Harvard in peril

The New Neo Posted on by

Larry Summers is under fire for daring to suggest that research be done into whether there are biological differences that account, at least in part, for the paucity of women at the pinnacle of science. Summers seems to have been persona non grata for a long time to a lot of people at Harvard and in academia, and now they’re really sinking their teeth into him with relish.

Now, I’m somewhat of a feminist myself, although I part company with many of the more doctrinaire ones. But I’m also a person interested in rationality and the pursuit of truth. And, once again, this is a case where feelings seem to have triumphed over reason. That academics–and scientists, at that–would allow this to happen is not a good sign. Whatever happened to the Enlightenment? If Galileo were to return at this point, he might be in grave danger again–at least, if he were to suggest that the earth didn’t revolve around women.

In my own experience in an academic environment during the ’90s, after decades of being away, I was shocked at how far the PC police had come in stifling academic freedom. It seemed the new criterion for censure was whether a remark had offended someone. However careful the professor might be to couch the remark with qualifications, however delicately it was stated, if it offended the tender sensibilities of anyone in the audience, the professor was in trouble.

My guess is that therapists bear part of the responsibility for this. The popularization of therapy and its portrayal in legions of self-help books and talk shows has helped foster an idea that, since all feelings are in some way valid (if only in the intrapersonal sense), therefore people have a right to demand that their feelings never be hurt. This is a distortion of what true therapy is all about, but it’s a popular one–even among some therapists, unfortunately.

So, Larry Summers seems to have stepped into this particular pile of steaming do-do. The first reports of the reaction to his remarks contain the following gem from MIT biology professor Nancy Hopkins, “I felt I was going to be sick…My heart was pounding and my breath was shallow. I was extremely upset.”

I assume that, as a scientist, Ms. Hopkins had other, more rationally-based objections to Summer’s remarks. But I have yet to read any that make sense. How could anyone have a rational objection to Summer’s call for research into this question? Unless that person were afraid of the truth.

Now, I can certainly understand a concern that, if it were to be discovered that there are innate differences between men and women in that respect, the results could be used to harm women or discriminate against them in the sciences. But all scientists–even female ones–should know that that’s no reason to stop the research. All scientific research is a double-edged sword that can be used for good or ill, and we never can know the ultimate results of any research before it is done–or even afterwards, for that matter. At no point did Summers suggest that the results of any research should be used to hold women back in the sciences–au contraire.

So, I’m with Andrew Sullivan on this one. As Sullivan writes, “[I]f Summers goes down, the chilling effect on intellectual freedom in this country will be intense.” Preach it, brother Sullivan, preach it.

Bush lets his hair down–and guess what?….

The New Neo Posted on by

….he’s pretty much the same in private as in public, even according to the NY Times (linked article requires registration).

Let’s see–so, he’s insightful and relatively articulate (even without evil puppeteer Rove feeding him the words), loving towards his family, warm and jokey with friends, genuinely religious, resolute about his principles, unbigoted towards gays personally, upfront about his wild youth but more interested in talking about what he’s learned from it. What a surprise.

Hard to take issue with that–unless, of course, you think Bush is an idiot. Then, it must be like that old Saturday Night Live skit about Reagan–expect this time, it’s not so funny. You know, the one where Reagan is a doddering old fool in public and then, as soon as all the strangers leave the room and he’s alone with his aides in the Oval Office, he’s sharp as a tack and quick as a whip. I used to get a big bang out of that skit back when I was a liberal Democrat.

Martin Peretz and the liberals: feeling vs. thinking

The New Neo Posted on by

New Republic editor Peretz issues a wake-up call to fellow liberals today. He asks them to come up with some new ideas (the New Republic site is for subscribers only, so I linked to a site that has the text of the article for free).

I think Peretz is definitely on the right track here. But notice that Peretz doesn’t seem to be able to come up with any new ideas himself. Of course, the article is already long enough as is, and maybe he’s just in the position of the physician charged with making the diagnosis. He’s not the one being asked to come up with the medicine and the cure.

