the injustices perpetrated by Americans on other Americans. People were horrified and motivated by what they saw on TV, scenes of racial injustice and brutality, and they demanded reform. Hearing King's speeches on TV gave it all the more impact and urgency.

The world at the time of King was changing dramatically. Human rights had come to the forefront because of what happened during WWII and the Holocaust. People had become more aware of the ill treatment many people around the world were receiving, because of the growth of information and communications, such as that from television. King was the point man in changing attitudes towards race in America, changes that would eventually resonate around the world.

What gave King’s call for racial equality further traction was the generation he was speaking to. This generation was the so-called baby boomers, whose mass numbers began emerging at the close of WWII. After the war the birth rate shot up dramatically as soldiers returned from the front and as the world began to feel more optimistic. It was a generation like no other, in numbers and sensibilities. As Leonard Steinhorn wrote in his book, “The Greater Generation: In Defense Of The Baby Boomer Legacy”, it was a generation that was not blindly going to accept the status quo set by the previous generation, of social intolerance and unquestionable deference to authority. This generation of boomers was in sync and exceptionally empathetic to Martin Luther King’s fight for social justice. It was a generation determined to hold America to its founding ideals of equality for all under the law. Without this reform-minded generation King’s philosophy may have fallen on deaf ears and not led to the social transformation America needed so that it be the exceptional nation it trumpeted itself to be.

King’s influence was also in the fact that he drew attention to America’s Achilles heel at a critical time in its history. During the Cold War, America, touting its democratic values and superiority, was in competition with communism for the hearts and minds of the world. America had to show the world that it was truly the land of justice and opportunity for all, as advertised. But King, in drawing attention to its social inequality, embarrassed America in its propaganda war with communism. King's pursuit for racial justice and equality for all forced America to reexamine itself and work to end its segregationist policies against African-Americans if it hoped to win the propaganda war against communism.

King was America’s savior. At the time America was a country sitting on a tinderbox of race relations. A significant portion of America’s population felt alienated in their own country because of their color. What heighten tensions more is that many African-American’s had become more educated and conscious of the injustices perpetrated against them. They wanted the same rights that were accorded their white counterparts. African-Americans who had recently returned home from wars, defending America and democracy in WWII and Korea, expected equality and recognition for their contributions. These people wanted their due rights as citizens, especially if they were expected to help defend and build the nation. Although there were race riots during King’s tenure, his peaceful marches raised awareness that helped defuse a situation that potentially could have gotten worse and ripped the country apart even further.

King's philosophical legacy helped empowered millions of people economically and politically. He also fought for workers rights. His fight for emancipation provoked legislation that gave the vote to millions of African-Americans, who, because of their race, had been deliberately denied that right. Because of his efforts the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was pasted, one of the greatest pieces of legislation in history. Perhaps King's greatest political legacy is the election of America's first black president, Barack Obama, which couldn’t have occurred if it wasn’t for the struggle he led.

Machiavelli wrote: “The human tragedy is that circumstances change, but man does not.” We humans still don’t like change. But if Americans had not heeded King’s advocacy for social change in order to combat racial discrimination that would have been a bigger tragedy.

Why we live in a postmodern world

2010-08-01T07:19:00.000-07:00

Postmodern and postindustrial are synonymous. They both evoke a past era by symbolizing the present.

Postmodernism has not only changed the sensibilities and lifestyles of society on the whole but also between the sexes. The Atlantic magazine recently did an article on "The End Of Men: How Women Are Taking Control - Of Everything". As the article points out, The Great Recession in the US has caused more unemployment among men because the traditional jobs they hold in construction and manufacturing have been the hardest hit. Also, the economy is changing from a basically industrial one to a service one in which women are favored. For the first time more women are employed than men. Also, more women are graduating from universities and more parents are choosing to have girls, even in societies that once favored boys. This situation has upended the modern world which was more industrial, patriarchal and controlled by men. With these changes women are bring a new perspective to the world, something postmodernism is all about.

In His book “Consilience” Edward O. Wilson writes, “Postmodernism is the ultimate polar antithesis of the Enlightenment”. It was The Enlightenment that gave us modernism and the idea that there is truth and progress in human endeavor. Enlightenment thinkers believed that science would advance the world. And it has. However, an element of postmodernism particular to academia, generally resentful of the powers that be, preached antiscience, that science is arbitrary, depending on who is in control.

The Enlightenment also gave us democracy, which begs the question, is postmodernism antidemocratic?

Not exactly, but Fredrick Nietzsche (1844-1900), considered one of the first postmodernists, disliked modernity because it espoused democracy. He saw democracy as empowering the masses, something he despised because he felt that mass culture would smother individual achievement. Individual exceptionalism wouldn't survive in a sea of mass equality, he believed. However, Nietzsche must have been thinking of the illiberal version of democracy offered by Marxism rather than the liberal democracy of today's open societies where individual exceptionalism flourishes.

It is in academia that postmodernism has been most polemic and problematic, teaching things like science is an ideology and not necessarily ‘science‘ but only one truth among many. In other words, there are other ways of knowing about nature and the universe. In this respect postmodernism did a disservice by effecting people's ability to comprehend reality.

It is said that postmodernism is dead because those who most promulgated it are dead, like Jean-François Lyotard, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. Perhaps in academia it is but not in the real world or in retailing, as The Economist pointed out in its article "Post-modernism is the new black", the new cool. The Economist used the London department store Selfridges as an example. In the early 1990s Selfridges was near collapse, following the fate of many other department stores. Its merchandizing style had grown stale and unappealing to shoppers. Niche marketing was become the norm. Selfridges wisely adopted the niche merchandizing style where retail departments within its store became independent from each other. Under the old management system departments stores were run from a central office and as a result lost touch with changing tastes. By decentralizing itself and giving its departments the freedom to make decisions, Selfridges remade itself, becoming the toast of the department store world, so much so that its postmodern formate was adopted universally as a means of survival.

What modernists believed, to their detriment, was that once the world had adopted the rational of The Enlightenment things would fall into place. It hasn't quite worked out that way because modernists didn't take into account that their ideas wouldn't satisfy everybody. They hadn't considered that humans would still be unruly and behave independently, having their own ideas about how to lead their lives. For instance modernists believed the world would be structured in a hierarchal manner, run by men, ‘white’ men. Modernists believed in maintaining the status quo. It was more about colonization and uniformity. The backlash that mounted against this mindset in the 1960s is what helped pave the way to the postmodernism of today. Today it's about globalization, diversity and flexibility.

Perhaps this simple narrative might help explain why we live in a postmodern world and why it will remain so: An aspect of postmodernism had been to constantly deconstruct (Derrida) systems and centers of power to examine and find fault with them. If in the process a system is found wanting but has sufficiently redeeming qualities, it is reconstructed, with improvements, and put back into service. With this in mind, let’s compare liberal democracy's governing style and to its opposite — communism, which has ostensibly collapsed. Simply put, liberal democracy has survived as a governing system because when deconstructed and examined it was found at its core worthy of something to built on. In comparison, when communism was deconstructed and examined it was found rotten at its core and therefore discarded.

Foucault would have agreed that postmodernism is basically about decentralizing authority and emancipating the individual, helpfully enabled by technologies like the iPod and the Internet.

Writer, Reader and Humpty Dumpty

2010-07-16T14:01:00.000-07:00

When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said to Alice in "Through The Looking Glass", it meant exactly what I want it to mean. If he said so, that is what it meant.

I am reading David Markson's "This Is Not A Novel" in which he refers to himself as Writer. (I'll refer to myself as Reader, although I am also writing). In it he mentions the abstract artist Robert Rauschenberg who said about one of his paintings: "This is a portrait of Iris Clert [ Paris gallery owner] if I say so". Markson also writes, "This is a novel if Writer or Robert Rauschenberg say so". Later he writes, "This is even a poem, if Writer says so". And then, " This is even an epic poem, if the Writer says so".

Markson was considered an experimental writer.

I have come across people who don't like looking up the meaning of words in the dictionary because it ruins it for them. It's as though the dictionary is telling them how to think. They want to discover the meaning of words for themselves. The dictionary, they think, is telling them how to think. But unlike some, I don't think Humpty was bothered by the fact that a meaning of a word was defined prior to his using it. Humpty was into pragmatics, where the meaning of a word could take on different meanings depending on the context. He knew he was dealing with the English language, a democratic language open to interpretation and flexibility, not like other languages that remained inflexible and their usage policed by some central committee.

Speaking of being told how to think, I had an acquittance who said she didn't like reading the editorials in the newspaper because she felt that they were telling her how to think. Imagine feeling so easily influenced and so insecure about one's convictions.

I was hoping Markson might have made reference to Humpty Dumpty in his not-a-novel for my sake, since I had been thinking about him. His book is peppered with blurbs about notable people throughout history, e.g., Freud suffered from chronic constipation. But nowhere did I find even mention of Lewis Carroll (a.k.a Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) who employed Humpty as one of Alice's foils.

In his book "Voltaire's Bastards" John Ralston Saul evoked Humpty Dumpty to express his annoyance with the hijacking of 'capitalism' , that the term is often used to mean nothing of the kind.

Reader is wrong. Markson did mention Lewis Carroll, that he wrote standing up. Donald Rumsfeld, Bush’s inept Secretary of Defense, worked standing up. “Truman Capote wrote lying down.”

Howard Kainz wrote that Marx's dialectic was eclectic.

According to a Dutch physicist, the theory of everything may be found in thermodynamics, which I supposed. Erik Verlinde believes ‘that gravity is a consequence of the venerable laws of thermodynamics’.

Markson writes, "Lavoisier was guillotined in the Reign of Terror". Reader discovered Lavoisier was a French scientist known for his study in, what was at the time, the young field of thermodynamics. He demonstrated that the shift of matter from one state to another happens without loss or gain. Matter that is destroyed emerges as something else, in the same amount, though different. Jean-Paul Marat, Lavoisier's denouncer and a French revolutionist, may have understood this principle and also wanted to demonstrate it, so felt no qualms about authoring Lavoisier’s death.

One of Reader's favorite saying is 'Litigation creates Civilization'. (Reader doesn't know whether he made up that phrase or he read it somewhere.) Reader doesn't just mean the litigation that occurs in court rooms, between lawyers or clients, but the litigation that occurs on a daily bases between people and institutions. Reader is reading a book on orchestra conductors and he is thinking about the litigation and proceedings that occur between them and the musicians they conduct. The back and forth that transpires between these two parties does have a creative effect in that it results in a civilizing, harmonious development. In fact, the discourse and clashing that occurs between notes in music is a form of litigation, which also results in creation.

The litigation or argument that occurs between the conductor and musicians, like that which occurs between the notes of a score, can create glorious music if ultimately they come together in harmony. Humpty Dumpty may have called such a happening a 'glory' if he found the outcome satisfying and refreshing. In fact that is what he and Alice were discussing. He used the word glory to mean a "nice knock-down argument". Alice questioned and objected to that usage, prompting Humpty's famous line, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less”.

Sad as the French Revolution was for all, the litigation that occurred during it eventually helped lead to the civility we see today in Europe and throughout the world.

Today Reader learned that the elegant, Australian conductor Charles Mackerras died at 84, July 14, 2010. As a young man Mackerras found himself bowled over by the music of Janacek, the Czech composer.

Humpty Dumpty

2010-06-28T08:35:00.000-07:00

For some reason I thought of Humpty Dumpty. I know why, because of the word 'postmodernism'.

I read what I thought was a rogue interpretation of postmodernism by Arthur Berger. He sees it as a term meaning an old idea becoming fresh. For instance, he considers shuffling music and the randomly playing of it on an iPod as being a postmodern activity. As he explained, "Listening to music in the shuffle form contributes to postmodern sensibilities and lifestyles". So for him postmodernism means something new out of something old, a remodeling of sorts, a game changer.

Humpty Dumpty came to mind when I read Berger’s definition. His definition didn’t seem to fit the general understanding of postmodern. Humpty explains to Alice in “Through The Looking-Glass” that when he uses a word it means just what he chooses it to mean. Thus, I felt Berger had chosen postmodern to mean what he wanted it to mean.

In some quarters postmodernism is looked upon unfavorably. As it is defined, postmodernism literally means after 'modernism'. Modernism is the philosophical view that the world will unfold in a logical, homogeneous manner, where people gravitate and conform to a prescribed lifestyle. In contrast, the philosophy of postmodernism means that the order isn’t necessarily ideal or good. Why this idea so upsets people is because it gives the impression that anything goes, especially when it comes to lifestyle and values. Detractor of postmodernism view it as a chaotic and dangerous philosophy - a threat to achieving and maintaining a cohesive, civil society.

Multiculturalism is considered postmodern. Under modernism people coming together from different cultures were expected to assimilate into a single culture. But in the postmodern world people retain their own cultures while learning to coexist in the larger context, hence the idea of multiculturalism. Modernism is a much simpler lifestyle than postmodernism, which brings with it more complexity, variations and choices. The modern world was easier to govern, whereas the postmodern world is more demanding and harder to balance in its multiplicity.

Perhaps the meaning Berger gave postmodern isn’t so far off. The shuffle form of listening to music does seems to go up against an established norm of listening to music. It does seem to ruffle some old sensibilities about how music should be listened to. Moreover, his meaning sounds compatible with the general idea of postmodernism, that things don’t necessarily have to be of a certain pattern or order, socially or otherwise, for things to remain intact or meaningful. Berger’s postmodernism is definitely disruptive of the old order, breaking down the centers of control and offering alternatives.

The other day I learned of a postmodern novelist, David Markson, who died at 82. He was considered an experimental novelist. He didn’t always follow the traditional norms of writing. I guess that is why he was considered postmodern and experimental. One thing that made him different is that his storytelling lacked the usual structure of plot and characters. He would inject his narrative with random, unconnected thoughts, like mentioning something unrelated. Perhaps that is what made him postmodern, that he broke with tradition. I can imagine how his style might have infuriate some. Nevertheless, it didn’t seem to matter much because he had quite a following that succumbed to his style. Somebody described his writing like a person thinking. He might be writing about a visit to the Louvre and then switch gears and write, to use my example, The industrialized world represented modernism. The service industry that's followed represents postmodernism or, if you will, postindustrialism. In his book “This Is Not A Novel”(A Review: "It is ironic that what we call a "novel" is bound up in a relatively stable set of conventions which belie the novelty or newness its namesake suggests. It is this tension that makes David Markson's This Is Not a Novel an ambitious and compelling postmodern work that makes one think about the process of reading itself.") he writes in the form of tweets, analogous of that postmodern sensibility experienced on Twitter.

I wonder if Markson blurbed or tweeted anything about Humpty Dumpty?

to be continued....

Freud and Einstein

2010-05-19T10:06:00.000-07:00

In Jeffrey Gordon's article 'Is War Inevitable?' in Philosophy Now 66, I read Freud's assertion to Einstein that man is driven by two powerful instincts, one of creation and one of destruction. In other word, man has an inherent urge to create and then destroy. Freud was knowledgeable in the perversion of man.

Even though Freud was not optimistic that man would or could ever stop making war, Einstein seemed encouraged by Freud's instinctive explanation, perhaps because Einstein focused more on man's creative aspect than on the destructive. Perhaps Einstein thought that as man got more creative in his ability to destroy himself he would eventually lose a desire for war and use reason instead. And in a sense that is what happened, with the help of none other than Einstein himself. Ironically, his discoveries allowed the creation of the atomic bomb, which would stymie future wars. Because of its destructive power it became a deterrent instead of a weapon. Nations have not gone to war with each other as they once did.

I also thought of the economist Joseph Schumpeter, who labeled capitalism 'creative destruction'. After WW2 and with the advent of atomic weapons, capitalism ascended around the world. Man still had his instinct for destruction, but now capitalism manifested and channeled this instinct in less harmful, more productive ways: with capitalism, man's destructive instinct combined with his creative instinct shifted to a more benign but peaceful form. Einstein's optimism for mankind still triumphs over Freud's pessimism.

The world is replete with opposites, like the two poles of electricity, the genders of male and female, up and down, day and night and the two strands of DNA. Freud made us aware of another combination, humanity's penchants for creation and destruction, opposites that are as immutable as the others.

Einstein was one that showed that the splitting of the atom in two would unleash an astonishing amount of energy.

More on pluralism

2010-05-15T06:02:00.000-07:00

In his article in Issue 74 Stephen Anderson writes, "Pluralism is the most serious problem facing liberal democracies today". On the contrary. I think pluralism is one of the big things liberal democracy has going for it.

What makes liberal democracy attractive and the only expanding form of governance in the world is that it encourages and celebrates pluralism. Pluralism does make liberal democracy more complex but that complexity has made it more durable and resilient, as shown by 9/11, from which it recovered. Moreover, the competing interests of pluralism have served to make liberal democracy more sophisticate and agile. In comparison, liberal democracy's rival, communism, collapsed because it lacked the energizing push and pull of pluralism that could have helped rejuvenate and keep it relevant and legitimate. Even liberal democracy's name resonates pluralism in the fact that it is fashioned out of two contradictory theories of human governance (forming a kind of governance DNA), liberal, referring to free market competition, and democracy, based on cooperation and equality.

So ironically, pluralism has helped bolster the Golden Rule, not hinder it as Anderson seems to suggest. As history can attest, the Golden Rule has not always been that solid a rule. It is an essential good start; but on its own it is generally toothless, as was another good start, "all men are created equal". What gave that declaration meaning was that it was backed up by a constitution.

Generally, the Golden Rule has had tacit acceptance for like-minded people and of common ethnicity. But for the Golden Rule to be meaningfully binding it's had to speak to a universal mutual respect and empathy - that is, it condones pluralism. What gives the Golden Rule even more credence is the political commitment to expand human rights and eradicate tribalism. Furthermore, that political commitment has helped put people throughout the world on an equal footing, despite their opposing interests. Without such a political commitment and the added pressures of pluralism, on the whole the Golden Rule would have remained an ideal.

Contrary to what Anderson seems to imply, the Golden Rule did stand the test on 9/11, as that attack did not spark a clash of civilizations as many believed it might. That it didn't, I think is due to the depth of pluralism that had accumulated in the world between nations and peoples, which grew out of the increasing interdependence of the world and agencies like the UN and WTO which cultivated pluralism and internationalism to maintain world peace.

The Pill

2010-05-09T11:48:00.000-07:00

This is the 50th anniversary of the birth control pill, the Pill. It introduced a new kind of science, regulatory science, where products are pre-tested or recalled if they were found faulty. From this grew the science of environmental impact studies, which studies the impact of human developments on the environment before they are implimented.

2010-04-29T08:26:00.000-07:00

Here is another letter of mine that was published in Philosophy Now, letter no. 12:

From reading your editorial in issue 77, "Continental Tales', I learned that I do continental philosophy, since like the continentals I tend to think in terms of the abstractions that govern humankind; that is, grand narratives.

It began with my seeking an explanation for the collapse of communism. I wondered, was there a single, overarching imperative that brought about communism's demise? And was liberal's democracy's triumph due to it addressing that imperative successfully? Hegel, the master of grand narratives, led me to what I consider the answer.

While other thinkers in Hegel's day were busy concocting grand narratives based on fixed entities like authority, religion and culture - only to see them shattered by churning world events - Hegel based his grand narrative on change itself. That to me is the main reason why communism didn't survive: because its governance was inflexible, outdated, and inherently couldn't adjust to the changing world. What I believe ultimately led to its decline, is that the world was becoming culturally and economically both more interdependent and open, while communism was predisposed to remain both closed and an isolationist society. But history and humankind had other ideas; hence it was swept aside, like other authoritarian regimes that resisted change and openness.

Hegel also saw the direction of history guided by the struggle for freedom and recognition. For him, this fundamental human desire and its subsequent accommodation causes the most profound upheavals in the world, from its organization to its governance. It also contributed to the demise of communism since it structurally obstructed this Hegelian struggle every step of the way.

Grand narratives should be taken with a grain of salt. But many a truism is found in them.

Philosophy and comics

2010-04-24T07:27:00.000-07:00

Above is another cover of Philosophy Now (click on it to enlarge it) that gets right to the point. This is what I wrote about it:

On the cover of issue 73, Philosophy Now cleverly portrays one of its subjects, the Credit Crisis. Its comic/cartoon cover portrays the crisis for what it is, a virtual earthquake. It gets right to the point, pictorially illustrating two major causes of the crisis - crumbling banks and the panic it generated.

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. PN's comic cover lives up to that adage. Moreover, its simple depiction gets right down to business, foregoing a wordy, esoteric explanation that in all likely hood would bore or confuse people. It graphically makes the situation instantly real and personal, speaking directly to the 'common man'. And in that lies a power of the comic, its egalitarianism.

The magazine's main subject, Comics & Philosophy, produces two aspects of the Credit Crisis. Though serious, it has its comical side, reminiscent of the antics of the "Keystone Cops" where nobody seemed to be in the know or in charge. It also has its philosophical nature in that it will alway remain an abstract, complex issue as to the real caused of it.

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The above wasn't published in Philosophy Now but the following letter by me was:

I have little interest in comics, just like I have little interest in novels. Both are a form of escapism and entertainment that I don't need. But I understand those genres preforming a social service. Both relate to and expand the commonalities of the human condition. Thus, in a subliminal way, by appealing to what people have in common - emotions needs and aspirations, they help facilitate social cohesion, which is essential if we are going to live well together. (I think that the Danish comic depictions of Allah helped, in a perverse way, to engage and defuse a lot of animosity between faiths that otherwise would have continued to fester and potentially have led to worse.)

In her book “Inventing Human Rights” Lynn Hunt writes about the role novels have played in the development of rights. Human rights could never have been established if the miming and cultivation of the common characteristics that make us human, like sympathy and empathy, hadn't occurred in novels. Hunt describes how Rousseau’s novel “Julie” (1761) was an early contributer in this process.

If the novel was instrumental in cultivating human rights. I see the comic doing the same thing, but in a different, simpler way, mainly graphically. Now we have the combination of the two, the graphic novel. Some may see this as a dumping down of the traditional novel but in its 'clipped', pictorial version its message may be reaching and influencing more readers, producing an additional venue in bringing a common understanding.

Philosophy Now

2010-04-22T05:59:00.000-07:00

I subscribe to a magazine called Philosophy Now. Here is the cover of the latest issue, #78.

I have submitted many letters to the magazine since I first read it in 1999 and had a total of 12 published. Here is one that wasn't so I will submit it here:

I have been preoccupied with pluralism. Then I receive PN's latest issue #75 on existentialism & culture and my preoccupation shifted to existentialism, to the point of being nagged by it. I say nagged by it because it wouldn't leave me alone until I got a clearer fix on it. Perhaps, too, I forced myself to concentrate on it because of a potential link to pluralism.

With all due respect to PN, its articles on existentialism left me wanting. I had to look elsewhere to understand its relevance. But then, that may be the purpose of PN, to peak one's interest so to star one on a path of discovery.

One thing I learned is that today's existential movement grew out of Kierkegaard's counter argument to Hegel's abstract rationalism and idealism. Existentialists believe philosophical inquire should start with the individual's place in the world instead of phenomena and grand theories. It believes that nothing much in the world occurs or exists without first the action or thought of individuals. Kant thought in existential terms in that human will is what separated man from nature and contingency, making man an independent, existential agent. I also learned about its rise to prominence during the 40's and 50's as a direct response to Nazism and Fascism, dogmas where individualism was overshadowed by grand theories, inevitabilities and determinants of history.

I can understand why existentialism came to prominence during that time, because of the violations that were perpetrated against humans under fascist and totalitarian regimes. As Bertrand Russell said, our circumstances influence our philosophy. This is truly a philosophy that grew to reflect and address the circumstances of the day, a philosophy that would enhance individualism, thus putting pressure of the political system of the day to strengthen human rights so the atrocities perpetrated against humans during WWII would not occur again. The significance of existentialism was that it emanated from individuals and not the state, which historically had been a poor defender of human rights and freedoms. Without this philosophy the expansion of democracy would surely have stalled. This philosophy further empowered and extended the reach of the individual, the wellspring of democracy and social justice. (My favorite existential expression is "For best results, cultivate individuals, not groups.")

As for pluralism, existentialism has expanded it, through the expansion of individualism, independent thinking and the increased competing self-interests it initiates. Those byproducts of existentialism are not just self-serving and selfish. They are the agitating dynamics that keep the persistent tendencies of authoritarianism at bay. Pairing the two also highlights a paradox of life, the contradiction and conflict that exist between the existential individualism and the pluralistic institution that is society. Both often clash and want to lead but neither can realistically live without the other if either hopes to fulfill its needs and aspirations.

Freud and Benjamin Spock were exponents of existentialism, advocating self-hood and self-realization. Both expanded the scope of human awareness and possibilities. Freud made us more aware of our proclivities and Spock our capabilities. Both made us more confident about making choices and acting on them. In making us more aware of ourselves, our passions and our potentials they expanded our social consciousness, which in turn sparked the civil rights movements of the 50s and 60s, which, as we know, altered the culture of the world.

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As an after thought, this is International Earth Day, April 22, marking the 40th anniversary of it. If it wasn't for the forces of individualism and existentialism it would never have materialized. It was individuals in existential thought and coming together that brought it about, existential thinkers who said, perhaps selfishly but rightfully so, it is my (our) live and I (we) am not going to let polluters take it away from me by destroying my (our) Earth. This grand display of existentialism shows that mass self-interest can materialize into the common good as Adam Smith argued more than 200 years ago.

Kierkegaard is believed to be the father of existentialism. For me this is interesting, especially in the context of Philosophy Now's question. Kierkegaard's existentialism grew out of his believe that religion and belief in God should be an individual's choice and a private matter. His existentialism said the existence and nature of God shouldn't be forced on people. I believe he deplored the institutionalization of God. His kind of thinking gave strength to secularism and pluralism, materializing into today's more peaceful world where most of us have learned to tolerate other people's faiths.

Trump

2010-02-06T10:24:00.000-08:00

I cut this mat and it reminds me of the Trump Tower being built in Toronto.

Democracy and Experts

2010-01-15T09:36:00.000-08:00

I was arguing democracy with a conservative. We had a difference of opinion as to what democracy entails and constitutes. He told me to refer to the experts and historians about its true nature and to know when it fails. The only thing is, he didn't offer me any names of experts and historians. Are there any?

What is interesting to me is that the experts and historians there are on the subject are still learning and debating what democracy is and what makes it work.

Take for example, Larry Diamond, who teaches democracy at Stanford. He is an expert in democracy, at least he thought, until he went to Iraq to help establish it there. Not long after being in Iraq he left in frustration because of the momentous problems facing the building of democracy. One thing he realized is that if there is to be any chance for democracy, fundamentally one needs security and stability. Iraq lacked both big time. Ironically the war made it more unstable. Why didn't he know that beforehand? Other experts like Francis Fukuyama (The End of History) fell into the same trap.

Another thing Diamond and Fukuyama (considered neoconservatives) didn't consider is that democracy can't be parachuted and expected to take hold in countries that have never practiced it before, in a short period of time. In the West it has taken centuries to establish and understand. And the West is still learning. Democracy is contingent on many things accruing simultaneously, like the rule of law, free markets, a free press, dissent, pluralism and so on, just like the human body needs many organs to work properly. Those organs have taken a long time to evolve. So no wonder democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan is having difficulty taking hold.

Democracies like the US and Britain seem to some to be failing. However, it is not that they are failing. They are under pressure to upgrade themselves, which all governing systems have to do if they are going to remain vital and legitimate, especially in a constantly changing world. (Communism collapsed because it remained stagnant.) Governing systems also suffer from ware and tear, and entropy, just like their counterparts in the physical world. If democracy was static it would be a different story. But there are always new circumstances entering its domain that have to be accommodated and adjusted for. If democracy failed in countries like Argentine, where it did several time, it's because they didn't have the institutions or division of power established to insure that it carry on, which isn't the case for the US or Britain.

People, most of them conservatives, often point to ancient Greece as having been a thriving democracy. But as I understand it, it was only a democracy for a limited number of white males of a certain class. And it didn't include women or minorities, like slaves. On hindsight it just looked like an experiment. But conservatives can't explain why it didn't last. Conservatives insist that since democracy failed in those days it can fail today. But democracy is far more robust and resilient today than it was then.

Democracy didn't last in ancient Greece because its existence was tiny and there weren’t enough like minded countries in the world to bolster and support it. In contrast, today we have a critical mass of people who thing democratically. There are plenty of nations practicing democratic principles, enough that if one is on the verge of losing it, it can expect assistance from others to help re-establish it. Globalization would not be possible if democratic principles, like transparency and accountability, between nations were not observed.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was knowledgeable about democracy. Except that in his day there weren't any true democracies around. What was around then was just fledging democracies, like the US and Britain. But he did have an insight, that democracies don't go to war with each other. I can't think of one fully developed democracy that has gone to war with another. Kant may have said this: "The main goal of democracy is to reduce violence". The proof is in the pudding. As democracy has expanded around the world, fewer and fewer nations have gone to war with each other. Perhaps that is the greatest legacy of democracy, that it has brought the world closer together. Kant certainly believed that would be the case.

Democracy is a messy, dissonant procedure. Perhaps that is why conservatives have a problem with it. Democracy isn't black and white. Conservatives tend to think black and white. Democracy requires nuancing. Conservatives have a problem nuancing.

Las Vegas

2009-12-31T12:19:00.000-08:00

We just got back from Las Vegas. We didn't go there to gamble since we both hate to loose money, but to see that virtual, fantasy world cut out of the desert.

In my last essay I wrote about a ‘spanner in the works’. Well, this was one of those occasions when a spanner had been thrown into the works, disrupting an entire system. It started the day before, on Christmas Day, when a terrorist tried to blow up a plane as it flew into Detroit from Amsterdam. This incident literally threw a monkey wrenched into the travel plans of many because it sparked a higher level of security at airports everywhere, causing lengthy delays. At least it wasn't due to the weather, which might have caused even longer delays. But some of the precautions that were implemented as a result seemed silly and fruitless, like not being able to watch TV on board the plane because the program included a map of our flight, like that would have made a difference.

Anyway, the flight went well and we were only two hours late. But one thing we had to do was remain in our seats the last hour of the flight because that was when the terrorist tried to blowup the plane. You see, he had gone to the washroom in that last hour for a lengthy period of time in order to prepare his explosive. Once in Las Vegas, though, everything went fine, though it was a little cool, but sunny.

The Las Vegas airport is very close to the city center, unlike Toronto where we left from. To give you an idea of how close it was the cab only cost $18 to our hotel, whereas in Toronto it cost about $60 to the airport from where we live.

We stayed at the Bellagio, overlooking Lake Como. It wasn't really Lake Como or the real Bellagio. The names were lifted from the real places in Italy, north of Milan. And that is the thing about Las Vegas, most of it is fantasy and making one feel like they might be somewhere else. For instance, across from our room on 24th floor was the Paris hotel, with a replica of the Eiffel Tower and the Paris Opera House in front. It was quite spectacular. Up the street, north on the Las Vegas Strip, was the Venetian, with its Cantabil Tower in St Mark's Square and the Rialto Bridge spanning a canal with gondolas.

We found the Venetian almost as impressive as our hotel. In side the Venetian we found canals and real gondolas in which people took rides as the gondoliers singing to them. Along the canals were building similar to ones in the real Venice, house boutiques of all kinds. The ceiling of this indoor fantasy was painted so as to look like the sky.

The Day before we had wonder in the other direction and went into the New York-New York casino. There we found streets and building modeled after those in the Soho area of New York City. Again, it was impressive. We had a pizza there, which seemed appropriate.

Prior to going to the New York-New York casino we had wonder through the brand new City Center. It has just opened the week before. The City Center is a redevelopment project literally in the center of all the casinos on the Strip. It was so impressive it even impressed the otherwise hard to impress Las Vegans. It was composed of five are six buildings, all designed by different architects. One was designed by Libeskind, the same Libeskind that designed the extension to our Royal Ontario Museum. His building is also named the Crystal, as it is in Toronto. But in Las Vegas it houses a shopping mall, a very high end one at that.

