Paul Krugman’s “academic question”

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Dr. Sanity is not pleased with today’s Paul Krugman column in the NY Times, in which Krugman attempts to deal with the question of why there are relatively few Republicans in academia–not only in the humanities, but in the sciences, as well.

Krugman’s answer? “It’s the evangelicals, stupid!” (Or, rather, “It’s the stupid evangelicals.”)

Krugman has become somewhat of an evangelical himself, on an anti-Bush crusade. Krugman seems to think that the Republican Party is dominated by people who are anti-science, anti-ideas, and pro-theocracy. No doubt there are Republicans who fit that description, but Krugman fails to give any statistics on how many. But, after all, Krugman is a famous economist; he don’t need no steenking statistics.

But I’d like to point out that a kernel of actual good sense is nevertheless embedded in Krugman’s column. He writes: One answer [to the question of the lack of Republicans in academia] is self-selection – the same sort of self-selection that leads Republicans to outnumber Democrats four to one in the military. The sort of person who prefers an academic career to the private sector is likely to be somewhat more liberal than average, even in engineering.

I think Krugman is correct, although he spends the rest of his column ignoring this excellent point in favor of railing against those pesky creationists and their friends the theocrats. So he leaves it up to me to ask the question: just what sort of person might prefer a career in the private sector to one in academia, and why?

Well, I can come up with a few speculations. Academia is notorious for two things: relatively poor pay, and a liberal atmosphere. Republicans may shy away from academic careers, even in sciences such as engineering, because they a) would like more earning power; and b) would like to be in a place where their fellow colleagues are more simpatico. My guess is that there are many Republican scientists who are neither at war with ideas nor with science itself; they simply find a home in other arenas, such as aerospace, the military, NASA, and private industry of all kinds.

UPDATE: Going back to Dr. Sanity’s, I noticed that she’s posted a link to Stanley Kurtz’s remarks at National Review’s “The Corner” on the Krugman column. In his early paragraphs about political bias in the universities, Kurtz seems to ignore the fact that Krugman is referring to the lack of Republican representation in the sciences, not the humanities. In his last paragraph, however, Kurtz makes essentially the same point I make here about self-selection among scientists.

Hirsi Ali: intolerant of intolerance

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I hope you’ve had a chance to look at this magnificent profile of Hirsi Ali in last Sunday’s NY Times Magazine. It is certainly “riveting,” as the Big Trunk at Powerline writes. I’m not quite sure why he calls it “mortifying” as well (definition: causing shame or awareness of one’s own shortcomings), except that Hirsi Ali’s courage puts us all to shame in comparison.

The name of the piece, “Daughter of the Enlightenment,” is apt. This lovely and fearless Somali refugee to the Netherlands has led many lives in her own short one: dutiful daughter, well-educated multi-linguist, arranged marriage refusee, refugee cleaning woman, devout Moslem, apostate Moslem, member of Parliament, object of death threats. Now, she adamantly refuses to pull any punches.

Here’s one of my favorite Hirsi Ali quotes. It’s her reply to outraged Dutch Moslems and multiculturalists who criticized her for calling Islam backward in its treatment of women: For five long years in Leiden [University], you taught me to state facts. Now I do. Ah, would that Larry Summers could learn to defend himself so boldly and succinctly!

Another statement of Hirsi Ali’s worth pondering: I confront the European elite’s self-image as tolerant, while under their noses women are living like slaves. Here Hirsi Ali criticizes the cultural relativist notion that the mores of other cultures living within the midst of the West are off-limits, that we cannot judge them no matter what they do, and that this attitude represents the pinnacle of tolerance. The point Hirsi Ali is making is that such blanket, unthinking “tolerance” is wrong. Tolerance should not be tolerant of intolerance, or it sows the seeds of its own destruction.

It’s like one of those brain twisters–those paradoxes or syllogisms or whatever they were called–in a course I took so long ago and dropped before I flunked it: symbolic logic. The idea is that, if one takes a certain principle to its extreme, it very often will be found to contain an internal contradiction. (I think that, on this list of logical fallacies, the final one may be what I’m describing–“conflicting conditions.” But please, don’t quote me on that!)

Western society used to be a great deal more closed, rigid, (and, yes, intolerant), than it is now. That intolerance was often arbitrary, or at least, seemingly so. Wearing a skirt with a certain hemlength (covering the legs entirely, for example) was not a matter of choice, it was obligatory if one didn’t want to be shunned. People of different religions weren’t accepted in polite society. People from other countries were thought churlish if they ate different sorts of foods (garlic, for instance, was thought to be particularly declasse).

