The subprime market debacle

"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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?"

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.