The City Center was very impressive. So was its price tag of 8.5 billion dollars. Because of the poor state of the economy it almost went bankrupted. The partnership of MGM and Dubai World built it. Dubai World in the United Emirates has also flirted with bankruptcy.

On our second evening we went to see “O”, one of the many Cirque de Soleil extravagances in Vegas, this one at the Bellagio. Visually it broke the ‘wow’ factor. But I was disappointed in the sound. It sounded canned, which it was, and mono, especially where we were sitting. You’d think that in this day and age they could make artificial sound sound more like a real orchestra.

All the hotels we visited had casinos except the Trump. The Trump looked very understated in comparison to the other hotel. But it did have a New York elegance about it that I understand Trump was wanting to achieve.

Beside the Trump, to the north, there were two hotel projects that had come to a standstill due to the poor economy. Beyond that, on the other side of the Stripe, was The Fontainebleau hotel project, which also was at a standstill. Some other hotels and projects had gone into bankruptcy.

One thing I was impressed with, and there were lots of things to be impressed with in Vegas, was how accessible most everything was. I found it a very open, democratic city, certainly very American and easy going. People from all over the world behaved like they had a lot in common. That was very satisfying to me. And the natives were especially friendly and helpful, and proud of their city.

The Flamingo casino, to the left of our hotel, had a huge poster of Donny and Marie Osmond stuck on the outside of the building, covering many of its windows. One our trip to The Grand Canyon we met a couple from The Flamingo who said they were in a room that was right in Donny Osmond's hair. That got quite a laugh.

The Grand Canyon was as impressive as Las Vegas. But we might not see the Canyon again like we might Vegas, because Vegas is so unreal.

Spanner

2009-10-24T09:18:00.000-07:00

This post is called "spanner" because of the frustration I have experienced when writing about a complex subject. It seems like a strange connection but bear with me.

I am recalling the expression "throwing a spanner into the works", a metaphor attributed to P. G. Wodehouse. It's meant to conjure the image of a mechanism or a system being jammed by a spanner or a wrench thrown into it. It also suggest the posing of an obstacle. (On the other hand, I can see a spanner being deliberately thrown into the mechanism/system out of sheer frustration with it not working properly.)

My recent frustration with writing has come from an essay about pluralism in the sociopolitical world. It is a complex subject, quite abstract. Anyway, I came up with what I believe are good examples of pluralism to make a plausible essay on the subject. But then I discovered a new example of it, which changed the whole flow and tone of the essay, throwing it out of whack. It thus necessitated a rework, hence my sensing a spanner in the works and my being frustrated.

I just realized that pluralism itself can be a spanner in the works. Why, in the sociopolitical world pluralism can be a preverbal spanner. A spanner like pluralism and the tension it induces can upset the sociopolitical apple cart and the best laid plans for governing people. It can ruin one's metaphysical notions of the world, of absolute principles and how the world should be run. What can be irritating about pluralism in governance is that it produces alternatives in doing things and brings about the change many of us dread. It causes upheavals in society and to governing systems.

An example of pluralism throwing a spanner into the works occurred right here in Canada, between Canada's two founding cultures, the English and the French. The English, being the dominant culture, thought they were the works and could rule the country monistically, according to their ways. Then the French started flexing their muscles, demanding equal representation. The action of French literally threw a spanner in the proceedings by challenging and interfering with the core of Canadian politics. Fortunately, the power that be wisely choose to compromise, to be more inclusive and pluralistic in its construct, from the halls of government to the ways of business. Perhaps there was no choice But because of this change the country literally went through a political revolution. In this case the spanner proved to be an incremental instrument that agitated the system and then corrected a perceived injustice, which saved the country from breaking-up.

"Pluralism is the most serious problem facing liberal democracies today”. The person who said that I am sure sees pluralism like a big spanner in the works, as well as a threat to liberal democracy. I would venture to guess that person views pluralism as destroying the social cohesion liberal democracy needs to govern successful. For instance, pluralism encourages multiculturalism, an institution many see as divisive and ruinous to democracy because it perceivably doesn't encourage unity so that a society can live harmoniously.

Although I have railed against the spanner that has upended my essay on pluralism I am quite in favor of it when it cans to human governance. I think the spanner of pluralism in human governance is a salvation. It is the agitation that keeps governance vital and legitimate. In contrast to the opinion above I don't think pluralism is such a serious problem to liberal democracy. On the contrary. I think it is what keeps it alive and healthy.

Pluralism does make liberal democracy more complex but that complexity has made it more durable and resilient, as shown by 9/11, from which it recovered and continued to expand. Moreover, the competing interests of pluralism have served to make liberal democracy more sophisticate and agile. In comparison, liberal democracy's rival communism collapsed because it lacked the energizing push and pull of pluralism that could have helped rejuvenate and keep it relevant. Why, even liberal democracy's name resonates pluralism in the fact that it is constructed out of two competing theories of human governance (forming a kind of DNA of human governance), one being liberal which promotes free market competition and an inequality, and the other democracy, based more on cooperation and equally.

The spanner in the works is frustrating. It causes problems. But as an economist once said, we need problems because they make us better. The spanner as problem forces us to question, think and come up with solutions, thus expanding and enhancing us.

Venice

2009-07-03T10:12:00.000-07:00

Last year we had a wonderful trip on the Queen Victoria that started in Venice. Here is a picture of that splendid city.

Are Philosophers Responsible?

2009-06-10T10:55:00.000-07:00

Someone asked in an article, "Are Philosophers Responsible for Global Warming?"

This writer listed a few people who in the late 19th and early 20th century warned about the dangerous effects of burning fossil fuels on the environment. The writer thinks that those warnings should have been heeded earlier and concern for the environment should have been made instantly part of our cultural mindset. In other words, philosophers should have taken up the task of making the conversation about global warming sooner, like forcing the issue into the media and making it part of the educational curriculum years ago. If so, we could have avoided the environment problems we face today. The writer believes that since we didn't listen up and act earlier the environment today is suffering unnecessarily.

My response as to why the environment hadn't become an issue or a movement earlier is because humankind had other things on its mind, like still figuring out what it wanted to be, democratic or communist. Back then humankind was also still preoccupied in fighting wars. Humankind then was also too divided to come together to be concerned about the environment. Philosophers could have screamed at the top of their lungs about the problem but not enough people would have listened to make a difference. Moreover, people had not yet experienced enough about the environment to make a difference. In other words, a critical mass of concern had not yet developed back then for the environment to become a central issue.

Anyway, from that question I made up my own question. I wonder whether philosophers can be held responsible for our present economic crisis. Of course not, I say. However, perhaps they are responsible. Take, for instance, Milton Friedman. He was an economist. But he was also a philosopher. What made him a philosopher, as opposed to a scientist, is that he didn't deal with definite matter, although he liked to think so. He dealt with hypotheses, often speculating in intangibles and ideas. His hypotheses and ideas about economics became mainstream and the economic mantra of the last 30 years, a source of today's economic problems.

Friedman was very vocal about the virtues of free market and that government participation in it should be minimal. Governments all over the world took his philosophy to heart, implementing Friedman's free market principles all over the place, with major successes. His free market principles helped bring down communism, because they helped accentuated communism's failures.

However, the free market has caused us a lot of headaches recently. But was it the philosopher Friedman's fault that this crisis occurred, because actually, it can be argued, many of Friedman's ideas were manipulated and abused by others. It is a shame that he hadn't spoken up about the abuses that occurred in his name before he died in 2006. Why, his opposite number, John Galbraith, had railed for years about the excesses of the unfettered free market. But the majority of people chose not to listen to his philosophy about a possible economic catastrophe if governments didn't work to modify and temper the free market.

So every question has its dueling philosophers. Economics had Friedman and Galbraith. So in a sense you can't blame philosophers for anything. They offer us advice and possible scenarios, and try to help the rest of us figure things out. Philosophers don't make policy. Then, It is the policy makers and implementers who take philosopher's theories and ideas whom we should blame.

We are all responsible, in some way. Guilty by association!

Photograph

2009-05-10T08:47:00.000-07:00

I am looking at what I consider a very striking and revealing photograph. Not only is it conceptually and aesthetically pleasing but it reminds me of events that caused untold financial damage. It’s a picture I took in New York City, in 1997, of two buildings that, it subsequently dawned on me, house two financial companies that are now notorious for losing billions of dollars for their clients. One of those firms is no longer in business because of the extent of its wrongdoing.

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. This one certainly is because of what it also inadvertently represents. I took the picture while waiting for a bus. It's a photo of two imposing buildings juxtaposing one other, the Citigroup Center on Lexington Avenue and the so-called Lipstick Building on Third Avenue. (It was nicknamed the Lipstick because of its color and resemblance to a lipstick container.) The Citgroup building, in the foreground, stands about ten stories above the ground on four columns and a central core, creating an open space beneath it's towering fifty stories above. (In the photo I just captured two columns and the lighted underside of its fifty stories above.) The open space created by the columns acted like a window through which I could see the Lipstick Building behind. It’s really a striking composition of two contrasting architectural structures. I obviously was enamored with the view, hence my taking the picture, and for the fact that I like tall buildings. There is also a kind of irony about the picture in that it shows two very solid structures that housed two firms whose foundations later turned to sand.

As I said, what makes the photograph also noteworthy is that it captures two buildings that housed firms that were instrumental in bringing unprecedented financial turmoil, inflicting much pain on individuals and institutions that invested with them. The most notorious of the two companies is Madoff Securities which operated from the Lipstick Building. Bernie Madoff, its president, is now infamous, and in jail, for perpetrating the largest Ponzi, pyramid scheme in history. Citigroup is famous for being one of the largest participants in the subprime financial market, which contributed to an unprecedented real estate bubble that eventually exploded. What also sunk both firms is the ethos of the day, and that they got ensnared in exotic financial instruments and the extreme leveraging of capital that had been sweeping the financial markets.

In a sense I find it extraordinary and poignant that I have this picture of two of New York’s most famous and noted buildings, historically and architecturally. They are not only famous for their design and presence but for the two firms they housed, two firms that embodied much of the excesses of capitalism that eventually overwhelmed America, New York City and the world.

Traditionalism

2009-05-02T09:36:00.000-07:00

I find it interesting that conservatives and traditionalists can accept Darwin's theory of evolution when it comes to free market economics but not when it comes to how humans and nature came to be.

But, then, there is a salient, striking hypocrisy in traditionalism. For instance, traditionalists are against abortion but then are willing to see growing children sink into an abyss because they weren't born on the 'right side of the tracks' or not onto a 'level playing field' like they were. (Basically, their thinking is that they are not one of us.) They aren't willing to help foster such children along with decent healthcare and education. To their way of thinking such children should be treated like business - survival of the fittest, which, ironically, is Darwinian logic.

Traditionalists believe in a Creator and creationism. But when it comes to free market economics they do not. But something had to create the market and nurture it along. Something had to create the environment in which it flourishes. Yes, something did, imaginative governing bodies and imaginative people. It has been a concerted, cooperative effort. But now that the economy is in crisis, traditionalists cannot abide such cooperation, insisting that government should deliberately let the market find its own level, despite the potentially universal destructive nature of the crisis. They don't want any interference from government, especially if it becomes mutually beneficial. Instead, they are willing to sacrifice everything and go back to how things were, in the 19th century, when the divide between rich and poor was providence, according to them.

These traditionalists don't think in terms of what can be beneficial to the whole. They don't understand that if you help give a leg up to society's weaker members you are enhancing the whole, as well as their own security. People who are denied a fair shake by traditionalist can become potential revolutionists and threatening, like they became in the 60's. People who felt excluded rioted and destroy cities and communities in those years, as traditionalist well remember but didn't seem to learn from.

Traditionalist, like fundamentals, would like to inject more religious dogma into government. We saw this attempted during the Bush administration. But with that imposition traditionalists would threaten the very nature of democracy. Democracy requires a bifurcation of authority, a secularism, a separation between Church and State, which even Thomas Jefferson said was essential so that no autocracy could take hold in America. Ironically, in their pressure to have more religious influence in government, traditionalist would been embarking on a road something akin to an Islamic state where there is no separation between Church and State, and no democracy. Such an attempt would push America back into a darker era.

How can traditionalists live with this kind of hypocrisy.

Pragmatism

2009-04-18T04:22:00.000-07:00

I have noticed the word pragmatic in use more often recently. Perhaps that is because I have become more aware and interested in it. But I do think its usage has increased due to the difficult economic times we live in. It has been used to convey the idea that we should be patient and practical in how we approach these difficult times, that we should endeavor to seek practical and utilitarian solutions to our economic problems and not throw the baby out with the bath-water, so to speak. For instance, we shouldn’t be too hasty or heavy handed in dealing with the banks who caused the crisis, but instead take a balanced, practical approach so that we don’t further damage the industry out some sense of injustice or wanting revenge. Pragmatism is telling us that we should be cautious and realistic in how we deal with the financial institutions that failed us because, after all, we need them for our economic recovery.

Pragmatism is from the Greek meaning 'a doing' - action. However, pragmatism in today’s usage denotes more the sense of practicality than action. So how did pragmatism come to mean practicality from the original meaning of action? I think that the idea of practicality comes from one's experience, noting that one can’t have practice or experience without action or doing first.

It is not surprising that the philosophy of pragmatism emerged in first America, because from its start America was a nation of doers and plenty of activity. And when it came to governance, America’s government was the first to be openly active and engaged with its people, getting involved in nation and social building in a big way, through an active legal system and an educational curriculum that was relevant to the people. The first true experiment of democracy America embarked on could not have transpired without a sense of pragmatism, of compromise and cooperation among its founding members. This nation building and activism the American government and its people adopted certainly reflected the spirit of what the Greeks called pragma.

In "The Sociology of Philosophies" Randell Collins writes, "Pragmatism was the product of interaction between religious Idealism and the research sciences fostered by American university reform". (The university reform was provoked and by the new and appealing evolutionary theory of Darwin.) From this one can conclude that pragmatism was born as a means of bridging the growing divide between those who chose to remain religious - traditionalists, and those who chose to believe in evolution and science - modernists. To this day America remains a divided country, where a majority still don't believe in evolution. However, America's philosophy, pragmatism, is a philosophy of compromise and reconciliation. It is a philosophy that puts theory into practice - walks the talk, becoming an operational philosophy as John Dewy believed philosophy should be. Through deeds and action, this philosophy cultivated a middle, practical ground in law and education.

If pragmatism hadn't been invented America may have been torn apart by its contradictory camps of traditionalists and modernists, as it was by the Civil War. Instead, pragmatism laid the common ground on which differences could coexist. Ironically, the philosophy of pragmatism began to take root after the Civil War, perhaps as a spirited means of healing the rift that was exposed by the war. With pragmatism America invented its own truth, that people from all walks of life and beliefs can live together - a rationale that had never been tested before in human governance. And to this day that truth still binds together people who are not always like-minded. Pragmatism, in how it traverse the divide, is what makes the illusion of equality a reality.

Rude awakening.

2009-03-28T00:10:00.000-07:00

"Anyone who believes that politicians can do a better job constructing a healthy economy than the people they want to replace or manipulate in the financial world is in for a very rude awakening.”

That opinion was directed at the Obama administration, which is using government people and resources to fix the sick American economy. Our commentator also mentioned a ‘rude awakening’, which seems to be misplaced.

Today’s politicians, let alone the Obama administration, don’t and didn’t want the responsibility of constructing a healthy economy. That job belongs to the people because they are recognized as the best capable in doing it. The Obama team just wants to reestablish the environment in which ordinary people will themselves recreate a healthy economy, by bringing back trust and confidence to the system, and by reinvigorating the banking system that insiders destroyed. Throughout American history it has been government that has initially established the favorable circumstances, and common sense, in which a healthy economy can grow and flourish. There is no exception this time around and the Obama team recognizes its responsibility.

I was inspired to write this piece not only by the quote above but because of a book written by Felix Rohatyn: “Bold Endeavors: How Our Government Built America, and Why It Must Build Now”. Mr. Rohatyn is the former investment banker who helped rescue New York City from bankruptcy in the 1970’s, with the help of government aid. History knows that NYC recovered and paid back the government loans. From that government help, NYC went on to be better than ever. Nobody wanted to think what NYC could have become if it hadn’t gotten government assistance.

In his book Mr. Rohatyn also mentioned other great endeavors the government instigated over the years that expanded America’s economic vitality and prowess, projects that no single private corporation could have imagined or was willing to take on. There was the building of the Erie Canal, the Louisiana Purchase, the building of the Panama Canal, the government facilitation of the transcontinental railway, support for the Interstate highway system, NASA and the GI Bill. The government also laid the groundwork for today’s communication system and the Internet. In most cases the institutions the government inspired eventually were privatized. And let’s not forget the security government affords us so that we can go about doing our business.

I am thinking of Reaganomics, which virtually laid the groundwork for today’s economic fiasco, with it supply-side economics. It started the ball rolling towards the excesses that now hobble the economy. Reagan used to say, sardonically, that government was the problem. Ironically, though, he was correct because his hands-off, lax governing style, a style that gained acceptance over the years, was in part responsible for the events of today, the economic culture of imbalances and excesses that brought America to its knees. Rightly so, then, government is the problem if it neglects its governing and oversight duties.

Our commentator is right about one thing, about a rude awakening descending on us. But the rude awakening is courtesy of the last administration and not this one as suggested. This awakening, delivered via the Bush&Co, finally convinced the American people the importance of government and what negligence of duty on behalf of it can do to help destroy an economy. This rude awakening has also shown the America people that unfettered capitalism is, in the long run, a dangerous and destructive force. Now, it is only government that can pick up the pieces because it is, like most times, the savior of last resort.

It seems difficult for some people to understand that the economy is a concerted effort between two sectors, private and public. However, those sectors should remain autonomous from each other for best results. Unfortunately both sectors became a bit too chummy with each other over the years, effecting the economy’s honesty and efficiency. What the present administration is attempting to do is go back to when things worked better. However, because of the big mess the economy is in it is going to take a lot of aid and upheaval to do it, something some people are having difficulty accepting.

Capitalists always want governments to keep out of the way, especially in good times. But when things truly get rough, guess who they go to, crying cap in hand? Government! Government is the savior of last resort. And that, as Al Gore would say, is an inconvenient truth.

"Will things get worse?"

2009-03-09T05:53:00.000-07:00

It bothers me that people think that the economic mess we are in is fueled by negative thinking on the part of the media and consumers. It follows that if we think this way the economy will naturally get worse and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. However, the argument goes, if we begin to think positively things will improve. To my way of thinking nothing could be further from the truth.

Recently an article in The Toronto Star argued such a point, that it's our collective negativity that is causing economic pain and making a recession a self-fulfilling prophecy. Its author is David Olive. Here is my response to his argument, which the paper published, edited of course:

David Olive overlooked today's precarious economic fundamentals, particularly in banking. Never have we seen such a calamity in banking caused by financial instruments that took on a life of their own. Derivatives have become contagions, so unpredictable that financial markets are frozen, continually waiting for the next shoe to drop.

Because of this there has been a lack of liquidity due to a lack of trust and confidence between financial institutions. And banks became over-leveraged to a point that became unsustainable. This was eventually exposed by the real estate bubble those financial institutions happily enabled.

Never have we seen large corporations like GM, Citigroup and GE, the backbone of the U.S. economy, in such dire straits. This alone is creating a "self-fulfilling prophecy."

At the root of the problem is excess – from over production to over capacity. There were too many stores, too many buildings, too many car producers. Eventually the economy became saturated; people could only buy and absorb so much.

Supply-side economics – "If you build it they will come" – got too far ahead of itself. Perhaps if money hadn't been so cheap this would not have happened.

Will things get worse? Most likely. But because of economic fundamentals that still need fixing, not people's misdirected psychology.

Bush the conservative

2009-02-16T11:15:00.000-08:00

Somebody was wondering why people insist on calling Bush a conservative when he really didn't behave like a conservative while in office. For instance, if he really were a conservative he wouldn't have increased the size of government or its budget deficit as he did. True conservatives believe in small government and manageable budgets.

Well, George Bush declared himself a conservative, a passionate conservative at that, and we took him at his word. Many of his foreign policy decisions were conservative in comparison to the previous liberal-progressive administration of Bill Clinton. Bush’s core beliefs, notwithstanding, were conservative, especially in foreign policy, social issues and labor relations. His hands-off approach to his government’s rebuilding New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina was a typical conservative response. Another truly conservative position he took was his laissez-faire, unfettered one to capitalism.

What also made Bush conservative, although not exclusively, was his reliance on religion, faith and ideology. He stuck to those beliefs at the expense of empiricism and pragmatism, the true ways of America. However, over the years he may have lost his conservative streak due to the quagmires he got himself into, like the war on terror and the economy, that necessitated he release himself from the yoke of conservatism. Ironically, he more than most presidents socialized the American economy due to the blunders his administration committed. For instance, at the end of his term he had to enact socialistic policies to rescue the economy.

I think the main reason why conservatives can never truly remain conservative in their policies is because the world and reality tugs in a different direction – towards liberalism. The thing is, in their attempts to remain conservative conservatives make things worse, as Bush did. If only they could learn to be more balanced and pragmatic.

Bush relied on faith at the expense of experience. There is nothing wrong with religion and prayer. However, Bush often used religion and his faith to make policy decisions, which led to bad decisions. Because of his religion and faith he ignored science and its development, which could have help the economy. Because of a religious faith he blundered in the Middle East. It is the way Bush used religion that made him conservative, with his fundamental and absolutist beliefs. He is a creationist and doesn’t believe in evolution.

Another reason I think Bush was basically conservative in his presidency is because he thought simply and narrowly, a hallmark of conservatism. He himself said he didn’t nuance. Conservatives don’t do nuance. They think in black and white. He thought and talked like that when he mentioned good and evil and ‘either you are with us or against us’. Liberals don’t talk that way. Had he done some nuancing during his tenure perhaps the economy wouldn't be in such bad shape.

A major reason, and by no means the only reason, why the American financial system is in such distress is because of the collusion that was allowed to develop between the rating and regulatory agencies, both private and public, and the industries they were supposed to monitor. A monopolistic, crony system was allowed to develop between sectors that were supposed to be autonomous. For instance, government agencies that were designed to protect the people’s economic interests were instead working to enhance corporate interests.

One thing that has made democracy and capitalism a success is the bifurcation of authority and

an arms length relationships between sectors. During the Bush administration the bifurcation needed to prevent collusion and corruption was allowed to deteriorate between financial sectors, hence the economic and financial mess we are in to day. So I was thinking, America could have been in a far worst mess in its governance if conservatives like Bush were allowed to undermine the separation between Church and State as they wanted to do. That could have endangered American secularism, a stalwart of democracy. If that had occurred America might have become a theocratic state like may in the Muslim world.

On a related matter, I heard some good news. The King of Saudi Arabia has picked the first woman to be on the governing council of that Islamic nation. That is a ‘liberal’ act done by a very conservative regime. I am thinking that in doing this the King was bowing to the liberal currents that are churning in the world. And he knows that if his kingdom wants to keep up with the modern world it has to change and become more flexible and accommodating.

The Bush Legacy

2009-01-19T08:01:00.000-08:00

A lot of people think that the financial crisis America faces today started before Bush, that the seeds of it were sown years ago. There is some truth to that. But really, it took on life after 9/11 when Bush told Americans to go shopping and spend, and make happy, because otherwise "the terrorists will have won". Allen Greenspan obliged by making credit as cheap as possible, enabling the subprime and the financial derivatives that are sinking America today.

The terrorists of 9/11 were hoping to disrupt and upend the American way of life, as America, in the terrorist's view, had disrupted and upended the Islamic world. Well, in a way the terrorist have won because of the financial turmoil the US is in today. With Americans heeding Bush's words after 9/11 they went out on a spending spree, jeopardizing the country with a massive debt and the worst economic crisis since the Depression. (That spending spree created unsustainable 'supply-side' economics, with too much capacity.) The terrorist couldn't have hoped for a better calamity to strike the US.

Also, the terrorists managed to draw Bush&Co. into two wars that have caused a financial burden that has put the US at further risk of loosing its status as the mainstay of the world. And it didn't helped that Bush didn't ask American's to sacrifice anything for the war effort.

But on reflection, Bush did get Americans to sacrifice for the war on terror, more than he could have imagined, by putting them and the country into hawk for years to come.

Perhaps Bush already has dementia, thinking that history will be kind to him by giving him a decent legacy.

Media bias?

2009-01-11T08:36:00.000-08:00

I just read an article entitled "The Year of living Gloomily". It was about the media’s economic reporting over the past year. Its author thinks that in reporting on the economy the media has taken a bias, gloomy outlook. He thinks that the media’s gloomy reporting has made the economy worse and that its bias has led to a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. In other words, if the media had been more upbeat in it’s reporting the economy wouldn’t be as bad as it is.

The argument is that bad, gloomy news sells. In general that is the case. Ironically, though, the media’s so-called bias and gloomy economic reporting may have also hurt it. The bad economic conditions that are going around have also affected the profitability of the news media, with news services cutting staff dramatically to stay in business or going bankrupt. So one would wonder, why would the news media deliberately sound gloomy on the economy if they were also the ones to be affected by such gloom? It sounds like the media is ‘cutting off its nose to spite its face’.

It seems the media can't win. The author is not saying that in it’s reporting the media helped create the economic panic or turmoil we face today. But by sounding negative about it he suggested that the media has compounded the problem. However, a similar argument about the media can be made at the other end: it helped drive up economy activity, to such dizzying heights that it helped created the economic bubble of investment that now has burst, spraying us with the toxic financial fallout we face today. As the economy was going up the media fed us stories that made us feel like losers if we didn't participate in it. Media hype drove speculation in the stock market, housing and other commodities. Wasn't the media equally bias when it failed to report more thoroughly on the abuses that were being perpetrated in the name of free enterprise?

Why would the media want to make the economy worse? The media and the press are supposed to report facts. If companies are having business problems and going bankrupt it is the duty of the media to tell us about it, not hide it from us or gloss it over. Likewise, if people are loosing their jobs or having problems paying their bills it should be reported. Under those circumstances, if the media choose instead to report that the economy was doing fine it would be negligent in its duty and be postponing the inevitable, and make things worse. That kind of gloss-over reporting was done in the Soviet Union, where the press was intimidated and manipulated by autocrats. That media manipulation and cover-up of a bad economy is what eventually led to the Soviet Empire’s collapse.

As I read this article I thought of Marshall McLuhan, the famous Canadian sociologist that studied the media. His most famous pronouncement and subsequent book title was "The Media is the Message". As the dictionary describes him, "He holds that the chief technology of communications in a society has a determining effect on everything important in that society, even the thought process of individuals".

I wonder how McLuhan would have reacted to this article about media bias? If the media is the message as he said it is, then, isn’t the bias of the media as much a part of it? Often the media is accused of having a liberal bias. So that should mean that being liberal is the media. In a free society the media is liberal, inherently so because if it wasn't it wouldn’t lead to a ‘free press’. If the media were anything else but liberal it would then be a suppressed and hamstrung one like it was in the Soviet Union. An open, democratic society must think liberal to be so. In its liberal bias the media, in the way of McLean’s thinking, works to reinforce that in the thought process of individuals.

Whether the media is considered leaning in one direction or another is not the point. Whichever way the media leans it is still getting out a message. In its recent ‘bias’ the media has been working to get the message out that the economy is in terrible shape. If it didn’t take that so-called bias stance, in a comprehensive way, people would not pay the necessary attention and alter their ways. People all across the board have been consuming far more than they have been producing. It’s time to pay the piper. Now, if the press didn’t take issue with that and exaggerate the point, in a bias way, people would not pay attention.

In other words, the press must act in a bias manner so as to get the message out, a message that would otherwise go unheeded, allowing for worse things to happen in the future. The media's job in bad times is to whip up a frenzy so as to get people to act before it's to late and alter their course. If people were more rational and acted more prudently from the beginning then the media would not have to act in such a bias, perverse manner, so as to motivate people to change their destructive ways, before it's to late.

Nature of Revolution

2008-12-12T09:23:00.000-08:00

We were discussing two schools of philosophy, analytical and continental. In Europe, during the early part of the 20th century, they were quite influential. Analytical philosophers tended to be socialists and continentals Marxist or communists.

The discussion got me thinking about the Frankfurt School (founded 1923), a philosophical, sociological movement populated by neo-Marxists. I was thinking, then, that it was a movement of continental philosophers. The philosophy behind the school was based on the idea that a radical change in human governance could cure the ills of modern society. Its philosophy was also based on Hegel’s dialectical theory that perpetual change is essential to keep societies and civilization ‘alive’ and ‘awake’, from stagnating and atrophying. It was Hegel who introduced Marxists to the dialectic, the intellectual, materialistic engine of social change and reform on which the School was based.

The critical theory behind the school was Theodor Adorno’s combination of Marx and Freud. It was base on the idea that the politics of society should be grass roots, determined by the people and not by some hierarchal authority, like in the past. One cofounder of the school, Max Horkheimer wondered who would replace the proletariat as the social agent of revolution. Obviously it was a concern that the proletariat would not always be the cutting edge revolutionists of traditional Marxist thinking. Another member, Herbert Marcuse, gave the answer, that “a coalition of students, blacks, feminist women, homosexuals and other socially marginal elements” would carry on inciting political reform. How right he was. But one revolutionary agent Marcuse overlooked was consumers, whose demands would revolutionize societies more than any other. But, then, consumerism was probably the last thing on their minds and far too hedonistic for the Frankfurt School’s communist sensibilities.

The revolutionary agents Marcuse listed are the revolutionists of liberal democracies. They have been the ones who have kept liberal democracy open, progressive and socially just. These revolutionists, along with their proletariat counterparts, have also been the revolutionists that have transformed authoritarian regimes on their way to becoming open societies. They are the ones who are demanding and causing change in countries like China. The revolutionists that Marcuse listed are the ones who also have transformed American society since the 1950’s, through the civil rights movement, feminism, gay rights and now the environmental movement. The revolutionists for civil rights were the ones who changed America's political landscape sufficiently enough to made the election of Barack Obama possible

I came across BJ Fogg. He is considered a guru. He thinks that technology will be behind the next social revolution. He pointed to Facebook as a demonstration of how powerful it will be. I guess he means that it is changing social attitudes and opening up new avenues of discourse and communications.

Technology is another great agent of social revolution that Marcuse might have mentioned. Technology has been an agent of social revolution ever since the invention of wheel or the printing press. More recently, thought, television, the precursor of the Internet and Facebook, has been the big agent of social revolution. For instance, I don’t think racism in America could have been fought it if it wasn’t for television and the mass message it produced and dispensed. Besides the message, television also created the mass audience to absorb that message, that racism is un-American. It gave Martin Luther King and others the platform to argue against it and convince American’s that it was unjust. Television helped cultivate the political and social pressure that would eventually dislodge racism as an American way of life.

I mention consumerism as an agent of social revolution. It is the agent of social revolution least thought of. But consumerism has changed and transformed societies more than any other. It laid the foundation in the late 19th and 20th century for women to get the vote. As the earliest mass consumers and chief purchaser for the family household, women acquired a lot of influence and respect from merchants. With that respect they wheeled a certain amount of power in the community. Why, then, shouldn’t they get the same respect from their husband’s and government and be granted the vote. They used their position as consumers and providers of the household as leverage, through protests and strikes, to get the vote. And eventually they did. Consumerism is also eroding the authoritarian government in China. As consumerism grows in China the authorities are listing more to the demands of the people because their increasing numbers is putting pressure on authority to change. With consumerism people become more aware of their choices and rights. And China is realizing that to keep social order and stability the government has to respond ever more to the consumer demands of its people, materially and legally.

In the past revolutions were violent and cause a lot of death and destruction, like the French and Russian Revolutions did. Those revolutions occurred because societies were intransigent and would not change, and the hierarchal structures of governance would not budge or give more power to the people. However, civilization cannot afford to endure those kinds of revolutions anymore because they were too violent and destructive. Nevertheless, society still has to go through the process of some sort of revolutionary change in order to be invigorated and renew itself. So History had to devise a more acceptable means of revolution that would allow modern societies to continue without being totally upended or disrupted. It would be instead a sort of benign revolution based on the nonviolent agents mentioned above.

