Thinking about the future

Here we are once more in the run-up to another presidential election and for the first time since 1988 I am actually in the country to experience it. This is not something which fills me with joy given that the sheer tedium is overwhelming and added to that is the volume of the talking heads who seek to mask with noise what they lack in thought. This would not be so worrying if all this blather were just for our entertainment value, but it is not and so we head to the polls with an electorate (and more frighteningly a leadership) motivated by platitudes as if simple aphorisms can lead us successfully into the future.

For the past few years and all the more so as the election has gotten underway there has been a strong push on the right to rally America (or at least enough of America to carry the day) behind what is essentially nothing more than a call to patriotism: Support the Troops; Fight the Evildoers; Strength and Resolution in the face of those who wish to destroy us. The problem with this is that none of it seems to explain why we should do any of this or what it is that is under attack and why we should support it. There is of course the simple desire to hold onto lifestyles and standards of living which we enjoy and wish to continue to enjoy, but as cynical as some may be about this there is an actual ideal greater than this in which we all believe, founded in ideas of freedom and liberty and encapsulated in the words of men like Jefferson and Lincoln. These ideals are good ones and their defense is a highly potent means of motivation for the American people. The problem is that we seem to be trying less to understand them than to use them as a blanket justification: since our ideals are good, so are we and by extension all that we do, at least in the broad view. This of course is the sort of shoddy thinking and logical fallacy which would make Lincoln and Jefferson cringe. But we are not being encouraged to think of what exactly we are being asked to fight and struggle to defend; of how our treatment of certain persons and peoples in this country and around the world might not be in keeping with these ideals; and the best way to live up to these ideals and to help carry them to others so that they too might enjoy these truths which we hold self-evident, which truths do not stop at any national border or any other kind of line.

To be fair though it is not just the right which seems happy to leave behind thought, though the right's dereliction of duty in this regard is more obvious as they have been in power these past four years. The left also operates on its own lazy tropes, though their's tend to be less of a knee-jerk praise of America than a knee-jerk denunciation. It can still be seen in places and was brought to my own sight the other day by catching part of a recent animated movie taking place in the Wild West. The horses and the American Indians were the good guys, the cavalry the bad guys, an inversion of the films which disappeared a long time ago and probably no worse than they were. But it is indicative of a desire on the left which waxes and wanes and which seeks to condemn Western Civilization as hopelessly corrupt and evil and destructive and instead embraces other civilizations. The problem with this is that these civilizations tend to exist solely in the minds of those leftist products of Western Civilization. The noble savages whom we have created out of the American Indians are no more real than the brutal savages as which they were once portrayed, and both seriously underestimate that people in ways which can be quite insulting. The left often feels very disappointed and in fact betrayed by Western Civilization and by America as a product thereof and the inclination is to throw it aside. But this is as lazy and unhelpful as merely declaring ourselves to be the good guys and doing as we please. If we take as the basic foundation of Western Civilization the development of concepts such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness or of libery, equality and fraternity, then we must admit that there is something great and wonderful about that civilization, something whose benefits do not stop with our fellow countrymen but which apply to all humanity; but these ideals are as much a responsibility, a charge given to us by our predecessors and not an easy one. These are ideals up to which we must live if we are to bequeath to this planet and this human race a better world than the one we have been bequeathed. And we cannot do so if we want to do things the easy way - the lazy way - and condemn this civilization because it is imperfect or cheer for it because it says nice things. Now is the time to meet our responsibilities; now is the time to think, to reason, to talk and to do our best that we might be worthy of this charge and leave the lazy ways of acting behind.