For many years–slowly at first, and then with ever-quickening tempo during the 1960s–society in the West has become more tolerant of these arbitrary distinctions. We no longer blink much at skirt lengths, as long as the person is clothed; there are movers and shakers of every race and religion (although of course some bigotry remains); garlic and all sorts of ethnic foods are served in upscale restaurants.

Those are the sorts of advancements that are in step with Enlightenment values. In Western societies, women like Hirsi Ali not only can speak their minds freely, but they do not have to endure what she endured as a child, a procedure that the NY Times article delicately and far too euphemistically refers to as “circumcision.”

So, let’s all celebrate the triumph over arbitrary intolerance. But the pendulum has swung way too far if we require ourselves to tolerate everything, even cruelty to women, and to tolerate intolerance itself. Tolerance applied without any distinction can become a trap. That way lies madness–not to mention the seeds of the destruction of tolerant societies themselves.

Pope John Paul II: formative years

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I join so many others in saying: Pope John Paul II, rest in peace.

I wanted to write something about Pope John Paul II, although I’m not a Catholic. The picture that keeps coming to my mind is what he was like when he first became Pope. He seemed so astoundingly vital and vibrant; an energetic breath of fresh air in contrast to the predecessors I remembered best, the staid solemnity of Pius XII and the grandfatherly charm of John XXIII.

The thing that stuck me most at that time were the pictures of the vigorous Pope, a youngish-looking man in his 50s, skiing. Yes, skiing! It seemed so surprising, and somehow so wonderful. Later, of course, as his body declined precipitously, it was the intensity of his warmth and spirituality that were apparent and memorable.

I wanted very much to find one of those pictures of him skiing, and to link to it. The only one I managed to find was different, taken when he was a much younger man, but it led me to this fascinating article about his early years (the early skiing photo is there, too).

Who knew that Karol Wojtyla’s childhood had been marked by a series of traumatic deaths, and by illness? An infant sister died before his birth. His mother, dead when he was eight; his older brother, dead when Karol was twelve. He himself was injured as a youngster. Somehow, the crucible in which he was formed allowed this religious young man to grow up to become a charismatic athlete, outdoorsman, actor, poet, singer, skier–and, ultimately, Pope.

There was another way in which Karol Wojtyla distinguished himself. Raised in pre-WWII Poland, young Karol also had a good friend who was a Jew. From the article:

The Wojtylas were strict Catholics, but did not share the anti-Semitic views of many Poles. One of Lolek’s playmates was Jerzy Kluger, a Jew who many years later would play a key role as a go-between for John Paul II and Israeli officials when the Vatican extended long-overdue diplomatic recognition to Israel. Kluger told The New York Times that he spent many afternoons sitting in the kitchen next to the Wojtylas’ coal stove listening to Lolek’s father tell stories about Greece, Rome and Poland.

Lolek, in turn, went to the Klugers’ 10-room apartment overlooking the town square and listened to music performed by a string quartet composed of two Jews and two Catholics.

“The people in the Vatican do not know Jews, and previous popes did not know Jews,” Kluger told the Times. “But this pope is a friend of the Jewish people because he knows Jewish people.”

The formative years are very formative, are they not?

No, no, not the lobsters! (But I think PETA will be quite happy, nevertheless)

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Today a gloomy story in the Globe caught my eye, indicating that a disfiguring lobster shell disease may be heading northward. This isn’t good news at all. New England lobstering is a lucrative and important industry, with its own rather heated turf wars (although I guess “turf” isn’t quite the correct word–“surf wars,” instead? “Surf and turf” wars?)

The problem hasn’t reached north of Cape Cod yet, and I sincerely hope it doesn’t. Apparently, the coldness of our more northern waters has had a protective effect (I’m glad it’s good for something; it certainly is wretched for swimming).

Here’s an excerpt from the report:

Lobsters with shell disease, according to Robert Bayer, executive director of the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine, have such grotesque shells that they “look like they’ve had battery acid dropped on them. There’s something going on inside that lobster that allows bacteria on the shell to essentially eat the shell,” Bayer said. The disease isn’t dangerous to humans, Bayer said, but afflicted lobsters are so unsightly they can’t be sold on the lucrative market for live lobsters. Diseased lobsters can still be sold for packaged food, biologists say, but at lower prices.