In the 1960s Canada had a revolution that changed the governance and organization of the country. It pitted Canada’s two founding cultures against each other. It was a Hegelian revolution, a revolution of ideas that didn’t insight the violence that could have torn the country apart. The prime minister of the time, Pierre Trudeau, sagely observed that Canada was going through a ‘silent revolution’ because its occurrence was difficult to discern. That is the kind of social revolution we are mostly facing today, stealth like, occurring through the modifying agents mentioned by the Frankfurt School, and the ones it didn’t, technology and consumerism.

A reason for the crisis

2008-11-25T09:31:00.000-08:00

The guess is that the financial crisis and economic downturn wont go away any time soon. The consensus is that it will take several years to undo itself.

There are several reason why this crisis occurred, most of them listed before. But one that is never or hardly mentioned is the fact that the economies of the world have overproduced and there is to much stuff out there. The excess and oversupply will take time to be consumed and dealt with. This is a worry Marx had about capitalism, a natural penchant for producing and producing. Marx thought that at some point it would produce too much. Well, the world has. Perhaps there is just to much capitalism occurring in the world.

I think a classic example of overproduction is Dubai. Who is going to occupy all the real estate developed there? It is a place that is competing for the same business and entertainment dollar that a number of other centers around the world are. There just isn't enough consumers in the world to soak all this up. Someone once said, if you build it they will come. However, there is no yet enough prosperity around to absorb the offerings of Dubai and the numerous place like it.

Socialism

2008-11-17T10:15:00.001-08:00

George Will, a columnist for the Washington Post, is a conservative, a Republican and is against socialism. He hates socialism like every good American conservative does. The other day he wrote an article in which he sounded very exasperated because no matter who was in power in Washington, be it Republicans or Democrats, Government kept getting bigger and more socialistic. Perhaps he hasn’t been reading the tea-leafs, but maybe socialism is the wave of the future. His article was entitled “‘Socialism’? It’s Already Here”.

When Bill Clinton was president he reformed social welfare and famously declared that era of big government over, then proceed to balance the budget and leave a surplus for the next administration. During his administration America was fairly solid in capitalism’s corner. And George Bush, the next president, reinforced those values by declaring himself a fiscal conservative who promised to keep government small. Ironically, though, it was Bush’s ‘supposedly’ conservative administration that pushed socialism to new heights. If Bush, who George Will enthusiastically supported, and his administration had been better managers, administrators and overseers most likely the creeping socialism America is experiencing today would not be occurring. Bush&Co.'s socialism is manifested in the mass financial bailout and ‘nationalization’ his administration has had to institute to rescue the failing U.S. economy.

In the Guardian Naomi Klein wrote and op-ed piece entitled “The Bush gang’s parting gift: a final looting of the public wealth”. What she was saying is that the bailout money Bush&Co. is spending in combating America’s financial crisis is going to its friends and cronies. Klein mentions that other rulers throughout history, before leaving office, had similarly raided the treasury to distribute money among their friends and supporters. In Klein’s eyes it appears that Bush was doing the same thing. A part of me thinks that perhaps Bush created the financial crisis for that very purpose, so he’d have an excuse to raid the lauder and distribute its goodies to his friends, the people on Wall St., before leaving office. I had a similar thought about 9/11, that Bush let it happen (he was warned about its possibility but ignored it) so he‘d have an excuse to invade Iraq.

There is no doubt in my mind that Bush&Co. is responsible for the financial crisis America and the rest of the world is facing today. It is not that they are responsible for everything that caused it or everything that has gone wrong. To be fair, the seeds of its potentiality were sown over many years, prior to Bush. But it is Bush&Co’s philosophy of unfettered markets and lack of oversight and discipline that pushed it over the top. What compounded the crisis further were Bush’s tax cuts, while simultaneously having a war that dangerously ballooned the deficit. It was all unsustainable. Bush&Co. also conveniently neglected, out of ideological zealousness, the rules and regulations that had developed over years to protect capitalism from its worst excesses. Elliot Spitzer, the former attorney general and governor of New York State, recently wrote an article in The Post on exactly that point. As state attorney general he and the other 49 US state attorney generals wanted to enforce laws to stop the predatory lending practices that were fueled the housing bubble and creating the subprime debacle, which eventually cause the financial crisis. However, they were blocked by Bush&Co. with a little know federal law, from the Civil War era, that was designed for the purpose of blocking states from acting on their own. And this, from a conservative administration that once said it would adhere to the Constitution and not interfere with state rights.

I am surprised that I haven’t heard any conspiracy theories about the financial crisis like those made after 9/11. If I was a conspiracy theorist I might thing Bush&Co created the crisis on purpose, to spread it around the world in order to bring the world to heal and under its influence again because for years America had been losing ground as the financial hub of the world. Until London has been gaining as a money center and much of the world, due to globalization, was bypassing New York as a financial deal maker. I’m thinking that Bush&Co. was also concerned about China and the rich oil producing states, awash in American dollars, that they would use those dollars as a weapon to destabilize and diminish American’s position it the world. My conspiracy mind is thinking that Bush&Co. wanted to preempt those forces that were nibbling at America’s financial prowess by creating a financial contagion, which would leave the rest of the world at the mercy of US and its bailout cure.

There are always unintended consequences, as Margaret Thatcher once pointed out. The unintended consequence Bush&Co. didn’t foresee is that with its financial bailout it was going against its own philosophy, its ideological practice of none interference and leaving markets to their own devises. And all this due to the fact that it acted recklessly and incompetently in economic matters earlier. And with its solutions it fell into the trap of employing the socialistic tactics it abhorred to help resolve the crisis and the contagion it created. Also, in acting this way, in a socialistic manner, with government intervention, America was now moving more in line with the rest of the world, something that sends shudders up the spine of conservatives like George Will. Furthermore, because of this economic crisis Bush&Co. lost political power – the White House, Congress, and demoralized its own Republican Party.

Vacation

2008-10-25T07:06:00.000-07:00

This year we took our summer vacation on board The Queen Victoria, the newest cruise ship in the Cunard line. We boarded her in Venice after spending a night there in a wonderful little hotel in the district across the canal from St. Mark’s Square, near the Peggy Guggenheim Museum. From there we began our cruise of the Mediterranean, which was going to conclude in Barcelona after making several stops along the way, which include Istanbul, Massina, the Tuscan region and Marseilles.

We departed from Venice via one of its major canals. It was very impressive to be thirteen stories high on board ship as we floated through the city, looking down on it. I am sure there is no experience like it anywhere, traveling through a city on a massive ship to get out to sea.

Our first stop after leaving Venice was Dubrovnik on the Dalmatian coast, where the breed of dog with the same name comes from. Dubrovnik is in Croatia, which used to be part of Yugoslavia. Croatia declared independence in 1990, an independence that was instantly recognized by most of world. After it declared independence, though, war broke out, started by the Serbs, who wanted to keep Croatia in the Yugoslav Federation. As our tour guide explained, up until the bombing of Dubrovnik the world hadn’t paid much attention to the war there. What got the world’s attention was Dubrovnik’s designation as a world heritage sight. It was pressure from the rest of the world, which didn’t want to loose this gem on the Adriatic, that eventually stopped its total destruction. Our guide also explained that a major reason for Serbia wanting to keep Croatia in the Federation is that without it Serbia would be landlocked and have no access to the Adriatic Sea. So it was also of economic importance that Serbia keep Croatia within Yugoslavian. Dubrovnik was badly damaged from the bombing but now it is mostly restored. However, even thought it was full of tourists while we were there, with several cruise ships in port, tourism still hasn’t reached its pre-war levels.

We took a coach from Dubrovnik to a country inn where we had a wonderful lunch. On the trip back to the ship our guide said she hoped that we had a wonderful time in her country and hoped that one day we would come back. However, she wished that tourists would also come at other times so as to spread the tourism throughout the year in order to keep people more evenly employed. Tourism there is mostly concentrated over a few months in the summer. One day, for example, our guide told us, twelve cruise ships were in port at once. The place was pandemonium.

From Dubrovnik we sailed into Greek waters, visiting the islands of Katakolon and Mykonos. The islands were hot and full of tourists and merchants trying to sell them stuff. It was quite a sight to see our huge ship docked beside these islands. From there we went on to Istanbul.

It was very impressive sailing up the Bosporus into Istanbul, seeing from our balcony the “Eye of Sophia” and the “Blue Mosque”. After disembarking we met our friend who took us to both those sights and then on a tram ride to the famous Bazaar, where we bought three rugs. Here too it was very hot. But I was very impressed with the modern, articulated trams we rode on, which, although they were always crowded, were comfortable and air-conditioned. We also took a few cabs. I was impressed with the roads and how well the traffic flowed. Later, before boarding the ship, we had tea in a very swank hotel that once used to be a palace, which had fallen into disrepair. Our friend told us that Istanbul has become quite a destination for conventions from around the world. That kind of tourism has enabled the restoration of building like the former palace we had tea in.

From Istanbul we went to Messina, Sicily, where we took a bus tour to a beautiful town in the hills. From there we went on to Rome, where we spent most of the day, seeing such sites as the Coliseum and the Vatican. From there we sailed off to Tuscany. Tuscany was everything one would imagine, from its rolling hills, vineyards, unbelievable villages and beautiful food. Our next stop was Marseilles, from where we took a bus to Ariel where Van Gogh lived, pained and died. The interesting think about Ariel is that it didn't own any paints of the great artist. Barcelona was our port of disembarkation There we visited the famous Gaudi Cathedral, which is still under construction. We spent a pleasant day and night in Barcelona before flying home.

On board ship we had some wonderful meals. I think it was the best food we ever had on a cruise, though I found the coffee disappointing. This was our tenth cruise. We also met some interesting people on board, like always. And like on most cruises we’ve been on the majority of the passengers were Americans. But this time there seemed to more nationalities on board.

While we were on board ship the summer Olympics was happening. And as I noticed, our travels this past summer took us to three cities that once hosted the Olympics, Rome, Munich and Barcelona. Munich was where we change flights, on our way to Venice and on our way back home. And as I recall, we were also on water when the 1992 Olympics happened. That year we went barging on a canal in England. But our first cruise occurred during the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. That year we went to Alaska from Vancouver.

We were fortunate, like on most of our cruises. The weather everywhere was great. And our air journeys went smoothly.

Bush Legacy

2008-10-08T09:25:00.000-07:00

Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac are two corporations that were established by the American government under FDR to make loans to ordinary people so that they could buy homes. They were made necessary because other lenders were often reluctant to make loans to low income and first-time homebuyers. They were established to help fulfill the America dream of being an ownership society. But lately they have been in the news because of the financial meltdown brought on by the bursting of the housing 'bubble' in the US. These two corporations were seriously ensnared in it and have subsequently been nationalized and propped up with taxpayers’ money, because they were unable to survive on their own. I understand, though, that George Bush wanted to reform these institutions in 2006 but was prevent by a Democratic Congress.

Yes, Bush was stopped from reforming Fannie and Freddie. But how serious was he about reforming them? He put party cronies in charge to run those agencies. They were Bush loyalist, but poor administrators, a norm for his administration. This kind of cronyism set the tone for further financial calamities during his term.

Perhaps I don't have it quite right. Kevin Hassett of Bloomberge.com News wrote how the Democrats created the financial crisis by not supporting reform legislation for Fannie and Freddy. But his analysis sounded a bit like a parable that evokes the-barn-door-being-closed-after-the-horse-has-left. Even Kevin Phillips, author of “Bad Money’”, who is more knowledgeable about the origins of the present financial crises, doesn’t make such an indictment. He spreads the blame on many decisions and events, while Hassett’s explanation is just too pat and simple. The Democrats, in voting against reform for Fannie and Freddy, probably did exacerbate the problem, like many other decisions before. But Democrats alone didn’t create the problem. No, the seeds of this financial crisis were sown by many players over many years.

Phillips is a Republican. He foretold the rise of conservatism in America. But in his laying blame for the financial crisis he doesn’t make it a partisan witch hunt, like Hassett does, who is quite partisan and narrow in his criticism and finger pointing.

If Bush really had wanted to reform those agencies he would have put reformers in charge, to reform things from inside. Instead he gave the jobs to party loyalists. Under those circumstances it's lucky Bush was stopped from reforming and privatizing Social Security, as he desperately wanted to. Image what an additional catastrophe it would have been if Social Security were connected to the performance of the stock market, as Bush wanted?

In a way I think it is fitting that George Bush is ending his tenure on this note, with one of the greatest financial debacles in American history. It is the crowning achievement for his abysmal presidency. Sadly, though, there's still time for him to screw things up.

I wish Milton Friedman were alive today to comment on recent events because of the free marketeer that he was. I am glade the financial meltdown occurred because it has helped put an end to a fallacy that Friedman supported, that the free market is the be-all and end-all. It also puts an end to the Reagan fallacy that government is the problem and not the solution. If one makes it a self-fulfilling prophecy as Bush did, with his neglect and incompetence as a manager, then government is the problem.

It is ironic that Bush was the first president with a MBA (Master of Business Administration). Just goes to show you that strictly MBA holders are not always the smartest people in the room. In Bush's case a MBA was a very hollow achievement, like most of his achievements. He should have also educated himself in other areas, like history and geography.

In the last few months Bush has been looking shell-shocked, like he did after 9/11. It's good that he has recruited grown-ups to look after this crisis, people who are trying to clean up the financial mess he helped create by not enforcing the financial regulations that were on the books.

Thanks to George Bush and his brand of conservatism America has become less influential in the world, and less relevant. When Bush started his presidency I sensed that he would drive America and the world into a state of despair. Low and behold he has. He said he was a uniter, not a divider. However, in most of his dealings he has been a divider and a very divisive president. Ironically, though, this one time, with the financial crisis he helped create, he has united not only America in economic pain but also the world.

When the reality of financial crisis was really beginning to become apparent it is said that Washington DC took on the feeling of a wartime capital, like it did after 9/11, because legislators were feeling shell-shocked by the magnitude and cost of the financial mess America was in. I found this interesting because of Bush's self-proclamation that he was a War President, fighting a ‘war on terror’. But he didn't expect to be this kind of war president, fighting a financial war. However, most of the time as War President, in both cases, he has acted like Don Quixote, tilting-at-windmills.

World Philosophy Congress

2008-08-04T12:07:00.000-07:00

This past week the 22nd World Philosophy Congress opened in Seoul, South Korea. It happens every five years. The last one occurred in Istanbul and the one before in Boston.

I first learned of the World Philosophy Congress from an article in The New York Times, about the one in Boston in 1998. It had been held in Boston before, in 1926, one of the few occasions it had taken place outside Europe. For some reason The New York Times article choose to call the event The World Philosophy Congress but its correct title is the World Congress of Philosophy. The first congress took place in Paris in 1900. Today, since 1948, the event takes place under the auspices of UNESO, a United Nations agency, and the International Federation of Philosophical Societies.

Out of curiosity I looked up the history of the WCP to fine out who or how it started. I found nothing about its origin. But I was thinking that since the first one was held in Paris four years after the first modern Olympics were held in Paris there was a connection between the two events, seeing that first Olympics occurred in Greece as did the first philosophizing. It is also casually interesting that Athens bid to host the WCP in 2008, hoping to take it back to the home of Philosophy, but lost out to Seoul. Perhaps it will be announced in Seoul that Athens will get it next. (Seoul held the Olympics in 1988.)

The get-together that took place in Boston was the last one of the 20th century. The theme at that congress was "philosophy educating humanity" and the single question under discussion, appropriately, was "What have we learned from philosophy in the 20th century". (The theme in Seoul was "rethinking philosophy today" and in Istanbul "philosophy facing world problems".) Surprisingly nobody answered the question, some avoided it by talking about 'truth' instead and others got hung-up on the meaning of 'we'.

That kind of behavior is what gives philosophy a bad name among ordinary people and why so many considered it unimportant in the goings on of human affairs. And that's what Julian Baggini of the Guardian, who was covering the WCP opening in Seoul, was saying in an article. He suggested that anybody with a PhD who wants to get a job should keep quite about it. However he defended philosophy. He says that although philosophy is generally consider unimportant in culture, nonetheless, it is all over the place, in thinktanks, politics, science, journalism and ethic committees.

In that case, since philosophy has mostly been hidden from the public in other professions, then there must be things we have learned from it without knowing. What is philosophy about anyways? It is about talking things out and putting theories into practice. If that is the case we have learned a lot from philosophy in the 20th century, in subtle ways. We entrench human rights through philosophical discussion. Einstein philosophizing gave us a better understanding of the universe and physics. Freud philosophizing probed the human psyche so that we could understand ourselves and become better functioning human beings. Philosophical discussions have expanded our minds and made us more tolerant and worldly. And philosophizing about the advantages of democracy has facilitated its expansion around the world.

That reminded me of a question somebody asked: "What could Freud have to do with sustaining democracy?" It was explained like this: "If you're going to ask people to govern themselves then it's important that they know themselves. It is not only the leaders who, in a democracy, need a Freudian awareness of the dark side of the psyche. All men and women should comprehend their proclivities for destruction and self-idealization in order to make the best informed choices."

The World Congress of Philosophy may be to some a waste of time. However it is another means of inoculating the world from future conflicts, by just getting people to know each other better and to discuss their differences. Governments have not always been that good at healing the world's problems. So it’s good to see non-government agencies like the WCP taking up the slack and making a difference, by making people talk to each other and in the process become more conscious of the world's needs and aspirations.

Book reivews

2008-07-28T12:22:00.000-07:00

I am reading three books simultaneously. One about Galileo, one about Samuel Johnson, the author of the first comprehensive English dictionary, and the third is called "The Post-American World" by Fareed Zakaria.

I first started reading the book about Johnson called 'Defining The World: The Extraordinary Story of Dr. Johnson's Dictionary" by Henry Hitchings. The chapters in this book were headed with English words, followed by the definition Johnson gave them. The one revelation in the book that most struck me was in the chapter headed "English". The chapter starts off, " The eighteenth century was seized by a rage for order, manifest in a range of of new phenomenon: price tags, standardized weights and measures, the proliferation of signposts on public highways, the increased use of account books and calendars. The vogue was for organizing, structuring and methodizing" It was in this environment that Johnson compiled his dictionary. He obviously was also consumed by the need to organize and structure things, like his fellow Englishmen.

Galileo was another person who helped organize and structure the world. He straddled the 16th and 17th centuries. Originally he was going to be a doctor but instead he got interest in mathematics, to the chagrin of his father. He is known as the originator of modern science. Up until he came along science was a part of philosophy , its part known as 'natural philosophy'. Most of what was understood as science up to that point was based on what Aristotle had determined about the world, things that few questioned until Galileo came along. Galileo sensed there were things wrong about Aristotelian teaching, like the idea that the earth was the center of the universe and that the sun and the planets revolved around it. Another Aristotelian notion he questioned was that a heavier object would hit the ground before a lighter one when dropped from the same height. He discovered this was false. I tried it with the heaviest and lightest books to prove it and both books hit the ground at the same time.

Zakaria book is the heaviest of the three, both in weight and in subject matter. It discusses globalization and the nature of the geopolitical world. But it is also about a world that would not have existed if it wasn't first for organizers like Galileo and Johnson. Galileo got modern science started, the discipline that innovates and launches the technology that sustains us, a disciple that would be impossible for us to live without. Johnson organized the English language, the language that would become the main communications tool of the world.

As Johnson described in his dictionary, English is the language of England. It is interesting to note that with the expansion of the English language around the world followed the expansion of democracy. After all, England was the cradle of modern democracy, which was the home of the Magna Carta, which Zakaria points out, was the first "bill of rights" of the Western World. As a colonial power England spread English around the world and with it followed the seeds of democracy. India, the largest democracy in the world, was colonized by England. And England gave birth to the most powerful democracy, the United States

Milton Friedman

2008-07-12T08:46:00.000-07:00

A lot of people think that the economist Milton Friedman (1912-2006) was a god. In his lifetime he was viewed as the god of the free market. His economic theories were adopted by, to name a few, Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Ronald Reagan in the U.S. Those economies, like may others, found new life in some of his suggestions, like tight monetary policy, tax cuts and privatization.

What first brought Friedman to prominence, and I think won him the Nobel Prize in Economics (1976), was his theory in monetary policy. He believed that the proper control of the money supply was the fundamental key to a healthy economy and a stable world. Good monetary policy was the key to keeping down inflation, an occurrence that has in the past caused great hardship and instability in many nations. Friedman's fame grew from his theory that if the U.S. had better managed its monetary policy or had controlled its currency better during the Great Depression, it may not have occurred. Likewise, it is believed that if Germany, after WW1, had not printed money like crazy in order to fulfill the financial demands put on it by its vanquishers, it would not have descended into the economic abyss it did and therefore become ripe for the despotism of Hitler.

My thought is that we learn from experience. So I think one should take Friedman's idea, that the Great Depression could have been prevented if the U.S. had managed it currency better, with caution and skepticism. What Friedman suggested, by the sounds of it, is that the U.S. and others, in the 1920's and 30's, had the wherewithal to be good monetarists, but failed to act on it. However, I think they had no such wherewithal in those days because people back then were still inexperience in such matters, such as prudent monetary policies. Nevertheless, people still insist on transposing the knowledge we have today on a less sophisticated world of the past. I mean, sure, with the knowledge we have today we probably could have prevented WW1 or WW2. But that was a different world, absent of the knowledge and the dynamics we have today.

Friedman's policies have railed against socialism. Now, I am not a socialist but I have socialist tendencies, like universal health coverage. Such coverage can lift an anxiety of people’s shoulders which potentially can free people to function better. And by what I see in the countries that do have it, for the most part, the practice of medicine works better than in the U.S. and the costs are lower, and life expectancy is longer. I thus believe in a mixed economy in which aspects of capitalism and socialism are mixed and balanced off against each other. And this type of governance is what is generally emerging around the world, including the US, albeit there, kicking and screaming all the way.

I appreciate and believe in some of Milton Friedman's ideas. And they would probably all work if the conditions were perfect. One thing he did believe is that if you have a free and open market in anything the facts and information about it should also be free and accessible. This is something that did not occur in the 'subprime market' and therefore the calamity that surrounds it. The information and facts surrounding subprime loans and their derivatives was not divulged or been honest. Instead, much of the facts and reality about the subprime market was manipulated by Wall Street and thwarted by the Bush administration in order to fulfill its own agenda of keeping money cheap so as to bolster its "ownership society".

Friedman realized that a measure of regulations and consumer protections had to be in place to keep markets honest and mutually beneficial. He knew that the unfetter market were not on their own the 'hole grail' because of the potential of human weaknesses and failures. This is something the present administration in Washington failed to see in its economic policies of free markets. In the process it has made the U.S. economy worse because it blindly believed that free markets left on their own could solve everything.

Milton Friedman's fundamental policies, in the wrong hands, have encouraged a naive and reckless approach to economic activity. They have also encouraged abuse. But he would be the first to recognize that that's what comes with the territory due to the natural capacity for humans to get things wrong.

War & Capitalism

2008-06-07T11:43:00.000-07:00

I discovered that Einstein and Freud corresponded about the inevitability of war. In 1932 Einstein asked Freud if he thought humankind could ever divest itself of war. In his response Freud did not hold out much hope that man could ever stop warring. But what he wrote encouraged Einstein to think that there was a possibility that mankind could live in relative peace. Freud, though, was surprised that Einstein hadn't accepted war as inevitable and that it was an inexorable part of human nature.

Freud was not an optimist. However, in his letter to Einstein he left a ray of optimism in the form of the contradictory nature of mankind. He explained to Einstein a theory he had developed (as the magazine article explained) in reaction to the unprecedented brutality of the First World. Freud said that that man is driven by two equally powerful instincts, an instinct to create and an instinct to destroy, as in war. I don't pretend to understand Freud’s dark, perverse theory but something he said struck Einstein as encouraging, perhaps because Einstein focused more on the creative aspect of man rather that the destructive one, thinking that the creative instinct would some day overcome and harness the destructive one.

Freud's duel instinct theory of man was music to my ears because I've studied the contradictory nature of mankind. My conclusion is that man’s contradiction is part of life, a life force; humans can't exist, function or develop without that perversion, of contradicting themselves. And here, Feud was saying something similar. This also reminded me of the American economist Joseph Schumpeter who described capitalism as 'creative destruction'. That description was probably in reaction to the economic devastation capitalism wrought during the Great Depression. It was similar to Freud's reaction to war. Perhaps Schumpeter got this idea from Freud, or Friedrich Nietzsche who wrote about it before. Was capitalism similar to war?

Overall, Wars have become a thing of the past, especially between nations. Wars have become untenable and too destructive, as the world learned from two world Wars in the 20th century. Ironically, we have Einstein partly to thank for that development because of his discovery in physics, which led to the development of the ultimate weapon of destructive, the atomic bomb. The power of the atomic bomb was so destructive, as witnessed in the dropping of two of them on Japan at the end of WW2, that instead of becoming a weapon of choice it became a weapon for deterring War, as it did during the Cold War that occurred between the two super powers of the time, the U.S and the U.S.S.R. Perhaps Einstein foresaw this development as changing human attitude towards War. For this reason he may have seen Freud’s letter as encouraging because he felt that in time Man would lose his appetite for War as the weapon he helped created became potentially more and more devastating.

As war among nations declined capitalism’s prominence in the world rose. I don’t think this is a coincidence. Capitalism, apart from becoming the chief economic engine of mankind, became the foremost outlet and main envelopment of mankind’s two powerful driving instincts, creativity and destruction, as the economist Schumpeter identified. Capitalism harbored both instincts but in a more peaceful and productive manner than war. Had capitalism become the new war?

Wars were, unfortunately, once essential for reforming and shaping the world. Wars have removed many of mankind’s intransigencies and ironically have brought a unity to the world. But in the end war's destruction capability became too great, outweighed any gains they might have produced. However, without war as a means of world reform or as a manifestation of the destructive tendencies of man, mankind had to find another outlet for releasing its destructive tendencies. Man's inherent destructive nature had to be channeled elsewhere, into a less destructive but more productive means. This truly represents a paradigm shift. It came in the form of capitalism. Capitalism to my mind is the alternative to war. It also harbors a destructive nature as Schumpeter had observed but it also harbors the creative tendencies of mankind. Moreover, with its creative/destruction it is also the harbinger of the change and reform that is essential for mankind's survival, so that it remains vital without destroying itself. Even though capitalism does uproot lives and communities, as a form of change it is more desirable and much easier to stomach than war. So, capitalism is not only our chief provider it is also the chief catalyst for essential social reform.

Capitalism has now become worldwide, through the auspices of globalization. In hand with globalization it has united the world in a common activity and transcended the tribalism in the world that often led to wars. It has created a network and interdependence between nations that has defused the possibility of war between them. Capitalism has toned down and restructured the destructive nature of man so it is more bearable than war. Nevertheless, capitalism understands that a measure of destruction, in the form of competition and obsolescence, is still necessary to keep the world alive and awake. Its destructive, disruptive aspect is essential to keep mankind vital, innovative and agile, so that it has a future.

The economist Joseph Schumpeter labeled capitalism as 'creative destruction'. Creative destruction is a form of revolution. Mankind needs a certain level of revolution and reform to remain vital. War is no longer an option in that pursuit. But capitalism is.

Letter

2008-05-16T09:06:00.000-07:00

I haven't written anything recently because nothing much has inspired me to do so. So for those of you who are wanting and expecting some new words of wisdom from me I will post a letter of mine that was published in a philosophy magazine. The subject deals with pop-culture, which was the theme of the particular issue of the magazine I responded to. And the particular subject I responded to was about "Captain America".

Here is the letter:

As I was working away framing pictures I was also trying to frame a philosophical idea in my head. Framing pictures and framing ideas are similar activities: both need boundaries to help define and animate them. The idea I was trying to animate has to do with Major Todd A. Burkardt's article 'Operation Rebirth: Captain America and the Ethics of Enhancement' in Issue 64. Burkardt portrays Captain America as an individual, but his creator might have intended him to represent all Americans. In other words, Captain America is symbolic and representative of the exceptionalism of America, in terms of its focus on freedom and liberty for all.

I think Kant would have liked the representation of Captain America as emblematic of peace, because he wanted to see people and nations live in peace. And Kant was right to speculate that democracies needn't go to war with each other. Creating enhance soldiers, as Burhardt advocates, would be counterproductive to the world's continuing efforts through agencies like the UN to make war a thing of the past. Creating enhanced soldiers would send the wrong message, certainly not one of peace. Instead we should work to enhance democracy so that countries don't go to war with each other, thus having no need for enhance soldiers. Enhanced soldiers, like any soldier, can't impose democracy, as we have recently learned with Iraq.

Hegel and politics

2008-04-22T10:42:00.000-07:00

I'd like to expand on the idea that the dialectic is a metaphysical phenomenon which makes civilization possible.

As I wrote in an earlier essay, Robert Fulford of the National Post wrote an article about a metaphysical, behind the scene characteristic that is at the core of our existence. The article was "What divides us makes us Hegel". The article discussed the division that has existed between Canada's two founding but conflicting cultures, English and French. He writes that this division paradoxically has made Canada what it is today, an exceptional country. But as I see it he also could have been writing about the world in general.

Hegel, who popularized the dialectic, was a world-system thinker and a visionary. He saw a grand plan for the world, not determined by individuals but by civilization itself. He believed the whole world represented a single civilization on a common course. His thinking foresaw today’s globalism. However, he must have known that the coming together of the world wasn't going to be easy as he saw from the divisiveness that engulfed his beloved Europe of the 19th century. He believed, though, that unification would eventually come through the political reconciliation of differences. He named the process by which it would happen the dialectic - the argument – the conflict/contradiction of opposing ideas culminating in resolution. Through the dialectical process Hegel believed humans would discover common sense and Reason, which would advance them and teach them to live in harmony. He believed that in the discourse of the dialectic the world would become a pragmatic place, where future human confrontations would be of a cognitive nature rather than physical ones. He saw the dialectic as a life force for human progress.

When Hegel formulated his theory of the dialectic shaping and making the world more intelligent he couldn't have imagined the physical conflicts the world would first have to endure, such as two world wars and countless other skirmishes, before it found a measure of common sense and Reason. Looking back one might imagine that after the destruction of WW1 the world might have learned a lesson or two and resolved to create the League of Nations, like many leaders wanted, in order to stop similar horrific acts. Obviously, though, WW1 was not horrific enough to bring sufficient reconciliation between nations as one might have imagined. The dialectic of ideas WW1 provoked was obviously not sufficient enough to bring Reason to bear so that the world might organize itself in order to prevent future wars. WW1 did not smarten up the world as Hegel might have hoped. It took a second world war to dialectically induce the world with sufficient Reason to establish a agency that could put an end to such wars, like the United Nations.

Hegel believed that we need conflict to remain alive and awake, to keep us from growing stale and atrophying. He didn't mean physical conflict but the conflict brought on by politics and the world of ideas. He believed that the conflict of ideas - the dialectic, and the struggle for resolution stimulates us cognitively , provoking further thinking and new ideas. This process not only revitalizes us but also keeps us lucid of mind and adds to our intelligence. The process is one of mentally spiraling upwards in which we develop new skills, which also brings forth solutions to complex problems we may never have imagined possible.

This is what Fulford was writing about, that the divisive and contradictory make up of Canada, with its two opposing cultures, is the engine that keeps Canada humming, in tune and alive. Canada, in true dialectic fashion, has used this division and the conflict that arises from it to its advantage. It has learned from it, developed and improved its operational philosophies. Instead of these opposing cultures continuing to quarrel with each other they have learned to coexist and created an exceptional state of affairs. Subsequently, in its struggle to equalize things between the English and the French, Canada developed extraordinary governing skills that have become extremely useful in managing another of it unique situation, its growing multicultural society. Intellectuals recognized Canada as a Hegelian nation years ago because of its dualistic nature and that it didn't completely try to extinguish the clash between its two founding cultures but used it in a dialectical fashion to create a unique and exceptional country, something that would have made Hegel proud. And it the course of things Canada‘s experience has become an example for the rest of the world.