But I think this coming-up-with-ideas thing is going to be difficult for liberals. They seem to have reached a point–and I hope I’m wrong about this–where they are more interested in feeling than thinking (like some clients I’ve known). Now, feelings are all very well and good, and we certainly need to have them, but nowadays it seems as though many liberals feel that, if their hearts are in the right place, that should be enough. Many (and I number among them some of my very best friends) feel the right is full of heartless Scrooges, so it’s not all that necessary to counter the ideas on the right, it’s just necessary to call people on the right nasty names (which isn’t to say that there aren’t some heartless Scrooges on the right–but it’s a mistake to think they predominate).

The left needs to recognize that, slowly but surely, Bush and Co. have co-opted many of the ideas for which the left used to stand–such as, for example, freedom, liberty, the downfall of murderous tyrannical dictators, and equal opportunity for black people and for women. And, when the left opposes such things for transparent political reasons, as many of them have done in Iraq, and as many of them seemed to have done when they accused Condoleezza Rice of being Bush’s female Stepin Fetchit, they lose the most important thing of all–they lose people’s trust. Their hypocrisy is naked and exposed. And, after that, someone like me could find it very hard to trust them ever again, even when and if they finally do come up with some good ideas. I’m sure they have some good ideas even now, but those are being drowned out by the self-serving debunkers who never met an idea of Bush’s they didn’t hate.

UPDATE 2/20: Just noticed an upsurge in traffic. It seems the gracious Dr. Sanity has linked to this post. A sanitylanch? Welcome, and feel free to take a leisurely stroll around the blog.

Earth from space–thinking outside the box

The New Neo Posted on by

Look at a photograph of the cloud-covered sphere of earth, taken from space. It’s a supremely beautiful sight, despite its familiarity–a predominantly blue planet liberally swirled with wispy white, and then some muted green/brown accents that constitute the land on which we humans live.

But the sight wasn’t always so familiar. And I’m not talking about long ago, before we even knew the earth was round, or had mapped its landmasses. I’m talking about just a few decades ago, before the first pictures came back from the moon.

I’m not so very old, but when I grew up and artists or scientists drew conceptual drawings of the earth from outer space, the globe was always pictured as just that–a globe like those spinning ones in school, tethered to their metal stands (only, of course, without the metal stands). No clouds at all. Despite the fact that we all should have known better–all we had to do was look up at the sky most days to see those voluminous clouds–no one did seem to know better.

I still remember the shock of seeing those first photos (after you click on the link, scroll about halfway down the page for the photo) from the 1969 Apollo moon mission. Not only were the photos surprising, but it was surprising that they were surprising.

No one had thought of what, in retrospect, should have been obvious. The way the earth was thought to look was accepted knowledge, and no one managed to think outside the “box” of our earthbound perceptions. It’s easy to be critical in retrospect–how could “they” have been so stupid? (same for pre-9/11 prognostications about terrorist attacks, by the way). But to make the conceptual leap to actually think outside the box–now, that’s spectacularly hard.

Anonymities Anonymous

The New Neo Posted on by

One somewhat-less-than-a-household-word blogger I like to read sometimes is The Anchoress. One of the things I like about The Anchoress is that she’s anonymous, and unapologetic about it. In this post she explains why.

I, too, am anonymous, not to mention obscure—a great deal more obscure than The Anchoress. It seems that, for the time being, I intend to remain anonymous, although lately I’ve been trying to do a thing or two to make the obscurity a little less profound. At one point I had an offer to be quoted by one of the rather well-known blogs, but the blogger told me he didn’t link to anonymous bloggers, and so I’d have to reveal my true identity before I’d get the spotlight. Although his link wasn’t quite up there with the BBC gig The Anchoress was offered, still, for me, it was a relatively Biggish Deal. So I thought long and hard about whether to reveal my identity for a chance at my 1.5 seconds of blogger fame.