So, it’s a cosmetic problem only. I bet this fact brings great joy to PETA, since the disease doesn’t seem to hurt the lobsters themselves at all; it just discourages their consumption by humans. In fact, I have a suspicion that this all might be a PETA-bioengineered plot to save the lobster, in conjunction with their recently-announced fish empathy project.

This disease appears to be the nail fungi of the lobster world. If we weren’t so squeamish and appearance-focused, we could still eat those yummy lobsters in the best way: freshly boiled, in the shell. But oh, we shallow Americans, so focused on lobster loveliness! I, for one, think I could learn to rise above it; I’m more interested in the lobster’s inner beauty.

The news that isn’t happening

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The media saturation we’ve experienced over the slow and sorrowful Schiavo case is now fading, along with the women herself. The latest round-the-clock story is the death vigil for the Pope. And, of course, the Jackson case continues in fits and starts when there’s not much else to report, now that Peterson has been sentenced and put away.

It’s easy to see what is being covered in the news. It’s hard, if not impossible, to remember what isn’t happening.

Three years ago Israel was rocked by suicide bombing after suicide bombing, in close succession. It was difficult to see how anything would ever stop that pattern. Remember the grisly Iraqi beheadings of less than a year ago, the kidnappings and the grim hostage videos that were almost a daily occurrence? Now they are few and far between, and the hostages tend to be released. Even the horrific suicide bombings in Iraq, so numerous right before and after the election, have declined in recent weeks.

It’s human nature to stop dwelling on something that isn’t happening any more. It’s easy to forget how commonplace that very thing was only a short while ago. We want to forget terrible things, we don’t want to hold them in our minds. And the media makes sure it replaces them with the news de jour, which of course is as it should be.

But sometimes I wish we had an alternate history to hold before us, the history of what would still be happening if certain actions hadn’t been taken. If Israel hadn’t held firm and built the wall; if the Iraqis hadn’t bravely turned out in record numbers for that election; if, if, if.

It is so very easy to criticize what is, what has actually been done. The resultant faults and flaws are right before our eyes. The world will always be imperfect; each action will create its own problems. But the even worse (perhaps far worse) things that might have happened but for those actions–those always remain invisible and unknowable, and can only be guessed at.

I don’t follow the Michael Jackson trial, but every time I turn on the TV and see it being covered so intensely, I breathe a little sigh of relief, because it means that it’s a slow news day, a regular news day.

And slow news is good news.

Peretz is pulling no punches

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I still subscribe to the New Republic. I’m both fascinated and, at times, frustrated by its split personality. Depending on the writer, the subject, and sometimes which way the wind is blowing on any particular day, it careens wildly from pro- to anti-Bush and back again, from hopeful about the war to pessimistic and then back to hopeful again.

But Martin Peretz has been consistent for some time now. Speaking as a liberal addressing other liberals, he writes what seems (to me, at least) to be common sense, telling them how they’ve gone off the deep end and sacrificed principles they used to hold dear.

Unfortunately, though, most of the New Republic’s articles are available only to subscribers, so unless you are one you won’t be able to read Peretz’s latest article online.

But here’s his opening salvo, which I think is spot on:

If George W. Bush were to discover a cure for cancer, his critics would denounce him for having done it unilaterally, without adequate consultation, with a crude disregard for the sensibilities of others. He pursued his goal obstinately, they would say, without filtering his thoughts through the medical research establishment. And he didn’t share his research with competing labs and thus caused resentment among other scientists who didn’t have the resources or the bold–perhaps even somewhat reckless–instincts to pursue the task as he did. And he completely ignored the World Health Organization, showing his contempt for international institutions. Anyway, a cure for cancer is all fine and nice, but what about aids?

Peretz goes on to list Bush’s accomplishments in potentially changing the face of the Middle East and helping to turn it towards democracy. One gets the distinct impression that it pains Peretz more than a little to have to say these things, and he certainly doesn’t consider Bush perfect.

But it pains Peretz a lot more that most liberals are still unwilling to give credit to Bush where it clearly is due. Peretz writes:

Bush, it now seems safe to say, is one of the great surprises in modern U.S. history. Nothing about his past suggested that he harbored these ideals nor the qualities of character required for their realization….It is simply stupid, empirically and philosophically, to deny that all or any of this [the recent advances in democracy] would have happened without the deeply unpopular but historically grand initiative of Bush.

The article is long, and doesn’t lend itself easily to summary. But here is Peretz’s zinger of a conclusion:

One does not have to admire a lot about George W. Bush to admire what he has so far wrought. One need only be a thoughtful American with an interest in proliferating liberalism around the world. And, if liberals are unwilling to proliferate liberalism, then conservatives will. Rarely has there been a sweeter irony.