I want to use a phrase I just made up, ‘deliberative philosophy’. It is akin to deliberative democracy, a process that helps sustain Democracy. In a discoursive manner deliberative philosophy also is sustaining and is what the dialectic process is all about. Through the clash and the deliberation of two opposing forces, two ideas that are contradictory but are assumed equally valid, (like Canada’s two founding cultures) it reasons out and synthesizes a pragmatic philosophy and a course of action that is mutually beneficial. Confronted by two contradictory forces, its two cultures, Canada was wise not to abandon one in favor of the other but instead used both, through discoursive give and take, to devise a philosophy and political policies that has made it socially richer and more harmonious. Had Canada not taken this route and instead favored one culture over the other as its chief governance there certainly would have been a ‘clash of civilizations’ which most likely would have torn the country apart. One thing that has encouraged this process in Canada, of reaching out, is that the alternative was not an option and unthinkable.

I am fond of saying litigation creates civilization. What happens within the dialectic is a litigation of sorts. Under the proper conditions the dialectic provokes and enables litigation and mediation in resolving political and cultural differences, as those between the English and the French in Canada. As a result Canada has developed a unique civility between diverse cultures.

The economist Julian Simon once made a classic Hegelian remark, "that the world needs problems because they make us better. Problems make us better off than if they never happened." I am sure you can imagine what Simon was saying, that in having problems intelligent people work together and seek solutions, thus advancing themselves. However, I think Simon made that remark unsuspectingly because he was no Hegelian. Nevertheless, I think his remark proves that we live in a Hegelian, dialectic world whether one knows it or not. It also shows that what conflicts us can make us stronger if we work to resolve it. For example, after 9/11 a clash of civilizations didn't occur as some had predicted but instead the world that existed prior to it continued in its globalism and interdependence because people came together to resolve their differences, because there was the understood that we are all in the same boat and have common goals, of common needs and aspirations.

Hegel didn’t invent this system of the dialectic. He discovered it as he observed the world, knowing that it was the natural procedure of things. He also discovered it with the help of a previous thinker, Heraclitus, an ancient Greek philosopher who realized that the world is made of contradictions and that their existence and reconciliation makes the world possible. In his article Fulford expounded on this theme and the cultural contradictions that makes Canada possible, exceptional and vibrant.

Multiculturalism in Canada

2008-04-14T08:50:00.000-07:00

The National Post has been doing a series of articles about some of the biggest political mistakes in Canada. Barbara Kay wrote an article about multiculturalism being Canada's biggest mistake. I composed a letter in response and this is what I wrote:

Hi Barbara,

Thanks for the provocative article. It appeared to me in a timely fashion as I was contemplating the subject.

Perhaps multiculturalism is a mistake but I don't think it's been a matter of much choice. Canada had multiculturalism thrust open it from the beginning with its to founding cultures, English and French. Canada was wise to adopt both cultures for its governance. If it hadn’t it truly may have been a 'clash of civilizations', one that would have torn the country apart. Similarly, it has been wise of Canada to allow the cultural differences of others to survive and continue because stymieing them could have led to social unrest. Instead Canada has learned to cultivate them all, maximizing their potential.

In contrast, had multiculturalism been practiced in Yugoslavia and its different cultures been treated equally it probably would not have been torn apart as it was. Tito, who ruled the country with an iron grip, forced everybody to coexist, but mainly his ethnic group ruled the country. Subsequently, after he died, the country and Tito's cohesion fell apart.

You deny that multiculturalism has made the country richer. Dynamically it has, economically and in overall human relations. It has made Canada an exceptional country and an admiration of the world. People who have experience multiculturalism in other parts of the world find it blends best in Canada because of it unique situation and of it first having two founding cultures that prepared it for more.

People think that in multiculturalism each separate culture carries on as it wants. That misconception is why people are bothered by it. But in all fairness, the people who come from other countries culturally assimilate more to Canada's way of life than Canadians do to theirs. For instance, they adopt Canada's laws, we don't adopt theirs. For the most part they adopt the countries values and practice its philosophies of democracy and capitalism. In fact, multiculturalism helps expand democracy because it encourages diversity, putting pressure on democracy to live up to it reputation of being an all-inclusive governing system. For democracy to remain legitimate and vital it require many masters, which multiculturalism tends to be. The demands of multiculturalism rejuvenate democracy.

Some people think multiculturalism doesn’t make common sense because it defies a ‘centre’. Yeats said of a civilization, if the centre doesn’t hold things fall apart. He would have viewed multiculturalism as having not center. However, he said that in a less sophisticated world, a world that was still chiefly racist and xenophobic, and less understanding of diversification. Today, with human rights at the center of world politics, racism has subsided and the world is more diversified. The championing of multiculturalism has been one way of combating racism and promoting human right, with the freedom to choose and keep one's identity. Canada, with its multiculturalism, is at the forefront of this brave new world.

Robert Fulford, another writer at the Post, wrote an article entitled "What divides us makes us Hegel". He was writing about the division that has existed between the English and the French. As he says, that division has paradoxically made Canada possible and exceptional. Canada wisely did not pick one founding member in favor of the other for its governance. Instead it has worked to reconcile the division between the two and in so doing has developed and incrementalized its governing skills and operational philosophies. Multiculturalism has further heightened this exceptional about Canada because it encourages Canada to constantly reflect and refine its skills. Multiculturalism has kept Canada politically alive and awake.

In multiculturalism Canada has been an example and a laboratory to the world. Canada is really a harbinger of the world to come, or the one that is already hear because of globalization.

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Barbara Kay was kind to write back but she thought I had the wrong end of the stick. She said that she isn’t against biculturalism, the origin of this country, and that I had it confused with multiculturalism. However, I made the connection because Canada’s biculturalism in many respects laid the ground for the later acceptance of multiculturalism. In other words, biculturalism morphed in multiculturalism. She also contrasted Canada with the US. She wrote. “ As for making a country great, what greater country is there than the US, made great by the melting pot and forced integration? If you consider Canada great now, imagine it 10 times greater, which is what forced integration would have done.”

All I can say is that the US and Canada are different places. I don’t think integration, per se, was forced on Americans. It happened sort of naturally, like multiculturalism happened sort of naturally in Canada. Each country made different choices. People went to each country for different reasons. Moreover, the US is more densely populated than Canada so cultural differences there, personified, would have been more frictional and perhaps worse. One thing that has makes the US different is a common patriotism, crossing all cultures lines. Canada didn’t go that route. But I think Canada is better prepared for a globalized world because of its multiculturalism. And today we notice how different the makeup of the US is becoming with more people choosing to keep their own cultural identities.

The Dialectic

2008-04-11T12:24:00.000-07:00

It just dawned on me that the dialectic is a metaphysical phenomenon. The dialectic is a behind the scenes phenomenon, like anything metaphysical, which makes civilization possible.

I got the idea after reading an article entitled "What divides us makes us Hegel" by Robert Fulford in the National Post. He writes that the division that has existed between Canada's two founding cultures, English and French has made Canada not only possible but exceptional, due to its dialectical nature.

Instead of adopting one culture and one language to govern the country Canada went the duality route and adopted both cultures. This certainly made it more difficult to run the country but in the process of reconciling its two conflicting members, as in the dialectic, Canada has become a richer and a more sophisticated nation. As Hegel argued, the clash of ideas, as has been occurring between the English and the French in Canada, has an incremental effect on people and in the process expands their skills and improves their operational philosophies.

The clash of ideas causes problems but it also forces a mindful and determined nation like to Canada to seek solutions. In its clash between English and French identities, Canada's dialectically has developed and implemented a unique form of governance that makes it not only exceptional in the world but has prepared it to be home for other ethnic groups and to become a truly multiculturalism nation.

"Behind the 'Modern' China"

2008-04-05T10:58:00.000-07:00

As I was thinking about what else I could say about democracy I came across Robert Kagan's article in The Washington Post, "Behind the 'Modern' China". The article is about the lack of real democracy in China. Kagan emphasizes the word 'Modern' to emphasize the presumption of China's modernity. Just because it has embraced capitalism and free-market principles doesn't mean China is modern. Kagan says that without democracy China isn't real a modern country or living in the 21st century. In fact, he says, it is still living in the 19th century.

He has a point. A country has to be modern, more like postmodern, to deal with democracy. Nevertheless, there is a modernity to China in that it does accept capitalism and the free market. But capitalism generally comes easier to most nations because it appeals to the human predisposition for consumption and wealth. Democracy, though, requires a higher and more sophisticated level of modernity, or postmodernity, which China doesn't yet have. However, Kagan thinks that China will never become that sophisticated.

There are other things Kagan has been wrong about, likes the war in Iraq, the staying power of neoconservatism and America's hegemony. I think that eventually he will be proven wrong about the emergence of democracy in China. In his argument he forgets about all the historical baggage China has to deal with before its people can truly adjust and deal with democracy. (China’s autocracy is preparing its people for democracy.) Moreover, the Chinese people have more freedoms than they had a generation ago, in personal mobility, employment and consumption, freedoms that eventually will lead to democracy. And there is a parallel between China's fledging democracy and America's since economic freedoms also first came to America before full-blown political freedom. He also forgets that South Korea and Taiwan, countries with similar backgrounds to China, were once dictatorships. But as they industrialized and got richer they eventually evolved into democracies. Kagan should be more patient.

There is something naive about Kagan's analyses. In the past he showed his naivety in supporting the war in Iraq, the Bush administration, preemptive war and neoconservatism. Now he shows his naivety about democracy.

I don’t think he realizes that democracy can be very destabilizing for countries that have never practiced it before, hence their reluctance to embrace it. For instance, when Russia first attempted democracy in the 90's it was very destabilizing and ruinous for its people. Some people really took advantage of it for their own personal gain, at the expense of everybody else. As a result most people in Russia were in favor of some form of autocracy to stabilized thing, hence Putin and his strong-arm tactics. Similarly, the Chinese people are not ready for full-blown democracy, because they are not familiar with its ins and outs as we are in the West, where it has taken centuries to develop. Chinese leaders are aware of the instability democracy can bring if one is not versed in its nuances. That's why their cautious and leery approach to it.

Kagan points to a long held doctrine in the West that believes if autocracies are engaged economically they will eventually liberalize themselves politically. Well, he says, it hasn't happened in places like Russia or China. In fact, he adds, as these countries have gotten richer they have shunned the political liberalization that was supposed to have accompanied the liberalization of their economies. However, he doesn’t see to the underlying things that are occurring in both these countries that eventually will lead to more political freedom.

Trade with China has had its liberalizing effects in that it has encouraged a more open society there. Though Kagan knows this he hasn’t mention it. An 'open society' is a prerequisite for democracy. There was an instance recently where China was distributing tainted products throughout the world, products as diverse as toys, pet food and medical ones. People and pets have died from these tainted products. This has come back to China with demands from its trading partners that it cleanup its act and adopt stringent regulation to protect people from tainted products if it wants to continue to trade with the West. This ultimately has opened many aspects of China's economy to internal and external scrutiny. China, therefore, has had to become more transparent and accountable, in the process opening itself up and preparing itself for more liberalization and democratic procedures.

Another incident that has contributed to China becoming more open, because of it economic engaged with the rest of world, is SARS. SARS created quite a health scare around the world, as we know in Canada. Canada, like China, was negatively impacted by it, financially. Again, if China wanted to be part of the global community and prosper from world trade it had to clean up its act in regards to health because people were not willing to do business in or with a country that had contagious deceases. In the past, when China was more isolated, it could hide contagious deceases from the rest of the world and its people. However, now that it has integrated itself into the rest of the world in has to act more responsible and open about such matters. As a result every individual has had to become more responsible in order to insure a healthier China. This rise and expectation of individual responsibility is further preparation for the emergence of democracy.

With their newfound wealth and economic freedoms the Chinese are doing a lot of traveling, something they could not have done under communism. Travel has an incremental democratizing effect on people and a nation, especially when done on mass as the Chinese are doing. As Jeffery Sachs said, “ Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness.” The removal of those negative attitudes bodes well for the development of democracy in that it also contributes to a more open society. And travel is also fatal to an autocracy because people who travel tend to get infected with new ideas and a sophistication that ultimately questions authority. The Olympics and trade have also incrementally opened China the other way, in that it has brought travelers into China who have also brought with them ideas and procedures that eventually challenge authority. Trade and travel are cotangents that unhinge autocracies.

One of the many institutions that have developed in Russia and China is that of private ownership. Under communism private ownership was forbidden. Private ownership is now a way of life in these countries and more and more protected by laws. Private ownership is a bedrock of capitalism and of eventual democracy. As the wise Arthur Schlesinger Jr. once said, "Democracy is impossible without private ownership because private property - resources beyond the arbitrary reach of the state - provides the only secure basis for political opposition and intellectual freedom". Both Russia and China have opened that Pandora's box, one that is unlikely to be closed by anyone.

Creative destruction.

2008-03-23T08:36:00.000-07:00

When I think of the subprime debacle I think of "creative destruction". That sort of puts a positive spin on it.

The economist Joseph Schumpeter popularized the phrase. He attributed it to capitalism, about its capacity to cause economic ruin but then invent something new from the aftermath and rubble. In other words, capitalism is a rejuvenator and a restorer. So from the destruction left in the wake of the subprime debacle and the housing bubble it spawned we can expect an economic revival, like grew out of other past economic quakes.

The subprime debacle has certainly wrought economic upheaval and destruction. Subprime loans helped enable the housing bubble that subsequently burst, forcing many people to give up their homes, builders to go bankrupt, financial institutions to quake and communities to suffer financially. The ripple effect has staggered many sectors of the economy in America and abroad. Prior to the housing bubble there was the dot-com/technology bubble of the 90’s, which collapsed in 2000, ushering in the longest bear stock market in 60 year. It is hard to imagine how those collapses could be viewed as creative destruction. Nevertheless, past economic disasters heralded new technologies, management skills and resources to sustain economic activity in the future.

Capitalism's creative destruction is rooted in nature where nothing remains static and is constantly changing. Capitalism is a social construct designed to manage it better, the effects of the natural, cyclical deterioration and renewal of material on society. Capitalism's creative destructive style is also seen in the creative but some times destructive manner it replenishes and restores the resources we consume.

Let's examine another example of creative destruction in the mode of nature and capitalism. Some may consider it a sick example of creative destruction. Nevertheless it is. The event was 9/11. After 9/11 there was a rebirth and renewal. Some economists and intellectuals saw 9/11 as the harbinger of things to come, as the end of how things once were, the end of capitalism and globalization. However, what transpired after that horrendous event was the opposite. The world proceeded to continue on the same trajectory as before, of globalization and interdependence, only to a greater extent, as though validating what transpired before 9/11. Moreover, New York City, where 9/11 occurred, continues to grow and prosper, as did the rest of the world, and not go down hill as many had predicted. And 9/11 did not bring about the ‘clash of civilizations’ as some had anticipated but instead reinforced the globalization that was already happening throughout the world.

Creative destruction is a paradoxical phenomenon. In a brutal way it reinforces that which is essential and legitimate. I have a theory as to why it occurs, because societies and governing systems sometimes grow inadequate, become complacent and stale, and need disrupting. Societies periodically have to be awakened from their complacency and staleness, hence the need for the imposition and agitation of creative destruction. In the past nations used war as a form of creative destruction, to overcome the slumber and decay they fell into. Today, though, for obvious reasons, wars have become less of an acceptable way to achieve the creative destruction needed to keep a society from atrophying. Wars tended to throw the baby out with the bath water, so it was essential the civilization find an alternative form of creative destruction. Today that mantle has passed on to the discipline of economics because wars have become far too destructive and now not very creative. The world can no longer endure or afford the 'creativeness' of wars, hence the creative destruction of economics and capitalism. The creative destruction that wars once brought about, and now economics does, was also an historic meant to transcend many of the obstacles that humankind had erected, like those of isolation, racism, inequality and complacency.

Systems of governance have collapsed because they ignored or thwarted the cycle of economic creative destruction. Communism is the last such system to collapse because it did. Inherently, creative destruction is incompatible with communism, because it is a closed system that doesn't allow for such flexibility. It forbad any creative destruction through stringent controls and the manipulation of markets. In capitalism creative destruction emanates from individuals, individuals who ‘rock the boat’. Communism, to its determent, didn’t recognize the individual, just the collective. Creative destruction also occurs naturally. Capitalism has acknowledged and incorporated this fact when it harnesses and cultivates its forces, allowing individuals to take the lead. Communism thwarted and denying this organic order of things. Because communism didn’t acknowledge its existence it was domed and unable to renew itself, collapsing in favor of capitalism. Without creative destruction and its agitating forces communism didn’t develop the necessary technologies, resources and management skills to keep going.

To many it doesn’t seem right that we should have to endure these cycles of capitalism’s creative destruction. Why do we need so much creative destruction? The creative destruction capitalism foments does seem exaggerated at time, what with its disruptive ways of out-sourcing jobs, plant closures, market sector collapses and constant socioeconomic upheavals. One reason economic creative destruction seems so have intensified lately is because, as mentioned above, there aren’t the wars like before to change things. Also, the pace of the world has intensified, therefore increasing the need for renewal and the need for other alternatives and additional ways of doing things. The pressure has intensified to keep civilization humming, so it can and will combat its natural tendency to grow complacent and static.

The subprime debacle is not the best example of creative destruction. Perhaps it’s been too destructive and its creative abilities are still questionable. The subprime debacle really shouldn’t have happened in this age of economic savvy and sophistication. People knew better. However, one reason it happened is because the economic lessons learned in the past were taken for granted or ignored. Some people thought they had discovered a new economic nirvana, a new paradigm, or that the laws of economics had been repealed. People weren’t using common sense and forgot that what goes up must come down and that there are limits to borrowing and spending and borrowing and spending. So if there is a creative aspect to this latest economic crisis it is its bringing attention to the fact that the economic principles learned in past still stand and should be relearned. What also must be relearned is the fact that the free market is not the be-all and end-all as some believe it is. For another, the free market shouldn’t be completely left unfettered, but at times needs selective regulation so that it acts less destructive and more mutually beneficial.

Spitzer, sex and subprime.

2008-03-16T10:08:00.000-07:00

I think that Eliot Spitzer's downfall was politically motivated. If it wasn't it sure looks suspiciously like it was.

For those who don't know, Eliot Spitzer resigned as the governor of New York because it was revealed that he had sex with a prostitute. He was found out through a supposedly suspicious money transaction. He had transferred something like $15,000 from one bank account to another in order that he could make secret payments to an escort agency. This movement of money looked suspicious to the banks, so they reported it to the US Treasury. The reason it was reported is because after 9/11 it became mandatory to report such movement of money, because such transfers might be for financing terrorism. It was also thought that Spitzer might be laundering money or that he was being blackmailed. (I think that last explanation was a cover, to legitimize the government's monitoring of him, as though it was trying to protect him.)

Spitzer met the prostitute in a Washington hotel on Feb. 13th. By coincidence an article by him appeared in the editorial pages of the Washington Post on Feb. 14th entitled "Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime" It outlined how the Bush administration had enabled the "subprime" debacle. Perhaps the excuse he used to go to Washington was to submit his article to the Post.

His article stated that Bush and his administration were partially and criminally responsible for the financial mess that the US was finding itself in due to subprime leading and the housing bubble that followed. He also charged that the Bush administration looked the other way when it was known that lenders and bankers were making predatory mortgage loans to unsuspecting borrower. The loans that were been made were called teaser loans where a loan would be made at a ridiculous low interest rate and then jacked-up to unaffordable level at renewal time. Spitzer, as New York's attorney general, along with other state attorney generals, tried to implement laws that would protect consumers from this blatant, fraudulent practice. However, the Bush administration used its federal powers to block the enactment of suchlaws that would stop this predatory lending.

The reason why Bush&Co blocked the passage of legislation to stop such questionable loans was because it might stop the realization of one of its pet projects. That project was the expansion of America’s "ownership society". Cheap loans would enable the poorest of people to afford a home and buy into the American dream. If Spitzer and his colleges had their way, of stopping such loans, he could ruin the chances of Bush realizing his dream. Spitzer actions could also endanger the unfettered ways of the market place that Bush&Co. worshipped so much.

My feeling is that someone in the administration wanted to pin something on Spitzer because of his efforts to derail the administration dream of expanding America’s ownership society through cheap loans. Stopping such a practice would also affect the banking industry that was aligned with Bush. The banking industry profited handsomely from these types of loans. No, I think that someone deliberately wanted to pin something on Spitzer because of the trouble he had been causing Bush&Co and its associates on Wall Street who had profited so much from these loans. Spitzer was viewed as a pest and had to be stamped out.

When one thinks about it the money transferred by Spitzer from one bank to another wasn't that large and may have otherwise gone unnoticed. As Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard law professor and one time teacher of Spitzer, pointed out to The Times of London, "The movement of the amounts of cash required to pay prostitutes, even high-priced prostitutes over a long period of time, does not commonly generate a full-scale investigation.” The Times added, "Others on Wall Street were wondering whether Spitzer’s financial dealings had been singled out for scrutiny as revenge for his past prosecutions." Spitzer over the years had prosecuted and won against a number of Wall Street financiers.

There are several theories as to why Spitzer got himself into the sexual mess he did. One is that he got so involved in the prostitute business when he prosecuted it as New York's attorney general that he got ensnared in it. He got caught in its vortex. Another explanation is that his arrogance got the better of him, believing that he, as a 'captain of the universe’, was above the law and couldn’t be caught. Spitzer was also a powerful politician. It has been theorized that some powerful men feel so guilty about wielding so much power that they feel the need to be subservient and dominated. With a prostitute they could fulfill that need.

Another theory is about Spitzer being an 'alpha male'. I tend to agree more with this one. The theory goes that alpha males are so work and career oriented that that they are incapable of intimacy. This lack of intimacy hinders and damages their sexual relation with their partner because they avoid and shun closeness. Nevertheless, sex in such a person is still desirable, but with a prostitute it can be had without being intimate.

At first blush the crime committed by Spitzer, if it was a crime, is quite off-putting and serious. But in comparison, his crime is no match to the crimes Bush has perpetrated against the American people, from lying to them about Iraq, to administrative corruption, to his allowing and enabling the fleecing of America.

The subprime market debacle

2008-02-27T06:29:00.000-08:00

"Subprime” refers to an unusual and complex economic situation that has been unfolding in the United States. The term conveys a negative situation, which is the intent.

I’m fascinated with the subprime market debacle and its repercussions. I’m waiting for someone to write a definitive book on the subject. I’m surprised nobody has yet. But that might be due to the fact that it is such a convoluted subject and still unfolding. It’s like a pyramid scheme. The phenomenon is like an octopus, with tentacles reaching out into numerous finance markets and who knows where else. I don’t know all the ins and outs of it but here’s what I understand about it.

What people associate most with subprime is the housing market and the real estate bubble it created. But it is also about its contagions in other areas of finance and commerce. If there were a beginning to the whole thing it might be the recession of 2000-1 and the weak stock market that followed. However, there are also other factors that occurred before which helped enable it. Also, a big part of its happening has to with American culture and its attitude towards capitalism.

There are many reasons why something occurs. It's never just one thing why something happens or becomes possible. It’s a combination of things. I keep saying that about democracy. The subprime debacle is no exception. Nevertheless, everybody likes a starting point. So if there were really a starting point it would have to be human greed, and the personal need for more. It also has to do with the American way of life and its pursuit of happiness. And then there is the bandwagon effect, with people saying “me too, me too".

The greed factor is not just an American trait. However, in many democratic societies we tend to have laws that protect us from ourselves, from the worst aspects of human behavior. Americans tend not to like such restrictions because they are more libertarian and distrustful of government interference, on telling them how to live.

Back in the 1990's banks demanded looser restrictions on their activities. Many of those restrictions were established during the Great Depression in which many bank failures occurred. The pro-business Republican Congress in the 90's obliged the banks and dropped many restrictions. This allowed the banks to be more aggressive and creative, allowing them to design many exotic and complex investment vehicles know as derivatives. In time some of those derivatives would incorporate and hide the subprime loans that would later act like time bombs, affecting other areas of the economy.

What also made subprime loans possible were low interest rates. The Federal Reserve of the US had cut interest rates almost to the bone to get America spending and out of the recession, to keep the economy growing. Money was very cheap to borrow and available to almost anybody who wanted it; to almost anybody who could breath, as the saying goes. It was lent even to those who seemed to have no chance of repaying it. But that didn't stop lenders because in a sense the rules had changed, like the laws of economics and what-goes-up-must-come-down had been repudiated. Logic and reason about lending and borrowing money seemed to have gone out the window. And the government and its financial regulators watched all this as though nothing was wrong, as though a new dawn had graced America.

Another thing that enabled the subprime debacle was the huge drop in the stock market in 2000-1. Investors were unwilling to invest in it because the returns were unfavorable. Instead they turned to real estate and housing which was relatively cheap and cheap money made it even cheaper. People thus started to invest and trade in housing like it was a commodity, "flipping" properties and houses left and right. From my perspective it seemed crazy because the prices where spiraling ever upward and becoming ridiculous, Nevertheless, the practice continue for many years, as long as money remained cheap.

All this frenzy inevitably begot more frenzy with every "Tom, Dick and Harry” getting into the act. It also spawned unscrupulous mortgage lenders, mostly due to the lack of government oversight and the relaxation of mortgage and banking regulations. But all this was also made possible by the philosophy of the Bush administration, which encouraged such practices. It had total confidence in the freedom of market, as though it was some elixir. Its philosophy was to encourage an "ownership society" which dovetailed nicely into the subprime activity. People who normally were unable to buy or own a house, because of a poor credit rate or lack of sufficient capital were now owners. Bush&Co, which seems to have a C- in economics, were ecstatic with the results because the subprime market was expanding the ownership society.

The market and the people involved thought that this 'game' could continue forever. And the surprising thing is that people that we would think of as intelligent and in the know, like two Federal Reserve chairmen, thought everything was just fine, that people could continue to push up prices and spend money like there was not tomorrow. To them it was just a bit of "irrational exuberance". Eventually, though, the cost of borrowing money increased, ending the party and forcing many people to give up their houses because they could not afford their escalating mortgages.

All this frenzy eventually led to overbuilding, which then put downward pressure on the value of properties. In many cases the value of the property became lower than the mortgage. As a result lenders would instigate foreclosure proceedings and called in their loans for fear of losing their money, further exacerbating the situation.

Like all bubbles the housing bubble burst, last year, sending shock waves through the financial markets, which had packaged and buried many of the bad housing loans in the derivatives they had devised and sold to unsuspecting investors. Some of the big institutional investors did know what was taking place but thought that since this was a brave new world, as they imagined, the market was immune to the shocks this activity might cause.

One thing that has suffered through all this is, trust. Banking and financial markets operate on trust. Members trust each other to tell the others about the possible risks involved. They generally support each other in times of financial upheavals. But this time it's different. It's as though a line was crossed and a bond was broken. In the old days derivatives involving things like subprime loans were consider "junk". This time they were peddled as if they were prime and classified as AAA. Those who held large positions on those derivatives had the rug pulled out from under them. That trust will take time to rebuild. One other major fallout from all this is that many credit markets and sources of venture capital have dried up, vehicles that are essential for keeping the economy going.

There's lots more to be said about the subprime market.

Global warming

2008-02-23T10:24:00.000-08:00

Philosopher Nicholas Maxwell asks the question "Are Philosophers Responsible for Global Warming? It’s an odd question and he admits it.

At first I thought the question was absurd but then I saw the merit in it.

What Maxwell is trying to say is that if philosophers had spoken up earlier about the perils of carbon dioxide, that it is a greenhouse gas, the world would not be going through the climate change that is occurring now. He pointed out that as early as 1859 a John Tyndall discovered that carbon dioxide was a greenhouse gas and that a Svante Arrhenus in 1896 speculated that it would cause global warming. According to Maxwell we should have acted on this information sooner.

Now, philosophers have done some great things throughout history. What philosophers do best is discuss ideas and speculate about how humankind can improve itself. They throw out ideas about how we ought to behave and how we might best govern ourselves. They ponder why things are and attempt to explain what they discover to the rest of us. The first such pondering by philosophers led to the natural and social sciences. There would be no science if philosophers hadn't first asked questions about the nature of things and the world around us. Before philosophy, and the sciences that arouse from it, the world was governed by mythology and superstition. Today, one of philosophy's jobs is to challenge its creation and ask ethical questions of science, so as to make sure that it works in the world's best interest.

One thing Maxwell is saying it that philosophers in the past have not challenging science enough on subject of greenhouse gas and the technologies that spews them out. However, philosophy may have been blind-sided by science and that’s why it didn't speak up early. Science has had this alluring, magic appeal and for years has told us that it could fix and cure what ails humankind. For example, one major aspect of human governance, communism, was founded strictly on science, believing that the world could be organized just on scientific principles, without having to be questioned by philosophers. It took years to discover that fallacy. Within democracy we hardly did much better but at least we let the philosophers who criticized live.

Maxwell thinks that if the idea of global warming had been introduced into the curriculum and in the press years ago we would have done something about it sooner. But I don't think it is philosophers fault that they hadn't managed to reach a consensus on global warming earlier. I think that back then, as far back as Maxwell goes in his admonishment, people were not ready to hear or deal with this stuff. People were to busy dealing with other things in history and first getting them out of the way. Now that the world is more settled and basically thinking as one, we can truly start thinking about and dealing with global warming.

I think many other things had to transpire before we could begin to think about global warming, like, for instance, seeing the world from outer space. For another, we first had to develop a political will to do something about it. And seeing the world from outer space as we did for the first time, in its solitude, gave many of us a sense of how fragile the world can be. From that episode Earth Day was born and thus our more unanimous concern for the planet we live on. And until recently we never had a person like Al Gore, who has been the pied piper of global warming's consequences.

There is one thing that Maxwell neglected to address in his argument, the hurdles philosophers may have faced in trying to impress upon the rest of us about the need to do something about global warming. He wishes that philosophers had been able to warn the rest of us about climate change earlier. However, he didn't consider the fact that there have been skeptics and obstructionists in great numbers that have made it difficult to convince a large enough number of us that global warming is a threat, and due to human activity, so that we could start doing something about it. Skeptics and obstructionists probably have been drowning out the voices of reason on this issue for decades.

Today, though, those obstacle are not as prevalent as they used to be because reason has succeeded in convincing most of us that human activity does cause climate change. The skepticism is being swept away by hard evidence. And now what Al Gore has been saying makes perfect sense to the majority of us, the people who count, who care and are rational; the people who want to make a difference and improve the world.

And that is one thing philosophers also do, they bear reason on the world. On this score Maxwell only wishes it could have happen sooner.

Common Sense

2008-02-15T13:13:00.000-08:00

The idea for this post came from a review I read about a book that talks about common sense. This book was written by a French sociologist, Raymond Boudon, and is entitle "Renouveler la democratie", which I think means 'renewing democracy'. As I understand it, the theme of this book is that common sense is needed for reviving the democratic process. The author thinks democracy has been flagging recently due to the lack of common sense.

The reviewer of the book, Stein Ringen, is also a sociologist. He tells us about a powerful idea in today’s world, "relativism", or postmodernism. He says that at its extreme relativism means "there are no truths or objective facts, and all opinions are equally valid”. (I think that is an exaggeration.) However, he says, there is a counter-idea to relativism, common sense. Like Boudon he believes common sense is a rational thing whereas relativism is not. Both Boudon and Ringen believe that relativism poses a threat to democracy because it doesn't foster the common interests that democracy depends on. They also believe that relativism doesn't foster the social cohesive on which democracy is very dependent on to survive. Well, I think both men are really talking about multiculturalism, which is a relativism. They think that multiculturalism doesn't make common sense and like relativism it is divisive and destabilizing to democracy.

I never though of common sense as a counter-idea to relativism or postmodernism, so I was drawn to the idea. However, I do think there is a common sense in relativism. Relativism, as multiculturalism, allows for many cultures to coexist and thrive together. In many mature democratic countries that recognition is prudent to keep harmony. But this does not mean a different set of laws and rules for different cultures as some argue. It does, though, make sense because relativism/multiculturalism in many ways adds to the polyphony democracy thrives on, to keep it vital, legitimate and relevant. In Canada multiculturalism makes sense. Canadians have learned to view multiculturalism as making perfect sense, embracing and cultivating it. If Canadians didn't, there certainly would be some serious social unrest, considering Canada's bicultural British and French background and the multiculturalism it has spawned.