- posted by Ted @ 3:24 AM

 
The idea of education

There has always been great debate over the role of universities in society and possibly nowhere more than in the US, where education is supposed to be the key to one's success in the society which was freed from the constraints of the Old World. All things considered there is more than a grain of truth in this belief and consequently education is the scene of some of the greatest debates in America: it is worth noting that the first big prime-time battle over segregation came at a school in Little Rock. An education, which since the Second World War includes university, is the crucial first step in achieving the American Dream in the lives of most Americans. When something this big is involved, how can conflict be avoided? Over the past thirty years the most notable eruption has been over affirmative action, which has seemed to threaten the chances of whites making that first step. How true and broad this threat has been is open to interpretation and it also involves other issues including that other key component of the American Dream, of success without fear or favor. It can also be seen to have struck at feelings of entitlement among the populace. These feelings had been in aristocratic society limited to the elites and one of the ironies of democratisation and the end of such elites is that such feelings of entitlement can be spread more deeply into society. Especially in a nation in which success is supposed to be so open, such feelings can push the average person to expect it: that is the point of equality, it would seem.

Lost in this can be the fact that success is something far more malleable and diverse than what we attempt to set in stone at the age of eighteen. The triumph of western democracy is not to make success assured in whatever we desire but to make the possibilities for success as broad and open as can be. There is no way that each and every one of us can have all that we desire when we desire it. Even the great and good in times past could not have that. It is not only unrealistic, it would rob us of all the opportunities and twists which life has to offer which might seem unnerving and even unwelcome, but which can make our lives more enjoyable or at the very least more interesting and possibly more rewarding. Life follows few scripts and one of the keys to it is to play the hand as it is dealt and to see where we can go with the cards. Some people get a low hand and that is predetermined by their socio-economic status: even in modern democracy, we are not all born to the same benefits. But the possibilities are quite good for most of us and to offer a helping hand to others hardly means that we cannot have a good life ourselves. In fact it would seem that we can have a much richer and more rewarding life if we give as many people as possible the chance to live the sorts of lives we do. We tear down walls which keep us from others and we get the chance to meet people who can take us to places we might never have gone before. This is not a zero sum game.

Finally there is the skeleton at the feast. School and university is not a game of getting the right names and the right numbers: it is a matter of educating ourselves. A person can go to the finest school and the best college, get the right grades and make the whole thing look perfect on paper; but if he or she is not educated, then it was all wasted time. That person might as well have been shooting pool or going to work. The point of school is not to get into the right university. The point of school is to get the best education possible; to expand one's mind; to learn and grow. The more one does that, the more one gets and will continue to get out of life. And if he or she does that, he or she can get into a good university, even if it is not this one or that one in particular. In the end, there will be many universities which will be a good fit for any given person and that person can and will get into at least one of them. And there he or she can continue this process of learning and growth and make it a way of life: the best way of life. This is the point of education and it is why education is important. And it more than anything else in life is not a zero sum game: the more of us who can take part, the richer each and every one of us shall be in our lives.

- posted by Ted @ 5:37 PM

 
Returning to well-trod ground

Within the world of readers there arises a sharp divide over the matter of returning to books which one has already read. Some find it wasteful to keep going back to old books when so many new ones are out there waiting to be discovered. Others find it equally incomprehensible that, having found a treasure in the form of a particular book, one could help but return to it. No matter which side a reader falls on, it is difficult to understand truly the thinking of those with the opposing viewpoint.

It is, of course, useful and worthwhile to try to work through a mindset not one's own. I am a confirmed re-reader myself, but know many fellow bibliovores who are committed to avoiding re-reading books, at least for the most part. They certainly have a point; with a limited amount of time in which to read (three score years and ten or at best little more than five score, not counting the time spent sleeping, working, etc.) and with such a plethora of books out there, there is a strong impetus once one has finished a book to charge on in search of another which might be as good in some way or other or even better. It is fairly well certain that even the most voracious of bibliovore can only begin to tap the wells of good books which lie in wait for us. As much tripe as does exist, there are enough diamonds in the rough to keep the devoted reader busy until doomsday. Naturally this calls for ambition and a sense of adventure. Re-reading books reduces even the limited yield a person can get from the published word.