But I declined. Overall, I’ve found that the whole idea of celebrity, however fleeting, has never seemed attractive to me. I’m interested in trying to achieve something–communicating ideas, or trying to perform work I can be proud of. I’m not a social recluse, but I have never wanted to be well-known to a large community of people I’ve never met—although, honestly, at this point, it’s not as though I’m in any grave danger of that.

I don’t know how commonplace such a feeling is, but I see from her post that The Anchoress appears to share it. I have always preferred to be behind the scenes, and in fact, as a therapist-in-training, my very favorite place to be was always behind the two-way mirror, making suggestions to another therapist who was the one actually working with the clients. And one of the reasons I like to write is an attraction to the anonymity of it, the once-removed quality. I think many writers are drawn to this paradoxical element of writing—of allowing them to reveal themselves while simultaneously not really revealing themselves at all, or at least controlling the revelations. Of course, some writers are hams, and feed on celebrity, and many love to do readings in front of an actual public of living and breathing people. But others like to stay far away from that sort of thing.

In the blogosphere, I have nothing but admiration for those who use their names and jump unveiled right into the very thick of it. But some of us—including even such blogger luminaries as Wretchard—prefer, for a multiplicity of reasons, to proffer observations from behind the shelter of a nom de plume. Nom de plumes have an old and illustrious history, and are really nothing to be ashamed of, although there are those in the somewhat macho atmosphere of the blogosphere who probably think they are evidence of cowardice, and are somehow less-than-honorable.

In addition to these already-discussed matters of temperament (not as simple as, although related to, introversion vs. extraversion), I think that many of us who choose to remain anonymous are interested in setting boundaries between the different aspects of our lives. My other activities (“real work”?) are totally apolitical and done under my real name, and I’ve decided I want to keep those worlds very separate from my blogging.

So, call us cowardly, call us shy, call us macaroni—we anonymous bloggers have rights, too. I hereby invite all other anonymous bloggers to assemble as a new support group: Anonymities Anonymous (AA). Shout it loud: we’re anonymous, and we’re proud!

Blogswarms, meet press-pass

The New Neo Posted on by

The term “blogswarm” (as in blog-swarm, not blog’s warm) is being applied to the Eason Jordan affair. An interesting phrase, with its insect connotations. Bees swarming around a hive, worker ants on automatic.

The idea is that the blogosphere’s fierce discussion of Jordan’s Davos remarks is, to coin a few other cliches, a tempest in a teapot, a mountain out of a molehill. Nothing to see here, move along please. After all, he retracted his statements, so anyone who doesn’t just accept that is a hate-filled attack dog (whoops, another animal metaphor) out to get him for no reason.

I’ve discussed Jordan in three posts preceding this one, so I guess I’m just one of the swarmers. So I’ll not discuss the substantive issues here–just the phenomenon of accusations of a blogswarm.

It’s a pejorative, of course, designed to belittle the concerns of the swarmers. I doubt very much the accusers would consider it a swarm if it’s a topic that interests them; it’s a term reserved for a topic on the other side. When the mainstream media went ga-ga over Al QaQa right before the election, that could have been defined as a media swarm, but I don’t recall that it ever was.

One of the many things driving the blogosphere’s focus on the Jordan story is the perception (and a correct one, I believe) that the press is ignoring it because it appears to reflect poorly on one of their own, and might even end up embarrassing CNN. At best, Jordan was guilty of a sloppiness with words astounding in someone in his position, and remarkable in its capacity–although limited to “mere words”–to do harm to foreign perceptions of the US military. At worst, well…let’s just wait for that tape….

So, the press is ignoring the story. The blogosphere is not. If the bloggers are guilty of swarming, what is the press guilty of here? Is there a word for the opposite of a blogswarm? I’ve been trying to think of an animal metaphor, in the interests of symmetry, but I confess I’m stumped. All I can come up with is a “press-pass” (well, at least it’s a pun). Suggestions, anyone?