I think it’s worth repeating that I think Boudon’s common sense views sounds anti-multiculturalism, since multiculturalism is a relativism. Some people think that multiculturalism, like relativism, is a threat to social cohesion. However, the reverse behavior can also threaten social cohesion, by denying diversity and multiculturalism, forcing people to assimilate culturally. Such a denial can produce clashes that can destroy any possibility at social cohesion. However, multiculturalism does not mean the flaunting of the basic, common laws of the land as some have argued. And there can be comfort in that fact because the common laws of a country like Canada are what unity people and in a way nullify the aspects of relativism that many find harmful to democracy.

The review by Ringen appeared in TLS. It is written under the caption "Trust the people" as though to say that the people are the source of common sense. And this is what Boudon is saying in his book, that the source of democracy comes from the common sense of the people. That common sense is a wellspring for democracy. He also equates common sense with ordinary thinking. Ordinary thinking comes from ordinary people. And ordinary people are what makes democracy possible, government of the people, for the people and by the people.

However, the common sense or ordinary thinking that is behind democracy has not always been there. It has taken time for much of the common sense that is behind democracy to surface. For instance, it wasn't always common sense that blacks and women should have the vote or that people should be treated equally under the law. No, there are very few things on their own that make common sense. Common sense is something that has usually evolved into common sense. Oh, there are some common sense ideas that come naturally, like don’t lend money to people who can’t pay it back. But even that common sense comes from experience.

Culture can determine common sense. The recent brouhaha in Britain about the using of sharia law attests to that. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, suggested that the incorporation of parts of sharia law into British civil law would make perfect sense. In his view aspects of sharia law could be utilized to help cultivate social unity, to help integrate the Islamic population in Britain into the rest of society. Sharia law, he argued, would help the Muslim population traverse and navigate many of the difficulties it has had in simulating into British society.

Well, the majority in Britain thinks that Dr. Williams’ proposal makes no sense at all. Sharia, many argue, would have a negative impact on social cohesion because there would be two sets of laws that would further divide society. As the ex-Archbishop of Canterbury pointed out, sharia law goes against the grain of the land and its democratic institutions. Lord Carey said, “There can be no exception to the laws of our land, which have been so painfully honed by the struggle for democracy and human rights”. In that light sheria law doesn’t make common sense for a secular culture like that of Britain's.

Sharia law makes perfect sense to some. But it doesn’t make secular sense, the sense Democracy depends on.

Progress and innovation

2008-02-01T09:36:00.000-08:00

I was wondering what to write about next and then came upon this question: "Is progress and invention natural or cultural phenomena?"

Well, in many ways it is a cultural phenomenon. Most of the progress and innovation in the last 500 years has occurred in Western culture. Jarad Diamond speculated in his book "Guns, Germs and Steel" why this is so, because of the openness and flexibility of the West, especially during pre-Columbus Europe. Europe, the cradle of Western civilization, has been the fermentation of this cultural phenomenon. The culture of democracy and capitalism, which the West instigated, has also been a hot bed for progress and innovation, which is today's chief hot bed for progress and innovation.

In comparison, other cultures have been 'closed' and not receptive to the new ideas that have sparked progress and innovation. Take a look at the Islamic world in recent years where not even a handful of new books have been published. Furthermore, what sustains the Arab and Islamic world economically is the progress and innovation that was mostly formulated in the West. Now, Communism as a culture was innovative but it didn't progress because it lacked the open society that is essential to achieve progress and sustain technological innovations.

What make progress and innovation 'natural' is that sooner or later it is going to happen. And generally it has been the West that has been receptive to this natural process. The West has embraced this natural process more readily and enthusiastically than any other culture. This is why the rest of the world is more and more resembling Western culture, because it has the progress and innovations to best sustain and maintain all civilization.

The inevitability of the Cold War

2008-01-18T13:50:00.000-08:00

The other day I read a book review about the Cold War. The book was entitled “For The Soul Of Mankind” by Melvyn P. Leffler. I’ll comment on what I learned from the review.

Leffler’s premise is that the Cold War, which existed between the Soviet Union and the United States for over forty years, didn't necessarily have to happen or last as long as it did. It ended in 1989 with the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. He argues that it was not inevitable, “that it could have been avoided at the outset and stopped on at least three occasions before Mikhail Gorbachev.” Nevertheless, I think history made it inevitable and necessary.

As the book reviewer noted, two themes underline the Cold War, the fear of a reunified Germany, especially among the Soviet leaders, and the mission that the leaders of both the Soviets and Americans felt they had, “to save mankind through the triumph of [their] ideology, whether that was liberal democracy or Communism”.

The book has an appropriate title for an event that propelled the world to a more peaceful and secure placed. Prior to the Cold War and for much of its duration the world was a tense and divided place. But the book's title, “For the souls of Mankind”, suggests this was a period of progress and healing, with the conversion of souls working to defuse a potential dangerous global situation. During the Cold War souls and attitudes were changed, making the world a more harmonious and peaceful place. However, the way Leffler writes it, about it not necessarily being an inevitability or that it might have ended sooner, shows a lack of appreciate for this event and its duration. For instance, if it hadn't lasted as long as it did it couldn't have converted and won over as many souls as it did to make the world a more peaceful place. Winning souls is a time-consuming endeavor and the Cold War, by not being hot, afforded the time for leveler heads and reason to eventually prevail.

Leffler mentions the fear of a reunified Germany as one big reason for the Cold War. Well, Germany eventually did reunify but only after the collapse of communism and when it was clear that Germany no longer posed a threat to the rest of the world as it once did. Accepting the reunification of Germany was certainly a soul-converting event that couldn't have happened if the Cold War had not afforded the years needed to digest and convince people that a unified Germany was no longer a threat.

I think there was another reason why the Cold War was inevitable and lasted as long as it did. It had an important mission to accomplish, if you will, that of defining the political and economic system that would run the world in the future. The Cold war, in other words, was necessary in order to fashion out what governing system would eventually govern all of humankind, whether it be liberal democracy or communism. A unified, standard system of human governance and organization was essential because, as history observed, humankind was becoming more homogenous and interdependent. Under such circumstance two compete forms of governance would have been inefficient and self-defeating. Also, this period was a time for the world to work out still outstanding issues that plagued the world, such as the illusiveness of world peace. WWII had not completely eliminated the desire for wars between nations. The Cold War was a necessary event and a stopgap period in which the world could learn to divest itself of its still war like instincts. The standoff, tense but ostensibly peaceful, that existed between the two nuclear power, the Soviets and Americans, gave the world the opportunity and breathing space to develop and entrench mutually peaceful agencies like the United Nations.

The Cold War kept a world war from becoming hot. After the Second World War there were those in America, staunch anti communists, who thought that America should militarily engage the Soviet Union because they saw its newfound power a threat to democracy and America’s influence in the world. Fortunately, there were those in the administration who were more pragmatic and realized that this stance would inevitably lead to another great world war, this time with the prospects of having no world left. The pragmatists won and instead developed a policy of containment that would contain the Soviet Union’s expansionist ambitions around the world. This policy did contribute to the length of the Cold War because the Soviet Union was just as determined to carry on and wasn’t going to be put off in their expansion efforts by U.S. policy. Another thing that made the Cold War a cold war is that both sides were basically matched in their nuclear capability and their going to war would have been a no win situation for everybody.

During the Cold War liberal democracy developed into the preeminent governing system it is today. The competition it got from communism during those years only strengthened it while showing communism to be the fraudulent and incapable system it was. During those years America tried harder to resolve its racist problems because of the antagonism it got from the Soviets in showing the U.S. as a racist nation, as inferior and undemocratic in its human relations. Liberal democracy in turn, through the economic development that was occurring in Western Europe, was really contrasting itself against the much lower living standards of Eastern Europe that communism offered. During this time it became quite clear that the Soviet Empire had to use force to keep its citizens in line whereas the liberal democracy gained in stature and support by being an open society, which required no force to keep it so. During the Cold War the West made it abundantly clear to skeptics around the world that liberal democracy was the superior system. It had sustainability, whereas the communist economic system, it became obvious, was inherently fraught with waste, inefficiencies, ineptitude, corrupt and unsustainiblity.

Alexandre Kojeve, a Hegelian philosopher, speculated that communism and liberal democracy rivaled each other to determine the nature of the system of governance that would eventually govern all humankind. He may have imagined a homogeneous human race somewhat the globalism we see today, in need of a standard, unifying governance. Moreover, in a complex, tightly woven world like was emerging two competing and feuding forms of governance would have complicated things and hindered progress. The Cold War afforded liberal democracy the stage for convincing the world it was the right system, which could also do things communism promised to deliver but couldn’t. Communism couldn’t address people’s needs and aspiration. Liberal democracy not only proved that it could, and provide economic sustainability for the modern world, but it also could deliver on the freedom and recognition that all people of world desired and wanted.

Political freedom

2008-01-11T07:34:00.000-08:00

Political freedom has certainly developed from economic liberalization. This is how it came about in America, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Political freedom is also slowly emerging in China due to growing economic freedom. In Russia and China, after the fall of communism, people are allowed to travel and move around freely. This mobility adds to people's political freedom because they become more conscious of things, gaining an awareness that later translates into thinking and the deliberative process that democracy so much depends on.

Ironically, blacks in America got their freedom mostly from economic development. Blacks on plantations were slowly replaced with farm machinery because it cost less to maintain than slave labor. Blacks then moved to the factories in the north that were booming and needed labor. This contributed to their emancipation because they were now making real money and buying property. With property in hand blacks gained recognition and respect in the community, thus in time acquiring a political voice, because, for one thing, they paid taxes.

In China economic development has improved communications and thus individual involvement in political affairs. The growth of cell phone use has challenged the party line and held governments there accountable. One instance occurred with the outbreak of SARS. The government's line to world health organizations was that SARS was not a problem in China. But individuals saw things differently, that SARS was a growing health problem, and were able to communicate this message to the outside world, thus forcing the Chinese authorities to seriously address the problem. This event and the response to it be the government has chipped away a little more at China's political authoritarianism.

This is why I say humankind develops and progress through perverse means. Logic and reason dictates that freedom and respect should come to people without question. It should be sacrosanct. But as we know things are backwards, people have to fight for it and use material means, like property and wealth to achieve it. This emancipation of people was once labeled "dialectical materialism".

Don't believe it when people say economics is irrelevant. Not only does this discipline put food in our mouths, roofs over our heads and cloths on our backs, but it also has the power to politically emancipate.

The economic axiom

2008-01-05T08:36:00.001-08:00

Charles Krauthammer of The Washington Post questioned, in an article, the old axiom that economic liberalization leads to democracy. I think it eventually does.

The idea that economic freedom leads to democracy first found life in the U.S., before it was the U.S. The axiom started in New Amsterdam, which is now New York. It was the governor of the then Dutch colony, Peter Stuyvesant, who, in the early 17th century, made economic activity the institution of freedom it is today. He made economic activity the religion of America, as a way to neutralize the religious divisions that existed in those days. Up to that point religious differences were constraining people’s freedoms, mainly because of the imposition of the founding religion, the Quakers, on the other religions. The removal of such a barrier unleashed economic activity and gave people a freedom they never had before. This newfound freedom gave people a voice, which later translated into political freedom. This too was the birth of religious freedom and the secular state America is today. And as most of us know, without secularism real democracy is not possible.

It is not so much that Stuyvesant was aware that religion and religious feuding was constraining economic development in the New World. Perhaps at the time it wasn’t. Nevertheless, in his wisdom, and that of his employer, the Dutch East Indies Company, he used economics activity to muzzle religious fervor. Religious tolerance is something he had learned in the old country, the Netherlands, which at the time was the most advanced and tolerant nation in Europe. He picked economics to be the religion of the New World, as the common denominator all could subscribe to. There was no alternative.

Krauthammer questions this axiom because economic liberalization has not helped in democratizing China and Russian, two countries which otherwise have pretty healthy economic activity. People in those two countries are essentially free to own property, consume what they want and be mobile. However, the problem is that other institutions, which help turn economic freedom into political freedom, have either not developed or have not kept pace. For instance, the freedom of the press that holds governments accountable and at arms length has not developed sufficiently enough. Neither have the laws that protect individual rights; people there have little or no recourse if treated unfairly economically or politically. Also, there still isn't the feeling of freedom among the people of those nations. They have to learn how to feel free because it is something they are not used to, because they have been denied it for a long time.

Krauthammer mentioned that America and its allies were successful in instilling democracy in Germany, Japan and South Korea. He is making a comparison here, to Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, where U.S. influence has had little impact in encouraging the development of democracy. But he doesn't stop to think that democracy took hold in those countries precisely because they were first industrial nations. Workers in those nations had a stake in the industrialization of those nations and participated directly in it. They developed unions and similar institution that counterbalance and challenged governments. In time the citizens of those countries leveraged that participation into more individual rights. Industrialization in those countries gave people a voice and the leverage because without them industrialization could not have continued. Industrialization also created wealth for these workers which in tern they invested in property, further enhancing their stake in their countries and their prospects for more democracy.

It is interesting, though, how capitalism and the freedom of individual economic activity have taken hold in Russia and China in comparison to the Muslim world. The economic dynamics are totally different. I think the difference has to do with what happen under communism in those two countries. Communism discouraged and band religion. When communism collapsed religion did not exist as a hindrance to individual economic activity as it has done in the Muslim world. In Russian and China men and women equally participate in economics. In creating secular states communism readied countries for individual economic participation, which one day will lead to political emancipate.

Arthur Schlesinger Jr. made this cleaver observation: "Democracy is impossible without private ownership because private property - resources beyond the arbitrary reach of the state - provides the only secure basis for political opposition and intellectual freedom."

I think that observation, with what occurred in Germany, Japan and South Korea provides ample evidence to the axiom that economic liberalization eventually leads to democracy. Democratization is slowly occurring in Russia and China because people there are becoming wealthier and individual property owners.

Liberal Democracy

2007-12-24T04:52:00.000-08:00

I am always interested in articles that evoke Francis Fukuyama. I still believe in his theory that liberal democracy is the final form of human governance and it's here to stay. If this is true, some ask, why haven’t China and Russia adopted it?

The reason liberal democracy hasn't become everybody's cup of tea yet is another matter, a matter of it being too high octane or sophisticated for some people and nations to handle. Russian and China have not yet become sufficiently sophisticated enough to fully deal with and appreciate liberal democracy or its consequences, because it is an extremely sophisticated, esoteric enterprise. Why, it took the West centuries to achieve it and here we expect novices like Russia and China to pick it up just like that. However, both Russian and China are dabbling in it, inching towards participating more in it. I thing those countries have little choice but to embrace it sooner or later.

The one thing that Fukuyama said that convinces me that liberal democracy is it is that if the modern world and its scientific advances are to continue liberal democracy is the only way to go. He believes, like I do, that, in the long run, it is the only system the can sustain the modern world and its technological demands. He also sees it as the only system that can truly fulfill people's needs and aspiration. Liberal democracy is the only alternative for giving people and developed nations the open and flexible society they need in order to deliver on the demands of the modern world. Liberal democracy and its open society is the only alternative that can generate the financial and human capital, initiatives and innovations, needed to sustain the modern world. Governing systems to remain legitimate and relevant must have the ability to renew themselves and liberal democracy is the only one that has proven it can, because it remains flexible and open.

In both Russia and China we see more and more of the fundamentals of an open society emerging, the right to consume and the freedom of mobility. These fundamentals are essential if these countries are going to continue to relate to and do business with the West. They have to accept and comply with rules and regulations that were developed in the liberal democratic world, where their biggest customers reside. China, for instance, has recently adopted product safety standards and copy right laws that liberal democracies live by. China has also recently changed its constitution and laws to allow for the ownership of private property, the beginnings and bedrock of liberal democracies.

At the beginning, after the Cold War ended, Russia was pushed and rushed, too quickly, into adopting liberal democracy. It wasn't ready. (In comparison China has taken a slower approach.) It was like the Wild West in Russia because it wasn't prepared or sophisticated enough to handle it. And economists who pushed liberal democracy on Russia weren't understanding or prepared for its 'backwardness' or lack of skills. Russia's initial attempt at liberal democracy was a disaster and its people were disillusioned by it. So it's quite understandable that there was a backlash to it and a return to some of the old ways. Nevertheless, Russia got a taste for it and hung on to some of its ways, like consumerism and freedom of mobility. Moreover, I believe that if Russia and China want to continue developing and profit from the West they will have to become more and more like the West and adopt more of its governing practices.

In addition, if these countries ever want to deal with their growing pollution problems they will have to rely and engage their populations. This can only be done in an open society, where people can discuss and debate openly. And for that to happen a more liberal social policy will have to be adopted.

"Philosophy saves the world?"

2007-12-03T13:12:00.001-08:00

That question was posed in light of UNECO's World Philosophy Day Event that just occurred last month. UNESCO is the intellectual organization of the United Nations.

UNESCO made the following statement about the reason for this event, which first occurred in November 2002 (I think this event was prompted by the repercussions of 9/11, to help ameliorate things around the world): "The objective of this Day is to encourage the peoples of the world to share between them their philosophical heritage and to open their daily reflections to new ideas, as well as to inspire a public debate between intellectuals and civil society on the challenges to which our societies are confronted today". Philosophical discussions have include “the role women philosophers could play in shaping the future of humanity” and “what can philosophy contribute to a more human governance of the world?” This year the event occurred in Istanbul.

Since Plato one of philosophy's biggest questions has been about best way humans should govern themselves, individually and collectively. This question reached a high point during the Enlightenment, a period of great philosophical contemplation and discussion, when Democracy, the most influential form of governance in the world, began to emerge. One of Democracy's greatest exponents and supporters was Kant, even though it was still a fledging idea in the realm of human governance. Kant’s idea of Democracy was more expansive and a more sophisticated concept of governance than existed during the Greeks, its supposed inventors. Kant correctly speculated that democratic nations would not go to war with each other. In creating Democracy, the most tolerant and accommodating form of governance the world has ever seen - of the people, for the people and by the people, philosophy has certainly helped to save the world.

Philosophy has also saved the world by perpetuating expanding its role of discussion and debate. One of the biggest philosophical forums, which was set up to save the world after two devastating world wars, is the United Nations. Its philosophy is to prevent war between nations and to keep the peace through its many agencies. Philosophy, the exchange of ideas, opinions and differences, is the activity that happens between its members to preserve peace and expand it. The philosophizing that occurs within this forum has transcended and tempered the hostilities of the world. Essential to saving the world is cooperation among nation and the U.N. has greatly enhanced this cooperation and the necessary dialogue between nations.

The U.N. has worked to promote democracy and human rights throughout the world. One could say that the U.N. is an extension of Kant's speculative philosophy that democratic nations don't go to war with each other. The philosophy of the U.N. is to help nurture and facilitate peace. The U.N.'s philosophy is also a secular philosophy, of tolerance and accommodation, one espoused by Spinoza, another philosopher during the same Enlightenment that gave birth to Democracy.

Again, one of philosophies most profound question has been ' how ought we to govern ourselves'. This is a persistent question that is opined and philosophized over and over, a question that the philosophy of democracy is constantly asking. Philosophy has developed the laws and constructs that govern and organize us.

The world is always changing and so are its circumstances. The world is always a work in progress. New circumstances, which are always arising, like 9/11 and other moral issues, require new operational techniques and philosophies. New management skills and ways of thinking are constantly needed to facilitate and mediate changing circumstances and acclimatize people to them so they can cope. Philosophizing amongst each other, trading ideas, like asking ‘what if’ or ‘why don’t we try it this way’, has given us those new skills.

Philosophy saves the world by making people more understanding and accommodating. It’s also therapeutic and gives counsel. It takes people outside of themselves so they can have a better view of reality and the rest of world around them.

Philosophy has also given us the ability to nuance, an ability that has given us diplomacy. Without nuance you don’t have diplomacy or compromise. Diplomacy has saved the world many times from possible conflicts. In contrast, one person who said with pride that he doesn’t nuance is George Bush. Thus he has never philosophizes in a meaningful and progressive way. In many respects he has made the world a more dangers places because he has not engaged in diplomacy so as to defuse dangerous situations, so as to help saved the world.

Democracy, a catch-22

2007-11-17T07:58:00.001-08:00

In a recent article in the Washington Post Robert Kagan exposed a catch-22, a paradox, involving Democracy, especially when it comes to nations that have never practiced it before.

First I would like to say that I found it somewhat ironic that Kagan was writing about this, a neoconservative who thought that democracy should and could be imposed on undemocratic nations by external fiat, mainly that of the United States. As a neoconservative he believed that the U.S. should use its extensive powers to influence those parts of the world that remained undemocratic. He, like the present administration, believed that the U.S. should use strong-arm tactics on those nations that are reluctant to change. This doctrine found its first test with the American occupation of Iraq. However, the disastrous consequence of the Iraqi war has since tempered his enthusiasm for this idealistic doctrine.

I‘ve always been amazed how supposedly knowledgeable people have so little understanding of Democracy, in what is essential for its function and sustainability. These people should have known that you can’t exported Democracy and impose it on people who have never practiced it before. They should known that Democracy is a customized, cultural activity that has taken a long time and many generations to develop in those societies that practice it. In democratic societies Democracy is in the blood, a way of life and part of our DNA. So I think it should have been obvious to people like Kagan and other neoconservatives who were all gungho for establishing Democracy in Iraq that insinuating it on an people from above would be a tremendous undertaking if not impossible. Nevertheless, knowledgeable people, including one professor of Democracy that went to Iraq, believed the U.S. could smoothly establish Democracy there and the people would accept it willingly.

Iraq has been a learning experience for Kagan and his fellow necons about Democracy. Sadly it took a war in Iraq for people like him to understand what Democracy really entails. Consequently, intellectuals, scholars and politicians are now beginning to realize that Democracy is contingent on many things for it to function well and be successful. Iraq has been a test case and field experiment for Democracy, where things have been exposed about it that wouldn't necessarily show up in the classroom. The American professor who was so anxious to spearhead its introduction in Iraq soon grew weary about its prospects there. A year into the war he realized that due to the shortcomings and incompetence of the war’s organizers Iraq instead was becoming extremely insecure. That is when the professor realized that security and order are extremely fundamental to Democracy. Nothing much else is possible without it. Under these circumstances, he realized, Democracy is impossible. I wonder why this wasn't understood or learned before hand, in class, before getting into this misadventure in Iraq. That’s probably because it wasn't clearly understood that Democracy is a very esoteric enterprise and a lot of patience is needed with people who have never done it before.

One thing The U.S. could have done to achieve security in Iraq for the purpose of establishing Democracy was to secure all those institutions that made Iraqis feel secure prior to the war, such as government institutions, medical and educational institutions and cultural museums. The security of those vital institutions would have gone a long way to maintain order and civility. Instead the U.S. allowed those institutions to be ransacked and looted due to incompetence and the lack of resources to secure them. (I think the U.S. was ill prepared in establishing Democracy because that was not the original intention. The original intention for war was to find weapons of mass destruction but when they didn't materialized they changed the mission to establishing Democracy, in order to save face.)

One thing Kagan alluded to in his article is that Democracy is contingent on a number of things. One important aspect is the rule of law. Basically the rule of law is a set of principles that are intended to be a "safeguard against arbitrary governance, whether by a totalitarian leader or by mob rule”. Thus, the rule of law must also include secular and pluralist functions, two contingencies that. by the way, are greatly lacking in Iraq. Elections and the right to vote are also essential components. which did take place in Iraq. But the lack of the rule of law in Iraq makes election and voting results essentially non-starts because the rule of law - the courts, the division of powers, is not there as a mechanism to uphold the results of the election and the will of the people who voted in them.

Democracy is contingent on many things. And that is what gives it this aura of a catch-22, because if certain things in combination, like the rule of law and elections, don't happen simultaneously there is little or no chance for Democracy taking hold. But how does the combination of contingencies Democracy require, such as a stable environment, secularism, free speech, freedom of choice, elections, human rights, happen in a society that has never acknowledged them before?

Globalism

2007-11-11T11:03:00.001-08:00

Globalism is about the world coming together multiculturally. It is also about the world's civilization becoming interconnected, woven together and relying on each other for survival and continuance. Globalism over the years has removed barriers between civilizations and generated more tolerance among them.

One good thing Globalism brought about last week was the meeting between King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican, the first such meeting between the main leader of Islam and the main leader of Christianity. International world events brought them together. Such a meeting would have been unthinkable, a non-started or unnecessary post 9/11.

Globalism has shrunken the world. In the past, when the world was a bigger place, world leaders could ignore each other and go about their business without having to address each other or explain themselves to the rest of world. But things have change since Globalism has made the world a more interdependent place. Leaders now feel pressured that they have to explain and defend their policies to the rest of the world. They feel this pressure because their action can be so destabilizing for the rest of world. The integration of the world politically and economically has force them to change and rethink their positions for the better. This is an incremental change but nonetheless a positive one.

What Globalism has done by shrinking the world and making it more interdependent and interconnected is made world leaders and their nations more accountable. Things in the world have become so interwoven that one nations actions can have great consequences for others. Thus nations around the world have become more conscious and concerned about doing the right thing by each other.

Globalism has contained and defused a lot of abusive power in the world from becoming more dangerous. For example, Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan has had to respond to world criticism and anger about invoking marshal law, which he didn't feel necessary to do eight years ago when he first took power by force. This time he has been stopped in his tracks and has had more opposition, internally and externally. This time Musharraf felt pressure and obliged, by Globalism's forces, to extend an olive branch to defuse tension and world anxiety as King Abdullah felt he had to last week at the Vatican.

Worth

2007-10-23T06:38:00.000-07:00

For some reason I became interest in the word 'worth'. I think it started with my curiosity about it being used as a suffix on the end of surnames, like in Moneysworth, Woolworth, Wordsworth, and Shuttleworth.

My first instinct was to look the word up in the dictionary. One origin of the word given is Goth, dating before 900AD. Goth is the language of the Teutonic people who in the 3rd to 5th centuries invaded and settled in parts of the Roman Empire. I presume the town of Gotha in Thuringia, Germany was named for the Goth people.

The names I mentioned above I believe originated in northwestern England, in Lancashire and Cumbria. I guess some Goth people settled there, since it was once part of the Roman Empire. Who knows when worth got its meanings of value, merit and quality? I think it is save to say, though, that it was affixed to surnames to denote and convey the sense of wealth or the trustworthiness of the person so named.

As I examined the word more closely I discovered the Goth word for worth is wairths. I found this fascinating because of its similarity to my surname Airth. I always understood Airth to be a Scottish name, but now I believe it may have originated from the Goth, who may have also settled in Scotland. The name Airth, though, was thought to have originated from the word 'air' or 'earth'. However, nobody really knows for sure. But as I have discovered, there may be another explanation for its origin, the Goth word for worth.

The Old English pronunciation of worth is weorth, which sounds and looks a lot like earth. The Goth pronunciation of worth is wairths, which sounds very much like the Scots would pronounce worth. (As the Gershwin song goes, “You say worth, I say wairths…”) From this I am inclined to thing that Airth came from the Old English weorth and the Goth wairths, meaning that Airth means both earth and worth. And there is a connection there. Earth, in the form of land, is worth something. Being an Airth I would sooner take as one of its origins ‘earth’ rather than ‘air’ because earth conveys more worth.

Perhaps the first Airth was a wealthy landowner, hence the name. Why, there’s even a castle in Scotland named Airth, started by Fergus de Erth. I imagine a Scotsman once having said, “Your name should be airth because your wairths something”.

And what has all this to do with democracy, as it shows in my masthead? Perhaps nothing. But it was a Scotsman with another name, Smith, who helped the development of democracy by persuading governments to let people be free to purse their own self-interests and worth.

Why Democracy?

2007-10-09T09:16:00.001-07:00

The BBC recently participated in a series called Why Democracy? It seemed like an apt question considering Democracy is the only legitimate form of governance left in the world and getting stronger. I think the series was also trying to understand what it is about Democracy, as Francis Fukuyama opined in his book "The End of History", that makes it the end point in human governance.

One interesting question asked was, “Can democracy solve climate change?” I think that if any form of government can, Democracy can, better than the alternatives of totalitarian regimes or other forms of closed societies. With the open societies Democracy has fostered it has encouraged the entrepreneurial spirit that can develop the needed technology to tackle such a problem. I am certain that under governments like communism such technology could not have developed because of their inherent lack of free markets and entrepreneurial skills that would invent such technologies.

There are examples where totalitarian governments have developed advanced technologies. The single mindedness of the communist regime in the Soviet Union did invent the technology that started the space race. But as one may have notices the democratic system of America soon surpassed that initial winning streak and won the race. That is because America had a free citizenry that voluntarily helped in the effort whereas communism did not have such a resource. Without that human resource which America had - the free market and the free exchange of ideas - the Soviet Union soon ran out of steam and could no longer compete. Similarly the Soviet Union failed in providing food for its citizens because it couldn’t develop the necessary technologies or management systems that an open society can. Why Democracy? Because in the long run it is a more sustainable system, because of its openness and freedom.

I'm also think that under dictatorships like communism the subject of climate change could never be discussed openly and freely because that would tantamount to criticizing the state and its rulers, a no-no. Also, under communism there was no such thing as freedom of the press that could expose the degradation of the environment. Thus, under a totalitarian regime the subject of climate change would certainly be hidden from the general public. My feeling is that one reason communism had to collapse is because it was covering-up what it was doing to the environment. The level of its industrial pollution had to be exposed. Under Democracy such a cover-up would amount to a criminal act.

Another good reason for Democracy is that it is the only form of government for peace loving people of all over the world. As Kant rightly speculated more than 200 years ago, democracies don’t go to war with each other. Democracy, too, is the only truly accommodating form of government, which tries hard to accommodate and balance the diverse needs and aspirations of all peoples, whether religious or political.

Why Democracy? Democracy is government of the people, for the people and by the people. Democracy’s chief aim is to keep tyranny at bay, and those who would subjugate us. On that score I think Democracy is doing an admirable job.

As a sort of afterthought the question "What is the biggest threat to Democracy?" was posed. Many said terrorism. Can terrorism destroy Democracy? My feeling is that the only way terrorism can destroy Democracy is if it resorts to terrorism tactics to fight it.

This is what I have noticed Democracy does to ward off threats to it existence, it looks inwardly and wonders what about itself it can change to defuse the threat and ameliorate things. Democracy mostly wins if it plays defensively rather that offensively, with soft powers rather than hard ones, with diplomacy and politics rather than violent conflict. This is how it eventually defeated communism.

People who think we don’t live in a Democracy, like democracies in the US or Canada, are people who live in bubbles. They just think of their own circumstances rather than the circumstances of the whole population. They aren't thinking of Democracy as mutually beneficial system but just one tailored for individual needs. Their expectations of democracy are generally ridiculous and selfish. What also bothers people is that Democracy is not perfect because that is how they heard it advertised. Democracy is not perfect because the people it serves are not perfect. Nevertheless, it is the only system that can come close to a perfection.

People who say we do not live in a democracy say so because they see others trying to undermine it and do not go to jail for it. I say to those people, grow up. There is always a group of people out there that will try and take advantage of a good thing for their own purpose. And Democracy being the open system it is is naturally susceptible to opportunists. In the long run, though, a mature Democracy is strong enough to fend of those unscrupulous individuals who take advantage of it to serve their own agenda.

One thing the BBC series did not point out as to Why Democracy? is that in comparison to all other governing systems it is the only system capable of renewing itself, because it is flexible, open and always coming up with new ideas on how to govern people. And in order to remain legitimate and vital a governing system must always reinvent itself so that is can adapt to the constantly changing circumstances of the modern world.

Hawaii

2007-10-01T09:29:00.000-07:00

When I began this essay we were in the Pacific Ocean on board the Pacific Princess, a cruise ship on its way to Hawaii. We boarded the ship in Vancouver on a lovely sunny day after a flight from Toronto. We were on the ocean for five days before we saw land.