Yet as much as I know this, there is no chance that I could give up re-reading books (though I have trained myself to abandon books which I find myself disliking heartily as I read them). Certain books simply beg to be re-read, in part or cover-to-cover. Some have ideas which need to be re-read; some have stories which fail to lose their thrill; others have writing which is so wonderful that giving them up would be like giving up a favorite sweet. In all these cases, the key fact is that these books which I have read have had some element which I have liked: why on earth would I not return to such wonderful finds? It would be like abandoning an old friend whose company I shall always find pleasure in simply because there are others out there whom I have yet to meet and whose company I might enjoy as much or even more. It's good to meet new friends, but to leave behind old ones?

At its heart, perhaps the crucial difference between readers and re-readers lies in their aims in reading. Both groups look to be entertained, informed, pleased by reading a book. But for re-readers there might be more to it; at least that would be the case for this one re-reader. Books are more than a way to learn or to amuse oneself: they can be a way to leave the world behind and to absorb oneself in another. For people of this ilk, a good book is more than a treasure, it is an essential companion in life, a companion through all that life offers. I have just finished re-reading The Secret History for the umpteenth time. The first time I read it, I finished it in two days and immediatelly read it cover-to-cover once more. It is still as appealing and engrossing as ever; possibly more so as it has its own place in my personal history, as evocative of things in my own life as of the events the story tells. Most books we re-read for certain pleasures which they brought us when we first read them and because the pleasures are as fresh and delightful every time we pick up the book. But some books become part of who we are in a sense, part of that conception of ourselves by which we live our lives. For the committed re-reader, to abandon such books would be to abandon a part of oneself. It is just this sort of passion which books can evoke in people which undoubtedly makes the differing views on the issue of re-reading them quite so mutually incomprehensible.

- posted by Ted @ 9:27 PM

 
Locked in a cell (phone)

Back when I was in the UK, I attended the Last Night of the Proms in Hyde Park with friends on a couple of occasions. The park was packed and it was difficult to get in and out and to find the group again if I strayed off for any reason. But somehow everyone there seemed to overcome all these pitfalls and a good time was had by all. The other night I attended a similar but much, much smaller event, a showing of The Thin Man at the Screen on the Green on the Mall. The crowd was not particularly large (which was nice), making the problems of meeting and separation less difficult. But what was different was the fact that the majority of those who were trying to meet were talking on their cell phones in order to arrange their meeting.

Cell phones have long been a butt of jokes (Hello dear - I'm still on the train, just like every night at this time) but their prevalence also makes them an unavoidable reality and very nearly a necessity. They can be handy tools in communicating, in arranging to meet others and in freeing one of the home or office phone. But this should not lead us to somehow think that they are a necessity in and of themselves or that they mark some great forward stride in human progress. Cell phones seem to be one of those developments which happened largely because they could and whose success has depended on salesmanship and the reality that nothing does succeed like success.

The appeal of cell phones is that they make certain aspects of life easier. Having a cell phone means that the owner does not have to make solid plans at a distance or even at all if the communication with others is always available. For people who hate to plan, this is an undoubted boon. Likewise it is a way to prevent any lost down time, such as commutes, largely to the benefit of one's work. This is, of course, more of a benefit to one's place of employ rather than to oneself. For all this brings ideas of being able to work on one's own schedule, i.e. taking time off and away from the office as the lines of communication are still open, it is far more likely that it means that one works all day and cannot even escape it when one has punched out for the day. In this sense, the cell phone is exactly that, a cell.

But it is the handiness and ease with which they allow communication which really seems to have spurred their use, aided in no small way by the fact that as more people have them, more people need them to keep in contact with the people who already have them. But if they were all to disappear, the results would be negligable. Making plans and arrangements to do things, be places, meet people have been and still are simple enough. It has always been possible to do this without cell phones and continues to be so. It merely means thinking and using a little foresight and native wit. It is reducing the need to rely upon these attributes which is the ease which cell phones have brought into our life. But these are not particularly bad things to have. Given the current state of affairs with regard to the environment, the budget, social security and foreign policy, it is hard to say that, in the US at least, foresight and careful thought and planning are our strong suits in any case. We already have televisions upon which to waste our money and lower our brain activity. It is hard to see that we need another gizmo to help in that.