Blogger is up to its new tricks

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Those of you who don’t blog are probably unaware of the frustrations inherent lately in using blogger. Blogger, the free service that is kind enough to host this blog and so many others (all of the ones with “blogspot” in the name), is having–to put it mildly–problems.

Sometimes it’s impossible to log on. When logged on, most of the time it’s impossible to post. It’s necessary to save each post in some other venue before trying to publish it, because nine times out of ten (or actually, ten times out of ten) it would be lost otherwise.

I attempted to publish one of today’s posts about seven times to no avail. I only managed to get it published by a little trick I’ve developed–changing the title. Why this ploy should work I haven’t a clue, but I have found that sometimes it does. However, if a few hours from now seven identical posts suddenly pop up in a delayed reaction to my efforts, don’t be surprised.

So, this constitutes my disclaimer: don’t blame me for anything, blame blogger! I would think it’s an elaborate passive-aggressive April Fools’ joke on the part of blogger, except that it’s been going on now for over a week.

Neo-neocon’s handy guide to neos, paleos, and cons

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Are you confused about the terminology? Me too. But I think I’ve mastered it now. Here’s my guide to the world of neos and paleos, guaranteed to make the distinctions Kristol clear (pun intended):

1) neocon–person who used to be a liberal but is now still mostly liberal on social issues but hawkish on foreign policy, particularly about spreading democracy. Example: Paul Wolfowitz

2) paleocon–an old-fashioned conservative: small government, isolationist in foreign policy although hawkish when attacked. Example: Pat Buchanan

3) neo-neocon–recently changed from liberal to neocon. Example: moi

4) paleo-neocon–made the switch from liberal to neocon a long time ago. Example: Norman Podhoretz.

5) neo-paleocon–made the switch to paleocon recently (either from liberal or from neocon). Example: can’t think of any, but there must be some (suggestions, anyone?) Or perhaps paleocons are born, not made.

6) neocon-paleocon–made the switch from paleocon to neocon quite some time ago. Example: same problem as #5.

7) neo-neocon-paleocon–made the switch from paleocon to neocon recently. Example: George Bush.

8) ex-con–Marion Barry

9) neo-con—Sandy Berger

Polite protest letters don’t get no respect

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A year or two ago, I went through a phase of energetic protest letter writing. I sent outraged (but always polite) missives to the NY Times, the New Yorker, and CNN, pointing out to them just where they might be going wrong. But I never heard back; not a word. Which, in retrospect, is not really much of a surprise.

One letter with which I took particular pains was a lengthy tome to Amnesty International, outlining in some detail why I, a twenty-one-year dues-paying member in good standing who still supported the work they did to help bona fide political prisoners, could no longer stomach the organization’s misplaced emphasis and was resigning (it was the focus on campaigns such as this that did the trick).

What did I get from them in return? A form letter, thanking me for my continued support, and asking for another donation.

I sent off another letter, more detailed and more furious than the first, angry at the added injury of having had my first letter ignored. And what did I receive in reply? Another request for money, and a free Amnesty International Calendar. Just the thing.

In praise of memorizing poetry

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I think it may be a lost pedagogical device, but when I was in grade school, we were forced by our teachers (mostly elderly women, as it happens) to memorize poetry. Lots of poetry. Most of it doggeral, but not all of it, not by any means.

There was an old-fashioned quality to their choices: patriotic and seasonal verse, concerning Presidents and holidays (“If Nancy Hanks came back as a ghost, seeking news of what she loved most”; “There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood”).

I was a good poetry memorizer. I’m not trying to brag here, since I don’t think this ability implies any particular merit on my part. But no sooner had I written the thing down, copied from the blackboard on which the teacher had slowly and laboriously written it in her beautiful handwriting, then it was firmly ensconced in my head.

And there much of it stays. To this day, actually. Fortunately, along with the Edgar Guest and the others (“It takes a heap o’ livin’, in a house t’ make it home”) we were assigned some very fine poetry, mostly in junior high. Shakespearean sonnets and Wordsworth and Milton, some Robert Frost and Shakespeare, the Gettysburg Address (not poetry, but it might as well have been).

Much of this I simply memorized by rote. I understood the basic meaning, but it had no real significance to me, no depth. I had no context for it.

But since it had been filed away, somewhere, I experienced a curious phenomenon later on. I found that in crises or emotional times, a line of poetry would suddenly come to me—a phrase I’d never paid much attention to before—and I’d have one of those “aha!” moments.