As usual I brought some reading material to help pass the time while on board ship. And for the first time I brought my computer so I might start such an essay. A book I brought was one written by a customer of mine, Carol Grant Sullivan, entitled “Fall Line: A Woman’s Survival in the Andes and Return to a life of Balance”. The main point of her book covers a 2000-foot fall she had extreme skiing in the Argentine Andes and her very traumatic recovery from it. But it’s also about the difficult balancing act she has faced with competing interests in her life, that of being a mother and a career women, while still pursuing her love of skiing.

For additional reading I also took a journal, The Wilson Quarterly, which coincidentally featured an article called “Women in Charge”. Eventually I realized that the two reading materials were related, since they were both about women forging ahead and cutting their own paths in a male oriented world. Then I thought of my mother who like Sullivan had also challenged the status quo and had endeavored to create a balance between her career and family life.

I am always looking for and making connection between things. Another piece of literature I brought with me to read is a book entitled “The World the Railways Made” by Nicholas Faith. As we headed towards our destination of the Hawaiian Islands we traversed six time zones. Well, these time zones, as Faith explains, were invented by the American railways in order to end a lot of confusion in business and travel. Prior to the railways the telling of time was helter skelter, at the whim of individual communities and totally confusing. Faith also pointed out that the modern world began with the coming of the railway. In other words, the modern world, which includes the Internet and cruise ships like the one we were on, could not have been without first the Railway, the world’s first international business.

As I looked from the deck of the ship the skies over Hawaii seemed hazy. Then I wondered, could that haziness be pollution from China? That, I learned later when I returned home, is quite a concern for Hawaiians, pollution from China. Everywhere we went the skies seem hazy, except on Sunday when we were in Waikiki sailing on a catamaran.

What we did on Saturday was go to Pearl Harbor. I mean, nobody should miss Pearl Harbor when in the vicinity. We saw several attractions there, including the Arizona Memorial, the battleship Missouri on which the Japanese signed their unconditional surrender, ending WWII, and the arrival of the nuclear aircraft carrier Nimutz. Now that was quite a sight, seeing the arrival of such a huge ship. It made our trip to Pearl Harbor all the more special and worth it.

Several people we met in Waikiki, where we stayed, were going on board the Nimutz on Monday for a weeklong trip to San Diego. Those people were parents of sailors who sponsored them for the trip. It sounded like a thrill of a lifetime to go on such a trip. I was envious.

There were a lot of Japanese at Pearl Harbor. A young American woman I was talking to was amazed that they were there, considering the fact that they started a war by attacking and destroying it. I explained that perhaps they came here to see history and were curious to see the horrific damage the Japanese forces had done on Dec. 7, 1941. I found it reassuring that there were so many Japanese there because to me that meant there was little animosity between the two nations, Japan and the U.S., and that the world was a more united place than in ever was in the past.

Another thing that was very Japanese in Waikiki was the white sand on its beaches. Hawaii imports the sand because inherently it only has black sand, which is due to the volcanic nature of the islands.

One thing that took my notice is the Union Jack in one corner of the Hawaiian state flag. That indicated to me that Hawaii was quite conscious and celebratory about the influence the British had in developing the modern Hawaiian culture.

What was the best part of the trip? Coming home.

Marilyn

2007-09-11T13:32:00.000-07:00

The other day I was looking at a framed photograph of Marilyn Monroe I have, imagining I might write an essay on her. While I was in this moment I heard Maurice Ravel's "Pavan for a Dead Princess” playing on the radio. What a provocative juxtaposition I thought. I must act on it.

What can I say about Marilyn Monroe that hasn't been said before? Well, I can say I have a photo of her that I don't think many people have seen. She looks so young in the photo that I think she may still have been Norma Jean, before she changed her name and became an actress. She is standing in a garden looking straight at us, with trees providing a perfect backdrop. She is wearing a modest white jersey with a necklace composed of stones. This black and white photo was given to me several years ago. I think it's original. I framed it in what I call a serendipitous frame that I made in a moment of inspiration. I think the combination of the two is great.

The picture hangs in my apartment. It is hanging on a white stucco wall, softly lit by floodlights from above. However, until recently it hung in my framing shop. While it hung in the shop I surrounded it with other pictures of Marilyn, copies of course. People who saw this display would ask me if I had a 'thing' for her, and was I a fan. I said, not really, I just had empty frames and what better subject than Marilyn to fill them.

Come to think of it, almost everybody has a think for MM, in one way or another, if not consciously, then subconsciously. Mine was subconscious. Who wouldn't have some feeling for her considering she was one of the greatest enigmas of the 20th century. And that's what gave her such an appeal and following, her enigmatic, equal opportunity quality, which appeals to both men and women alike.

Marilyn Monroe was certainly an enigma, a person that was puzzling, ambiguous and inexplicable. Enigmatic characters are seminal people in that they exude something that allows others to shape and stamp their own personal interpretation on them. None of those interpretations would be wrong since the enigma represents a spectrum of the human condition. And in interpreting and trying to figure out an enigma the one who's doing it comes away with part of the enigma. In the process, and this too reflects on an enigma's seminal quality, one cognitively gains something from the enigma about life and its complexity. Marilyn's enigmatic character afforded something for everybody, hence hardly anybody not having a feeling or opinion about her. In their capacity enigmas tend to draw out emotions we would otherwise not reveal. The enigmatic chemistry Marilyn exuded was enticing and bewitching.

My favorite movie with MM is "Seven Year Itch". Rachmaninoff's brooding piano concerto #2 may seem out of place in the movie but it certainly speaks to her romantic, lost nature in life. Actor Tom Ewell plays the piano music in a seductive dream sequence. In real movie life he can only play chopsticks.

I think Norma Jean became Marilyn Monroe because she wanted to escape Norman Jean. She went into acting to create a new persona, as so many others who went into acting did.

It was argued that if Marilyn had been allowed to act and be herself in marriage her marriages might not haves failed. However, I think that her marriages failed because she was really being herself in them and that her real self was difficult to live with. She was emotional immature.

Men fell in love with her because they wanted to take care of her and right everything in her world. They pictured themselves as men in shining armor and Marilyn obliged them. Her men did fall in love with the real Marilyn, the vulnerable Marilyn. That is what was so appealing about her; the vulnerability that she didn't disguise. However, her men were as much in fantasyland as she was because they, like her, projected their own false impressions of who they were or what they wanted.

Marilyn's men wanted to protect her. They also were old fashion. They wanted her to stay home and be a housewife. However, apart from wanting to be loved and protected she was rebellious and wanted independence. Those contradictory characteristics were also factors that contributed to the failure of her marriages.

Marilyn Monroe died 45 years ago last month.

New word

2007-09-01T09:49:00.000-07:00

I discovered a new word, parturition. It means the process of giving birth.

The reason I found this word interesting is because I see myself in the business of parturition. You see, I am a picture framing and therefore I am always in the process of giving birth to things, like objects you can hang on the wall. Also, one of my interests is connecting things. This word conjured in me a number of associations.

As it happens I discovered this word while framing an old print, dated 1829. The print is entitled "The enraptured Poet: The parturition of a thought". It certainly captures an enraptured poet in the process of giving thought. In the way he is characterized and animated you can really see he is in the process of giving birth to something. Because of the way his head is cocked, looking skywards, and because of the expression on his face, you can see the wheels turning in his head, developing a thought. One meaning of parturition is travail but there certainly is no expression of travail or anguish on the poet's face; more like the look of eureka.

The story behind the print is also interesting. It was one of many prints brought in for framing by a customer/friend that depict the endeavours of writing and reading. My friend is a lover of books and a professor, a professor of The History of Ideas and writes about the Holocaust.

One day he and I were talking about my recent trip to London. I mention an interesting museum we discovered and wondered whether he knew of it. It is the John Soane Museum directly facing Lincoln's Inn Fields in London. It's a classic-romanticist type of museum. Amazingly it was his favorite museum in London, if not the whole world. In fact, he said he once imagined himself as the curator of that museum. What was equally interesting is that he is building a house that will reflect as much as possible this museum, a house that will recreate the atmosphere of its collection of books, sculptures and paintings. He intends to hang the prints he just brought for framing in his new house.

John Soane started building his house in 1796 and expanded it several time, until his death 1837, to house his growing collection of architectural draws and artifacts. Soane was something of a magpie. The museum also houses many paints and prints, along with tons of books. The museum has a great collection of Hogarth's. I can see the devotion my professor friend has for this museum in the fact that his present apartment resembles it also. His walls are also covered from top to bottom with pictures and bookshelves. I think another reason for my friend's sensitivity towards this museum is also due to his love of architecture. So you can imagine the appeal this museum holds for him.

Being as old as it is the Soane's Museum and its collection has somewhat a tatty look about it. However, it is an elegant tatty look that comes with age, which is so indicative of England past, of worn carpets, scratched furniture and frames that have seen better days. Nevertheless, there is natural warmth about the place. And this gave me an idea for the framing of my friend's prints that would reflect this atmosphere he wanted to recreate. I thought they should be framed in tatty, used frames. He wholeheartedly agreed. I've always wanted to create this sensation, which lacks a pretension and conformity. And here I had the chance, and the chance to use up some discarded but still respectable frames.

By tatty I don't mean cheap, dirty or junky looking as the word is generally interpreted and applied. What I'm referring to is a worn out, tired look, yet still elegant. It's a refined, aesthetically pleasing tattiness. This look would justly reflect the worn out, sophisticated look of both the old prints I was framing and the museum atmosphere I was replicating. This framing look certainly matched the enraptured poet print I framed. However, the print also portrays that less attractive tattiness I mentioned, which is reflected in the room the poet is ensconced in, which is junky, cluttered and dirty looking. The engraving of the poet shows him to be very eccentric and totally unconcerned and unaware of the untidy and dirty room that surrounds him. Why, he is pictured to be totally lost in his rapture and parturition.

Poetry

2007-08-18T12:11:00.000-07:00

What is it about poetry I don't understand? I mean, it doesn't say anything to me and I find it impossible to read. It's a dysfunctional thing of mine, something like being colored blind or having poor sight and hand coordination.

While on the subject, I was reading an article about Machiavelli and how in his day they spoke in poetic phrases. The article explained that back then "poetry was closely related to the art of rhetoric, and that poetry was not used as an ornament but as an efficient instrument of persuasion and had high political value. This sort of explains why Shakespeare wrote as he did, in poetic phrases, and why I am not crazy about reading him either.

I remember reading that the poet W.B.Yeats had a weekly BBC show in the 1930's in which he read poetry. He imagined he could change the political landscape with poetry. After reading about the use of poetry in Machiavelli's day I can understand what Yeats might of had in mind, to persuade people politically through poetry. However, as far as I know Yeats never persuaded or changed anybody's politics with poetry.

The other day I was trying to explain what materialism is. In philosophy materialism is the opposite of idealism. Simply put, materialism is based on reality and that which the world is composed of, matter. Idealism is about how thinks could be and for some how things should be regardless of reality or the material world. Materialism deals with concrete things while idealism is more about abstractions.

As I was trying to explain materialism I thought of poetry and its appeal. Materialism is basically what connects human beings, what we have in common (idealism tends to be more divisive because it is in comparison more arbitrary and subjective). We are all made of the same material, flesh and blood and organs. Because of this we generally all have the same sensations and thus can empathize with each other in how we feel, in our happiness, pain and sorrow. And then I realized something, this is what is so appealing about poetry and why it speaks to people, because it contains and expresses material empathy. Poetry deals with and expresses our common sensibilities. And this is what I think also makes Shakespeare's poetic writings so universally appealing, because his writings also contains an expresses that material disposition we share.

I remember reading something about the poet William Wordsworth. He wrote poetry lamenting the despoiling of his beloved English countryside by the Industrial Revolution. Because of the way he wrote he was considered one of the first environmentalist. In his poetry he certainly talked in materialistic terms when he wrote about the environment. (There is no choice but to talk in materialistic terms when one is talking about the environment.) That is how he conveyed a common idea, through materialism. The environment is certainly a materialism that we can all identify with, a materialism that conjures shared values and emotions in us. Wordsworth, with his poetry, had the gift of stirring the common materialistic sensibilities in us, hence the appeal of his poetry.

I am thinking of a passage from Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" that illustrates this materialism I am talking about. And as per Shakespeare, it's conveyed in poetic phrasing. Shylock, a central character in that play, pleads with those who are depriving him of dignity, ""Hath not Jew eyes", meaning, 'Am I not like you, of flesh and blood? Can you not sympathize with me? What you are doing to me could happen to you.' In this passage I read that the human condition, which is of material, is what we have in common and binds us. That sympathy is essentially the bases of social cohesion. I think I should take another look at Shakespeare to discover more about the materialism his poetic rhetoric conveys.

The world does not exist on materialism alone. It needs its idealism also. Poetry can blend the two nicely. There is a phrase that emerged from the idealism poetry conveys, "poetic justice". "Poetic justice is "the rewarding of virtue and the punishment of vice, often in an especially appropriate or ironic manner". Profound poetry tends to be a blend of materialism and idealism, the two opposites of the philosophical spectrum and the contradictions that have shaped and guided our world, the tangible and the abstract.

Excogitate & Internalize

2007-07-29T11:22:00.000-07:00

Internalize is a word I haven't used, that I can recall. The other day I heard it used in terms of Democracy. One meaning of it is "to make internal, personal, or subjective". This act more than anything else makes democracy possible, making it part of oneself without really thinking about it. Internalized democracy is inherent, a life style, something that is in us permanently, which we don't have to always consciously think about. Having democracy internalized means that it is part of our DNA.

Another word I like is excogitate. It means, "to study intently and carefully in order to grasp or comprehend fully" For those of us who have internalized democracy that means we don't always have to rethink democracy with every political or judicial move we make because it's already in us, excogitated. It also means that if we don't always act democratically we will naturally be pulled back into being democratic because that's the way we are. It becomes like walking or breathing; we don't have to excogitate democratic acts every time we do them. Imagine if we had to excogitate or reinterpret it every time we did it? It would be confusing, chaotic and most likely violent.

Democracy, then, sounds like a very sophisticated system. It is because of the transition it has taken from it being an unnatural state in us to one of being natural, through excogitation and internalization. We were not naturally born democratic but have learned it. But we don't have to relearn it from scratch every time because it is passed down to us by previous generations who have excogitated and internalized it before us. What also makes it a sophisticated system is that it has taken many generations to learn it and put into practices.

It is no wonder then that peoples who have never practiced democracy or acted democratically have such difficulty with it. It takes a long time to become familiar with it. It takes a long time to excogitate and internalize this extremely convoluted system.

Democracy and the arts

2007-07-17T08:21:00.000-07:00

Arthur Schlesinger Jr., the renowned but now deceased historian, wrote that democracy is impossible without capitalism and the private ownership it affords us "because private property - resources beyond the arbitrary reach of the state - provides the only secure basis for political opposition and intellectual freedom."

Recently I came across a book entitled "Provoking Democracy: Why we need the Arts" by Caroline Levine. Her book provoked a thought in me, that the arts play a role like capitalism. Like capitalism the arts also cultivate an autonomy in people and a personal independence from the state such as Schlesinger describes. The arts also provide a basis for political opposition and intellectual freedom essential to democracy. What the arts engender is the reason why we fine so many Jews in the arts. When in the past Jews were denied participation in the mainstream of society they found accommodation in the arts, which afforded them the self-indulgence and expression they craved. What the Jews found in the arts is a big aspect of what upholds and reinforces democracy - people pursing their own self-interests and freely expressing themselves.

The main thrust of Levine's book is that people should be able to express themselves freely through art, without being harassed or censored. Art provokes democracy because it stimulates debate and deliberation, key ingredients in pursuing and maintaining democracy. For democracy to remain democracy it cannot become static or complacent. As Kant rightly pointed out human have a propensity for laziness and complacency. Thus, it's great to have a vehicle like art around because it constantly provokes, agitates and stimulates, keeping the zealous piety and authoritarianism that can ruin the democratic process at bay. Oscar Wilde was one of those artists who provoked and challenged the powers that be, helping to liberalize society in its thinking so that it be more open, accommodating and democratic.

In his book "What Went Wrong?: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East" Bernard Lewis attributes the nonexistence of democracy in the Arab/Islamic world to the lack of polyphony. Polyphony means many sounds or voices and is generally associated with the arts, mainly the performing arts, like the sounds and voices heard from orchestras and choirs. But Lewis was using it in political terms, as the many voices of diversity and the variety of opinions that facilitate and lubricates the democratic process. In mature democracies democracy could not survive without the many voices of its constituents and the demands those voices places on it. Those many voices keep democracy churning and vital. It is no wonder then that the Arab/Islamic world has a hard time understanding or embracing democracy since the multitude of voices it requires is nonexistent.

How about the arts under communism? The Soviet Union and other communism countries heavily cultivated the performing arts, which also produced a sense of polyphony. So why didn't democracy develop there? Ah, but eventually democracy did come. The arts did help lead to democracy. The cultivation of the arts in communist countries is one of the major things that ultimately led to communism's downfall. Ironically the arts in those countries cultivated the intellectual opposition and freedom that democracy requires. I say it's ironic because the arts cultivated by the communist regimes cultivated the resentment that eventually turned against and overthrew those regimes. The arts in those countries helped cultivate the polyphonic atmosphere and foundation that eventually ushered in democracy.

The more complex a society the better it works. The arts tend to make things more complex. They add additional voices and increase the engagement within a governing system. The more interaction, whether it be in the arts or in any other endeavors like capitalism, the better. The more voices in a system the better it will function. Systems like democracy, especial democracy, require feedback in order to remain fluid, legitimate and vital. The more feedback and deliberation a system gets or receives from its members - the arts, capitalism, the more legitimate and relevant it will be. The arts and it participants certainly engender a lot of feedback.

There are those that bemoan the fact that the arts are depending more on capitalism for their funding. Capitalism sponsors a lot of artistic events. Under communism the arts were funded but the government but there were strings attacked; the arts had to look favorably on the government and never criticize it. There was no artistic freedom under communism, only censorship. However, in the end communism collapsed in spite of it all, because the Soviet state bankrupted itself trying to maintain a bogus, illegitimate governance. Capitalism may sometimes tarnish and taint artistic endeavor but it rarely, if ever, sensors it. On the contrary, capitalism has promoted the arts like nothing else, through the many benefactors and philanthropist it has given birth to.

Begging and giving

2007-07-07T07:40:00.002-07:00

The other day we were discussing giving money to beggars. Some people think it is our moral duty to give them money. Others think we shouldn't. One person argued that society would be better off if it didn't give money to anybody because that would help and persuade people to stand on their own.

I don't like giving to beggars but I have. I had a beggar (I'd rather call them street people.) who came around regularly for money. In exchange he would do some yard work. However, it got that he was coming too often for money and I told him I felt he was taking advantage of me. So we had to agree on rules, that he would only come every two weeks. Sometimes he broke the rules and I refused to give him money. Nevertheless, he would keep on and plead about how desperately he needed the money. Often I would give in. He would say he needed new shoes or a coat. Sometime I'd curse him and tell him to get lost. Sometimes that worked but most often it didn't. He said that when I yelled at him to go away I scared the hell out of him. Imagine I scaring him! I guess he had feeling too.

On occasions he put himself in rehab for a few months or he would be arrested and thrown in jail. After each incident he would come out a different person, clean and lean. But he always reverted to his old self. That's generally what happens. Sometimes I would tell him he smelt like a barn. He wasn't offended. On the contrary. He'd say to me, you know what I like about you, you're honest and up front. One day he smelt so badly my wife could smell him on the second floor.

Once when I gave him money I saw him jump straight into a taxi. I was livid. The next time I saw him I said, I didn't give you money to jump in a cab but to take care of yourself. Perhaps, though, he had to go to the hospital. During one winter I didn't see him for months. I could have used him to shovel the snow. I said to my wife in a sarcastic tone, I bet he's vacationing in Florida. "No wonder with all the money you give him" she said in an equally sarcastic tone.

My street person knew he was giving me angst. He could see it in my anger towards him sometimes. In view of that he would say, "I am the son you never wanted" He was so right. But what a cheek!

You can imagine the surprise I had the other day when I came downstairs and saw him standing in my store. He told me he had been incarcerated for 16 months. He looked plump and healthy but his teeth were still missing. I didn't ask him why he had been in jail. That slipped my mind due to the shock of seeing him. I told him I thought he was dead. He told me he dreamt I had moved away. Anyway, he told me he was broke and asked me if I could help him. Back to his old self I said. I gave him twenty dollars and he said he would be back to do some work for it. I told him that the same rules apply as before, not that it will make much difference.

There is the belief amongst some that street people should work or be put to work, that they can work like the rest of us. Well, they can't work like the rest of us for several reasons. My theory as to one reason why they can't work is because they've never had the work ethic instilled in them. They didn't have the parents that might have taught them how to apply themselves. My street person only knows a little bit about working and that's it. And in being dependent on others most have become very crafty and charismatic in order to survive.

As the masthead of my blog reads my subject is about democracy. So what does this have to do with democracy? Well, much of democracy has to do with the recognition and upholding of human rights. Human rights means that all people deserve a measure of respect. Street people are human. They deserve a measure of respect.

Laissez faire

2007-06-23T12:20:00.000-07:00

The dictionary defines laissez faire as "An economic doctrine that opposes governmental regulation of or interference in commerce beyond the minimum necessary for a free-enterprise system to operate according to its own economic laws."

Now, who or what decides the "minimum necessary" government regulations or interference in a free-enterprise system, in accordance with its laws? And when do we know when governments have gone far enough with their minimum necessary regulations or have gone overboard with them? My feeling is that such things are determined through experience. It also depends on the nature of the economics society. For instance, the laissez faire of Hong Kong would not be appropriate or acceptable in Britain.

Laissez faire proponents oppose "economic interventionism and taxation by the state beyond that which is perceived to be necessary to maintain peace, security, and property rights." But how about people's safety and protection from unscrupulous operators and harmful products? Shouldn't safety be a responsibility of the state? According to true believers of laissez faire safety concerns should be something the business community and corporations should undertake themselves, through the self-policing of their respective industries, making government legislation unnecessary. The theory is that corporations would realize it is in their own self-interest to keep people safe. For instance, there is an incentive for corporations to keep the work place safe because injuries on the job increase the cost of doing business. Also, as the theory goes, product and consumer safety should also be an incentive for corporations because lawsuits brought about by disgruntled customers and defective products also drives up the cost of doing business. Alas, the business world does not work in such a noble way or with such insight, developing and maintaining its own safety standards. Also, there are always unscrupulous business operators who cheat and cut corners, making it bad for everybody. And since the business community has historically done a poor job of policing itself the state has had to intervene and implement its own safety standards. Therefore, I would think, safety is another minimum requirement in accordance with a society’s laissez faire economic laws.

I started thinking about laissez faire because of what is happening in China and to its economy. If ever there was an opportunity to see laissez faire at work, what it's involved and how it fits into the scheme of things, China is it. The way capitalism is developing and taking hold in China is very much like it developed in the West, where capitalism was born. China has been learning capitalism from the ground up and it’s remarkable. In doing so it to is beginning to grasp the true meaning of laissez faire and what it entails, in accordance with economic laws. Theoretically anything goes with laissez faire. But there are a lot of unscrupulous business people in China who are giving free trade and capitalism a bad name, as we have discovered from the tainted pet food additives the world has been buying from China. Those additives poised and killed many pets. Also, medicines and toothpastes from China have poisoned and killed people. And more recently poisonous lead paint was discovered in toys manufactured China. Now, in order for China to remain in good standing with its trading partners around the world it has had to insure them that it is taking steps to implement strict international safety standards. In these instances China is learning the limits of laissez faire.

Though the notion implies it, pure laissez faire doesn’t exist. Things can’t be totally unregulated. All systems need some kind of framework in how to function. Systems function best when they have a set of rules. Capitalism is no exception. And even though business people protest against government regulations and intervention they feel more comfortable in having them than not. Government sets up the networks in which business is done, creating the environment in which business can be conducted equitably and in relative safety. Business people also rely on the government when things go wrong, to enforce the laws and sometimes even bail them out. If business activity were truly laissez faire capitalism would be replete with Enron situations where companies would behave unscrupulously to the point of destroying the very system of capitalism. Nevertheless, the notion of laissez faire is advocated with great gusto and hubris as a way to see how much the market will bear.

Proponents of laissez faire are not all bad guys, as some would have us believe. They do capitalism and society a big service. They are part of the push-me-pull-me polemics that keeps a society humming and remaining vibrant and flexible so that it survives and continues. Realistically, believers of laissez faire know they will never totally have things their way, just like their opponents will never totally have things their way. Nevertheless, in imposing their beliefs they keep government’s role to a necessary minimum and from becoming too domineering and controlling, like governments would get if given the chance. A laissez faire attitude is needed to keep the chief economic engine of humankind, capitalism, from becoming stale but remaining agile and always innovative so that it will always deliver the sustenance we need and to keep the world working.

Thought experiments

2007-06-06T12:12:00.000-07:00

I have been reading about Niall Ferguson, the Scottish historian who teaches at Harvard. I was reading about his "thought experiments". His thought experiments involve history and are like "what if" argument, such as what if John Kennedy had not been assassinated or what if Hitler had been killed when a truck hit his car. Such thought experiments, also known as counterfactual thinking, can be used to avoid making the same mistakes in the future. However, mostly they are just intellectual parlor games because as we know history can't be changed.

Ferguson does not believe the world is governed by Reason or by a class struggle or by any other deterministic laws. Therefore he is no a Hegelian. Hegel believed history is the product of Reason and determinants, and sculpted by the actions of all humankind. However, Ferguson thinks that world history could have been different if events had handled differently by its leaders. For instances, he believes Britain could have avoided getting involved in WW1 if its leaders and diplomats had acted differently. And the same goes for WW2. A Hegelian thinker, though, would explain that those two events could not have been avoided because they were a culmination of other inextricable events. In other words, a world ethos determined those events, not just a few wrong decisions made here and there. To paraphrase Emerson, history was in the saddle riding humankind, meaning those wars were in the works long before they happened.

I don't think you can particularly isolate world’s event as Ferguson has done in his thought experiments. He has particularly isolated two events, WW1 and WW2. He thinks Britain could have avoided those wars if it had used more diplomacy or if had acted earlier on their causes. Why I don't think you can isolate those events and think they could have been prevented is because they were embedded with too many variables, which, even with hindsight, are impossible to separate.

Many things can cause wars and they happen for a multiple of complex reasons. One reason I think WW1 and WW2 happened is because the political will or wisdom – the political technology - didn't sufficiently exist to prevent them. There was another friction factor that could have ignited those wars, a collective stubbornness for political change. Another reason was that there were very few legitimate democracies in those days that may or would have counseled against war, being that democracies don't go to war with each other. No, history culminated itself into those two wars for a number of human shortcomings and intransigencies. Conflicts tend to insinuate themselves because of human inadequacies, as a means of transcending and resolving them. What I think also made the wars unstoppable is the collision of two histories, a world history that was on a course of integration and globalization and a nation or state history that still had the attitude of isolationism. World history being the more powerful induced those wars as a way of transcending the opposition to internationalism.

Had the nations who were victorious in WW1 been wiser, most likely WW2 would not have occurred. Received wisdom believes that WW2 was an extension of the unfinished WW1. Had a League of Nations been put in place after WW1, as the United Nations was after WW2, WW2 most likely wouldn't have occurred. Had Germany been forced into an unconditional surrender, like it was after WW2, WW2 most likely would never have happened because the conditions for future European wars would have been greatly diminished. Had Germany not been burdened with payments of remuneration to the countries it attacked, a burden that destroyed its chances for a peacetime recovery, but instead been rehabilitated like it was by the allies after WW2, WW2 most likely would not have occurred. Alas, the victors of WW1 were none the wiser and had not yet learned the art of preventing global wars.

However, when counterfactual thinkers like Ferguson reshape history in their minds they don’t consider the fact that people back then were not privy to the wisdom or the wherewithal we have today to stop conflicts and maintain peace, hence the reason why leaders acted as they did. Also, in the past there was a different attitude towards war. Men were more apt to go to war because of a greater allegiance to the state. Also, back then war was viewed more as the courageous, honorable think to do. That attitude towards war doesn't exist much anymore.

The famous historian Edward Gibbon said that history is essentially the recounting of “the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind”. There have been so many crimes, follies and misfortunes committed during the span of humankind that they are virtually impossible to separate and unravel. I think all this entanglement makes speculating about what may or may not have happened in history quite a questionable endeavor.

Human rights and the way of the world

2007-05-14T06:55:00.000-07:00

I have been reading a book entitled "Inventing Human Rights" by Lynn Hunt. Imagine, human rights had to be invented. However, I think human rights have always been there, just hidden from view. Instead, they’ve had to be discovered and revealed to the world. And as a result, human rights have substantially determined the ways of our world.
There are those who have thought the idea of human rights is nonsense. The utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham thought of them "nonsense on stilts". He came to that conclusion on seeing what was being perpetrated in their name during the French Revolution. Edmund Burke, the inspiration of modern conservatism, thought that people should be more concerned about natural rights. James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, also thought of them as ridiculous, that the idea should be abandoned and instead the focus should be on human needs and aspirations. But as the historian Francis Fukuyama pointed out, human needs and aspirations have virtually become synonymous with human rights.

I don't think human needs and aspirations can be met without human rights being constitutionally entrenched or legislated. Sustainable democracy certainly wouldn’t be possible without that occurring. For instance, democracy finds its credence and vitality in the demands placed on it by the many, people who have been emancipated and empowered by rights, especially the right to challenge governments and hold them accountable. And if women and minorities are excluded from also having rights, as they once were and still are in many parts of the world, then democracy is a sham.

As Hunt outlines, it is mainly three declarations that have entrench human rights throughout the world, the American Declaration of Independence in 1776, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen in 1789 and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. (In England, the cradle of human rights, they evolved more empirically, not through any single declaration.) These declarations, she writes, declared sovereignty to nations and to citizens, not to kings or any one group, but pronounced everybody equal before the law. A profound point Hunt made is that because of these declarations of equality, positions of governance and organization were opened up to ordinary people, not just to the ruling classes, making society less corrupt and more efficient.

I was captivated by the passage "all men are created equal" in the American Declaration of Independence. It seems clear that all men are not created equal. And why weren't women and minorities included in that thought. It is obvious the declaration had a certain class of "men" in mind, men of property and of a certain race. However, theoretically and interpretively it went beyond that original meaning. Had that idea not truly become universal and the foundational mindset of America, America as a democratic nation would not have been possible. People had to at least have a sense that they were equal and had rights if America hoped to develop its diversity of people into a coherent mass. And as America matured that phrase lost much of its earlier emptiness and strove to encompass all people.

Embracing human rights seems like the proper humanitarian thing to do. There is a reciprocal element to it in that if you treat others with such respect you can expect the same. However, I also see a more basic and practical reason for embracing and promoting human rights. The observance of human rights empowers individuals, from which emerges responsible and accomplished citizens. This empowerment makes people feel like they are worth something, that they have a stake in the system and therefore are more engaged and productive. As Hunt points out, the idea of equality also opens up positions of governance to people who normally would not get them. In the past, without this equality, positions of governance went to the elite and those who inherited them. The idea of equality based on talent and merit broke up this traditional system of governance. Human rights and the equality it introduced into work force meant that no longer would jobs in governance go to the ruling class as they traditionally had but to those who were most competent. Thus, equal rights expanded the workforce, curbed corruption and introduced new blood and vitality to it. And as one may have notices societies that foster human rights are the most successful.

Hegel talked about human rights. He talked about them in terms of recognition and freedom. He believed that humans were entitled to those rights and that the struggle for them would determine the ways of the world and history. He was right. For instance, the struggle for recognition and freedom determined the ascendancy and triumph of democracy and capitalism because those two systems of governance have best fulfilling those desires. In contrast, the systems that opposed democracy and capitalism, communism and other authoritarian regimes, collapsed because they denied individuals their due rights of recognition and freedom.

If human rights and equality had been observed in countries like Rwanda and Yugoslavia the genocide and ethnic cleansing that occurred there would never have happened. If those nations had observed human rights they would have been democracies and thus never would have behaved in such a manner.