- posted by Ted @ 3:23 AM

 
School Days
 
It is difficult not to take the experiences of one's own life and to attempt to extrapolate them into broader theories of various aspects of human existence.  Since none of us have the time or the inclination to do the full research which would be required for this, we might as well accept this tendency on our part and see where it might lead us.  This is all by way of disclaimer to some thoughts on education which came to mind on a trip home recently.  Having grown up in a small town, I spent my education through the age of fourteen at the local school, which was necessarily very small as well.  There was only one class of students per year and in first grade (age six), there were only seven of us.  This number did bounce up to twelve shortly thereafter, but that was about the size of class which seemed natural to us.  The benefits were of course that it was a good student-teacher ratio, ensuring that we had teachers who were there for us as we needed them.  The drawbacks to such a situation are equally evident.  We were very much without any options should we have problems with our fellow students or our teacher for the year.  With one class, there is nowhere to move to avoid anyone else.  I was extremely lucky in my classmates and in my teachers, liking them all very well and having a very enjoyable experience in school in those years.
 
The real drawback which I began to feel as the years progressed and as I reached high school was not so much from unhappiness with the company in a small school, but with the lack of opportunity and I went to a nearby independent school which had much more to offer, both in courses, teachers, student body and extracurricular activities.  I am very glad to have had the opportunity to go there for high school.  But I can still appreciate the advantages of the small school in which I spent so many years.  This past weekend I was told that three of the graduating class at the local school would be attending the college which I had first attended before transferring to St. Andrews.  This rather surprised me insofar as of the twelve members of the class which graduated the year I graduated from my high school, only three attended college at all.  That more students would wish to pursue further education is hardly something I oppose (obviously), but in this case it is apparently the result of the changing demographics in the town, as it becomes less of a farming community and more of a bedroom community for the state capital.  I can hardly complain about this as that is essentially what my parents have used it as since they moved there before I was born.  The worry which arises, in my mind if nowhere else, is that the students are missing out on something as there fellows are simply those with similar backgrounds to their own.  I am of course looking at this from the perspective of the child of the office-working college-educated, but I do think for those like me to meet and interact with people from other backgrounds, especially at a young age, has its advantages.  Growing up with kids whose parents had different experiences from those of my own, as well as with some kids whose parents had more similar ones, offered a chance to see from different perspectives at an age before the hardening of one's views becomes too great.  One of the great problems which I see with many of my fellow well-educated peers (and I include myself as having this problem too) is that it is far too easy to look from the heights of our learning and knowledge and to view those who see things from a different vantage as fundamentally different and to treat them in some sense as lesser, whether we do that with the best of (condescending) intentions or not.  It may be difficult to open young children to the sorts of experiences which give them access to multiple viewpoints.  Perhaps I was just lucky and it hardly cured me of all the prejudices and mental warps which so inform our thoughts and judgments.  But I still think that it is something to be wished for all children, for all people.

- posted by Ted @ 3:22 AM

 
In search of the magic bullet

Patience has never been a particularly strong characteristic of the United States or its people and when viewed more generally one could say the same about Western Civilization in general. The development of the West, an amorphous term but it is hard to think of a better, has been driven largely by the need to push forward in thought or act. One can call this progress or one can call it heedless ambition; both are probably applicable. It is not so much a thing of good or bad but can have either of these effects. Most recently in the field of international relations, this lack of patience, this desire to move forward has been evident in the war in Iraq. When all is said and done the war was an attempt to cut the Gordian knot with regard to Iraq, which was a nightmare in international affairs and had been for years. Under Saddam Hussein it had shown itself willing to attack whichever neighboring countries it might prefer, while at the same time Saddam operated a police state which was predicated on inflicting suffering on all who might challenge his power within Iraq. Attempts to pry him out without the full use of force were failing. Saddam was a nasty piece of work, but he had his ace in the hole: his firm leadership of the sovereign nation state of Iraq. As the international order is based upon the nation state, this was a strong hand to hold.