UPDATE 2/14: Actually, I’m starting to like “press-pass.” Of course, now that Jordan has resigned, the blogs are being blamed. No press-pass for the pajamahadeens, apparently.

In the eye of the beholder–Sambrook reports on Jordan

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve been following a fascinating discussion on Jay Rosen’s blog of the Jordan affair, in which Davos eyewitness Sambrook of the BBC participated for a while. Unfortunately, Sambrook didn’t seem used to the somewhat heated give-and-take of a blog “comments”section (after all, he’s only a journalist!) and he departed somewhat abruptedly from that kitchen, sweating rather profusely.

But I’d like to defend him, if only a little bit, from accusations that he’s lying in his recall of Jordan’s Davos pronouncements. I don’t think he’s lying at all–as in “deliberately misrepresenting what he believes to be the truth.” But I don’t necessarily think he’s correct, which is why the videotape is so important. But, since we don’t have it–and perhaps never will–we have to rely on eyewitness tesimony of those such as Sambrook who were there.

The problem is that eyewitness testimony is notoriously inaccurate This fact isn’t generally known by the public, but lawyers know it well, as do psychologists. People’s perceptions are skewed, often wildly, by their previous set of beliefs, among other things. So Sambrook may indeed think he is reporting accurately what Jordan said, and yet he might be very wide of the mark. And he himself wouldn’t have a clue that this is so, and would be outraged at charges that he is lying. Which is understandable, since in fact he is probably not lying. But there is a good chance he is incorrect, nevertheless, and only the videotape can tell us.

Far more compelling is the fact that someone such as Barney Frank, a liberal Democrat, was outraged and troubled by Jordan’s comments. Since Frank’s pre-existing bias might have been more likely to have gone in the direction of supporting someone like Jordan, I find his reaction good evidence that Jordan did in fact say something that a reasonable person would perceive as an inflammatory and unsupported allegation.

And, speaking of videotapes and eyewitness reports: I used to work in a clinic that videotaped all therapy sessions for training purposes. I saw many couples (oh, couples therapy–now, there’s a mighty hot kitchen!). Over and over, I thought I heard one or the other member of the couple misrepresenting what had been said in a session. And, in such cases, I had the extremely satisfying option of saying, “Well, shall we look at the videotape to see what was actually said?” It was often a real mind-blower for the client to see how he/she had misperceived statements made only a few moments earlier. We all do this to a certain extent, constantly editing our memories in one direction or another. But some people do it to a much greater extent than others, and some people do it much more in one situation or another.

So, the videotape: bring it on!

Eason Jordan and the risky shift

The New Neo Posted on by

Way way back in college in the 60s, when I was a psych/soc major, I was required to take many courses–many more than I actually cared to–on group behavior. One of the more tedious among them featured research, and the culmination of the semester was an original research project each of us students was required to design and perform on his/her own. Ugh! To make matters worse, I wasn’t even allowed to choose the subject of my own research–it had to be, just had to be, an exploration of the phenomenon known as “the risky shift.”

Well, at least the name had a certain panache. “Risky shift”–what could it be? I found out that it refers to a tendency in homogeneous groups (bear with me here; it’s going to become relevant, I promise) such that, in the process of making decisions, members will tend to make riskier and rasher statements and judgments than they ordinarily would. It’s a form of groupthink that is common in gatherings of like-minded individuals.

I think the risky shift may be behind Eason Jordan’s recent remarks about the US military “targeting” journalists. Emboldened by his presence in the bosom of this simpatico group, he probably couched his accusation in even more extreme terms than he otherwise would have. No doubt Jordan was absolutely stunned that Gergen and Frank voiced any objections whatsoever, because he had counted on them, as members of the group, to support his assertions. And he certainly wasn’t counting on ever having to prove them or produce any evidence to back them up. Perhaps he didn’t even think that anyone present would betray him–and the group–by telling the outside world what he’d said.