As I was reading Hunt's book I was thinking about another book, Hannah Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism". Totalitarianism has occurs in places where human rights have never been observed, where the idea of individual recognition and freedom never existed. Much of her book addresses the "Jewish question" and was aroused by the denigrating treatment Jews received under the Third Reich. That was one of the worst violations of human rights ever perpetrated against humankind. As I thought more about her book it became clear to me that the violations against Jews at that time and how the world has addressed the issue since is what has made human rights one of the cornerstones of our time. And how Jews were treated by the Third Reich most definitely helped give birth to the United Nations Universal Charter of Human Rights, a document that has most definitely changed and defined our present world.

China & Democracy

2007-04-25T09:59:00.000-07:00

Some fifteen years ago I said, from out of the blue, that I had an interest in democracy and was going to study it. At the time I didn't take my comment too seriously. Nevertheless that is what I am doing today, studying democracy.

This essay was inspired by an editorial I read In the Washington Post: "In Fear Of Chinese Democracy" by Harold Meyerson. A book by James Mann, “The China Fantasy”, in which Mann outlines the non-democratization occurring in China, inspired Meyerson’s article.

Mann attributes the non-democratization of China to an unsuspecting bunch, American corporations. That's ironic. One would think that American business leaders would want to encourage democracy in China, having grown up with it. Instead, American corporations are thwarting its development by preventing employs from organizing trade unions or gaining legal rights, which could challenge corporations' decision-making. However, this should be of no surprise because corporations have never been known as bastions of democracy.

America business has generally been ambivalent to democracy. Corporations see democracy as a hindrance, getting in the way of doing business and drives up the cost of doing it. Businessmen are generally short sighted about democracy, not realizing that in the long run it is essential for capitalism's continuance. They are also narrow minded, interests only in profit and growth. Milton Friedman famously said “…while economic freedom facilitates political freedom, political freedom, once established, has a tendency to destroy economic freedom.” That is a sentiment a lot of business people share, so it is no surprise they aren't encouraging the development of democracy in China. Coincidentally, I am reading a book called the "Age Of Betrayal: The Triumph Of Money In America, 1865 -1900" and it describes how America's earliest tycoons and corporations deterred democracy’s development. Today in China we see a similar attempt by big business to stifle democracy's growth.

In America it was really economic freedom that came first and then political freedom. This is the way I see it is occurring in China. However, the totalitarian state there is still very much in control and it will take many years to break that political grip. In contrast, when America first embarked on getting political freedom, Americans did not have such an entrenched state totalitarianism as the Chinese do. So it is not just American corporations that are stifling the establishment of democracy; the Chinese government is also party to it. However, I think capitalism is the foot-in-the-door that will eventually lead China towards broader democracy.

Interestingly, though, the Chinese have been practicing forms of democracy for years in that they have economic freedoms and choices, something they didn't have just a few decades ago. And ironically, it is American corporations that are helping to give them those economic choices through the all the consumer good they produce. The Chinese are now also free to travel. Another amazing democratic development involves the Chinese constitution. It was recently amended so that it acknowledges and upholds property rights. This is another huge step towards full-blown democracy. This change in the constitution came about because business leaders demanded protection of their assets from the state. Without this change investment in China may have dried up. This constitutional change is slowly trickling down to the masses. Because of this change the Chinese now have a measure of protection from their government. I recall something the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote on the subject: “Democracy is impossible without private ownership [as the Chinese are acquiring] because private property - resources beyond the arbitrary reach of the state - provides the only secure basis for political opposition and intellectual freedom.” Taking all this into account, the Chinese government, along with their American corporate partners. is inadvertently giving rise to democracy.

People wondered why China was awarded the Olympics in 2008 since it wasn’t a democracy. Well, democracy doesn’t seem to be a criterion for getting them because the Soviet Union, also a communist nation, got them in 1980. However, I think the Olympics is also a door through which the Chinese are gaining democracy. One thing that the Olympics have wrought that weighs heavily on the minds of its rulers is how the world will perceive China. The Chinese want to put their best face forward to the rest of the world. And this concern is having an incremental effect on its democratization. For instance, in wanting to improve China's appearance, the Chinese authorities are engaging individual Chinese to improve their manors, to act more civilized and help improve the environment. This type of engage draws on individual initiative, which in turn is a springboard for individuals to further eek out additional rights and freedoms from the state, in that their helping the state garnishes a measure of respect and recognition which are also hallmarks of democracy.

Full democracy will take some time to come to China. However, it is interesting and riveting to watch it develop. Never has the world had such a front row seat to such an economic and political unfolding. Something else that might be considered is that perhaps China is not yet ready or sophisticated enough to deal with full-blown democracy, hence its slow progression towards it. After all, it took western nations centuries to cultivate and understand it. And, China’s experience with democracy only started a couple of decades ago.

Libertarianism & Derrida

2007-04-09T09:42:00.000-07:00

Wondering what to write about next I gave myself a challenge, to write an essay linking libertarianism and Derrida. I got the idea while reading a book review about the history of libertarianism and while thinking about deconstructionism and its author, Jacques Derrida. My thinking this way may have originated from my mental state, of perhaps being both a libertarian and a deconstructionist.

My idea to link these two seemingly unrelated subjects also comes from my tendency of wanting to connect things. In the past I have written essays connecting such odd subjects as Hegel and thermodynamics, Hegel and Ayn Rand, Freddy Laker and Karl Marx, and democracy and capitalism. Each time I think I was successful in make the connections. But with libertarianism and Derrida I'm not so sure. So it will be interesting to see what I come up with.

One thing I understand about Jacques Derrida is that he introduced – no – invented the philosophy of deconstructionism. However, I don't understand much else about his philosophy although I have tried. I thought Hegel was hard to comprehend. At least Hegel had a worldview and his ideas immediately caught my imagination. Derrida has not captured my imagination unless my dwelling on him in order to understand him means he has captured me. I understand from others that the term deconstructionism has defied definition and Derrida himself avoided defining it. Nevertheless, as a verb the term is closely associated to the process of analytical philosophy, of undoing ideas –taking them apart, and putting them back together, to perhaps discover an alternative truth.

Libertarianism is most associated with the writings and philosophy of Ayn Rand. She championed libertarianism, as the means to combat the collectivism that she saw was gain grounding in America. America, she argued, was not founded on collectivism, but on libertarianism and the free spirit of individualism. She had as much contempt for collectivism as she did for communism. Her contempt for collectivism was also a reference to the growth of government and its insinuation on the American way of life. She saw collectivism not only threatening the liberty of individuals and their ability to be self-reliant and responsible but in so doing also smothering their potential to be great and innovative.

“Language, Derrida said, is inadequate to provide a clear and unambiguous view of reality. In other words, the fixed meaning of an essay, a book, a personal letter, a scientific treatise or a recipe dissolves when hidden ambiguities and contradictions are revealed. These contradictions, inevitable in every piece of writing, he said, reveal deep fissures in the foundation of the Western world's civilizations, cultures and creations.”

That passage makes it sound as though the world is constructed on and by language. But the world is constructed more on human behavior, actions and conduct. Language is used to convey our behavior, actions and conduct. The way I hear it, Derrida seems to say that if our language was different or interpreted differently our behavior, actions and conduct would be different; the world would be different. But I think that Derrida understood that language alone could not change our behavior, attitudes or the world for the better. Thus, I think Derrida's ultimate aim, like that of many philosophers before him, was to transform his philosophy of deconstructionism from the text into the real world of human actions in order to make it a conscious and working life force. Deconstruction in this context is the reexamination of our lives and behavior so as to improve it by being more open and accommodating. The world, like civilization and humankind, is always changing, deconstructing and reinventing itself. This is a natural process. Derrida, I believe, thought human behavior and attitude should mirror those changes and should be a constant re-construction of those changes.

Imagine my surprise when I read in a review of Derrida's life that he was view as a political libertarian. A libertarian, the dictionary defines, is a person who advocates liberty, esp. with regard to thought or conduct. Imagine, Derrida is also a libertarian like Rand is but with a difference. Derrida is a libertarian of the left while Rand is of the right. Rand thought more along the lines of economic liberty and Derrida along those of political liberty.

What is the difference between a libertarian of the right, a conservative, and a libertarian of the left, a socialist? (Sounds like the opening for a deconstructionist joke.) I can think of one, in economics. A libertarian of the left would think that personal liberty should include the entitlement of a job, the inherent right to employment. A libertarian of Rand's persuasion would think a job is not an entitlement but only if is capable and worthy of one. As a Frenchman T think Derrida was a socialist libertarian, thinking not only of the liberty aspect of it but also of fraternity and equality. I wonder, then, if that kind of French libertarian thinking was the basis for a clause in the European Constitution - a constitution that never passed - a clause that guaranteed the right to employment, for any one wanted a job.

In conclusion, I wasn't wrong to think of those two seemingly unrelated subjects. I discovered two forms of libertarianism. These two libertarianisms counterbalance and challenge each other in the development of the best possible social/political world. As the French would say, viva la differance.

"Post-modernism is the new black"

2007-03-28T07:56:00.000-07:00

The title of this post comes from the title of an article that appeared in the last edition of The Economist in 2006. It was published under the heading "Shopping and Philosophy". The subtitle of the article was "How the shape of modern retailing was both predicted and influenced by some unlikely seers".

Jean-François Lyotard is the philosopher The Economist identifies as most responsible for predicting the rise of postmodernism. He disliked the mega-narrative and generalities that modernism offered and saw the emergence of a more culturally eclectic world attitude. He equated postmodernism with a kind of 'eclecticism' and said that "eclecticism is the degree zero of contemporary general culture; one listens to reggae, watches a Western, eats McDonald's food for lunch and local cuisine for dinner, wears Paris perfume in Tokyo and retro clothes in Hong Kong; knowledge is a matter for TV games". I think he was also speaking to the paradoxical, schizophrenic nature of globalization and it eclecticism, where the world is simultaneously becoming united and interdependent on one level while independent and fractured on another.

I never thought much about post-modernism until I read that article. I was trying to figure out what was meant by "postmodernism is the new black". I figured it out. Black is supposed to be 'cool'. So postmodern is the new cool, the new 'with it'.

The Economist article talked about postmodernism in retailing. It's about retailing catering to niche markets within a mass market. It's about retailing being constantly innovative and supper agile. Whereas 'modern' retailing catered to a homogenous market, postmodern caters to a fractured, splintered market within the larger market place. It is more exotic. In other words, the postmodern consumer market is far more diverse and multitasking and thus more sophisticated. The article points to the Selfridges, a London department store, where this model of retailing began. Because this retailing proved so successful for Selfridges - it revived Selfridges and saved from bankruptcy - it has been adopted by department stores elsewhere.

Retailing is not the only aspect of postmodernism. It also applies to architecture. Modern architecture, also know as the international style, is generally a sleek glass box building. Much of today's new architecture has been labeled postmodern, buildings designed by the likes of Foster, Libeskind, and Gehry. There is a deconstructionism about the buildings these architects built, as though a modern building has been disassembled and put back together differently, rejecting the modern design. It is a reinvention of the modern and assembled differently to reflect the changing times of more diversity and input in society.

I would thing the difference between the two architectures is the same in philosophy. Postmodern thinkers are those who grew disenchanted with modernism, which seemed to say everything had to be uniform and the same. Postmodern thinkers are deconstructionists who, unlike the moderns, are not accepting carte blanche that the world has one basic narrative but multiple narratives, exactly what Lyotard thought.

To me postmodern means that there are parallel worlds coexisting, held together by an overarching, not completely absolute world but one constantly consummating itself. I get the sense that the modern world was more absolute, whereas the postmodern world isn't. The postmodern world is more flexible and diverse. The modern world thought narrowly whereas the postmodern world things broadly and outside the box. The postmodern world is not afraid to be different and 'push buttons'.

The modern world was more socially conservative. The postmodern world is more socially liberal. The world became postmodern in the sixties, during the social upheavals that occurred then, which demanded social change. Ironically, the modern world didn’t like change whereas the postmodern world embraces and relishes it.

Many believe that the postmodern world and all its variables will not last because it has no center, the argument being that if the center doesn’t hold things fall apart. Today’s world, though, has evolved into many power centers, the reason being that in the past a concentration of power often lead to tyranny and authoritarianism. As The Economist article suggested, postmodernism’s mission is to “emancipate the individual from the control of the state or other authority, through thought and through economic power”.

In some circles postmodernism is viewed as distructive and chaotic, disrupting the order. Ironically, though, its chaos creates and preserves order and the whole, as shown by the example of Selfridges. Globalization is a postmodern phenomenon that also creates a chaos but at the same time it preserves order by embracing it instead of shunning it. Postmodernism, like globalization, is an agent of blending.

Postmodernism is a social revolutionary done insinuatingly, stealth like, not done through the dramatic and distructive social upheavals of the past. It is a social revolution that occurs constantly, not in fits and starts like others before. The Frankfurt School of philosophy, in the 30s, had its postmodern seers. When one member asked, “who in the future will replace the proletariat as the agents of revolution” another answered in very postmodern manner: “a coalition of students, blacks, feminist women, homosexuals, and other socially marginal elements”. The Economist might have added that consumers with their demands, needs and aspirations, will also be part of this ongoing revolution.

What have we learned from philosophy?

2007-03-20T10:07:00.000-07:00

At the last World Philosophical Congress, held in Boston in 1998, the theme was "What have we learned from philosophy in the 20th century?" I have been pondering that question ever since.

The most prominent philosopher at the Congress was Willard Van Orman Quine of Harvard. He died at the age of 92 in December 2000. His philosophy was naturalism, which believes that philosophy is part of science. One of the most poignant remarks he ever made was "philosophy of science is philosophy enough", meaning that the most important philosophical questions arise from scientific activity and scientific knowledge should be able to answer them. Perhaps, then, the question at the conference should have been "What have we learned from science in the 20th century" because Quine evaded the original question, as did all the other participants, as though it was impertinent or irrelevant.

One reason given for why that question was not answered was the ambiguity of the word "we". One participant, Mr. Strawson, an Oxford metaphysician and philosophy of logic asked rhetorically, "is the question about what we have learned collectively or what each of us has learned individually". He answered, "If it's the former, the possibility of any reply seems remote. And if it's the latter there is no shortage of replies." Except, none were offered. One philosopher who was also reluctant or incapable of answering the question asked what kind of philosophy are we talking about? Does it include Eastern philosophy?

I would think that the question was intended to be in the context of the whole world, not east or west. It was asked in the collective sense because philosophy is basically a collective subject, chiefly to benefit the collective. Nevertheless, philosophies that are tailored to the individual, like individualism, free will and self-interest, are also extremely important. After all, the individual should also be philosophically cultivated because he/she is a prime element of the collective, its chief source of inspiration and innovation. However, the first among equals should be collective philosophy because it cultivates the cohesive unit in which we individuals live and coexist. So perhaps one thing we learned from philosophy in the last century is that a delicate balance exists between the individual and the collective and both should be cultivated because neither can exist without the other. They are mutually dependent on each other. I think that in the past century we really began to understand the philosophical axiom "all for one and one for all" because during the 20th century the world grew closer together, more politically united and economically interdependent.

Philosophy is basically about discussing situations and trying to figure them out. One big philosophical question during the 20th century was about human relations and how we ought to treat each other. The most obvious such discussion, especially in the West, has been about the relationship between the sexes. In the 20th century women demanded to be treated equal. That demand brought on the philosophical debate about sexual harassment in the work place, that it should no longer be tolerated as it once was. Through philosophical debate the 20th century also tackled the issues of racism in society and discrimination in the work place. From these philosophical debates we learned that having diversity of people in society and in the work place is a big plus and has an advantage. We learned that diversity makes life richer and more fluid. In the 20th century we learned that suppressing diversity and minorities could lead to social upheaval, like that which occurred in the 1960s when minorities and women became serious about demanding their rights.

If that question was asked about philosophy in the 20th century, we might as well ask whether we have ever learned from philosophy? Sure we have. Philosophy gave birth to the natural and social sciences, from which we have derived the tools to enable and facilitate civilization. From those sciences we have learned what is mutually good for humankind and what isn't. Philosophy was the first to discover the natural forces of the world and then science, its offspring, transformed them so as to benefit us. From political science we have learned that democracy is the best means to achieve and preserve peace in the world. As Kant rightly speculated more than 200 years ago, democratic nations don't go to war with each other. That philosophy grained momentum during the 20th century, hence its popularity today. In the 20th century we learned that democracy is the best form of governance to meet the needs and aspirations of individuals, and contain the collective.

Some philosophers think philosophy should remain mysterious and complex, so as not to be easily understood. I think that is one reason why the question at the World Philosophical Congress in Boston was not answered, so philosophy might preserve its mystery, and philosophers keep their jobs.

Litigation creates Civilization

2007-03-14T09:34:00.000-07:00

"Litigation creates Civilization."

I don't know whether I invented that thought or I read it somewhere. I might have read it in a review regarding a law book. Nevertheless, it is one of my favorite thoughts. But like most complex ideas, it's not easy to explain.

Generally we associate litigation with the law and the judicial system. However, I am also thinking about it in a broader context. I am thinking of the litigation that goes on in everyday life between people, through deliberation, when people come together, engage each another and work out their differences or decide on a mutual course of action. In other words, my litigation occurs not only in the legal arena but also in the arena of the ordinary hubbub and friction of every day life. It is this kind of litigation that has really defined the consensus and common practices that exist between us. This litigation is an act that demands a clarity and honesty from people when they engage each other.

However, the idea is easier to understand if you think about it in legal terms rather than in the broader social/political context I've described. For instance, our laws, which have had an enormous civilizing effect on us, have been forged through judicial, litigious means. One might point out, though, that the core of our laws have come from The Ten Commandments, laws that never came to us via litigation but providentially, without litigation. True, but I think it is through the litigation of those laws when they have been broken that we've really learned and internalized them. Without litigation, without that kind of confrontation, those laws would have remained meaningless. Litigation has animated those primal laws and made them effective, making them operational and entrenching them in our psychic. In other words, litigation has given us the understanding, the sense and feeling of those laws. Litigation put us through the paces, cultivating the understanding of those laws. It is through such litigation that we have transcended our tribalism and become a cohesive society.

A lawyer would agree that litigation fosters civility between opponents. In the past adversaries were more apt to do battle to resolve their differences than litigate or negotiate. But in this world that kind of conflictive behavior is no longer an option or acceptable. Civilized people don't go to war anymore, they litigate. Politics is a form of litigation. Throughout the world political activity has expanded and become the way of resolving difference, not through wars as it once was.

America has the most lawyers per capita, making it the most litigious society in the world. There is something to that. I think this has something to do with the fact that America was born of an astonishing array of diversity and an abundance of competing interests. Something had to keep those parties separate, from fighting with each other. Lawyers are what separates them, helping to work out their differences. It is said that a true democracy has many master who place a multiple of demands on it. This makes democracy a very complex situation and thus a potentially very confrontational and litigious affair, hence the need for many lawyers and their litigious skills. And as such America has been at the forefront in creating social policy and more prepared than any other culture to litigate the contentious issues of our time.

This is what the dictionary says about the origins of the word litigate: Latin lītigāre, lītigāt- : līs, līt-, lawsuit + agere, to drive. The term 'agere', part of the origin of litigate, is associated with the word act, like a thing done or set in motion, driven urged, chased or stirred up. So to my way of thinking, litigation is an act occurring all the time between people, like acting things out.

Litigation is a process of working things out. It’s a process of discovery, discovering how to proceed with contentious issues. Often society is confronted with new and puzzling circumstances, which need figuring out, on how to handle and proceed with them. New circumstances usually arise without prior knowledge or forethought on how they should be dealt with. Such circumstances are often void of a known value and require the establishing of rules and regulations on had to go about them. One example is abortion. When this issue first manifested itself into a serious social issue it had all sorts of implications that required a social and legal framework. There have also been scientific discoveries, like life prolonging procedures that have also required litigation to determine their social value and how to deal with them. In these matters the litigation done by courts on society's behalf has done much to civilize and sophisticate us.

The area in which litigation has had the most success and impact is in human rights. There would be no human rights without litigation, without people having their day in court and demanding their rights. African-Americans eventually got their equal status in America by going to court. It was through litigation at the height of the civil rights movement that they achieved integration, equal education and justice under the law, something the American Constitution had vowed to do but society hadn’t yet accomplished. It was through the litigious proceedings during the Nuremberg trials in Germany after WWII that the world got to learn about some of the worst violations perpetrated against humans and humankind. From those trials a universal court for human justice was established, under the auspices of the United Nations. Without such a portal civilization could not have proceed.

Circumstances

2007-02-21T11:12:00.000-08:00

The philosopher Bertrand Russell once said something very interesting and thought provoking about philosophy: "There is a reciprocal causation: the circumstances of men's lives does much to determine their philosophy, but, conversely, their philosophy does much to determine their circumstances."

Although I understand what Russell was saying I've had trouble expanding on it and coming up with examples. Now I think I have some. Take war and peace as an example. War is a circumstance that eventually directed humans to a philosophy of peace, a philosophy that established a more secure and saver world. War has been part of men's lives for a very long time. And in some parts of the world it still is. However, for enlightened humans wars have become a thing of the past and unthinkable. Far instance, the two world wars of the 20th century radically changed much of human philosophy to be against war. Those two wars, especially the second one, were so horrendous that they begged a change in our philosophy. The disastrous consequences of those wars directed us to work towards never having to go through such conflicts again. From those two wars we learned that such future conflicts would be the undoing of all of us. Human philosophy definitely changed after the Second World War in so far that in the wake of it an institution was created to help cultivate and preserve peace, the United Nations. As an institute for world peace the United Nations was born as a result of years of warring circumstances. Enlightened human have realized that little if anything is gain from war in this day and age and instead have adopted a philosophy that promotes the opposite.

Russell's observation puts philosophy in a different kind of light other than in its general ivory tower status. It makes philosophy sound like a working activity. He makes philosophy sound like it is a tool that we all have at our disposal to manage and improve our lives. Philosophy is not the only the stuff of great thinkers but the stuff belonging to everybody. In this light philosophy is not only a written text but also a means to reason, to improve our attitudes and the human condition.

The operative word in Russell's observation is *conversely*. Its root is *converse*, from Latin meaning to turn around and see. So what is happening here is that one is turning around one's mind to view and reason one's circumstances, comparing and reflecting on them, creating a logic that will alter and color future behavior. If the circumstance is bad, like war, the mind modifies and tries to improve things, thus altering future circumstance. Philosophy, then, also is a sort of database from which one draws on to progress.

Democracy, like peace, is a philosophy that grew out of past world circumstances and reflecting on them. Humans came to understand what Kant meant when he said that democratic nations do not go to war with each other. Thus, the philosophy of democracy was encouraged as the way of preserving peace. However, it took time for humanity to grasp this concept. After WWII the defeated enemies, Germany and Japan, were not abandoned or made to pay reciprocity to the victors as Germany was forced to do after WWI. That financial imposition crippled Germany and embittered it so that two decades later it again lashed out militarily against its foes, for enforcing such harsh measures against it. If Germany had been encouraged to develop the philosophy of democracy after WWI and the world had developed the United Nations as some had tried, WWII probably would never have occurred.

On an individual basis circumstance can also determine personal philosophies, in different ways. For instance, I believe if one is born in a fairly secure and loving environment one tends to be optimistic about life, whereas if one is of a volatile environment one would tend to be pessimistic about life. People's philosophies can also change later in life when circumstances change for them. For example, people who suffered the atrocities of WWII would have a very different outlook on the world than those who didn't. And I think people who are immigrants to a country like Canada have a different philosophy and attitude towards multiculturalism than those born there. Immigrants tend to be more accepting of multiculturalism because they are aliens who are adopting a different way of life in a foreign country, hence their becoming more accepting of cultural differences. Also, the circumstance of being male or female certainly produces different philosophies and approaches to life.

I remember years ago discussing a very rare occurrence, a two headed child. Both heads, meaning children, were very alert about the world. And both had different views about things. A friend, though, was wondering why both girls didn't think alike and have the same attitude towards things since they were both connected to the same body. You would think that they would think alike because of their virtually being the same person. I thought about it and then realized, naturally they both would have different views, thus different philosophies, because each head and its pair of eyes viewed a different aspect of the world, since they looked in different directions. My point is this, it doesn't take much difference in one's circumstance to conjure and determine different philosophies towards life. It also depends on a little thing like which way one's facing.

Happy New Year

2007-02-06T13:14:00.000-08:00

Two posts ago I wrote about Niall Ferguson, the LA Times columnist who wanted to wish everybody Happy New Year in his New Year's Day column but decided against it because he said that for most of the world New Year’s doesn't start on January 1st. He used the song Auld lang syne" to illustrate his point and added that only English speakers understood the meaning of that song. So his point was that not only did New Year’s not start on Jan 1st for a large percentage of the world but that most of the world didn't speak English and thus could not share in the sentiment that accompanied the closing of the old year.

Ferguson was really lamenting the shrinking of the Anglo, English-speaking world. He is, I believe, a bit of a traditionalist and sentimentalist. He once admitted to being a pessimist. I think he really wishes the world were still set in the British Empire. He ended his New Year's Day article with this: "Yes, let's have a drink 'for auld lang syne' this New Year's - for we English speakers have our best years behind us"

His last comment prompted me to fire off a letter to the Times. To my delight they published it. This is what I wrote: Niall Ferguson should take some comfort in the fact that the world is turning out more in the fashion of the English-speaking world than any other. The English-speaking world has made and established the rules and methods within which the world operates. Those rules and methods are not likely to change because they have proved, through a process of elimination, that they work best for the modern world. The world's needs and aspirations cannot be met without democracy and capitalism [, the DNA of the modern world].

The last phrase I put in brackets because it was omitted from the Times letter, though it was in my original draft. I used that phrase because it was, ironically, an idea Ferguson introduced me to in his book the "Cash Nexus". In it he suggested the idea that perhaps democracy and capitalism constituted the DNA of the modern world, which together probably make up the only workable form of governance for the modern world.

I think, though, Ferguson was being sarcastic with that suggestion. He was really being critical of Fukuyama's idea that liberal democracy, aka democracy/capitalism, was the end point in human governance. As I interpreted Ferguson, he was saying something like, 'Do you mean say, as Fukuyama believes, that those two doctrines together make up the essential ingredient necessary to run and sustain the modern world and nothing else will do? Where does he get off with such an idea?' Nevertheless, I find the DNA analogy interesting because I had come to believe that the reason democracy and capitalism have paralleled each other in developed democracy like ours is because neither can exist without the other, nor can our modern societies continue without them working in tandem.

There are people like Fukuyama and myself who believe the world is on a trajectory. And that trajectory is a defusing of power and the world becoming more alike, more politically unified, more power sharing, with no country truly dominant. On the other hand, I think Ferguson thinks the world still needs a controlling power, like an empire, to be a broker and an enforcer, so as to keep the world safe and secure. He saw America as that power, especially after 9/11. Now he laments that not happening because America has lost a lot of its influence in the world due to its poor judgment in the Middle East. But as I see it, with the world becoming more alike and unified, there is no room for empires anymore. The world is beyond that. And even America has had a hand the decline of its influence in the world by suggesting and persuading other nations to be more like it, which is happening more and more with the spread of globalization. No, the decisions of the world are not for any one empire anymore.

Hegel and Bush

2007-01-14T08:51:00.000-08:00

The other day I was thinking that I had not thought about Hegel for some time. Perhaps I had tired of this great philosopher who I regarded to be the greatest of them all. Then I came across an interesting article that offered a Hegelian explanation for George Bush. Then I thought, one can't avoid Hegel because we live in a Hegelian world.

The article I refer to was written by Scott McLemee, entitled "The Great Man Theory". Mclemee points out that Hegel had, in his book "Philosophy Of History", postulated a great man theory in which he describes specific men in history as “World-Historical Persons”. For instance, Hegel believes Julius Caesar and Napoleon were great men of history because not only did they make history but also they changed the world dramatically. Mclemee said that as he was reading Hegel's "The Phenomenology of Spirit" he began to wonder if Bush fitted Hegel's criteria as a world historical person. From what he read Mclemee concluded that GWB did fit GWFH's criteria.

To Hegel's way of thinking the thing that made men historically great is not just that they made history or changed it but that they were single-minded about it. They were not men of intellect or complex ideas, or men that nuanced. Their minds were not clutter with a lot of other ideas, like justice or the welfare of others. They were obsessed men who were focused like a dog with a bone, men that could not be distracted from their vision just like a dog can not be distracted from his bone. They were possessed. GWB is such a man, possessed by a crusade that believes the world should be only one way.

(I imagine Bush's management style to be like this: If things remain intransigent and immovable create a mess of it and let the chips fall where the may and generally they will fall in the right place. This is his Middle East Policy.)

I like the idea presented by McLemee. It sort of explains the unexplainable, why George Bush and his mediocrity exists in this day and age. I thought the American people were smarter and I couldn't believe that so many could have considered him at for president. Not in a million years. But since Bush was picked to be president, by a hair, I thought there must be something providential about his becoming president. Mclemee doesn't think his arrival on the world stage was providential but I do think he believes some convergence of history picked him for this time and place.

Perhaps Bush is a product of History. He became president in a sense accidentally. Historical circumstances picked him. (That can be the only explanation for his being.) History needed a single-minded person it could use and manipulate to break the historical impasse that has existed between the West and Islam. Modernity was making the situation worse between them. Islam was not adapting well or quickly enough to the modern world. The West in turn had to become more understanding of the islamic world. History needed a single minded person like Bush to do its bidding. The strategy he would use was not important, whether corrupt mismanaged or perverse, just as long as he some how upended the status quo and started Islam’s belated reform. Bush in his bubble, with his ‘gut feelings’ and hubris has fueled a revolution in the Islamic world, and its relations with the West, that is irreversible. He has done History’s bidding when no other person would have. History perversely used Napoleon and Hitler in the same way, to change the world when Reason alone would not do it.

Individualism, the ROM and Happy New Year

2007-01-12T11:31:00.000-08:00

This was going to be an essay about individualism but then I thought the subject was too self-glorifying and hedonistic. And people soon tire of the subject. Nevertheless, individualism is what makes the world go round and it is a philosophy we can't deny or avoid.

Then I thought I would write about a LA Times columnist who was going to wish the world Happy New Year in his column but then changed his mind. Instead he wrote, "Why bother" because " for a huge and growing number of people around the world, today isn't the start of a New Year". I will probably write on that later.

I then decided to go for a walk. I walked through Toronto's trendy Yorkville district, eying its many construction sites. I am fascinated by construction sites, especially the big wholes that are dug for the foundations of new buildings, of which there are a few in the works at the moment. Then I came upon the new extension to the Royal Ontario Museum, hence the ROM in my title.

I was overcome by what I saw when I stood across Bloor St. and looked at the ROM's new extension. It's overwhelming and fantastic. It is very impressive. It reminded my of a huge cruise liner moored in port, a liner that looked like no other because of its dramatic angles . As I was standing there taking it all in I moved a few steps and then looked at it again. I seemed to repeat this a few times; moving down the block a bit and then stopping to look again, like a camera. I mean, it's fantastic. It's great to have this in Toronto, a building designed by one of the leading architects in the world, Daniel Libeskind.

Some people don't like the postmodern design of the ROM's new extension because they think it is out of place and does not conform to the old building, which is of a 19th century design. Well, in many cases modern extensions to old buildings have been failures. That's because those extensions have been too timid and weak in design, so naturally they look awful. This extension is not weak but at the same time it does not overwhelm the old Victorian building. Instead, it juxtaposes the older building. I think it would have been silly and impossible to replicate the old building in this day an age as some have suggested. As I have said before, if you are going to build an extension to an older building there are no half measures and you can't be wimpy about it. You have to be radical to successfully blend with an older building since whatever is done will never match. And this building is radical and goes to the limit. Such a design also attracts significant attention and tourists.

As I was walking and looking at this fabulous extension I was thinking how lucky the merchants across the street from it are, to have this great view. And as I was walking I spotted someone taking pictures of it. I stopped to talk to him and ask his opinion of it. I though I could get from him some material for this essay I was planning. I asked him what he thought and he said he loved it. I told him how lucky I though the people across from it were and he told me that the architect, Libeskind, used to sit across from the site, perhaps in a cafe, to sketch his design for it. We both thought Toronto was very fortunate to have such a great building.