At one point I sustained a serious and chronic injury. My physical limitations were such that for long periods of time I could not work, nor even read or write in any sustained way. I took to visiting a park near where I lived and slowly walking around a track there. Nearby was a small wooded area, and it was wintertime and snow was on the ground. Looking at the trees, the following line suddenly came to my mind, unbidden, (“Whose woods these are I think I know…”) memorized so long ago, and hardly thought of since.

But the words were all there, waiting for me, and when I came to the lines, “The woods are lovely, dark, and deep” they hit me with the force of near-revelation. Frost seemed to be talking about wanting to give up, to surrender to something dark and restful (what? death?) in a time of great weariness such as I was experiencing. And then the next line came, too, offering hope and resolution, “But I have promises to keep…”

This sort of thing kept happening to me. Keeps happening to me, actually. In situation after situation, a line or passage of poetry will announce itself—something that I’d apparently held in my mind, in suspended animation as it were, without any true reflection or understanding—and suddenly, it would be freighted with deep and poignant meaning.

So I’m hereby declaring myself in favor of the practice of poetry memorization in schools. I know there are many many children—adults, too—who hate poetry. I don’t think that will change; I’m not imagining that poetry will gain a lot of converts from the mere act of children being required to memorize it. But for the rest, I think there’s great value to be had in carrying around a small library of poetry in one’s head, to draw upon in the hard times—or even the joyful times.

Right after 9/11, Yeats’ “The Second Coming” was the poem that kept swirling around in my brain. It doesn’t really offer any comfort; it’s a very bleak vision, after all. But for me, even the act of recalling the lines, somber and frightening as they are, had its own sort of solace, saying to me, “Others have had this fear, others have passed through terrible times of chaos,” and, paradoxically, lending words of great beauty to the description of that terrifying state:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…

A mind is a difficult thing to change: interlude

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Part 4 is percolating. But this isn’t it; not yet. I’m finding it slow going, perhaps because it deals with the Vietnam War. Astounding how that event casts such a long shadow even now–or perhaps especially now.

I think Part 4 will be out soon, soon. But, in the meantime…

I was thinking about whether there were any formative defining political events that occurred in the years between the 50s and the commitment of regular US troops (as opposed to Green Beret advisors) to Vietnam. Naturally, the first thing that came to mind was Kennedy’s assassination. But I’m not going to deal with it in any depth because, although it was certainly a dramatic and heart-wrenching event, I don’t think it was an event that caused any sort of political change. The ramifications of Kennedy’s assassination had nothing to do with policy or changing parties or political beliefs. Most of us reacted on an intensely personal emotional level.

I think it must be difficult for anyone born afterward to understand the profound shock inherent in Kennedy’s assassination. Those of us who’d grown up in the 50s were well aware–perhaps hyper-aware–of the threat of atomic war (as I’ve discussed in Part 3), but I think I can speak for most of us when I say that something on the order of Kennedy’s death was almost literally unthinkable, right up till the day it happened.

I was fifteen years old at the time, and, like most others, I can vividly remember the exact moment I heard the news. The details are not interesting–I was a sophomore in high school, in school when I heard he was shot, then sent home early to have my mother tell me the news that he was dead–but the sense of fear and unreality and downright sorrow were profound. In fact, I cried almost unceasingly for four days, right up to and through the funeral, and I was hardly alone.

What was I weeping for? Many things, including Kennedy’s wife and children. But I think it was really lost innocence–my own–that I was weeping for. Despite the atomic fears of the 50s, and then the Cuban missile crisis, our sense was that all threats would come from outside. We had a sense of security within this country, a sense of internal personal safety from our own countrymen, that was as powerful as it turned out to be false. Kennedy’s death tore the veil away and exposed the ugly reality–violent death, hideous and bloody, could come unawares, even on a sunny untroubled day, even to the great, powerful, young, and beautiful, even without a missile to be seen in the sky.

Life magazine published stills of the Zapruder photos, but in those far more protective days they left out the most horrific ones, the frames in which Kennedy’s head seemed to explode. But we had seen Oswald murdered, live, on TV, and that was a further assault on our sense of security. It seemed that the world had opened itself up to chaos.

We had heard of assassinations before; after all, there was Lincoln. But that was fusty old history, not reality. But now the two intersected, and now–even though we would never have described it that way–now we, too, had entered history.

Where we remain, today.

[ADDENDUM: For Part IVA, go here.]