Thus the delight of Saddam's opponents in the West with the changed international circumstances after the September 11, 2001 attacks. With the development of this threat on such a global scale, the use of force became a more plausible instrument in international relations. Force as a legitimate means of foreign relations achieved a certain justification, whether on the lines of self defense, as conservatives have seen it, or as the vanguard of the march of liberal ideals across the world, as neoconservatives prefer. It is undoubtedly of great satisfaction to those on the left that these groups are now being made to realize that force has not proven as effective as they had hoped. But the left should not crow too loudly, for they are as prone to searching for magic bullets themselves as are those on the right. It has been forgotten in the changed focus of the past few years, but before 2001, it was the left's magic bullet which was most in evidence: not force, but law, the idea that international laws and conventions and organizations could establish the order which the right has been hoping force would do.

Even before September 11, 2001 these agreements, conventions and treaties were suffering from the opposition of the right, especially in the United States. Treaties on nuclear arms, on the environment, on the International Criminal Court were all running aground on opposition here. But this reflected a wider problem with the entire concept behind this movement. Without force to back it up, law will have only the mildest of effects, just as without law to back it up, force lacks the meaning to give it any deeper meaning. Both sides realize this, but cannot seem to come together and see that each must work with the other in true partnership. Neither can accomplish what its proponents wish unless it is firmly married to the other. Both give lip service to this, but neither seems willing to address what this must mean in reality. Even then proponents on both sides must realize that even together they might form no magic bullet. For neither of these can accomplish anything worthwhile without an established legitimacy in the eyes of the international community at large - real legitimacy not just diplomatic acceptance. Until that happens, there is little to hope from either of these avenues. But unless they work together that little hope disappears altogether.
- posted by Ted @ 3:21 AM

 
The idea of service

One of the recent incidental effects of the ongoing war in Iraq has been the opportunity for proponents of a military draft to present the issue to the public once more. They have a new argument in that the military seems quite obviously to be stretched to the limits of their capabilities as the war drags on and the troop numbers hold steady. Of course the fact that the armed forces are much smaller than they were ten or fifteen years ago suggests that a draft is not exactly a necessity, though should the US continue to take such an active role in fighting around the world, it might prove that volunteering does really dry up. But since the key effect of this war seems likely to be that the US is very, very reluctant to engage in any other such conflicts in the foreseeable future, the argument that we need the draft to face meet these wars seems less persuasive.

But the current military and political situation is not the real reason people are either in favor or are opposed to the draft. When it comes to opposition to the draft, it relies heavily on a traditional American support for liberty and opposition to forced service. The draft has been a very rare occurence in this country, for the most part. It was used in the Civil War (though rather indirectly) and in World War I, but that was it before 1940. The draft only really held on after that, first because of the Second World War and then the Cold War, thirty years of the draft, a stark contrast to previous history. This does not mean that it is some betrayal of this country or its history. In times of crisis, the US had come to rely upon the draft and so the forties, fifties and sixties can be seen as part of that history.

However, these decades of the draft were different, for never before had the draft been in commission for so long. It became not a temporary wartime necessity, but a part of American society as it had never been before. It was cast out for good reasons under Nixon, reasons which were broadly supported. But as time has passed, the generations for whom it was part of their life, even if they personally did not serve, have begun to see the good aspects to it and to feel that we all are missing something with its departure. This is driven to a large extent by the knowledge that there are generations for whom the draft is part of the history they study - men and women in their thirties and even forties upon whom the draft really never existed. As with so many attitudes and social mores which are held by younger generations, this view has the power of time behind it, its numbers growing as those of the generations for whom the draft was part of America decline. The debate over the draft is, as much as anything, a debate between the generations.
- posted by Ted @ 3:42 AM