Now I will touch on the subject of individualism. Without the individual or individualism this great building would not be possible. The design was picked from a competition of several individual architects. And I think, like most people think, the best design was picked. Imagine such a building being designed by committee instead of an individual. Most likely it would have turned out to be lackluster like so many past extensions to old buildings have been, because most have been influenced by committee. Communist countries are noted for their ugly modern architecture because committees instead of individuals designed them. Communism is a system that didn't believe in individualism and that is one big reason why it collapsed. Communism didn't understand that the strength of any society first starts with the individual, it prime element.

On that note I am reminded of a quote: "For best results, cultivate individuals, not groups". Not only will we get the best governance and organization possible by cultivate individuals but also the best buildings.

Now on the topic of Happy New Year. Niall Ferguson is the author of the article I mentioned who decided not to wish everybody a Happy New Year. He thought it was too Anglo-centric a tradition to bother, that most of the world was not Anglo and thus did not participate in New Year's eve celebrations. What nonsense. By what one saw on TV New Year's eve most of the world has been Anglo-ized because most every major city in the world from Tokyo to Mexico City, plus most every culture, were ringing in the New Year as though it was also their custom. More on this topic later.

Invisible Hand

2007-01-06T07:28:00.000-08:00

The other day I read a review of a book about Adam Smith. Smith is the Scotsman who in the 18th century introduced the world to the idea of "free market capitalism". He coined the phrase "invisible hand" to describe the unseen force he thought guided free market capitalism.

At the time of Adam Smith free market capitalism did not yet exist. But it was beginning to emerge, like democracy was beginning to emerge. It is believed that Smith invented the idea of capitalism, that his ideas instigated it. Really, though, capitalism invented itself, to reflect and address what was happening in human affairs. Nevertheless, Smith contributed to it in a big way. He was the one astute enough to name and understand it. Furthermore, by identifying and explaining what was transpiring in human affairs, he helped facilitate and expand it.

I imagine Smith standing in the middle of the 18th century, looking around and trying to figure out the phenomenon that was swirling around and consuming his world. This phenomenon was the Industrial Revolution, which was just developing and creating unparalleled social upheaval. It was mind-boggling. Smith believed that something inevitable and natural was behind this revolution, with its churning, laissez faire, entrepreneurial ways. It was this market anarchy and its money that compelled Smith to name it free market capitalism. However, he also realized that this free market capitalism was no random event but was due to an emerging new order. He also realized that it was this new order's very nature of production and distribution of goods that compelled the economic system of free market capitalism to develop. From Smith's stand point the Industrial Revolution and capitalism were mutually inseparable. Each begot and necessitated the other.

From the book review I also learned a little known fact about Smith's invisible hand. His idea grew out of natural philosophy, a philosophy that was gaining acceptance due to thinkers like Isaac Newton and Francis Bacon before him. These natural philosophers – scientists, linked the activities of humans to those of the natural world, believing that the laws and economics of nature also applied to humans because, as it seemed obvious, humans were also bound by the natural world. Bacon also thought that society could and should be organized and governed along the same principles as nature. This is probably where the idea of the 'survival of the fittest' came from, as an explanation for those humans that adapted well to the social upheaval of the Industrial Revolution and those that did not, similarly to what happens in nature. Perhaps also, Smith's free market principles were intended to reflect the 'free market' principles that occur in nature, with its ebbs, flows and fluctuations.

Having recognized that humankind is part of the natural world and influenced by it, Smith wondered if there was anything comparable to the force of gravity in the social sense. Was there a force like gravity that grounded humankind socially, like that which grounded the natural, physical world? That is when he came up with the idea of the invisible hand, perhaps for want of a better term. So, to Smith's way of thinking the invisible hand was social gravity, the thing that grounds us and establishes our ethical behavior.

The social gravity of the invisible hand that Smith had in mind is not quite what I had in mind. Where as I think of the invisible hand as the economic instrument that organizes society in accordance with nature’s economic imperatives, he thought of it as an instrument that would naturally balance society’s economic imbalances and right the wrongs brought about by the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution, with its laissez faire capitalism, brought about an economic upheaval never witnessed before. While some people got rich a lot of others got very poor and lived in terrible conditions. It was a revolution sparked by and centered on individualism and individual initiative. And while it allowed some people to advance themselves economically it left may others far behind, living in squalor. Some believed that the rich were exploiting the poor without much regard for their welfare. However, Smith thought that the invisible hand, by assisting individuals to pursue their own self-interests and become rich, would inadvertently help the poor to also advance themselves. Smith believed that the invisible hand would in time level the playing field.

I have another idea about the invisible hand, other than it just being the equalizer Smith believed it to be. It is also the guiding hand that has led humankind to an economic system that is capable of sustaining our future. It has also taught us that economics is humankind’s number one discipline, which without it being addressed first and foremost little else is possible. Apart from that, the free market, which the invisible hand has guided us to, is the only workable system that can address the ever-present conflict between human needs and the economic imperatives of the natural world. It is also the best system to afford us the new technologies we need to survive and continue. And as to evidence of its exceptionalism, free market capitalism is now the unchallenged economic system of the world. However, until recently there was another competing economic system, communism, which was rigid and centralized, not free or open. But communism is now debunked because of the invisible hand and the knowledge that inflexible economic markets do not have the sustainability necessary for the modern world.

Milton Friedman

2006-12-16T09:50:00.000-08:00

Milton Friedman, one of the greatest economists of the 20th century, died recently. He was a proponent of monetarist theory, which regards the money supply as the central controlling factor in economic development. He won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1976 for his theory. He also believed in laissez faire capitalism (as laissez faire as it can be) and small government. Many insisted he was a conservative but he insisted he was a liberal.

Friedman became best known to the general public in the 70's chiefly for his idea that governments should be kept small and that the free market, not government, makes people's lives better. He believed that the chief purpose of government is to create an hospitable environment in which individuals can pursuit their own self-interests.

In the 70's the American economy went through a period know as 'stagflation', a period of high inflation, very low growth and fairly high unemployment, culminating in a stagnant economy. Theoretically this combination of economic events was not supposed to occur simultaneously. Friedman blamed government policy and its economic meddling for this bizarre performance. He believed that if government 'got out of the way', loosened its grip on the economy and used a better monetary policy things would improve substantially. He urged governments around the world to privatize and deregulate so as to free things up and allow economies to reach their full potential. Two of his most devoted followers were Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan.

Friedman first came to prominence in the late 40's with his theory about what really caused the Great Depression of the 1930's and why it lasted so long. He believed it basically had to do with the monetary policy of the time. He believed that if in the late twenties the Hoover government had reined in the circulation of money the over speculation of the stock market would not have happened, causing its crash. Similarly, Friedman argued, an increase in the money supply after the crash, instead of cutting back on it, could have prevented the Depression. In other words, he believed that if the money supply had been handled more wisely the Depression may not have happened or have lasted as long as 12 years. His theory was radical but it put him in good standing.

With hindsight wisdom makes itself known. However, did the economists of the time possess the monetary wisdom Friedman suggested they might have, which could have averted the Depression. Maybe he didn’t believe that they possess such wisdom but he certainly talked as if they did. Nevertheless, in his analysis he projected his hindsight on that time, as if the knowledge of prudent monetary policy existed then. But that knowledge didn’t exist then.

Because of Friedman's death the issue of what really caused the Depression came up again. The argument: It wasn’t the stock market crash of October 1929 that caused the Depression but the bad monetary policy of the time that did. I find this kind of argument misleading because of what it implies. That argument puts what happened back then in the context of today and what we know today. It suggests that people knew enough in those days to stave of a Depression. However, people back then did not have the economic resources or wisdom they have today to avoid such economic disasters.

And that is the problem with some analyses of past events. People tend to put yesteryears in the context of the present, thinking that in the past people knew as much as they know today. Some people think that in the twenties and thirties people had as much knowledge about economic matters as we do today. They think that the world then was as fluent and sophisticated in economic matters as it is today. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the twenties and thirties the world was economically backward in comparison to today. The world had no comprehension of things like money supply and liquidity like it does today. The world has learned empirically from those days and from the economic mistakes of the past.

It is wrong to think the Depression could have been prevented by means we know today because back then those means were non-existent. The economic sophistication of today didn’t exist then to prevent the Depression. Such knowledge wasn’t even a twinkle in the eyes of economists. The means of preventing recessions today were learned from the mistakes made back then and even from the mistakes made just 20 years ago.

In those days the governments of the world did not work in tandem to prevent economic disasters as they do today. That necessary interaction took at least a world war and a few other incidents to discover. The world has had to learn from experience on how to handle its economics. The way I hear it from some, though, is that there is some kind of bible out there, which specifically outlines how to do the right thing economically. But there is no such bible. We have had to learn the ins and outs of economics empirically, through trial and error. And that bible of economic wisdom is still being written.

There is one thing Milton Friedman regretted, that he helped institute the payroll tax during WW2. It was designed to help pay for the war effort. After the war it was supposed to have been dismantled but it wasn't. He regretted it because this tax became a cash cow for the government, which became a direct source of funds for its expansion. For an economist who believed in small government this was unintended consequence. And as we know, the world is full of unintended consequences.

Hawking & Outerspace

2006-12-06T09:54:00.000-08:00

Stephen Hawking, world famous scientist and author of the best selling book "The Brief History of Time", recently said that humans should go into outer space because that's where the human race will find its future survival and continuance. He thinks that in time our planet earth will become uninhabitable because of global warming or nuclear annihilation.

I think we should go into outer pace for the same reason Columbus came to America, to preserve and continue civilization. Columbus’ adventure saved Europe. However, Columbus wasn't aware that he was discovering a new world for that reason, to save Europe. (He was looking for a new trade route to the Orient.) But essentially that is what he did. Similarly, we may not be aware that humans have been venturing into space with the purpose of saving the human race. There is a saying, expand or perish.

At the time of Columbus Europe was in need of a savior. It needed to be saved from itself, from its social and political problems. Europeans were crowding each other, getting on each other’s nerves, constantly feuding over domain and ideas. The New World offered expansion and an outlet where, for one, people could live and practice their religions without being harassed. The Jews of Spain helped finance Columbus' voyages in the hope he might find them a homeland. As well, Europe was running out of resources that needed replenishing. Areas of Europe were being depleted of trees for building ships. In the New World there was an abundance of trees. The gold Spain found in the Americas helped lift it out of bankruptcy. For better or for worse, the New World helped rejuvenate the Old World. And later, not only did The New World come to the aid of The Old World in two world wars in the 20th century but also helped rebuild it economically and politically.

Hawking is right. Our survival depends on us going into outer space, but not only for scientific reasons but also for philosophical ones. Going into outer space will alleviate some of the problems the world faces as well as stimulate and ignite new technologies that will help save it. We need two types of technologies, scientific and philosophic.

Science and philosophy have accompanied each other as though they were both essential to sustain humankind. They work like a tag team. Science discovers things and philosophy reflects on them, putting them into context, debating their meaning and ethics. Science is essentially neutral, philosophy isn't. Philosophy challenges science to be relevant and moral, and makes it operational. Science gives use our material world. Philosophy gives as the ideas and techniques to govern and organize our world.

Science keeps on expanding in order to sustain us materially. New technologies have to be developed because old ones ware out, become inadequate or need replacing. Philosophy, as facilitator and provider of ideas, has the same problem. It has to keep on expanding to sustain us cognitively because with time some of our ideas about organization and governance grow stale and inadequate. Both science and philosophy are susceptible to atrophy and changing circumstances. They have to innovate and reinvent themselves to keep up with the times. Like Columbus' coming to America did, going into outer space will stimulate the rejuvenation and expansion of both.

Science, back in the late sixties, afforded us a marvelous, spiritually moving picture of the earth from outer space. As a globe in the dark sea of outer space the earth looked serene and majestic. This was the first time humans had ever seen the earth this way, as the capsule of the human race. It moved some of us to think like we had never thought before, that humanity was one. We also sensed a vulnerability about it because as we looked at this globe of ours in the darkness of space we knew we were not exactly taking good care of it, with our polluting and fighting over it. To some of us the earth looked fragile. Science let us see the earth this way and this view heightened our senses and consciousness, which we expressed philosophically, about what this sensation meant to us.

Science didn't force us to think what we did when we saw the earth the way we did in outer space, as a fragile capsule that needed better taking care of. Yet it moved us in that direction. A new philosophy grew out of that vision. We became a little more conscious about our destructive nature, which in turn changed our philosophical outlook. Some of us became far more environmentally conscious. That isolated image of the globe and what it mentally conjured is one thing that motivated the environmental movement. Perhaps the last time the world changed that dramatically in its philosophical outlook was when humanity saw for the first time the destructive nature of another scientific invention, the atomic bomb. In both cases we developed a new language and attitude which focuses more on our self-preservation. The image of the annihilative force of the first atomic bomb altered political and philosophical thought enough to dissuade us from using such a destructive force again. Our seeing the world as we did in outer space made us a little more conscious about other things we should be doing to prevent is destruction.

"The right to bear nukes"

2006-11-26T13:18:00.000-08:00

There is a saying, " An armed society is a polite society." That statement probably was made in defense of the right of Americans to have guns and bear arms.

That statement made me think of nuclear arms. I was thinking that since the advent of nuclear arms the nations of world have become more polite, at least more restrained and responsible about making war. For example, the Cold War could have been a hot one if it wasn't for the possibility of mutual annihilation between the world’s two nuclear powers, the U.S. and the USSR. The possibility of mutual annihilation contained their propensities for aggression. Likewise, Indian and Pakistan have been more polite to each other since they both acquired nuclear arms, each careful not to be too provocative towards the other in case of the possibility of a nuclear exchange between them. And the possibility of North Korea acquiring a nuclear bomb has made its neighbors, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea, more polite with each other. All of a sudden there is a flurry of diplomatic activity in that part of the world like never before.

Iran having the nuclear bomb might have a positive effect in the Middle East, in helping to resolve the Palestinian issue.

The possibility of nuclear war between the U.S. and the USSR eventually brought a détente between them. I think the possibility of North Korea having the bomb is bringing a thaw in relations between its neighbors, forcing them into diplomacy and political engagement. The nuclear issue has made the world more politically polemic and less war-like. It has forced adversaries to engage each other in preventing conflicts because the alternative could be devastating. All this holds with my theory which is that we develop and progress through perverse means. For instance, we do the opposite to disarming to preserve peace. Instead we arm ourselves to the teeth and saber rattle in order to cultivate and preserve peace.

There is at least one commentator who believes the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan in August 1945 had a utilitarian effect, "in that it brought the end of World War II in the Pacific and so saved millions of lives". The commentator, though, is well aware that is a dicey argument. However, there was a perverse utilitarian effect from the dropping of those bombs. That act was so horrific it spurred the world to act to create the United Nations as an institution for world peace, an institution the world rejected prior to WW2 because the lack of will to do so. Those atomic bombs, because of their unbelievable destructive nature, changed the world's attitude towards war. It forced countries to act against the possibility of future nuclear wars. Every military devise invented has found its use. If the atomic bomb had not been used then, sooner or later it would have been. However, its use then forced a sea change and the realization among the world’s nations that if there were wars in the future they could never escalate to a level where nuclear weapons would be used.

Sooner or later humankind had to see the destructive nature of the atomic bomb. Perhaps it was better to see it at the climax of a war rather than at the beginning of one. From that moment humankind's mindset changed towards war. Since seeing the unimaginable destructive nature of those two atom bombs the world has worked to prevent that use of atomic energy ever again. This was the first time humankind collectively saw and understood such a destructive force. It captured the world's imagination instantly, all at once. Ironically those two atomic bombs have acted as a deterrent for using such devastating devises again. Nevertheless, sad but true, it is better that it happened then to end a war than to start one.

Perhaps the world is better adjusted because it has nuclear arms. It seems to be more peaceful, with fewer wars, in comparison. Maybe the nuclear bomb is the ultimate weapon after all because its awesome destructive force has virtually rendered it unusable. What state would be foolish enough to use it? The United States could have used in Korea and Vietnam but it didn't because of what that might have brought about. However, there is the fear that it might be used by some 'rogue' state or fall into the hands of a terrorist group. Once nuclear weapons were the preserve of a few elite states. Now it has become a weapon that possibly any body can own, like all the other weapons developed throughout history. Hopefully the world and its people will keep this weapon to the status of deterrent.

History

2006-11-18T15:02:00.000-08:00

The other day I was reading the Times Literary Supplement (TLS). It is a tabloid size paper that since 1902 has been reviewing the works of leading writers and thinkers. I generally find it an awkward read. Nevertheless, I found the latest issue (Oct. 13.06) interesting because it touched on a subject close to me, the meaning of history. It talked about how 40 years ago it devoted three issues to "New Ways in History". It commemorated those forty years ago with a feature article entitled "New ways revisited: How history's borders have expanded in the past forty years". The discussion 40 years ago was about the new approaches that were being used in discerning and evaluating history. A new bread of historians, unorthodox historians who incorporated other disciplines to understand and explain history - sociology, anthropology, psychology - wrote those articles. Also, some of those historian believed that current events, rather than past events, were better at explaining history.

"The twentieth century is the first in which comprehending world history has become possible." I thought of that remark as I read the TLS article. I believe it's true. However, scholars have pointed out that that notion is nothing new. It also was believed in the 19th century. For instance, Hegel thought that history had reached a climax in 1806 and that future history would be comprehended and shaped from that moment on. However, human history marched on and historians know that what happened then didn't really settle anything, let alone the meaning of history.

I'm really not sure what Hegel sensed in 1806 that made him think that from that moment on world history could be comprehended. (He did see Neapolitan ride by on horseback in Jena, Germany, after defeating the Prussians.) How, though, could world history be fully comprehensible after 1806 when it had not yet experience the horrendous world events of the twentieth century. Yet around that time Hegel must have experiences something significant because he became aware of the very force that drives and determines human and world history. He discovered that one thing that made the comprehension of history truly possible. Without knowing this force it would be impossible to give any historical meaning to human endeavour. Hegel recognized that the main driving/ determining forces of history was the human struggle for freedom and recognition.

Obviously the TLS article made me think about history. It also made me think of a book that is probably the antithesis to what the TLS postulated in its New Ways in History articles. The book is "The Killing of History: How Literary Critics And Social Theorists Are Murdering Our Past" by Keith Windschuttle. One social theorist of history Windschuttle railed against was Francis Fukuyama, because of his book "The End of History". What Windschuttle disliked most about Fukuyama's approach to history is his economic determinism and his injecting philosophy into it, not just any philosophy but Hegelian philosophy. Fukuyama also used history to discern a truth, something traditional historians are against. According to Windschuttle history should just be a narrative and accounting of events, without injecting meaning or a truth into it. Windschuttle doesn't believe that history should be mixed with other disciplines in order to troll for meaning.

Fukuyama's interpretation of history impressed me because I was thinking the same thing. We both believe that the collapse of Communism means that there is now only one alternative in human governance left to the world, Democracy. Humankind had exhausted all other possible forms of governance in its struggle for freedom and recognition. History had an empirical purpose, helping prepare human governance for the modern world and establishing Democracy as the only true governance of human freedom and recognition. Fukuyama saw that the universal human struggle for freedom and recognition could only realistically be fulfilled within and by Democracy.

I noticed that TLS did not include Fukuyama in their revisiting New Ways in History. However, as things go he is a giant in new ways of viewing history. He discovered one of the defining, pivotal moments in history by linking it with the human condition and needs and aspirations, the collapse of Communism and the ascendancy of Democracy. As an historian he believes that current events can explain the meaning and trajectory of history. He introduced one big new way of examining history, through human governance. He re-introduced the idea of ideology in history and the idea that we have reached an end point in our ideological evolution when in comes to defining and establishing legitimate human governance. He rightly pointed out that if humans hope to fulfill their needs and aspirations in this modern world the only realistic alternative form of government is liberal democracy - capitalism and democracy - Democracy.

I am surprised TLS omitted Fukuyama in its revisiting of New Ways in History because he discovered a new way of evaluating history, through human governance.

Technology

2006-10-29T10:39:00.000-08:00

The other day I was using a new technology. I am a picture framer and the technology I was using was a cloth for cleaning glass. It is odd to think of a cloth as technology. But technically it is a technology. A definition of technology is "The application of science, especially to industrial or commercial objectives". And that is what was occurring.

3M made this cloth, one of the world's most technologically driven companies. They are most famous for their adhesive tapes and glues. What is great about this cloth is that it can be washed and used again and again. In picture framing having clean glass is vital, so it isn't lightly that I praise this cloth because I am fussy about clean glass. I found that with this cloth I could use plain water instead of glass cleaner and get just as good results.

Another technology I am enthusiastic about is LED technology. LED stands for light-emitting diode. So far most of us have only experienced this technology in Christmas lights and in cars. But I am sure that LED bulbs will replace traditional light bulbs in the near future. Many of the traffic lights in our cities are now LED based. This type of lighting technology will do a lot to help conserve energy because it uses 80% less, plus it doesn't generate heat like conventional lighting, thus requiring no additional energy for cooling, saving even more energy. Imagine when LEDs are in full use. The savings! This technology will revolutionize the energy business.

The electric generating industry needs revolutionizing, and overhauling. A few years ago the industry in the United States was deregulated. The thinking back then was that allowing competition to enter the industry would bring down prices, the theory being that more electricity would be produced, thus making it cheaper. But prices have not come down like they did it other deregulated industries. Instead prices have gone up. Electric utilities in the United States have been playing a shell game with consumers, flipping electric utilities and passing on the cost to them. The industry has not been regulated properly. One of the most notorious companies for doing unscrupulous things with energy and overcharging customers was Enron. Perhaps the new technologies for generating electricity, like LEDs, solar cells, wind turbines and batteries, will wrestle some of the power away from utility companies and eventually give us lower prices. If the past is any indication, technological advances will eventually make electricity cheaper. I even heard talk of nuclear batteries some day.

Years ago a survey was taken among scientist asking the question, what has been the most important technological development of the 20th century. The response was, the laser. The laser is probably the most diverse technology ever invented. And imagine, when it was first discovered it was not known what it might be good for. Today it has multiple uses. It is used in fiber optics for communications. Neither the Internet nor capable TV would be possible on the massive scale it is if it weren’t for the laser and fiber optics. Lasers are also used in construction, for measuring distances and laying pipes. Lasers are used in printing newspapers and books. Lasers are used in all kinds of surgery. I understand they are now working on lasers that will link computer chips instead of using wires, which are susceptible to overheating and breakage. What would we do without lasers? For one thing we certainly wouldn't have the Internet and it fountain of information.

Technology has brought about both the modern world and has made the modern world possible. I remember the movie "Brazil: A state of Mind". The movie offered a view of the future, albeit a pessimistic one. But the future it presented was a futuristic version of the 1930s and 40's, so it was distorted. For instance, the telephones pictured in the movie were made to look modern and supposedly up-to-date by having hundreds of wires connected to them, making them bulky and inefficient looking. What impressed me about the movie is that the technological advances were made to look big and bulky, meaning ‘more is more’. Really, though, modern technology does the opposite, making ‘less means more’. That future in the move didn’t look very modern because technological advances took up to much space. The modern world has put a premium on space and resources because those things are not been made any more. In the real world technology has reduces the size of things while at the same time increasing their efficiency. Remember IBM's first computer? It was the size of a small house and used plenty of electricity to run and cool. (At the beginning IBM though it would only sell a few computers a year. It also wondered what computers might be used for.) Technology has also found alternatives and better use of our scare natural resources.

A few years ago I became interested in desalinization. For those countries that are short of drinking water there certainly is plenty of it in the ocean. However, it needs desalinated before it can be used. Recently I learned that Spain has been desalinating sea-water for over 40 years and is the most advanced in this technology, which it has been selling all over the world for years.

Democracy! Where would it be without technology? Technological advances gave us the printing press and the information age. Democracy is impossible without information and communication. Mobility is also important to Democracy. It has given us the freedom to move around and discover the world for ourselves. In communist countries such mobility was forbidden, denying that personal democratic freedom the West took for granted. Technology has certainly given us many modes of mobility. And our traveling has expanded and strengthened Democracy.

More significance of 9/11

2006-10-20T12:28:00.000-07:00

The people who instigated the attacks of 9/11 naively thought they could bring down a civilization, Western Civilization. Instead, the attacks showed the resilience and strength of this Civilization, to survive and carry on. In fact, I am impressed how robustly this Civilization has come roaring back from that disaster, with its cosmopolitism and internationalism. Many thought globalization was domed because this event conceivably could have ended it and spread isolationism throughout the world. The terrorists were hoping for that. The terrorist failed. I believe the fact that Western Civilization has shown such resilience and strength since the attacks signifies and confirms its preeminence in this world.

Another significant development of 9/11 is that it started the Islamic Reformation. Islam has never gone through a reformation in the way Christianity has. I find it interesting that Islam is five hundred years younger than Christianity and that its reformation is starting almost five hundred years after Christianity's.

What was done in the name of Islam on 9/11 by its Islamic perpetrators, and to a further extent by the bombings in London, Madrid and Bali, has provoked an awakening and a reflecting in the Islamic world, on what it is to be Islamic/Muslim. Because of this terrorist act done in their name, Muslims around the world have been looking inwardly and questioning their faith on mass. For the first time in history the Koran is being interpreted, something that in the past was vigorously discourage. The Bible, on the other hand, has been interpreted and debated for centuries. I think it is great that this kind of discourse has begun in Islam.

I think that the discourse started by of 9/11 among Muslims is really the only way of starting the process of democratization in the Islamic world and not through regime change or by military means. It has provoked politicking and independent thinking and self-expression among Muslim lay-people and scholars alike, something that has rarely occurred. This is an excellent start on the road to democracy. This is the way it started in Christianity, through its Reformation, which led to the Enlightenment, which paved the way for Democracy.

Perhaps the Islamic Reformation started before, but 9/11 blew it wide open. The antagonism Islam has endured from some sectors of the Christian world recently, like the Danish cartoon episode and the Pope's comments, has fueled and spurred on this Reformation.

Martin Luther was responsible for staring the Reformation in Christianity in the 16th century. The New York Times had an opinion piece entitled "Looking for Islam's Luther. That essay is what encouraged me to write what I am writing here. It also got me thinking of a falsehood, about the Reformation started by Luther. If anything, the Reformation he started, as we know it, was the result of an unattended consequence. It originally started off as a fundamentalist movement. We generally think of a reformation as an event that tends to liberalize and open things up. But Luther was a traditionalist and his idea of reformation was a way to push the Catholic Church back in time, to its original principles and traditional roots. Luther also thought the Church had become too liberal and wayward. Luther's Reformation was intended to clean up the Roman Catholic Church and put it back on the straight and narrow, not open it up to change and modernization as is what eventually occurred.

Luther was a fundamentalist and so were the perpetrators of 9/11. However, as we see from history, though Luther unleashed a reformation that was intended to restore traditional values in the Church, it had the opposite effect. This reformation did have some desired effects, in that it stopped some of the Church's capricious and corrupt behaviors. But it also had the undesired effect of splintering the Church and ushering in the Enlightenment, which started the development of Democracy. So instead of tightening things up, Luther’s Reformation cause a social upheaval. I think the Islamic/Muslim world is facing a similar prospect from the salvo that was launched on 9/11, which was hoped would push the world back to a more traditional, non-modern time, by its perpetrators. The idea backfired, as it did in Luther's time, The Islamic world is now in a social upheaval and is engaged in soul searching. And more often than not, when such things start things never remain quite the same and things usually change mutually for the better.

Democracy

2006-10-12T11:57:00.000-07:00

I don't think Democracy has been studied enough, about how and why it works. And even though I have been studying it for some time I still find it hard to explain. Much of it seems to be a mystery. Nevertheless, I am going to tell you what I think.

Some people have been naive about establishing Democracy in Iraq. George Bush is one. Another is a noted scholar and teacher of Democracy at Stanford University, Larry Diamond. He eagerly went to Iraq to help establish it. In doing so he felt that he was party to something unique and helping to develop a new frontier. He soon left in despair because he realized that Democracy could not be established in an insecure environment. Iraq is socially, politically and militarily insecure, more so since the war began.

Some people naively think that since America managed to establish Democracy in Germany and Japan after WWII the same can be done in Iraq. Iraq is a different place. Those two countries had some of the basic components for Democracy prior to America’s involvement. Japan and Germany were pretty much socially homogenous nations. Iraq is not. Homogeny is one essential for Democracy taking hold. Also, Germany and Japan were industrially based nations prior to Democracy. Iraq is not. Industrialization pre-organized the populations of those countries and prepared them for Democracy. Industrialization and the culture it spawned, like the middle class and compulsory education, gave the populations in those countries a direct interest in the welfare of their countries, helping to establish the foundation that would later serve in developing Democracy. Autonomous hierarchal social structures such as corporation, unions and religious institutions were also critical in preparing Japan and Germany for Democracy. Those autonomous centers helped cultivated Democracy's future lieutenants. Iraq had no such political power centers waiting in the wings to help launch Democracy. A secular society is also essential for Democracy because it affords a common environment in which it can unfold. Iraq is not a secular society or a society that can easily put its religious differences aside, like Germany and Japan did.

One thing I have noticed is that democracy has a better chance in complex societies. But a thinking seems to suggest the opposite, that less complex societies would be better for Democracy's chances because there is less involved and less to worry about . However, Democracy is not like a machine that functions best with fewer moving parts - the fewer parts the better and the less chance of a break down. There also is a Catch-22 involved here. For instance, how can a nation like Iraq or Haiti who have never done Democracy before hope to achieve Democracy if they lack the complexity Democracy demands? How are nations and societies like Haiti and Iraq supposed to attain the complexities of the modern world if they have always shunned it or are incapable of it, so they can establish Democracy. The complexities of the modern world and Democracy were made for and necessitate each other.

By complex I mean that there has to be a whole host of different activities and self-interests competing and meshing with each other for Democracy to truly work. Iraq is not a very complex society. It does not have corporate and individual interest vying with government, religious and social interests. Even the complexity that is generated between men and women in Western societies, which is almost non-exist in the Middle East, makes a difference. Democracy, in order to really work, requires many masters making many demands on it. The many demands put on Democracy, ironically, are what keep it alert and alive. This is something Bernard Lewis, a scholar of Islam, touched on in his book "What Went Wrong?", meaning what went wrong in Islam. He said that one think lacking in Islamic societies, which discourages the development of Democracy, is polyphony - many voices competing, demanding to be heard and juggling each other. In Islam there aren't many voices speaking out, inquiring and expressing themselves. That is one thing Democracy seems to require and thrives on, polyphony and diversity.

Most people think democracy is just about voting, that is why so many people got so exited about the first election in Iraq. Well, that has not lead to Democracy nor will it any time soon. Democracy requires back-up systems, like a truly free press, pluralism, secularism, a sense of equality, the rule of law for all, property rights and honest individual recognition and freedom. Democracy requires a whole host of things happening at the same time for it to really work. Under this scenario Germany and Japan were ripe for democracy with their diversity of intellects, scientists, educators, industrialists and politicians. But Iraq and the Islamic world do not have the diversity Democracy requires to take hold. In the West democracy has taken centuries to develop and here, astonishingly, it is expected that Iraq pick it up just like that, as if it was natural. Democracy doesn't come naturally. It seems natural because it addresses basic human instincts but it takes nurturing, though a long arduous process

To Western countries Democracy has come in a backward fashion, through the back door. First, people in Western nations gained economic freedom and then political freedom followed. This is how Western women eventually got the vote in the 20th century, because of the economic clout they acquired in running the household. With economic freedom women gained a measure of respect and recognition. With their economic clout women could not be easily ignored. And from that evolved, with addition pressure from the suffrage movement, political freedom for them. This is how Democracy is slowly emerging for the people of China. First they are economically empowered and engaged and then they will become politically empowered and engaged.

At the moment I don't know what the answer is for Iraq, whether Democracy will ever be possible there or not. I can only see that they are incapable of Democracy. I mean, if they ever hope to achieve Democracy their culture will require a revolutionary change. But is that possible? America has sure tried in a clumsy way.