UPDATE: Some possible corroboration of my theory, from a Michelle Malkin interview with Gergen: “Gergen, who has known Jordan for some 20 years, told me Jordan ‘realized as soon as the words had left his mouth that he had gone too far’ and ‘walked himself back’….Gergen also told me that he was under the impression that the panel was off the record.”

Eason Jordan, wordsmith extraordinaire

The New Neo Posted on by

You may be familiar with the newest flap around some remarks made by Eason Jordan of CNN. Basically, he is reported to have accused US troops of “targeting journalists” in Iraq–as in “purposely killing” them.

Now Jordan has issued an explanation of his statement: he was merely responding to someone who had called these journalists’ deaths “collateral damage”–which, according to Jordan, they were not. But he didn’t mean to imply that the US military had targeted them knowing they were journalists, or because they were journalists.

As a journalist himself, Jordan is expected to be even more careful with words than the average person. When he says that journalists have been targeted by the US military, it has a generally accepted meaning, and it’s not the one he’s trying to claim. He can’t get away with saying that what he actually meant to say was, “People who turned out to be journalists were shot in a combat zone by the military under the mistaken impression that they were terrorists or enemy combatants.” That is simply not what the word “targeted” means, and Jordan should know that. If he doesn’t, he deserves to be relieved of his position.

I guess it could be true that, technically, as Jordan says, this type of thing doesn’t exactly fit the definition of “collateral damage,” either, which might be something like “People killed by stray gunfire or explosives because they happened to be nearby when the military was targeting another person.” Does the term “collateral damage” apply to mistaken identity, such as appears to have been the case with the journalists? I don’t know. It’s hard to get a good definition of the term “collateral damage” (I’ve looked, and the best I can find is “inadvertent casualties and destruction inflicted on civilians in the course of military operations.”)

So, technically, Jordan may or may not be correct in saying that “collateral damage” is not the best terminology here, either. But it certainly is closer to the mark than “targeted,” since at least it gives the impression that there is something accidental about it rather than intentional. Jordan’s semantic nitpicking is a classic case of the cure being worse than the disease.

These journalist deaths should more properly be filed under the heading of, “Tragic cases of mistaken identity during the fog of war.” Jordan, writer and journalist, must know this.

Elections and connections

The New Neo Posted on by

I felt deep joy watching the Iraqi people dancing in the streets on election day. Part of the intensity of my joy was because the path to that moment had seemed so long. The First Gulf War. The long buildup to this war–the intensely frustrating UN stalling, with the inexplicable (and, post-Oil-for-Food scandal revelations, suddenly all-too-explicable) behaviour of nations such as France.

And the fear. I was afraid of a guerilla war that would last for years and resemble the Vietnam War–in actuality, not just in Democratic and MSM rhetoric. I was afraid hundreds of thousands or even millions of people would be killed–in actuality, not just in some biased statisticians’ claims.

But most of all I think what I feared was failure. The consequences of that failure seemed to me to be the emboldening of terrorists all over the world, not to mention the continued suffering of the Iraqi people, and the gloating of America’s enemies. And that idea was the main reason why, on November 2, 2005, I had gone into the voting booth and cast the first Republican vote of my life.

Now, I’ve always been emotional when voting–although I’ve never danced in the street. There is something corny but moving about voting–and, this year, more than ever before. When I voted, I did so with a fervor I’d never felt before, both because it represented a break with my long liberal Democrat past (although I still see myself as a Scoop Jackson/Zell Miller type of Democrat), and because I felt that more was riding on this vote than ever before.

And when I saw the Iraqi people on their voting day, so filled with the joy of long-enslaved people finally tasting freedom, I felt a connection between my vote on Nov. 2 and their votes on January 30.

And I see other connections, too. I think of the Exodus from Egypt–a celebration of freedom if there ever was one–and the Civil Rights movement. I think of all the young US servicemen and women (and those of other countries) who died in Iraq, all the foreign workers beheaded, all the dark dark days, and all those who said during those dark days that this election day would never come, or, if it came, that it would be a disaster.

I think of the people on the doomed flights of 9/11–people whose last sight was the skyline of New York, from a plane flying way too low and way too fast. Or people in the WTC whose last decision was whether to jump or whether to be burned alive. Or people, on another 9/11 flight, whose last decision was to rush the cockpit and take the plane down before it destroyed more people.

All of those people are heroes. But they could not possibly have foreseen that their deaths that awful day would somehow lead to this other day, bringing hope to so many millions who had lived with horror for so many years. The connection between those who died on 9/11 and those dancing Iraqi voters may be circuitous–but the connection is there, nonetheless.

Running out of suicide bombers? Let’s hope

The New Neo Posted on by

Is is possible that the world of extremist Islamic/Baathist terrorism could have gone any lower? Apparently, yes, if the news in this article is true, and they are now drafting handicapped children for the privilege of becoming suicide bombers in Iraq.

Traditionally, when wars are going on, the side that is losing starts running out of able-bodied young men, and conscripts younger and younger and less and less fit men/boys to be cannon fodder. So, this is as good a sign as any that the terrorists might be running out of eager volunteers to blow themselves up and attain the “height of bliss” in the act of murdering others.

Why might this be happening? I can think of two reasons. Firstly, it must hard enough, even among fanatics, to recruit people for the task of exploding themselves–but still, somewhat easier when the cause seems to be going well. And I would imagine that recent events in Iraq are not going as well as that combination of nefarious factions (foreign and domestic Al Qaeda members, and out-of-work Baathists) that our MSM insists on calling the “insurgency” and Michael Moore considers the “Minutemen”–had hoped. The Iraqis seem to be going about their business in defiance of the fact that they could be blown up at any moment by these murderers.

Secondly, it is likely that there is actually a finite number of people fanatic enough to be recruited in this endeavor. Even in a culture that glorifies death, the human drive towards life is difficult to override in most people, and it takes a special sort to be willing to strap on a flotilla of bombs and detonate it. One of the good things about suicide bombing (perhaps the only good thing?) is that, by the very nature of the thing, each volunteer only gets one chance. So unless there is something to strongly motivate new recruits, the pool of potential volunteers for such an activity is going to shrink.

I just thought of one more good thing about suicide bombers. Their acts are so egregiously repulsive to all right-thinking people that they tarnish any cause with which they are involved.

What’s up with this “escalating violence” meme?

The New Neo Posted on by

On CNN, NPR, and in the MSM in general, you hear it nearly every time there is violence in Iraq–in other words, every day–“the death toll increases as…”; “in escalating violence,…”; and so forth.

So I have a simple, modest question–how could a death toll ever decrease? Short of discovering that they’d previously counted wrong, that is?

Note to the MSM: death tolls can’t decrease. They will always increase. And the word “escalating” ought to be reserved for a change in the rate of the killings. I’ve never seen this sort of analysis done by the MSM, although Belmont Club did something similar a while back for American forces and discovered that, at the time, the unrest wasn’t “spreading” (which was the meme of the day).

Now, it’s possible the death rate has gone up recently in terms of attacks on Iraqi civilians prior to elections–after all, that’s been a stated goal of the terrorists (I refuse to call them “insurgents”) who are out to terrorize Iraqis into staying away from the polls. The MSM, as usual, are playing right along by this “escalating” business, but why should I expect anything different, at this point?

And yes, of course, I deplore and detest the violence that is going on there, and one death at the hands of these murderers is far too many. But I’d like the media to put it in the proper perspective, historical and otherwise (well, I can dream, can’t I?)